Weintraub sat in his little compartment, screened off by a makeshift door from the bustling traffic of the submarine’s single passageway. He had little desire to stir from his cabin while the sub made its way from the concealed pen on the southern tip of Norway through the Jerman coastal defenses. Later that day, when Kaufmann ordered the tanks blown and the vessel surfaced, Weintraub went out to stretch his cramped legs. He climbed the ladder on the inside of the conning tower, and joined the captain on the bridge.
“Good day, Herr Weintraub,” said Kaufmann. “I hope you’re comfortable.”
“Very,” said Weintraub. It was damp and cold, but the clean air refreshed him. The day was ending; the sun was setting, a perfect circle of red bleeding its color onto the western sea. “I must admit that I felt a little nervous, traveling submerged.”
“We don’t carry many passengers,” said Kaufmann with a shrug. “They all have to learn to get used to it. It won’t take long. You should be well adjusted by the time we put in at the supply station in Greenland.”
Weintraub nodded, but he didn’t feel as confident as the captain. “This is a very old submarine, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes,” said Kaufmann. While he spoke, he and two other crewmen scanned the horizon through filed glasses. “This was one of the first submarines built by Krupp, around 1913. It was reported lost at sea with all hands on its first trial cruise. As you can see, it wasn’t.”
Weintraub was silent for a moment. “What happened to the original crew?” he said at last.
The captain made an elaborate show of searching the night for danger. He shrugged again, in reply to the question.
“Dead?” asked Weintraub. “Brave Jerman sailors?”
“The end, the means, they justify.”
“Do you know the end?”
“If you would rather swim…” The captain was interrupted by the arrival of Porski and Gaffner, sailors ordered to relieve the other officers of the watch. Kaufmann took the opportunity to call down to his first officer. “Take over, will you, Number One? I’m coming below for a while; let me know if you see anything unusual. And answer any questions our passenger may ask. He is our guest.” The captain disappeared down the hatch. After several minutes of cold silence on the bridge, Weintraub went below also.
The next morning, Weintraub felt a good deal better. Of course, the captain had been right. The Party, being better able to see and understand the nature of its future difficulties, had taken steps which might be impossible for an uninformed individual such as Weintraub to interpret. The loss of the Jerman crew of the submarine had been regrettable but, apparently, necessary. The Communist Party was always unpopular. Now, it was illegal as well. So all of its activities had to be carried out under the strictest of security routines. And, of course, he knew what the ends were that they all worked for; he had looked foolish, and would have to apologize to Kaufmann.
It was another fine clear day. The submarine moved along the surface at a speed of fourteen knots, issuing a thick plume of black smoke from the kerosene engines’ exhaust. Weintraub was greeted by a low grunt from the captain, and annoyed looks from the other two men on watch. He knew that he was just in their way, no matter where he went in the ship.
“How many other submarines does the Party own?” he asked.
“One,” said Kaufmann. “It’s still back at Kaeresnat, being refitted.”
“Oh. Was it sabotaged also?” There was no reply. Weintraub frowned and stared out over the bright rolling waves.
Suddenly, one of the crewmen shouted and pointed out to starboard. Kaufmann swung his glasses in that direction, muttered something, and bent to the speaking tube. “Dive, dive, dive!” he shouted. The crewmen were already scrambling down the hatch; Weintraub stood frozen, fearful. “Go on!” cried Kaufmann. “Get below!” Weintraub hurried down the ladder, the captain following him. Kaufmann’s foot crushed the slow-moving youth’s fingers; Weintraub leg go of the ladder and dropped the rest of the way into the submarine. He heard the sailors around him cursing, and he heard the captain securing the hatches in the conning tower. Already the submarine was dropping at a sharp angle. Kaufmann came down the ladder and hurried to the periscope. “Level off at ten meters,” he said.
“Ten meters,” came the report.
“Up,” said Kaufmann. The first officer stood at his post, and at the order operated the lever that ran the periscope up. Kaufmann searched the surface of the sea around them for a long while. “Down,” he said finally. The periscope slid noiselessly to it original position. “Steer to course two-five-zero. Engines all ahead full.” He turned to his first officer. “A convoy,” he said. “Three large freighters, one destroyer. Range three-o-double-o.”
