Dreams Bigger Than the Night

by Levitt, Paul M.

  When Arietta asked about his father’s business, a throw-away question since Jay had already described the Jeanette Powder Puff Company, his father repeated what she already knew and observed that people had stopped buying cosmetics because of the Depression.

  “And you, what do you do?”

  With a quick glance at Jay, she replied, “I’m a dance instructor at Castle House on Bergen Street.”

  “In these hard times does anyone take lessons?”

  “A few.”

  “If you’re on commission that has to hurt.”

  “We’re hoping it will pick up.”

  “And your father?”

  “He’s disabled with a bad back. Too much heavy lifting over the years, I guess.”

  “A lot of people have to hold down two and three jobs to make ends meet. Of course they’re the lucky ones. Thousands can’t find any kind of work.”

  That comment had written all over it “fishing expedition.” Clearly his dad had not bought her dancing instructor explanation, and asked, “I suppose that’s true of you, as well?”

  Reluctantly, she murmured, “Yes.”

  Since he had never heard Arietta admit to anything more than working at Castle House and at another job she couldn’t tell him about, he paid close attention. She was obviously ill at ease, fingering her napkin and staring at her unfinished first course, chopped liver. For what seemed a painfully long time, she said nothing.

  “I work as a German translator.”

  Not knowing whether to laugh at this fabrication or to applaud her chutzpah, he said lamely, “I thought I told you about that, Dad.”

  “I think I would have remembered.”

  Again the table grew silent, as everyone waited for Arietta to fill in the details. When she paused, his father persevered, “Who’s your employer?”

  Without precisely answering him, she explained, “Nowadays the authorities like to keep tabs on the German-language newspapers. I read them and translate those articles that seem seditious.”

  A good answer. But was it true? Arietta went on to talk about her adored mother, and the good woman’s lessons in Deutsche.

  “When I was a child, she always spoke to me in German and paid for lessons. If I answered in English, she pretended not to understand. Before long, I could speak the language. Now if only my father had done the same in Italian . . .” She trailed off.

  His mom, for the first time, said something that didn’t bear on the dinner. “How did your parents communicate?”

  “Mostly in English and, believe it or not, sometimes in Latin, which both had been taught and took pleasure in speaking. I think that must have been one of the attractions when they first met in Rome. They charmed one another, as it were, in a classical way.”

  Arietta’s mention of German newspapers and sedition led his father into a discussion of the Weimar Republic and the observation that ardent Nazi university professors counted among its harshest critics. “I’ve never been able to understand how an intellectual could be drawn to National Socialism. Democratic socialism, yes, but fascism, no.”

  Arietta appeared genuinely interested. “From the papers I read, I can tell you what the issues are: the unfairness of the Versailles Treaty, excessive war reparations, unemployment, inflation, the belief that Communists and Jews are threatening the Fatherland, and of course, Hitler’s promise to restore Germany to its former medieval glory. At the moment, nationalism and patriotism are rampant.”

  Jay’s father, a well-read man, huffed and quoted Dr. Johnson, “Patriotism . . . the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Arietta looked nonplussed, leading him to add, “When reason and argument fail, wave the flag.”

  Arietta’s claim to reading the German newspapers certainly appeared to be true, but for whom did she work? When she observed that the German government had its doubts about the steadfastness and intentions of American Nazis, Jay decided the time was right to start observing her activities.

  The evening ended literally on pleasant notes with Arietta playing their baby grand while his father sang Italian and Russian arias. She had the good manners not to compare his voice to her father’s. Jay knew the evening had been a success because Mr. Klug sang for others only when he was enjoying the company, and concluded the concert with the “Volga Boat Song,” even though the last few hours had been smooth sailing.

  Arietta and Jay spent Saturday together, seeing a movie and returning to the hotel where she played the piano and he croaked out a countertenor of “My Grandfather’s Clock.” Then they danced to a record of “Stardust.” On this particular evening, after they made love, she whispered, “I love you.”

