Tell Me Who I Am

by Julia Navarro

  The Hertzes had invited a dozen friends, including Doctor Max von Schumann, a childhood friend of Martin’s and a doctor as well.

  “Amelia, I would like you to meet Max, my best friend,” Martin said, introducing Amelia in German.

  She replied in the same language and the three of them sparked up a conversation that seemed to annoy Pierre, who could not understand a word.

  “Who is your friend?” the Frenchman asked Gloria.

  “Our dear Max... Baron von Schumann. Martin has known him since they were children, and they studied medicine together; Max is a surgeon, and the best there is, according to Martin.”

  “So he’s an aristocrat...”

  “Yes, he’s a baron and an army doctor by family tradition. But most importantly he’s a wonderful person.”

  “And his wife?”

  “He hasn’t yet married, but it’s only a matter of time. He’s engaged to the daughter of some friends of his parents, the Countess Ludovica von Waldheim.”

  “And what’s he doing in Buenos Aires?”

  “Visiting Martin. Max did everything he could to help him leave Germany, and has helped his family, and his many Jewish friends, as much as he could. They are like brothers, and it is a great joy for us that he has come to visit.”

  Pierre did not let Amelia out of his sight. She seemed charmed by Baron von Schumann, and Pierre was annoyed when Gloria, offering the excuse that the two of them could speak in the Baron’s language, sat Amelia next to the German during the meal.

  The Baron was impressed by Amelia. Her fragility and the sadness that seemed to come from her moved him deeply.

  They spent the whole dinner talking, and Gloria was pleased to see her friend so lively, and above all to see her laugh, but she felt that it was her obligation to warn Amelia.

  “I haven’t seen you this happy for a long time,” she said in a low voice when Martin called Max away for a moment.

  “You know, I didn’t feel very much like coming, but now I’m glad I did,” Amelia said.

  “Do you like Max?” Gloria asked, smiling to see how her friend blushed.

  “What things you say! He’s very nice and friendly, and... Well, he makes me feel good.”

  “I’m so happy. But... well... I should remind you that he’s about to get married to Countess Ludovica von Waldheim. Martin says she’s a beautiful young woman and that they make a very handsome couple.”

  Gloria did not want Amelia to feel attracted to Max and to be disappointed again, so she preferred to set things straight from the start.

  “Thank you, Gloria,” Amelia said, a little annoyed by her friend’s warning.

  “Just something for you to bear in mind... well... It looks like you and Max have formed a connection.”

  “You sat me next to him because I spoke German, I tried to be nice.”

  “I don’t want you to suffer!”

  “I don’t see why I’m going to suffer because I sit next to a friend of yours,” Amelia said sharply.

  “Max belongs to an old Prussian family and has a very strong sense of duty.”

  “Yes, I got that from the conversation we had over dinner.”

  Max and Martin approached the two women and immediately began a new conversation about the difficult situation in Germany.

  “It’s Christmas, and we should talk about happier things!” Gloria said.

  “So many of our friends have disappeared! From what Max says, the country is getting dragged further and further into Hitler’s madness... ,” Martin lamented.

  “The worst is that Chamberlain is following a policy of appeasement with regard to Hitler and Mussolini, and this makes the Führer feel ever more secure.”

  “But the English can’t support the Nazis,” Amelia said.

  “The problem is that Chamberlain doesn’t want problems, and this lets Hitler’s dreams grow ever bigger,” Max said.

  “How can you serve in Hitler’s army?” Amelia asked, not bothering to hide a certain annoyance in her voice.

  “I do not serve in Hitler’s army, I serve in the German army, like my father, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather... Mine is a family of soldiers, and it is our duty to continue the tradition.”

  “But you told me you hated Hitler!” Amelia said in a complaining tone.

  “I do. I feel nothing but contempt for this Austrian corporal whose delusions of grandeur may lead who knows where, and I am scared for my country.”

  “So leave the army!” Amelia insisted.

  “I have been educated to serve my country above all things. I can’t leave just because I don’t like Hitler.”

  “You yourself told me about the persecution of the Jews...”

  The conversation made Max uncomfortable and Martin decided to change the subject.

  “Amelia, sometimes we are obliged to do things we do not like but we are nonetheless unable to escape, we can’t do anything else no matter how much we might want to. Everybody’s life is filled with patches of light and patches of shade... Let my friend Max enjoy Christmas, or else he might never again want to spend it with me.”

  “I’m sorry, but I just hate Hitler so much,” Amelia said.

  “The weather’s lovely, and I thought that we could go for a trip out of the city; if you and Pierre want to join us tomorrow we’d be extremely pleased,” Gloria interrupted.

  Amelia and Pierre did not go on the excursion that Gloria had planned because when they returned home at dawn they found a note under their door. Pierre’s controller required Pierre to get in contact with him immediately.

  At nine in the morning Pierre left home to go to the Kavanagh Building, a thirty-story skyscraper built in 1935 that the citizens of Buenos Aires were especially proud of.

