by Thaisa Frank
Stumpf had been Obërst of the Compound until Lodenstein replaced him. For reasons no one had bothered to explain, he’d had to move from the room above the earth to a shoebox accessed by winding steps. The shoebox was his bedroom as well as his office: in addition to a desk it had a mattress, crystal balls, and books about the astral plane.
It also had a large window overlooking the main room of the Compound. Once, rotating guards patrolled the Scribes, but after Germany lost Stalingrad, only Lars was left to guard the forest, and Stumpf had to patrol. He rationalized his demotion by imagining he was the only person Goebbels trusted to make sure the Scribes did their work. But secretly he agonized.
Before Stalingrad, Stumpf had been delighted to record answers to the dead and loved his huge metal stamp and big black paw of an inkpad. But the guards had been clever at foreign languages, and Stumpf had never learned one. If the correspondence was in German, Stumpf used his huge metal stamp so vigorously the crystal ball on his desk rattled. But if the letters were in a foreign language, he had no way of knowing whether the Scribes had duped him by writing nonsense. Sometimes his stamp hovered in the air. Sometimes it pounced. At other times he got overwhelmed. Then he heaved down the spiral staircase and told everyone in the main room they were scroungers. His rants went on until someone—a Scribe, or Lodenstein, if he were there—put two fingers in the shape of devil’s horns behind his head. Everyone laughed, the folds in Stumpf’s face sagged, and he crept back to his shoebox, looking so forlorn people felt sorry for him. But only for a while. Being ridiculed was trivial compared to having a gun at your head or seeing your child shoved into a cattle car.
Dear Mother,
I hope you can read this letter. They have asked that I write in pure German, not our dialect. Perhaps I will help out with translations. Lotte and I both miss you.
Love,
Franz
Stumpf, who was still under the illusion that Lodenstein treated the Scribes like prisoners, despised them because they didn’t respect what he perceived to be the mission of the Compound. They answered only half of what they could have answered in a day and spent the rest of the time writing in diaries and holding raffles for Elie’s old room: they raffled cigarettes, sausages—it didn’t matter what, as long as it amused them. Meanwhile, thousands of letters from the camps arrived each month, and Stumpf had gotten word from Goebbels’s office that there would be an inspection in a fortnight. There were too many dead and no way all the letters could be answered. So, much against his principles, he was planning to bury thousands of letters in the rye field of his brother’s farm near Dresden. He was sure all the dead deserved answers and was upset by this decision, but it was better than being shot. Stumpf’s sacrifices to the dead stopped when it came to joining them.
He had been sneaking mail to his shoebox and was figuring out whether he could fit all seventeen crates of letters into his Kübelwagen when Elie Schacten knocked. Stumpf had been so appalled by his lack of privacy that he’d secured his door with gold-plated latches—seven in all. They fastened with hooks and made his door resemble hooks and eyes on old boots. Stumpf unlocked every one of them, and Elie Schacten came in holding a pair of rimless glasses with thin gold earpieces that wobbled like insect legs. She also showed him a letter that was gibberish and a prescription for the glasses.
Stumpf peered at the letter.
What gibberish, he said. And why these glasses?
Because they need to be delivered, said Elie. Really delivered.
Everything’s delivered, said Stumpf. In crates.
I mean delivered to someone who’s alive, said Elie.
She showed him the orders from Goebbels’s office, and Stumpf held them to the light to see if the paper had the seals of the offices, which he’d seen many times when he was an Under-Under Secretary. After he decided the seals were authentic, he said:
Maybe someone else wrote the orders. They aren’t even signed.
Whoever wrote them, said Elie, the outpost says it’s an order.
What does the outpost know? said Stumpf.
It’s all over the Reich, said Elie.
Stumpf sighed when Elie mentioned the Reich: he’d once been part of important conversations behind enormous doors and used the seals he’d just scrutinized—seals that pressed the swastika deeper than his metal stamp. Stumpf’s folds of skin gave him three chins and often made him look startled. Now he looked sad—even his chins. Elie patted his hand.
But why now? he said. This man went to Auschwitz in October.
It’s urgent, said Elie. Heidegger used to be Chancellor of Freiburg, and he needs his glasses.
Someone smart enough to be Chancellor wouldn’t wait that long for a pair of glasses, said Stumpf. He’d get new ones from an Aryan optometrist.
It doesn’t matter, Elie said. They want Heidegger to get these glasses—with an answer to his letter.
But we only answer letters to the dead!
Elie touched his metal stamp. This is an order, she said quietly. Do you know what that means?
How else could I be in charge of these scoundrels if I didn’t? But why do you suppose Goebbels wants this? It’s against our mission.
Stumpf looked genuinely puzzled—as if he always knew what Goebbels wanted.
Heidegger and the optometrist were friends, said Elie. The kind who take walks together.
But Heidegger’s not in good standing. The Gestapo’s watching him.