  “Does your love earn me the right to enter the adyta of your heart?”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “I want to share your private thoughts.”

  “Then they wouldn’t be private.”

  “In other words . . .”

  She silenced him with a kiss.

  Intentionally, he stayed away from her house on Sundays, figuring that she might want to attend church or some Catholic social event. He knew that she was in the dance studio every day but Thursday. So on that morning, he sat in Puddy’s car, parked down the street from Arietta’s house. Watching for her out of the rearview mirror, he decided that detection was not his line of work. You spend most of your time waiting, and if you want to interrupt the boredom by looking at a paper or magazine, you run the risk of missing your mark. By the end of the day, he called it quits. Both his bladder, on the point of bursting, and his head, dizzy from a day of sitting, told him that he had to find relief. He looked at the dashboard clock: two minutes after five. Bold as brass, he turned the car around and pulled up in front of Arietta’s house. She answered the bell and looked genuinely pleased. But before they could get cozy, he asked to use the bathroom. When he returned, she asked what had brought him. The few minutes in the bathroom had given him enough time to concoct an explanation: he wanted to write an arts piece on Mr. Magliocco and his former operatic glory in Italy.

  “We have so many immigrants who were performers in the old country,” he explained. “Wouldn’t it be nice to recognize them? Who knows, it might lead to something for your father.”

  Jay hung around talking to Mr. M. for almost an hour but could see that Arietta wanted him to leave. Glancing at her watch, she mumbled that she had an engagement at seven. He deliberately stalled for several minutes, thanked the old gentleman, gave Arietta a chaste hug, and left. As he got behind the wheel, a black LaSalle pulled up a short distance behind him and discharged a very dapper looking Axel Kuppler. Jay slowly pulled away, but not before he saw Arietta meet Axel on the front steps, take his arm, and lead him to the car.

  Here was Jay’s chance. He went to the end of the block and parked. When they came down the street, he ducked until they had passed and then followed. Axel drove to Springfield Avenue, pulled into a dark alley, and parked the LaSalle behind a building a few doors away from the Schwaben Halle, a favorite meeting place for German-Americans. Jay parked nearby. The second-floor lights in the building barely showed behind drawn blinds, but the back door stood slightly ajar. Deciding to risk more than he had originally intended, he started up the wooden stairs. Creak! He removed his shoes and took pains to place his weight on the sides of the steps. At the first landing, a door read: “Frank Beer and Sons: Accountants.” As he crept up toward the second level, he heard voices and halted. Though he couldn’t make out the words, he could tell that the parties were in heated disagreement. When the tempers subsided, he left his perch, descended to the bottom of the stairs, put on his shoes, and, hugging the wall, returned to the car.

  The next day, he and Arietta dined at a small posh restaurant in a bucolic setting. Reaching across the table, he took her hand, gave her an affectionate smile, and told her how much she meant to him. She responded that she hoped to have a place
in his future.

  Fearful of mentioning Kuppler directly, he approached the subject obliquely.

  “Do you still have your giraffe?” Arietta looked uncomprehending. “You know, the stuffed animal you won at Coney Island.”

  “Yes, I keep it on the bookcase next to my bed.”

  “You have no idea how surprised I was running into Margie Smith on the boardwalk.”

  “The whore?”

  She said the word so derisively, he wanted to reply that her friend Mr. Kuppler apparently didn’t mind making a living off a streetwalker’s earnings. But he held his fire, electing to dissimulate.

  “She called the other day . . . wants to know if I’ll enter a marathon dance with her in Brooklyn.”

  “I thought you were through with marathons.”

  “That’s what I told her. Maybe she’ll ask her . . . her friend Mr. Kuppler.”

  She replied contemptuously, “Unlikely!”

  “Unlikely that she’ll ask him or that he’ll accept?”

  “The latter.”

  “You must know him pretty well to predict his response.”

  She poked at the food on her plate. “There’s something I ought to tell you, Jay. I used to date Axel. For a while, we saw a lot of each other.”