“British?” asked Weintraub.
“The freighters are,” said Kaufmann. “The destroyer is Jerman.”
“Food ships,” said the first officer.
“Yes,” said the captain. “Make ready all torpedo tubes.”
“All tubes clear, Herr Kapitänleutnant.”
“Stand by, first bow tube,” said the captain. “Up scope.” He checked the range again, calling out figures as the distance decreased. “Fire first tube!” he said, when the range got to a thousand meters. There was a rushing, hissing sound, and the first torpedo was on its way. Kaufmann ordered the periscope down. He didn’t wait to see whether the torpedo hit its mark; he ordered the submarine to forty meters. Nearly a minute later, there was a muffled concussion; the torpedo had found its target. The crew began to cheer.
“They’ll probably be pretty confused,” said the first officer.
“Those that aren’t dead,” said Weintraub. The others glared.
“Those ships of food and medical supplies are the symbols of our surrender,” said Kaufmann. “I have orders to sink them on sight, if possible. I would do so without the orders.”
“This isn’t wartime,” said Weintraub.
“It isn’t wartime for them,” said the captain, jerking his thumb upward. “It still is for us, and it will be until the Party has won its eventual total victory. Perhaps our superiors have chosen unwisely in sending you on whatever mission you have.”
“No,” said Weintraub slowly. “I understand your meaning. I’m just unused to this sort of tactic. I believe in a political revolution, without the aid of the military. I would rather win a man’s mind then compel his obedience.”
“Stand by, stern tube. Come about to course zero-seven-o. We’ll go back under them and hit them going away.”
“It’s easy to understand how we won the war,” said Weintraub. “There is no defense against a submarine. That convoy is as helpless as a baby, and we are in no danger at all.”
“Unless the destroyer hits us with a depth bomb,” said the first officer. “Or if the weight of the water damages our pressure hull. Or if a rivet becomes just a bit loose, and seawater leaks in. If enough spills into the acid of the storage batteries, we’ll have a tin can full of chlorine gas and dead bodies. And these waters are still cluttered with mines. Or the ballast tanks…”
“Take her up to ten meters,” said Kaufmann.
The sub glided back to periscope depth. Kaufmann ordered the scope up and took a long look. He stepped away and let his first officer examine the scene above. The first officer went back to his post grinning. Kaufmann generously allowed Weintraub a turn. He went to the periscope nervously; in it he saw the reflected horrors of submarine warfare. The freighter, marked with a huge red cross amidships, was heeling over. He could see tiny figures running across the hull. Some boats had been lowered, but there hadn’t been enough time to rescue the majority of the crew and the passengers. Even as Weintraub watched, the freighter rocked and slowly settled beneath the water.
“The destroyer and the other two have changed course and are heading away at full steam,” said the first officer.
Kaufmann replaced Weintraub at the scope. “We’ll have to pass up the second freighter, but the third is just now co
ming into my sights. Stand by on stern tube, Number One. Ready… fire stern tube!” This time, Kaufmann watched the path of the torpedo through the periscope. Weintraub waited anxiously, feeling disturbed and somewhat sickened. At last he felt the shock of the explosion. He did not join in the celebration.
“Right behind the bridge,” cried Kaufmann. “It’s gone under already!”
“A lot of good Jerman folk will starve, certainly,” said Weintraub. No one answered him.
“Come about to course one-seven-five,” said Kaufmann.
“Ready second bow tube.”
Weintraub wanted to go back to his quarters, but he knew he couldn’t stand the humiliation that would follow. He closed his eyes and tried to wait out the terrible moments.
“The destroyer is coming after us,” said the captain softly. “All right, we’ll take it on.”
Now Weintraub was more horrified than ever. “Captain,” he said, “the freighters I can understand. They were British ships, our nation’s degradation. But the destroyer is our nation. It is a part of the Jerman Navy. Its sailors joined in the rebellion that drove out the Kaiser. You can’t attack our own people.”
