by Thaisa Frank
Lodenstein knew over fifty games. Among them were Zodiac, The Castle of Indolence, Griffon, Streets and Alleys, Thumb and Pouch, Open Crescent, Five Companions, Seven Sisters, Waste the Same, Mantis, Scarab, Twin Queens, Up or Down, Step by Step, and Milky Way. He played in stacks and cascades and felt a sensual thrill when he could do a full levens. Besides Elie Schacten, solitaire was the only thing that kept him sane. When she came in he was playing Czarina. His compass was on the floor. She put it on the bedside table.
So, he said, is Stumpf your angel?
He didn’t understand a thing, said Elie.
Has he ever?
Not once. But I thought it would work to our advantage this time.
Our advantage? said Lodenstein. He gave her a sharp look. All I want is to keep the Scribes from a death march.
You’re imagining the worst, said Elie.
Then why do you bother with rescues?
Elie didn’t answer and took off her cardigan. Heidegger’s glasses fell from the pocket. Lodenstein picked them up.
Do you think Goebbels gives a damn if Heidegger gets these? he said. Germany’s losing this war, so what better way to feel good than issue impossible orders?
He doesn’t want the Heideggers to know about the camps, said Elie, taking the glasses back. And if they don’t get what they want, they’ll keep poking around.
He’d handle them if they found out.
He doesn’t want to handle them. He wants us to. And the outpost officer is frantic.
Lodenstein set a few cards aside. It was a special move called a heel.
You see, said Elie, pointing to the cards. There are always ways to break the rules.
That’s why I like solitaire. It’s not a dangerous game.
Elie stayed by the windows and looked at snow dusting the pines. She wondered if it was snowing at Auschwitz.
It looks like a painting out there, she said.
Except it’s not, said Lodenstein. Who knows how many fugitives are hiding in those woods?
And I could have been one of them, said Elie.
Thank God you’re not.
Except I’m not myself anymore, she said. Sometimes I think even you don’t know who I am.
Of course I know who you are.
You know what I mean.
What Elie meant was that she often felt like two different people. One was Elie Schacten, born in Stuttgart, a translator for the importer Schiff und Wagg. The other was Elie Kowaleski, a student in linguistics at Freiburg.
Elie Schacten had grown up in Germany with nursery rhymes and cooking classes. She was engaged to a soldier killed at the front. Elie Kowaleski had grown up with Polish nuns who beat her fingers until they bled, had parents who found her obstreperous, and a sister she missed every day. The two Elies worked in tandem: The first was cautious, established bonds with the black market and got food for the Compound. The second was dauntless, got more food than people ever meant to give, and smuggled people to Switzerland.
I wish you’d tell me your real last name, said Lodenstein—not for the first time.
It’s a secret, said Elie—not for the first time.
It’s not good to feel like two people, he said.
But I am two people. And someday they might ask you the wrong questions. So the less you know the better.
They were interrupted by General-Major Mueller, who came in without knocking and shoved a deck of cards at Lodenstein.
What game should I tell Goebbels you’re playing these days? he said. Persian Patience? Odd and Even?
Tell him I’m playing Mueller Shuffling Papers, said Lodenstein.
Go fuck yourself, said Mueller. He slammed the door. They heard his duffel bag scrape against the incline.
You pissed him off, said Elie.
Go out and make up to him, said Lodenstein.
Why? He’s a pig.
I want to keep Goebbels happy.
So even you need the other Elie.
You just know how to charm people, said Lodenstein, taking her in his arms. But you’re always the same to me.
Dear Yvonne,
As I was crossing the border they took all my special papers and sent me to a pleasant place. And so I’m not traveling incognito anymore. It seems to be the general opinion that this is a good place and everyone should come, including you.
All my love,
Maurice
Elie followed Mueller, who looked incongruous with his elegant tooled-leather case and beat-up duffel bag. Outside the shepherd’s hut there was a path of oval stones that led to the clearing. Mueller turned around when he heard Elie’s boots crack the ice.
How lovely to see you, he said and took her arm.
Elie held her arm at a distance and watched his elbow gesture toward the sky. It was a dazzling incandescent blue.
If only we could be like the weather, said Mueller.
Who says we can’t? said Elie.
The war, he said. Rain means waiting to attack, sun means charging ahead, and winter means Stalingrad.
But Stalingrad was last winter.
And it changed winter forever, said Mueller.
Elie tried to free her arm. Mueller pressed closer.
Let me give you some advice, he said. Leave those orders alone.
What orders?
You know what orders. And you also know that if it weren’t for a certain officer, we’d have spent more time together.
I’m not sure what you mean.
Of course you do, said Mueller. He put down his bags and kissed Elie’s hand. She felt his moustache bristle her fingers and wished she’d worn gloves.
You’re very kind, she said.
You know I’m not kind at all.
Well, I’m sure wherever you’re going, you’ll do good, she said. Gerhardt thinks so too.
You’re lying, said Mueller. But you’ll do good. You always do. Except you’re too nice to those people down there.
Everyone suffers in a war.
But some people don’t deserve to suffer as much as others, said Mueller.
They’d come to his Kübelwagen, and Mueller, who boasted about refusing a confiscated American jeep, patted a window, then bent close to Elie and spoke in a low voice.
About those glasses, he said. I’d ignore everything. People aren’t themselves these days, and even a wild card like Heidegger isn’t a problem. Who cares if he doesn’t get his glasses? Nothing bends the will of the Reich. Not even the dead.
Elie tried to look incredulous. Do you really think so?
Of course, said Mueller. The Führer won’t leave his bunker, and Goebbels is always in that marketplace talking about the war. Who even knows if he even wrote those orders?
I’m sure he didn’t, said Elie.
