The Fifth Column

by Andrew Gross

  I have to admit I felt a little foolish, following them, scared they would suddenly turn around and recognize me. I had no training in this. I was no FBI agent. My lawyer had made that clear. I wasn’t even the most patriotic of people. I just felt like I had stumbled onto something no one else could see, and if I was right, something very bad could result from it. And the government should know. It was a puzzle to be solved.

  They continued north a block or two, pushing against the crowd. I kept a good distance behind. On Ninety-third they stopped at the corner and appeared set to cross. The light was against them. Willi Bauer casually glanced back around.

  I ducked under a canopy of a store that sold candies, behind a woman filling a bag of dried fruit. Otherwise, his gaze would have gone directly through me. In any case, he didn’t seem to notice me there, but looked back, pointing to something ahead, drawing his wife’s attention across the street.

  When the light turned green, they crossed.

  Part of me said to myself I should just give this up and go home now. That was the voice of reason on my shoulder, the one that always made sense. That all I was doing was trying to manufacture facts to fit the conclusions I had already drawn, and any student of history would tell you that was an invalid thesis. A pattern had to be determined from facts, events. I was bad at doing puzzles, and none of these pieces were really fitting together, other than my own stubbornness to be right, maybe. But this was not some board game I was playing with Emma. If they turned again and saw me, what would I say? I’d never be able to show my face at the apartment again.

  On my other shoulder, my other voice, the one that always dared me and generally steered me in the wrong direction, had another opinion completely.

  I waited for the light to go to yellow and then hurried across after them, mid-block. The avenue was lined with German beer halls, their bars overflowing. Shouts of merriment and music from the home country could be heard coming from any one of them. Germans were nothing, I thought, if not loud drinkers. There were lots of other restaurants too, even Zurich, a well-known Swiss one. Or The Purple Tulip, where I had seen the Bauers’ “customer.” Willi had even mentioned it once. Maybe that’s where they were headed now. I wove through the crowd, staying about twenty yards behind them, as they walked leisurely, arm in arm.

  Then they stopped. Taking Trudi’s arm, Willi led her into one of the beer halls.

  Marienplatz, the awning read.

  I knew that the Marienplatz was the central square in Munich, Germany.

  I angled my hat down over my face and stopped on the sidewalk outside. I’d never been in the place before. A boisterous crowd was gathered at the bar. Mostly young men engaged in animated conversation. The politics of the day were never far away from a beer. The Bund might have been driven inside, with all that was happening in Europe that made it unpopular, but that didn’t mean it was driven out. Behind the bar, amid pictures of Chancellor Hindenburg and other prominent German figures, I saw one of Adolf Hitler.

  Inside, a heavyset, dark-haired man in a black jacket came up to the Bauers, welcoming them as if they were expected. He was someone in charge, it seemed. Maybe the owner. He put his hand on Willi’s back and patted him familiarly and gave Trudi a respectful kiss on both cheeks. Then he snapped his fingers to the bar for drinks, like the Bauers were important guests.

  VIPs.

  And why not? I thought. Hadn’t they been in the beer business for years? They likely supplied many of these places up and down the avenue. And hadn’t they also lived in the neighborhood? Who knows how many times they may have dined there? So nothing unusual here. Nothing to justify how I had followed them, Sam Goldrich would surely say.

  I observed all this from the street, feeling a wave of foolishness and stupidity about the whole thing now, thinking I should just call it a night and get on home.

  Probably every other person in Yorkville, I heard my lawyer say.

  Then, after the briefest toast, I saw the man in the black jacket motion the Bauers to follow him to the rear of the restaurant. Making way a path for them through the congested bar crowd.

  I stepped inside.

  There, I was confronted by a raucous throng of drinkers, conversing mostly in German. I edged my way through to the back, concealed in the crowd. Beer flowed handily. German music played; an accordion player jumped up on the bar. At every pause in the song the crowd would chime in as one, thrusting their mugs into the air. I wasn’t sure what they were saying at first, but then even with my limited German it came clear. “Schicksal. Schicksal. Schicksal uber alles,” they were chanting.