“If the destroyer is sunk,” said the first officer, “then Jermany will suspect Italy, France, even the United States. The Jerman folk will grow stronger in their resolve to stand against them.”
“Come to bearing one-six-o,” said Kaufmann, ignoring the debate. “Ready, Number One. Fire second bow tube! Down scope, stand by to dive. Open main vents. Clutches out. Take her down to sixty meters. Come about to course two-eight-five. Take over, Number One.” A short time later came the shock wave of an explosion. Kaufmann wanted to leave the area as soon as possible, in case the destroyer had not been sunk. The submarine had used its last torpedo, and was now defenseless except for the single 37 mm gun. Kaufmann had no intention of surfacing to use it, however.
“You’ve murdered them!” cried Weintraub. “Our own countrymen!”
Kaufmann gestured to the first officer. “Sig,” he said, “come with me. I want to talk to you.” The first officer sighed gratefully and followed the captain to the ward room. Weintraub was left standing alone; the other sailors pointedly ignored him. At last, still trembling with anger and dismay, he returned to his quarters, where he remained for the rest of the voyage.
CHAPTER 4
Gretchen was screaming. She had stopped even trying to make sense. Her shrieks were growing louder and stronger, rather than subsiding. Ernest himself was shaken; he wanted time to understand the situation. He needed to be alone, somewhere quiet, where he could take out the few ideas that had any value for him, where he could set up those constructs in a rational order. He could examine himself: his meanness, his endurance, his dissatisfaction, his meager hopes. He could examine Gretchen, who provided the unvarying stimulus for his responses. He could put the two of them together, at one end of some mental scale. Then he could figure in the baby someplace—he didn’t know where, exactly. And the unborn baby, that Gretchen carried so resentfully. That would go between them. Then he could start relating the external influences: Sokol. The Representatives. Suzy? No, and also not Eileen. What else? Nothing else. There should be more, but there wasn’t.
“All right,” said Ernest loudly, “I’m going to give you three of these pills. You’re only supposed to take one at a time. Don’t take any more after I leave, O.K.?”
Gretchen looked at him wildly. She clutched his arm so tightly that it hurt him. “Where are you going now?” she cried.
Ernest shook his head. “Just swallow the pills. I don’t want to waste any more time. If they’re going to open those token stations in the morning, they must be setting them up now. Everybody else is going to be sitting around swearing and crying tonight. I’m going out to check and see if I can find anything out.”
That made Gretchen cry even more. “Don’t leave me here,” she said. “Don’t leave Stevie.”
“Nothing will happen,” he said. “Everything will be fine tonight. Just get some rest. We’ll have a tough day tomorrow.”
“Don’t leave me, Ernie.”
He led her to the small bed. The pills were already beginning to calm her down a little. He said nothing more to her, but left the modapt as quietly as he could. He shut the door softly behind him. In the hallway, he heard more shouting from his neighbors’ modapts. The elevator wouldn’t respond when he pushed the button.
Suddenly, the door of the modapt across the hall from the Weinraubs’ swung open. Ernest glanced idly back in that direction. The modapt belonged to a strange old man, a midget who lived in neurotic seclusion. Ernest and Gretchen had seen him only a few times in the many months they’d lived in the building. The old man had his groceries delivered and went out only rarely, for what reasons Ernest did not know.
“Ah, Mr. Weinblum!” said the midget, walking down the corridor with a peculiar, painful waddle.
“Weinraub,” said Ernest.
“Yes, of course. It’s so kind of you to visit me in my loneliness. How is your wonderful bride?”
“Fine,” said Ernest, wishing the elevator would arrive. “I’m sorry, I was just going out.”
“Is it important?” asked the little man. “I must apologize, but I’m sure you heard the Representative tonight, didn’t you?”
Ernest nodded. There wasn’t a hum or a rattle from the elevator to promise rescue.
“Well, then, you can’t deny that you’re curious about it.”
“And you can’t say that you know any more than the rest of us.”