  “How much?” he asked sarcastically.

  “What do you mean? It’s all over now.”

  “How much of you did he see: some of you, all of you, dressed, undressed?”

  She put down her fork. “I don’t care for your attitude.”

  “Well, I don’t care for my best girl carrying on with a Nazi—or is he a double agent?”

  He had never seen Arietta look so hurt. She bit her lip and tears came to her eyes.

  “Why do you think I am telling you about him? It’s because of my feelings for you. But apparently you don’t feel the same toward me.”

  His guilt lodged palpably in his throat, paralyzing his speech. Yet what she said couldn’t be true; she’d seen him just yesterday. Forcing himself to speak, he said, “You’ve been honest with me. I’ll be equally candid with you. I saw you leave with Axel last night.”

  “Yes, we went to his office. He asked me to resume our . . .”

  “Affair!” he said nastily.

  “Former romance. I told him that I had found someone else. He made some disparaging comments about you and said he would settle the matter in his own way. I replied with some unladylike things, and then Axel took me home. You can ask my father what time I returned. I was gone for less than an hour.”

  Feeling that he had rewarded her sincerity with abuse, he tried to excuse himself with the observation that “a person in love imagines sleights and sees obstacles where none exist.”

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to wear your heart on your sleeve?”

  “I suppose I could keep it out of sight, but the delicious pain reminds me of your infinite variety.”

  She snorted, “Plagiarist.”

  A few nights later, he returned to the building where she and Axel had fought. Casing the joint from the outside, he eventually found a way in: a cellar door, rotted from years of exposure to the elements, gave way with a good kick. In the dark of the cellar, he upbraided himself for not bringing a flashlight and other tools of the housebreaking trade. He would know better next time. That occasion presented itself two nights later, when he brought a flashlight, locksmith’s pick, gloves, and, just in case, a crowbar. Pushing aside cobwebs and old wooden boxes, he found the staircase and made his way to the second floor. The door, which on his first reconnaissance mission he had missed because he had stopped at a bend in the stairs, had a window that said: “Bavarian Imports.” He used the pick to unlock the door and enter the office. On the wall hung a picture of Adolf Hitler, and in the corner stood a pedestal holding a flag with a swastika. Some German slogans adorned the walls, but the only one he could make out was “Death to the Jews.”

  A battered desk, several spindle chairs, and two wooden filing cabinets constituted all the furniture. But before he could start nosing around, he heard a car pull up in the alley. Fear gripped him, and suddenly he needed a toilet. Some second-story man! He couldn’t even keep his bowel under control. Looking through the Venetian blinds, he caught sight of a man entering the adjacent building. He eased himself out the front door, found a lavatory, and waited, trying to decide whether to bolt. Recalling some of the mystery movies he’d reviewed, he wondered what causes the greater terror: when the victim and the audience are both surprised by the intruder’s sudden appearance or when the audience, but not the victim, knows in advance that someone is approaching? He decided the latter and, but for the sound of a car door slamming and a car driving off, would have skedaddled. His ruminations, however, inspired him to move quickly.

  The locked desk gave way to his pick. Rifling through it, he found nothing of real interest. In one of the filing cabinets that he picked, he came across a letter informing the Friends of the New Germany that a major Nazi dignitary (unnamed) would be addressing the faithful in New York City at the Jaeger restaurant in Yorktown and in Newark at the Schwaben Halle. The date for the latter meeting was two weeks hence.

  A manila envelope with receipts showed that Kuppler, among others, had taken a number of bus and rail trips, many of them out of state and as far west as California. Kuppler had also frequented the Robert Treat Hotel, occasionally staying overnight and running up a few bills in the restaurant.