  Destiny, they sang three times. Above all.

  The Bauers and their host went past the bar and a row of wooden booths, heading toward what appeared to be a back room. I craned my head through the crowd, uttering, “Excuse me,” and “Sorry,” to anyone I bumped into as I jostled by, beer spilling on my jacket. “Hey, watch yourself,” someone said, annoyed.

  “Sorry.”

  From this vantage point I could see the door to the back room opened. Through the jostling throng, I made out a long table inside, with several people around it. All men. It clearly looked as if there was business being discussed in there—just maybe not the beer business.

  As the Bauers stepped in, the people around the table all stood up. And as the door opened wider—me craning my head through the jostling crowd—I saw something else that made my heart come to a sudden stop.

  On the wall behind the table was a red-and-white flag with the Nazi swastika on it.

  “Liebsnatur,” I muttered to myself, mouthing the word as if it had a bitter taste to it. I recalled how the Bauers had attempted to explain away the word Emma had heard them use.

  Liebsnatur, my ass.

  The Bauers were Nazis. I saw it now with my own eyes. There among the chanting German crowd. Under the Nazi symbol. There was no denying it now.

  The man in the black jacket motioned Trudi and Willi inside. Standing, the people around the table stuck out their arms stiffly and gave the Nazi salute.

  Through the doorway, Willi and Trudi extended their arms in return.

  Then Willi turned at the door. His gaze swept back across the outside room, not merely on the crowd, which was now singing “Die Wacht am Rhein” in unison. Maybe a last note of caution to make sure no one was watching them.

  And it seemed to land, through the throng of raucous drinkers celebrating their homeland, almost as if he knew precisely where to look, directly on me.

  There seemed to be the slightest smile on his face. As if he was saying, I see you now, Charlie. So now you know.

  Now you know, and there’s nothing you can even do about it.

  Then, with a bloom of satisfaction on his appley cheeks, he shut the door.

  14

  More than ever, I was sure I had stumbled onto something.

  “Unjustifiable importance” or not, I now knew that everything about the Bauers was utterly false, completely at odds with the public persona they maintained: that of kindly Swiss grandparents, dimpled cheeks and white hair, with all that pretended disgust they showed for the madman who had taken over their homeland. Who had put Europe in turmoil.

  Not any future we would want any part of, he had said.

  It made the bile rise up in my gut.

  For days, I kept reliving the sight of Willi Bauer shutting the door on a room full of Sieg Heil-ing compatriots under a Nazi banner. And what to do about it? Who to tell?

  It was still no crime.

  Whether he had seen me or not—and as I went back over the events, I could only come to the conclusion that he had not—there was something about them I now knew was a complete lie, and went far deeper than just their politics and the beliefs that they put in so much effort to hide.

  I had to believe that they were engaged in something that I could not quite determine, but feared was set in motion already. The steady flow of strangers who came to their door; the shreds of some kind of code I fe
lt for certain I had found half-destroyed in their trash; and whatever it was that was being discussed in that back room at the Marienplatz restaurant behind closed doors. That it was both secretive and conspiratorial and most likely a threat. Something the police or the FBI would want to know.

  Something dangerous.

  I’d already taken my original suspicions to my lawyer, Sam Goldrich. A prominent Jew with connections. I imagined myself calling him up again now, describing what I’d seen at the beer hall last night—You wanted more tangible evidence, well, here it is! The Nazi greeting. The brazen swastika on the wall behind them.

  I told you, sympathizing with the Germans is not a crime, Charlie, I was sure he’d reply. Look at Lindbergh. He got a fucking medal from them.

  But then he would lean forward and say with all lawyerly seriousness: But secretly following them is.

  And so is plotting with them, Sam, I would counter. Come on, you have to know in your heart, something’s going on.

