by Elly Welt
“You’re damn right!” Krupinsky jumped to his feet. “They sucked them dry. To the women of France, a toast.”
All the men stood and drank and sat.
Madame Avilov, smiling, raised her glass. “I, too, will drink to the beautiful women of France and also to the men. They are wonderful, you know.”
“Madame,” said Krupinsky, “don’t you think you are going a bit too far?”
“No, I do not go too far.” There was light in her pale eyes. “The men of France are the most sensitive, the greatest diplomats in the world.”
Applause and boos. Laughter.
“Nikolai Alexandrovich, tell us your wonderful story about French diplomacy.” Madame turned to her husband.
“Ah, yes,” said the Chief. “You must all listen to this. At a banquet celebrating the fiftieth birthday of a reigning Queen, whose name I will not mention for the sake of tact . . .”
Laughter.
“. . . every country contributed a typical dish to the meal. The frijoles refritos from Mexico, the garbanzos from Spain, and so on, very soon affected the delicate digestion of the Queen. In a moment of silence, one could hear, very definitely from the seat of honor, the sound of air escaping.
“Immediately, the French Ambassador, purple-faced, was on his feet saying, ‘Madame, I beg you, mille pardonsrom, but my digestive system has been very labile. I have been warned by my doctor to eat bland foods but have been unable to resist these delicacies.’
“This, of course, was a serious diplomatic defeat for the other ambassadors present, and was particularly felt by the representative of the Third Reich, one Joachim von Ribbentrop.”
We all laughed.
“With a keen ear, he awaited another such happening from the royal presence, and when it occurred, he jumped to his feet, clicked his heels, and bowed, shouting, ‘Madame, this one and the next three are for the Third Reich.’”
Even Professor Kreutzer removed his glasses to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes. Grand Duke Trusov jumped to his feet and said, “I propose a toast not only to the marvelous women, not only to the liberation of the most beautiful city in the world, but also to the greatest diplomats.”
Everybody stood but Krupinsky, even the women, and we waited for him, chanting, “Up. Up. Up,” until he, too, stood.
“I’ll drink to that,” he said. “But we must drink also to the Nazis, who are so incredibly stupid, thank heavens, that even the French can outwit them.”
All drank and laughed and wept and sat.
“My friends,” said Professor Kreutzer, “do not underestimate them.”
“You must admit, Max,” said the Chief, “they haven’t used their heads. Why didn’t they aim the V-One rockets at the ports and embarkation points for the Normandy invasion rather than at the civilian population of Britain? Correct? Or am I right?”
“Yes, of course you are right.”
“And now there stands between Paris and Germany—nothing. It is a matter of marching through. It should be very few weeks.”
Applause.
Professor Kreutzer stood and began to change to the black-rims.
All became quiet.
“My friends,” he said, “you must remember that also there was nothing between Normandy and Paris, and it took the Allies from June to August twenty-fourth to liberate that city. I wish also to remind you that we must proceed prudently as we always have done.”
“For the past year my pleading with you to cut consumption of fuel and water has been successful. Now I must plead that you use more. I do not want us to under consume so that our budget is cut or so that attention is drawn to what we do here. I should not have to remind you that since the twentieth of July, when the officers of the army revolted, the Nazi reaction has been fierce, and times are even more difficult. You all know this. The animal is wounded. The liberation of France will cripple it more. In its pain it will strike out. Caution,” he said. “Careful.”
He sat.
We began to eat in earnest. There was quiet discussion around the square of tables. Will it be the Russians or the Americans? Of course, everyone wanted to be liberated by the Americans. How long will it be until they come? Shall the windows be kept closed in order not to contaminate the wild flies in the park—the Drosophila melanogaster Berlin wild—with the pure-breds? How can one keep the females from ovulating and the male flies from ejaculating and losing their sperm load under anesthetic? What is the future of atomic power?
Abruptly, Tatiana jumped to her feet. “Shhh.” She put a finger to her lips. “I hear something.”