  In a folder labeled “Publicity,” he stumbled across several memos listing public figures that might be assassinated for the good of the cause. One of the names leapt off the page: “The actress Jean Harlow has a worldwide reputation. The death in 1932 of her husband, Paul Bern, remains unsolved. If it could be made to look like murder at the hands of the Jewish gangster Abner Zwillman, it would prove helpful to our anti-Jewish campaign. (Motive: Zwillman and Harlow were once lovers. We could say that Zwillman was jealous.)” He stuffed the memo in his pocket and the next day sent it to Zwillman with a letter of explanation.

  A second item, a cablegram, tersely said, “We’ve convinced Brundage. The Olympics are on. Silence the Reds and Jews and all talk of boycott. You have the list.” Signed: von Halt.

  The other filing cabinet, which he also picked, had only one folder of interest: an alphabetical membership list. Under the letter E appeared the name Ewerhardt, Arietta.

  Several nights later, he introduced Arietta to the heart of the Jewish quarter. As they strolled along Prince Street, a few pushcarts, lit by kerosene lanterns, still remained open for business. She stopped to finger some shmattahs, and bought nothing more than a pair of shoelaces. They stopped at Kaplan’s for a Danish and cup of coffee. She observed that several old men cooled their coffee by spooning it into their saucers, and asked why they balanced a cube of sugar between their teeth as they drank their coffee or tea. What he took for granted, she found exotic.

  “They like their drinks saturated in sugar. If you look closely, you’ll see that most of them have V-shaped front teeth, from the sugar having eaten away the enamel.”

  Comparing Jewish and Italian culture, they concluded that the two groups had more in common than one might suppose. Still intent on getting more information about her and Kuppler, he segued awkwardly, “Italians are one thing, but the differences between Germans and Jews could fill volumes, except of course for German Jews.”

  “Why single them out?”

  “They have always disdained other Jews as beneath them intellectually and culturally.”

  “From what I read in the German papers, many of them think they will escape the Nazis’ wrath, but I don’t think so.”

  “From your sources,” he said, hoping that she wouldn’t just cite newspapers but would give him something more substantial, “what do you think the Nazis have in mind for this country?”

  “For the Nazi
s to mobilize the people, whether in Germany or here, they have to persuade them that they are threatened by a common enemy. In both cases, they say it’s the Communists and Jews. Some people, as you might expect, regard them as one and the same. Newspapers all over Germany are full of this rubbish.”

  Noting that she failed to mention Kuppler and his Nazi colleagues, he confided that to learn more about the doctrines of the Friends, he planned to attend one of their upcoming meetings.

  “When?” she asked, alarmed.

  “A week from this Saturday at Schwaben Halle.”

  “Don’t!” she said urgently.

  “Why not?”

  “What if you’re discovered and the meeting turns violent?”

  “The worst they can do is throw me out.”

  “Or worse. Some of the men might be armed.”

  “Have you told the police?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jay, just trust me.”

  Further questions elicited equally vague responses. When they parted, he paid a cabby to take her to Littleton Avenue. She rolled down the window and said, “Please, be careful.”

  With that, she left him standing on the curb in front of Kaplan’s. To clear his head, he walked back to the hotel. That night, he thrashed about in bed, sleeping little and wondering about her warning: What precisely could it mean and what was its source?

  He didn’t see Arietta again until after the riot. On the Saturday night in question, he arrived early and stood across the street, out of sight. A car pulled up and two men, one of them Nat Arno, carried a tarpaulin into the dark alley next to Schwaben Halle. Not until other cars arrived later, disgorging rough-looking guys, did he learn the contents of the tarp: iron pipes, baseball bats, and clubs. The “Minutemen,” dressed in shirt-sleeves and polo shirts, positioned themselves in the courtyards of apartments opposite the hall. When the Friends, many of them dressed in Nazi uniforms, entered the hall, the Minutemen challenged and taunted them. He gravitated to the back of the building, where he saw the ex-boxer Abie Bain and some of his pals slashing tires and breaking windshields, presumably of cars belonging to Friends. A long ladder, leaning against the rear wall, reached to the second-story windows that faced the auditorium. He wondered whether the attack would follow the same plan as the one the Minutemen had launched in the fall of 1933.