  Behind the building, a little passage opened up onto the Calle San Martín, where the Church of the Holy Sacrament was to be found; here it was that Pierre was to meet his controller.

  The Russian was seated in the last row of pews and seemed to be reading a breviary, given that Mass was at that moment being celebrated by a young priest in front of about thirty communicants, whose faces all showed the excesses of the night before.

  Pierre sat next to his controller and waited to hear what he would say.

  “You have to go to Moscow,” the Russian announced.

  “When?” Pierre’s response displayed a little fear.

  “Soon, the Ministry of Culture is organizing a congress of European and North American intellectuals in order to introduce them to the glories of the Soviet Union. You will be a part of the organizing committee. This is a very important event, you know that there are Fascist groups dedicated to attacking the honor of the revolution. Our best allies are the European intellectuals.”

  “And what can I do?”

  “You know lots of French intellectuals, Spanish, British, even a few Germans... You have always been a part of those circles. We need personal information about them... Everyone has a weak spot...”

  “A weak spot? I don’t understand...”

  “They’ll tell you in Moscow. Get ready for the journey.”

  “And what will I say to the people here?”

  “Your agents will pass their information directly to me, and as for your friends... you’ll think of something, and anyway, you’ve always traveled looking for special editions.”

  “And Amelia?”

  “She will go with you.”

  “But maybe she won’t want to... She’s been very worried lately about the war in Spain. She suffers for her family...”

  “A Communist doesn’t think about his or her personal desires, but rather about what is best for the revolution, for our cause. I thought that she was a good Communist...”

  “She is! No doubt about it!”

  “So there should be no problem with Comrade Garayoa. She will go with you. It will be an honor for her to get to know Moscow.”

  When Pierre arrived home, Amelia was sitting with a cup of coffee, waiting for him
. Before he even said anything she could read the panic in his expression, the tension in the smile he gave her.

  “What did they say?” she asked, without waiting for Pierre to sit down.

  “They’ve ordered me to go to Moscow. I have to go in two or three weeks.”

  “Krisov said...”

  “I know what that traitor said!” Pierre’s voice displayed his worry and fear.

  “Why do they want you to go?”

  “They’re preparing a congress of artists, intellectuals, they’re going to invite people from all over the world. Intellectuals are the best propagandists for the revolution. They have moral authority in their home countries. They want me to go to Moscow to be on the organizing committee.”

  “Right. They’re going to take you out of Buenos Aires, where you have set up a spy network, and they want you to go to Moscow to be on a committee... Pierre, don’t go.”

  “I can’t not go.”

  “Yes you can, just tell them you’re not going and... Stop all this, get your life back.”

  “My life? Which life do you mean?”

  “Tell them you don’t want to be an agent anymore, that you’re tired, that you’ve done enough...”

  “Do you think it’s so easy? No, Amelia, you don’t just go in and out of this when you want. Once you’re in you have to go all the way to the end.”

  “You have the right to live another life.”

  Pierre looked at her tiredly, he felt old, weighed-down.

  “I’ve dedicated my life to Communism. I’ve never had any other ambition than to serve the revolution. Amelia, I don’t know how to do anything else.”

  “Krisov warned you about what might happen if you went to Moscow.”

  He shrugged. He didn’t feel capable of doing anything other than face up to the destiny that he himself had chosen.

  “They want you to come with me,” he muttered.

  “Yes, I suppose they would. They don’t want to leave any loose ends.”

  “But don’t come. I’ve been thinking about this, I’ll make them think that you’re coming, but you’ll get ill the day we’re meant to travel, appendicitis or something, and I’ll get you admitted to the hospital. I’ll tell them that you’ll meet me later. I’ll give you money so that you can go back to Spain or wherever you want; perhaps you’ll be safer with your friend Carla, at least for a while. My Moscow bosses will be upset that you’re not coming and...”

  “And they might decide to eliminate me, right?”

  “I don’t know what might happen to you in Spain, you know that there’s a Soviet force there helping the Republic.”

  “Krisov gave me a piece of advice which I’ve followed devotedly since the day he came to this house. From now on it’s me who has control of my own life.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you, I love you, Amelia. I know you don’t believe me, that you don’t want to forgive me, but at least allow me to help you.”

  “I will decide, Pierre. I will make my own decisions.”

  Over the next few days Pierre decided to meet with Natalia and Miguel to tell them of his voyage to Moscow and about how they should get in touch with the Soviet controller.

  Natalia had a nervous attack when Pierre told her that he had to go to Moscow and that he might be gone for months.

  “You can’t leave me!” she said. “I want to go with you!”

  “I wish you could, but it’s impossible. You have to understand this. I won’t be gone for more than five or six months...”

  “And what am I going to do?”

  “The same as you do now. You won’t have any problems passing the information you gather to the controller.”

  “I don’t trust anyone, only you. What if they follow me? They might suspect me if they see me with a Russian...”

  “I’ve told you how to avoid being followed, and I’ve also told you that there’s no need for you to see each other except in extraordinary circumstances. When you have something useful to pass on, you put this pot of geraniums in the left side of the window. Leave it there for three days. On the third day put your report between the pages of a newspaper and go have lunch in the zoological gardens. Sit down on a bench near the birdcages, watch the birds and leave the paper behind when you go.”