At once, all fell silent. Shouting in the park. Then machine-gun fire and rifles, a ratatatat and eight or ten single cracking shots. The blackout curtains were drawn, so we could not see out.
“Mitzka!” shrieked Madame. “Mitzka-aaaaa,” she wailed, rising to her feet.
“Shhh!” admonished Professor Kreutzer.
Electric silence.
Madame sat down again.
I glanced at Tatiana. All color had drained from her face.
“I’m getting the hell out of here!” The Roumanian Biologist George Treponesco jumped to his feet.
“Sit down!” roared the Chief.
Treponesco sat down.
Professor Kreutzer stood. “Do not panic,” he said. “That is the worst thing you can do.”
“But I don’t want to get caught with these people,” said Treponesco, morosely.
“You will remain here,” said the Chief. “You will all listen to Max.”
Professor Kreutzer did not bother with a spectacle-changing routine. “Sonja,” he said, “telephone the Security Officer and tell him to meet me in the lobby at once.”
She ran to the phone in the corner of the lab.
Professor Kreutzer then addressed the Chief, but loud enough so that we all could hear. “Alex, I will go and see. You stay here and carry on as though it is a normal staff dinner. It would be foolish to act in haste.”
Sonja called out to Professor Kreutzer from the back of the lab, “He’s on his way.”
“Now locate Herr Wagenführer and tell him to be prepared to come over. Do you understand? We do not want him to come now, but he is on call.” Professor Kreutzer checked his pockets to be sure his spectacles were in place, then walked swiftly from the lab. It was eleven. We had celebrated for one hour.
There was no conversation now. All sat silent, listening for sounds from the park or from the corridor outside the lab. The Rare Earths Chemist excused himself. “I will be right back,” he said and left the room.
I went over to Tatiana and put my hand on her arm to comfort her. She shook me away. I returned to my place at the table. Did she imagine Mitzka in love with her? He sat by her at staff dinners only because she was the prettiest girl.
Sonja, after completing her call to Herr Wagenführer, pulled up a chair next to Madame, held her hand, and talked softly.
The Chief, without rising, lifted his glass and said, “Let us drink and eat while we wait.” But he did not drink.
Nor did any of us. There was occasional muted conversation around the table now but no eating and no drinking. Mostly we strained our ears to listen. No more shots. Men’s voices in the park, waxing and waning, then silence. Silence in the corridors until, half an hour after Professor Kreutzer left us, he returned, followed by the Gestapo in the House in his black uniform of the S.S., carrying a red balalaika in one hand. Mitzka.
All talk stopped. I had never seen the Security Officer at a staff dinner before. The Chief jumped up. His chair fell. Professor Kreutzer rushed to his side and put a restraining hand on the Chief’s arm. The Security Officer limped to where they stood at the head of the table and held out the balalaika. His mouth was open. No words. He trembled.
“Speak!” roared the Chief.
“I didn’t know. I knew nothing. He was denounced by someone here, but it was not I. I swear it.”
Professor Kreutzer cautioned the Chief with a raised f
inger and a shaking of his head.
“They got him outside. They caught him at the back of the park,” said the frightened man.
“Who was it?” The Chief grabbed the black lapels and pulled the Security Officer toward him.
“Alex,” said Professor Kreutzer, “I will tell you. Please sit down.” He said a few quiet words to the Security Officer, took the red balalaika from him, and placed it on the table before the Avilovs.
The Security Officer left the lab.
Professor Kreutzer leaned over between the Chief and Madame and spoke softly to them. When he was through, the Chief stood to tell us.
“My friends”—he paused and looked around the tables as though to embrace each and every one of us—“Max informs us that the Gestapo have shot him. They say he ran into the park trying to escape and that he is dead.”
The Chief bent his body. His large hand encompassed his glass of vodka. He shrugged, and, body still bowed, he raised his head to see us. “I am too sad to be proud. I am too sad to be angry. Mitzka was a man. He did as he wished, knowing the consequences.” He stood straight, raised the glass. “A Gestapo in the House does not always save one from a Caesarean section.” And he threw the vodka down his throat, then smashed the glass on the table. He cut his hand.