  Still, I was a nobody. Someone recently released from prison, with a felony conviction around my neck. And a boy’s life on my conscience. And as Sam said, not exactly the best person to be pointing a finger at the Bauers, who were respected businesspeople, and by all accounts, established and well-liked members of the community. Immigrants, yes, but who had been here since the late ’20s. Who everyone seemed to have a good word for. And as my lawyer had reminded me, congregating with Nazis, even if they had gone to such lengths to cover it up, wasn’t illegal. There were still pro-German rallies and speeches going on publicly. Lindbergh had given a talk that every radio station in the country covered only last month, and even though there was great public outcry against it, no one had arrested him! Indeed, half of Congress was still pushing back against FDR’s call to support the Brits and get us into the war.

  But if there was truly something going on with the Bauers, something more than met the eye, it was stuff the government should know about. And I realized that the person closest to this, who it was my duty to protect, was Emma. If they were subversives, it was illegal and dangerous work. What if she was over there and something happened? What if they were even using her in some way, or Liz? As a cover. What then?

  So that Saturday, I went back up to Liz’s apartment, even though it wasn’t my day to visit. I knocked and found her alone in the apartment in a pair of slacks and a plaid flannel shirt knotted at the waist. A scarf tied in her hair.

  “Charlie, I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “Emma’s with her friend Charlotte.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Got a minute? I’m actually here to talk to you.”

  “Me? All right.” She seemed surprised at that. “Come on in.” She ran her forearm across her brow. “I was just tidying up a bit. The place is such a mess.” She had the sheets rolled into a ball and a load of wash in a basket. I used to help her with all that when we were a couple. Indeed, I was a champion folder. She used to say that no one could fold a set of sheets like me.

  “Don’t worry.” I stepped in. “I won’t stay long.”

  “That’s okay. In truth,” she smiled contritely, “I was looking for any excuse I could find to push all this off. Sit down.”

  I did, and for a while, the conversation stayed on Emma. How much my life had changed with her in it again. How much I admired the way Liz was raising her. And I told her how I was slowly getting myself back on my feet. “That’s great, Charlie, great.” Her eyes appeared soft and nonjudgmental. She seemed genuinely happy for me.

  Then I got to the real reason I was there.

  “I know this won’t go over big, Liz.” I cleared my throat. “But I’d really like it if Emma no longer had anything to do with the Bauers.”

  “Trudi and Willi?” She looked at me, kind of shocked. “Why?”

  “Look, I know how you feel about them, Liz—you’ve made that clear. But they’re simply not who they say they are. Or who they want you to believe they are.” I told her about the strips of charred numbers I had found in their kitchen trash, and then following them to the beer hall and what I saw take place in the back room there. The Nazi salute and the banner with the swastika on it.

  “You actually tailed them?” She looked at me, aghast. “Willi and Trudi?”

  “I did,” I sighed with a guilty shrug. “What can I say? But that’s not the point. Look, I know Emma’s fond of them and maybe they’re legitimately fond of her too. Maybe that’s the only part of them that is real. But as for the rest, they’re not being honest with you, Liz. All this stuff about Heidi and Swiss chocolate and the desserts she prepares. They’re Nazi sympathizers. Maybe even more. I’m starting to doubt if they’re even Swiss at all. Doesn’t that concern you?”

  “What do you mean by ‘maybe even more,’ Charlie?”

  I looked at her directly. “There’s a war going on, Liz. You know exactly what I mean.”

  It took a second for her to fully see where I was heading. Though in truth, I didn’t even know what I was suggesting. Collaborators? Conspirators? Provocateurs? Everything was just a puzzle piece right now.

  “You’re suggesting they’re spies…?” she said, her eyes locked on me. Then she laughed. “Well, that’s absurd. And even if there was even a kernel of truth to it,” she shook her head, “is it suddenly a crime to be a Nazi sympathizer? This neighborhood is full of them. Look at Lindbergh, our biggest hero, for God’s sake. He just made a speech in Des Moines supporting them. And he’s the second-most-popular person in the country, after the president. There are even U.S. senators who openly defend them on the Senate floor.”