  “And if someone takes it who shouldn’t?”

  “That won’t happen.”

  It was not easy for Pierre to convince Natalia to keep on working with the Soviets. Her interest in the revolution was directly proportional to the proximity of her lover.

  He spent more time than ever with Natalia, and Amelia carried on working, and spent her few moments of free time with the Hertzes.

  Gloria and Martin could see the attraction that Amelia and Max felt for each other, and they were worried that they might be encouraging a relationship that they could see was impossible. Amelia was married; in Spain, yes, but it was still a binding marriage, and she also lived with her lover. And Max von Schumann was the kind of man who would prefer to die rather than to leave a promise unkept or to stain what he termed his “family honor.” However much he was in love with Amelia, he would never break his engagement with the Countess Ludovica von Waldheim, so his relationship with the young Spaniard had no future. Pierre reached the same conclusion, after having initially been worried by the obvious attraction that the German doctor and Amelia were incapable of hiding.

  However, Pierre did try to go with Amelia when she dined with the Hertzes, even though she did not always tell him about these meetings.

  On one evening when Pierre had to go to have supper with Natalia, because she had rung him in a flurry of tears, Amelia took the opportunity to accept Max’s invitation.

  “I am going to leave in a few days, and I would like us to eat alone together at least once; I don’t know if this is correct or if it will cause problems with... with Pierre, but if you could... ,” Max had asked her.

  When her day’s work in the cake shop was done, Amelia said goodbye to Doña Sagrario more hastily than was her normal habit. The older woman realized that Amelia’s eyes shone more than was usual.

  “I can see you’re happy. Is it a special celebration with Pierre?”

  Amelia smiled but made no reply. She did not want to lie to the good old woman, who had been so understanding when she realized that Pierre was not her legal husband, but neither did she wish to tell her that she was meeting another man, as she worried what Doña Sagrario might think.

  Max was waiting for her in the Café Tortoni, and from there they went to dine in a restaurant.

  If Amelia was nervous, Max was not much less so. Both of them knew that this meal meant that they were crossing a line that neither of them could step back over.

  “I am happy that you agreed to dine with me. I am leaving in a week, I cannot spend any more time in Buenos Aires.”

  “I know, Gloria told me that you need to join your unit.”

  “I’m a privileged man, Amelia, to have had this long holiday with my best friends, but my family’s influence does not allow me to stretch my time here any further,” Max said, laughing.

  “Why did you come to Buenos Aires? Just to see Martin?

  “Is that odd?”

  “A little, yes...”

  “You wouldn’t go to New York if you knew where to find Yla? You told me that she and your cousin Laura were the closest friends of your childhood.”

  “Of course I would go!”

  “Well, that’s what I did, come to see my best friend, who has had to leave our country on account of some madmen. I needed to know that he was well, that here... Well, I wanted to see that he was happy. It isn’t easy to leave your homeland, your house, your friends, to stop breathing the air you have always breathed... You can understand this; you left your country as well.”

  Amelia grew sad. In the last few months, every time she had thought about Spain she had felt an empty sensation in her stomach that gave way to pain.

  “But let us not be
sad! I don’t want the only chance we will have to be alone together to turn into a wake.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t be sad.”

  They went to have dinner and made an effort to lead the conversation along uncontroversial lines, but by dessert Amelia could not resist asking Max about his future with the army.

  “Tell me, how can you accept obeying the orders of someone who thinks that there are different categories of human beings, who persecutes the Jews and takes everything they have?”

  “We’ve talked about this already...”

  “Yes, but... I just can’t imagine you under orders from Hitler.”

  “He is chancellor now, but he won’t be chancellor forever, and Germany will always be Germany. I don’t serve Hitler, I serve my country.”

  “But Hitler controls Germany!”

  “Yes, and that’s a terrible shame and embarrassment, but what would you have me do? He won the elections.”

  “Even so...”

  “I’m a soldier, Amelia, not a politician. And now I want to talk about something else, I know I shouldn’t, but I am going to anyway.”

  “Please, I’d prefer you not to...”

  “Yes, it would be the right thing to say nothing, but I have to. I have fallen in love with you and I swear that I have made every effort not to let that happen. I didn’t want to leave without telling you.”

  “I think the same thing has happened to me. But I’m not sure... I’m very confused...”

  “I think that we are in love, and that’s the worst thing we could have done, because we have no future together.”

  “I know,” whispered Amelia.

  “I cannot break off my engagement with Ludovica, and... well, the wedding is arranged for when I return. And you have sacrificed a great deal to be with Pierre... and I don’t want to lie to you, even if I broke off my engagement with Ludovica, my family would never accept you; you would always be a married woman to them.”

  Amelia felt her face burning. She felt ashamed, as she had never felt when she abandoned her family to be with Pierre.

  “I didn’t want to upset you... I am sorry... I want to be honest with you, even if I have to be blunt,” Max apologized.