He still gets to talk in Paris, said Elie. Besides, he and the optometrist taught philosophy.
This seemed to faze Stumpf, and the gears in his head began to grind: If Heidegger and the Jew taught philosophy, then they wrote each other letters that were incomprehensible. And if they wrote each other letters that were incomprehensible, then, under the strict rule of Like Answers Like, Heidegger would need an answer from someone who could write a letter that was just as incomprehensible.
He looked at Elie and allowed himself to enjoy her tangle of blond curls and tea-rose perfume. He even imagined he could smell real weather—pine trees, fresh snow, the fragrance of light itself.
Leave everything here, he said. I’ll take it to someone higher up.
I’ve taken it to someone higher up, said Elie. He said to talk to you.
Then I’ll do something about it.
I don’t think you will.
Who will then? Not one of those down there.
He meant the Scribes. A few were writing a crossword puzzle on the blackboard.
What a miserable bunch, he said.
They’re not miserable at all, said Elie. They’re just in a miserable place.
I am, too, said Stumpf. But I still do my work.
Elie looked at a crystal ball and three candlesticks on his dresser. She touched a mailbag full of letters with her foot.
What are these? she said.
Papers to store, said Stumpf.
Elie picked a postcard from a mailbag. It was an unremarkable card, with coerced praise from a prisoner and a purple postage stamp of Hitler. Stumpf looked at Elie like a pleading dog.
Put that back! said Stumpf. I’ll find a way to answer it—I promise.
Stumpf didn’t want to talk to his replacement, Gerhardt Lodenstein, who was only there—he was sure—so Stumpf wouldn’t hold more séances. Stumpf decided never to mention the matter concerning Heidegger to anyone and bury the orders, the letter, the prescription, and the glasses at his brother’s farm. Nonsense didn’t deserve an answer. Someday Goebbels would thank him.
But when he went back to his desk, he realized Elie had taken everything except the prescription for Heidegger’s glasses. And now he saw a note on the prescription that said: Important—for future use in the event of my disappearance, Asher Englehardt. The note made him wonder whether Heidegger had special eye problems—he’d once heard of something called elongated corneas—so God knows what else could be wrong. And if Heidegger couldn’t see as a result of his neglect and was exonerated, Stumpf could b
e shot.
So he went to talk to General-Major Mueller who’d come to the Compound to do mysterious work for Goebbels and was about to go back to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. He took off his wooly bedroom slippers, put on his boots, and walked from his shoebox down the spiral stairs. He had to pass through the main room to reach Mueller’s quarters and tripped when he opened the door to the street. But no one gave him the slightest notice.
General-Major Mueller, who looked like a raccoon in a dark coat and black leather gloves, was eating fleischkonserve with gherkins in spacious quarters to the left of the main room of the Compound. His room had a rosewood bed, a matching dresser, a mahogany desk, and two gilded mirrors to simulate windows. Mueller had fourteen gherkins on his plate—twelve more than the daily ration. He was eating them as revenge for not having been asked to the feast.
Mueller didn’t like Stumpf or Lodenstein but shared some passions with each of them. With Stumpf he shared a passion for Elie Schacten and the Reich. With Lodenstein he shared a passion for Elie Schacten and solitaire. He was annoyed that Lodenstein could satisfy both his passions while he only got to satisfy one. This was solitaire, which he played when he read his mysterious papers, made his mysterious phone calls, and when he ate. When Stumpf came in, he was playing a game called Czarina and didn’t bother to look up from his desk.
I need to talk to you, said Stumpf.
Mueller swept a stack.
Quickly, then. I’m leaving.
Stumpf wasn’t smart but was blessed with a skill that made him first indispensable to the Reich, and later undesirable: he remembered everything he read—word for word, comma for comma—and recited the orders precisely. When he’d finished, Mueller said:
Your job is to answer letters from people who are dead. And Heidegger’s not dead yet.
Just what I thought, said Stumpf.
People lose sight these days, said Mueller. Even Goebbels.
You shouldn’t talk about him that way.
Why not? said Mueller, picking up another gherkin. Himmler has gone haywire. And Goebbels is acting deluded. Like rain on a dark night.
Mueller often compared things to the weather, and Stumpf was never sure what he meant. Rain fell in the same place whether it was night or day.
I don’t think you understand, he said. Heidegger and this man were friends. Who cares? said Mueller. On the other hand—he closed his eyes—Goebbels has reasons for everything.
What are they now?
I would be violating his trust if I told you.
A hint, then, said Stumpf.
Even a hint would be wrong, said Mueller, who had no idea what Goebbels wanted. Besides, said Mueller, patting his head, I must hang on to this, and giving away secrets is a good way to lose it.
Elie Schacten says it’s because they were friends, said Stumpf.
Elie Schacten is admirable, said Mueller. But she’s trying to make sense of something she can’t understand.