The Russian pianist, Stanislas Rabin, sitting next to Frau Kreutzer, stood, drank, and threw his glass, with great force, onto the floor. Each man, in turn, did the same: Professor Kreutzer, the Grand Duke, Ignatov, the Yugoslav, Krupinsky, Bolotnikov, Treponesco, the Dutch Medical Student, François Daniel. I, too, in my turn. All but the Rare Earths Chemist, who had not returned. The Chief picked up the red balalaika from the table and carried it to where I sat. His hand was bleeding profusely.
“Play!” he said, shoving it into my hands.
“I don’t know how.”
Mitzka had tried to teach me, but it was not my music. Tatiana jumped up, grabbed the balalaika away from me, and began to play a rhythmic folk melody, sad and in a minor key. Russian. Bolotnikov sang along—without words—with a “Yah, dee, dah, deedah.” The Yugoslav stood and swayed in time to the music, then jumped onto the table, and, in the midst of all the plates and bowls and beakers, he danced.
Professor Kreutzer, raising his voice to be heard over the noise, said, “Krup, you’d better take a look, at Alex’s hand.”
“Josef, come along,” said Krupinsky tersely, and the Chief, Professor Kreutzer, Krupinsky, and I moved to a dark corner of the lab where most of the medical supplies were stored.
The Chief insisted on standing. I held a lamp while Krupinsky tweezed out the glass, cleansed, stitched, and bound the wound. It was a deep cut in the web between thumb and forefinger of the right hand. “It will be five or six stitches. Would you like a local?”
“Sew it up,” growled the Chief, “and hurry. Are you certain,” he said to Professor Kreutzer, “that he has not gone to lead them up here?”
“I checked in Rare Earths. He made it quite obvious that he took a supply of strophanthin with him.”
“Then he plans to kill himself.”
“Latte is positive that the denunciation was only against Mitzka and his companion—and done only to save himself. It seems the Gestapo had been pressuring him for information.” Latte was the name of the Security Officer.
“I hope he waits to take the strophanthin. If he dies too soon, it will draw attention to us. Damn it, Krup, aren’t you through fiddling with my hand yet?”
“Hold still, damn it. Two more stitches.”
“Obviously, they need to be fed more denunciations,” said Professor Kreutzer. “We have become careless.”
“Ah, yes, the gods must have sacrificed to them so many virgins, so many youths. We could try the alcohol again.”
“We’ve done that too many times. Let me think about it.”
“Hold still, Chief, please. I’ve just got to bandage it. Josef, hand me the gauze—and hold that lamp still!”
“Do you know the name of the other lad?” the Chief asked.
“Schmidt. Dieter Schmidt.”
“What will they do with him?”
Professor Kreutzer shrugged.
“Are you sure they will not search for others?”
“No. Latte told me that they knew there would be two only—Mitzka and the Schmidt boy. They are propitiated. And Alex, they were told by our friend, most clearly, that the denunciation of your son and his ‘comrade’ came from you because of your hatred of Communists and your devotion to Adolf Hitler. I corroborated this tonight. You will be called upon to do the same.”
“Corroborate,” muttered the Chief.
“You must do it.”
“I will. I will. Is there anything we can do for young Schmidt?”
“Nothing. He’s as good as dead.”
“He’d be better off dead. Ask our Gestapo in the House if there is anything we can do.”
“There’s no use, Alex. We must not endanger the rest by contradictory actions.”
“At least ask Latte. That can do no harm.”
“It’s done, Chief,” said Krupinsky. “You might want your arm in a sling to keep from banging it.”
“No, thank you, Krup. Thank you very much. Max, what of Mitzka?”
“They would not leave the body. I made a small plea for the sake of Madame. I’m sorry. I could not push them.”
“Of course not. Krup, I want you to give Madame a sedative—a strong one.”
“O.K. Will you be taking her home?”
“What do you think, Max, is it safe to walk her across the park?”
“They are gone, I tell you. They have what they came for.”