The tiny old man laughed. “Delightful, I’m sure,” he said. “Come, we both need to talk about this. I have wine.” He took Ernest’s hand. Ernest flinched; the old man’s fingers were rough and cold. The hand was like a child’s, small and delicately boned, but the skin was too abrasive, too brittle.
“I’m really sorry, Mr. Vladieki. I was just on my way out.” The midget pretended not to hear.
“You call me Lance,” he said, peering up into Ernest’s face. Vladieki’s expression became very serious. “We’ve lived as neighbors for more than a year, and you’ve never visited with my friends and me. My real name is Leonard, you see, but I used the name Lance in motion pictures.” He led Ernest by the hand to his apartment.
They stopped at the threshold. Vladieki was obviously proud of his modapt, and waited for Ernest’s reaction. For a moment, Ernest just stared. “My God,” he said finally.
“Look!” said Vladieki. “Emerald City is closer and prettier than ever!” They entered, and the little man shut the door. “There’s no place like home,” he said. The four walls of the modapt were covered with gigantic blown-up photographs. On the wall directly opposite the front door, dominating the small room, was the face of a young girl. “That’s Dorothy, of course,” said Vladieki.
“Judy Garland?”
The old man smiled. “Yes. Dorothy.” She filled the entire space of the wall, a close-up of her head; her eyes were shining, her expression awe-struck, lovely, her lips parted. A narrow dresser stood in the corner of the room, obscuring some of her hair and her left ear. An electrical outlet intruded into her throat. Adjacent to that wall was one on which another enlarged picture showed Dorothy, the Tin Woodman, the Straw Man, and the Cowardly Lion on the Yellow Brick Road. Vladieki’s kitchen area was against this wall, and the appliances and furniture covered the bottom half of the photograph. Across from this wall was a picture of Munchkinland, with several beehive-shaped, thatched houses, scores of oddly dressed Munchkins, and Billie Burke as Glinda the Good Witch. The Yellow Brick Road led from Glinda’s feet right down to Vladieki’s battered bed. Ernest turned, somewhat amazed, somewhat repelled. Behind him, around the door, was the countryside, the Road, and a distant view of the Emerald City of Oz.
“A place where there isn’t any trouble,” said Vladieki. “That’s what Dorothy called it.”
“I saw the movie a couple of times. Not for a long while, though,” said Ernest. He didn
’t quite know how to react.
“I was in it,” said Vladieki, his wrinkled, ancient face showing great satisfaction. He walked over to the picture of the Munchkins. He stood on his bed and pointed to a figure half-hidden in the background. “That’s me,” he said. “I was a Munchkin. I was in the Munchkin Militia. We used to get together, years ago, all the old Munchkins. Those of us that were in the militia, we all had ranks. I was Sergeant-Major. I’m one of the last ones left.”
“That movie was made in the early or middle Sixties, wasn’t it? That would make you pretty old.” Vladieki didn’t correct Ernest.
Ernest walked about the modapt; it was even smaller and more poorly equipped than his own. Vladieki’s was an African make, one that had gone out of business nearly twenty years before. On top of the dresser was a tape player and a framed photograph. The picture was brown and crumbling. It was obviously a publicity still, of a beautiful woman. She wore very old-fashioned clothing and makeup. It was inscribed: To Lance: If only your—was as big as your heart! Love, Bobbie. Ernest studied it for a moment.
“That’s Roberta Quentini,” said the old man. He came over to Ernest and reached up for the picture. Ernest looked down, feeling strange to have such an aged person bumbling about near him. He handed the framed photo to Vladieki. “She was one of the best of the silent stars,” said the midget. “Until she killed herself. We had a lot of good times.” Ernest didn’t know whether to believe him; if Vladieki had been only twenty years old during the silent film days, he would have to be over a hundred and thirty years old now.
Vladieki gave the picture back to Ernest. “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again,” he said, “I won’t look any further than my own back yard.”
“We don’t have back yards,” said Ernest, irritated by the senile old man.
“Dorothy said that, too. About the heart’s desire. There’s a lot of wisdom in Oz.”
Relatives Page 6