There was a moment of silence in which both men observed their reverence for Elie Schacten—provider of their schnapps, wearer of tea-rose perfume.
He doesn’t deserve her, said Mueller, meaning Lodenstein. He shoved his cards into a tooled-leather case.
Fucking Berlin, he said. Lodenstein should be going there.
Maybe he will soon, said Stumpf.
Not with his luck. He’ll play cards and sleep with her forever.
Goebbels is after his ass, said Stumpf.
He’s after almost everyone’s except mine, said Mueller.
Stumpf coughed. Then could you ask him about the orders? he said. And the letter to Heidegger?
Are you crazy? I’d be shot. People aren’t themselves these days. They make ridiculous demands and hold séances.
The mention of séances made Stumpf so nervous he ate a gherkin off Mueller’s plate. He’d often thought it was Mueller who had told Goebbels’s office about a séance he’d held where a candle fell over and started a fire in a corner of the upstairs room. Mueller helped put out the fire and was the only person who knew about it.
I don’t think you should do anything, Mueller continued, locking the black leather case where he stored his mysterious papers. The optometrist went to school with Heidegger before Heidegger knew the optometrist was a dog. Besides, Heidegger’s pissed off everyone. I say to hell with him.
You’re telling the former Chancellor of Freiburg to go to hell! I should report you.
Go ahead. Let them shoot me.
This was a lie. Even though Mueller worried that his days were numbered, he wanted as many of them as possible and was angry that he, not Lodenstein, had been called back to Berlin. He was so angry he thought about putting a bullet through Stumpf’s head. But he couldn’t just throw him in the forest and cover him with leaves. There would be an investigation.
Do whatever you want, he said, yanking on his boots. Bring him the damned glasses. Leave them outside his little hut. I’m sure Heidegger believes in elves.
But don’t think the Scribes are going to help you, he continued. They’re useless with their lotteries and word games. You should shoot them.
You can’t shoot the Scribes! There would be no one to answer letters.
Do you really believe these records matter?
Stumpf, who never forgot his inferior position, drew back.
I’m sure the dead are waiting to read them, he said.
No one believes that, said Mueller.
Himmler does.
But not Goebbels, said Mueller. He doesn’t believe that at all. He dusted a boot and handed Stumpf a miniature ivory box and a deck of cards.
Tell Lodenstein the cards are a good-bye present, he said. And the box is for Elie Schacten.
I’m not your servant, said Stumpf, shoving everything back.
And he left the rosewood room still a burdened man because no one in the Compound took the mission more seriously than he did. Stumpf was sure the idea about answering letters to the dead or about-to-be-dead had occurred to him at the same time it occurred to the Thule Society, just the way two people in the 17th century—he couldn’t remember who—had discovered calculus at the same time. Lodenstein treated the project carelessly, which so bothered Stumpf he often woke in the middle of the night, sure the dead were hounding him. He was sure he could hear them now.
Dearest Abramo,
Please don’t worry. We had to leave the office quickly because of important work. Conditions are good—much better than they were at home—and the food is plentiful. If you brought the children, we could all be together.
Love,
Vanessa
After she left Stumpf’s watchtower, Elie Schacten sat on a wrought-iron bench outside the Compound’s main room. Hans Ewigkeit, with Thor Ungeheur, the Compound’s interior designer, had ordered these benches placed at random on the street. He’d wanted to suggest an affluent city park.
Elie knew Stumpf wouldn’t do anything but hoped she’d planted a seed. She lit a cigarette and stared at a photograph of Goebbels hanging next to the mineshaft. The photograph was five feet tall, just five inches less than his actual height. Goebbels was posed near an unusually small umbrella that made him appear taller. When Elie looked at his face, it was full of hope. But when she just looked at his eyes, she saw a sad, liquid quality. She took out the photographs—of Asher Englehardt and Heidegger, of Asher Englehardt’s ruined shop. She looked at them and put them away.
A few Scribes asked if she was all right, and Elie fobbed them off by leafing through her dark red notebook. Now and then she paused to read something—never more than a fragment—a forest near the house/ice cracking in the spring—but was interrupted by Sonia Markova, a Russian ballerina who practiced pliés in a state of eternal melancholy.
You look worried, said Sonia, sitting next to her.
I’m just tired, said Elie, closing the notebook.
Sonia’s white ermine coat brushed against her cashmere sweater, and for a moment Elie felt caught in Hans Ewig
keit’s dream: she and Sonia weren’t ten meters below the earth in a converted mine, but two well-heeled women in a city park. She was glad when Scribes began to argue in the kitchen and she had an excuse to leave. They all wanted coffee, but no one wanted to brew enough for everyone. Elie ducked under the clanging pots and said she’d make it herself. But the Scribes said she did enough for them and waved her away. So she went upstairs, where Gerhardt Lodenstein was playing his ninth game of solitaire for the day.