Sonja Press and Frau Doktor escorted Madame Avilov home and stayed the night with her. Krupinsky went along to administer a sedative, then returned to the lab. Professor Kreutzer, who also had a house in the park, took his young wife home and returned at once. He never allowed her to stay for the parties. I don’t blame him. She was much younger than he and very pretty. The Dutch Medical Student and Marlene went home.
The Chief and everyone else stayed on. The girls from Die Scala showed up near midnight. By that time an accordion and another balalaika had appeared, the tables were pushed against the wall, the glass was swept under the tables, and the party had begun in earnest. At first, Professor Kreutzer preached caution. “Careful,” he said, removing his spectacles and looking severe. The Chief, beyond reason, would not listen, and ordered me to fetch more jugs of vodka from labs on other floors. They drank and danced, wild Russian dances, all but Professor Kreutzer, the Krupinskys, Tatiana, and me. Tatiana was perched on a worktable, her feet on the chair, playing Mitzka’s balalaika; I stood near her. Mitzka was, of course, running to escape through the apples when they shot him.
The wake became so wild, that Tatiana—Tanya—still playing the balalaika, sidled over to the edge of the table, nearer to me. The clowns had begun to line up to pay her drunken court, and I think it made her feel uneasy. One of the first was the Frenchman, François Daniel: he muttered a few quiet words to her, then stopped in front of me.
“You will never win her,” he said. “Never,” he repeated. “You will never learn to keep the distance until she is ready.”
When the greatest buffoon of them all, the Roumanian Biologist George Treponesco, staggering drunk, paid his call, squatting at her feet, embracing her legs, she completely recoiled in disgust. I disentangled his arms from her legs and pushed him backward onto his derrière, and she, holding the balalaika above her head to keep it from harm, jumped to her feet and took my arm. That ass Treponesco rolled over and actually crawled away on all fours.
We joined Professor Kreutzer and the Krupinskys, who stood near the door, stonily staring at the bedlam. The lab was a disaster. Drinking was encouraged at staff dinners, and, usually, there was a strenuous party afterward with the ballet girls and all, but it was always within some sort of limits. Everyone would help clean up from the dinner, put everything away, and push
the tables back in place, so that next day the routine work of the lab could be carried out. That was most important to the Chief, the research. But oh, my good Lord, the tables had been shoved back helter-skelter with all the food and dishes still on them, there was broken glass everywhere, and the Chief was as I’d never seen him. He always drank a lot, but I had never seen him drunk before, and there he was, squatting on the floor, trying to do the tcherzatskaya, but so looped he had to be held up by two Die Scala girls, one on each side. His great head was thrown back, his mouth opened wide while Bolotnikov poured vodka down his throat. The others were drinking and jumping and shouting and clapping, encouraging him. He always danced the tcherzatskaya for us—we all loved it when he did this—but he’d never needed anyone to hold him up. He was panting like some great beast; his face was beet red, and he was sweating copiously.
“He’ll have a heart attack,” said Krupinsky, tapping his own chest, as though he were in pain.
Professor Kreutzer pointed to the door. The Krupinskys, Tanya, and I followed him down the hallway until it was quiet enough for us to converse in low voices. Tanya had taken Mitzka’s balalaika with her for fear it would be broken in the frenzy.
“How long,” Professor Kreutzer asked Krupinsky, “can they keep this up?”
“Hours—it’s after one thirty now—there’s no way of knowing.” He tapped his chest, again, as though he were in pain.
Professor Kreutzer took a glasses case from his breast pocket, removed from it the black-rims, which he held to the light, squinting at them through the gold-rims he was wearing; then, instead of cleaning the black-rims—which was the next step in the routine—he shoved them back into the case and into his pocket. “The best thing we can do is get some rest. I will stretch out in Physics. I suggest that all of you find a quiet place. It’s too late, in any case, to get the train.”
“I will go to my room,” Tanya said. It was in a building in the park.
The door to our Biology Laboratory opened, and Rabin stepped timidly into the hall, looking this way and that before walking over to us and making a brief statement in Russian.