  “I know. I know all that. I do. But I also I know you’re aware exactly what’s happening over there, Liz. And it’s not all just the war. Jews are being relocated throughout Europe. Their businesses are being taken away. God knows what’s happening to them wherever they go.”

  “For someone who barely took Emma to temple, I never knew you were so concerned,” she said, trying to wound me with an old complaint of hers, my lack of Jewish commitment, and it carried a sharp edge to it. “If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t even know she was a Jew.”

  “You’re right, Liz. I don’t want to fight about that. All I’m saying is, you really don’t know anything about these people. They don’t add up.”

  “Other than they’ve been like family to us. At a time when I really needed it, Charlie. A time, must I remind you, when you couldn’t be. That adds up. So is that part of their cover? Do I have to know any more?”

  “Maybe you’d want to know why they’ve pretended to hate the Nazis so fervently when they’re in a back room of a Nazi beer hall Sieg Heil-ing with a roomful of them? Would that concern you?”

  “Charlie, they’ve been here for years. They were in the beer business, for God’s sake. They may even be American citizens for all I know. They didn’t just parachute in here and set up operations.”

  “Those agents who were arrested last month, some of them were purchasing agents and engineers. They didn’t just parachute in here either. I’m just asking you, Liz, keep Emma away. For now. At least until we learn more. If they are what I think, it could be dangerous for her.”

  “Now you’re telling me how to watch out for my own child?” With that, she got up and went over to the window, letting off steam, and lit a Parliament. “And just how are we going to learn more, Charlie? With more of your ridiculous subterfuge? Are you going to set up a permanent stakeout on them? I’m sorry, but I won’t tell Emma not to see them. It would break her heart. And how would I even go about explaining it?” She blew out a stream of smoke. “That my soon-to-be ex-husband has been playing J. Edgar Hoover and thinks they might be foreign agents? That he followed them to a Nazi hangout and doesn’t like who they keep as friends?”

  “We may not be at war yet, but we may be soon, Liz. Then what about their friends?”

  She took an angry drag. “So if you’re such a fucking patriot, Charlie, sign up with the RAF, and go fight over there, like—”
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br />   She caught herself. We both knew what she was about to say. Like your brother, Ben. That was clear. And we both knew that it stung. She pressed her lips together with guilt on her face and blew out a stream of smoke from her nose, and came back over and sat down next to me again. She put her hand on my arm. “I didn’t mean that, Charlie. Of course I know there’s a war going on. And of course I don’t like what these people stand for, and what they’re doing over there. To Jews and to Britain. Contrary to what you think, I don’t put my head in the sand. But I’m sorry, I trust the Bauers and I won’t tell Emma she can’t see them. Whatever their political views, and why ever they feel they have to hide them, to us, Willi and Trudi are the nicest couple in the world.”

  I nodded—more just from weariness of the argument than from any agreement. “You know, the nicest people in the world put that madman in power over there. And half of them probably read Schiller and Heine. And make delicious strudel. The nicest people in the world all probably look the other way while their Jewish neighbors and friends are being shipped out to work camps somewhere. Could you really be their friends, Liz,” I looked at her in earnestness, “if you knew for sure they felt that way?”

  “Really, Charlie…” She tapped her cigarette in an ashtray on the kitchen table. “I think you’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion. I just can’t do it. Honestly, I wouldn’t even know what to say to them without any proof. In a million years, I don’t think they would ever put Emma in any danger.”

  I shrugged, feeling I had to give up. “All right. On that, maybe you’re right.”

  “And I want you to stop this, Charlie. All these innuendos. And if you can’t, then please stop coming up here for a while. You’re starting to act like the Old Charlie again. With all these things … And I don’t like it. You haven’t been drinking, have you?”