I’m glad you agree.
Mueller took off his gloves and patted Elie’s hand.
I’ll miss you, he said.
And I’ll miss you, she said, in a voice so distant it seemed to come from the forest.
Would Obërst Lodenstein mind if I kissed you?
Oh…you know…best not to disturb things.
Of course, said Mueller. But if I can ever help you, let me know. Meanwhile, make sure those people answer letters. There are too many languages in that room. It’s the Tower of Babel if they don’t stay busy. And Stumpf should take his hands off Sonia Markova.
You’re right about that, said Elie.
Well, here’s a kiss anyway, said Mueller. And he pressed his lips against Elie’s—so tightly his medals pricked her chin.
You have no idea how much regard I have for you, he said.
And I for you, said Elie. But I’m freezing without a coat.
She turned to leave, but Mueller pulled at her sleeve and handed her the ivory box. It’s a puzzle-box, he said. Try to open it.
Elie worked the panels until the box flew open. There was a carving of a plum tree inside.
To spring! said Mueller. To a whole new season!
It’s lovely, s
aid Elie, handing it back.
It’s for you, said Mueller.
But things get lost here.
Or a certain Obërst gets jealous, said Mueller, pushing the box at her. Anyway, if you don’t take it, I’ll have to tell Goebbels a thing or two.
He bowed with a flourish and drove away on the unpaved road. The wheels of his Kübelwagen broke the ice, reminding Elie of shattered glass.
While Mueller was leaving, Dieter Stumpf was in his shoebox deciding which Scribe should answer Martin Heidegger’s letter to Asher Englehardt. It was a nuisance to answer even one letter to the living when so many dead were waiting. But he was sure if he could deliver everything, Goebbels would decide that Lodenstein should live in the shoebox, and he would be reinstated as Obërst of the Compound.
To this purpose, he looked down at the immense room and consulted a list that detailed the background of every Scribe: the list, compiled by the SS, said where each Scribe had been born, their siblings, where they’d gone to school, and what they’d studied. While he read the list, Elie Schacten opened the door to the main room and sat at her desk facing the Scribes. She shoved pencils into jars, put papers away, and took out her dark red notebook. She looked up at Dieter Stumpf in his shoebox. He looked away.
The vast room, lit by kerosene lanterns, would have been dreary except for splotches of color on the Scribes’ rakish scarves and fingerless gloves. Stumpf looked from the room to the list and back to the room again. The last time he counted there were fifty-four Scribes, and every one had studied something he didn’t understand. But only five had read in philosophy:
There was a blond, somewhat wasted-looking woman named Gitka Kapusinki from Poland, who’d been pulled from a deportation line when an SS man heard her speak Czech. And her lover, Ferdinand La Toya, who wore a long black coat and smoked potent Spanish cigars, was snatched from deportation when a guard told him to go fuck himself, and he’d answered—first in Catalan, then in Italian—under what circumstances? And Niles Schopenhauer—not related to the Schopenhauer—who was sent from a work camp because he knew seven languages. There was also Sophie Nachtgarten, who’d published a paper called Time and The Unicorn: A Treatise on Necessary Truth. She’d surprised a guard whose mother came from Norway, regaled him with Norwegian drinking songs, and charmed her way to the Compound instead of Bergen-Belsen. And Parvis Nafissian, with black beetle brows and a trim goatee. He was the only Scribe who’d been forced to write a letter. But when a guard saw he’d written one in Turkish and another in Farsi, he pulled him from the line at Treblinka and shoved him into a Kübelwagen. Nafissian answered almost no letters at all. He read whatever detective stories Elie could find.
Stumpf decided that any of them would do, and—since any of them would do—all five could write the letter together. He was about to go down his spiral staircase to talk to them when Sonia Markova knocked on his door, and Stumpf went through the laborious business of unlatching it. Sonia, who’d once danced with the Bolshoi ballet, had snuck from Russia to see a lover in Berlin, was caught on her way back, and demonstrated three Russian dialects. She had delectable legs, high cheekbones, green eyes, translucent skin, and black curls. She was also clairvoyant and sometimes agreed to secret séances—not only for people who’d died in camps and ghettos but for ordinary people as well—the 19th-century dressmaker, for example, whose séance caused the fire in the upstairs room, or a woman who’d written her lover fighting in the Crimea. Stumpf had taken these letters secretly from attics of people who had been deported or warehouses and old files of government offices. There were letters from button makers, coach makers, furriers, boat makers, wheelwrights, printers, illusionists, and artists. He thought all the dead deserved answers.
Now Sonia walked in looking gloomy and said she couldn’t keep her mind on anything because it was her niece’s birthday.
She’s ten, said Sonia. And she doesn’t even know where I am.
Stumpf said she’d feel better if she held one of his crystal balls. He hoped this would turn into a séance for all the dead whose letters would be buried in his brother’s rye field and wanted to send a group letter asking forgiveness for not answering each one individually. But Sonia sat on the floor, looking like a mound of snow in her ermine coat, and began to cry. When Stumpf asked why she was crying, she said she missed every person in her family.
Even the ones I didn’t like.
Stumpf took off her coat and hugged her cautiously, feeling his bulk. Sonia was often sad, and this could trigger his own sadness—deep, inchoate, since he’d been sent below the earth. But if he concentrated on her body, he could almost enjoy her grief because she let him comfort her. Sometimes they ended up on his mattress—she crying, he groping. But not today. Sonia put on her coat and said she was too miserable for love.
Please don’t go, said Stumpf. He grabbed one of Sonia’s ermine sleeves.
If only we weren’t in the lowest tier! he said.
What? Sonia pulled her arm away.
If only there were a tier below us, said Stumpf. With people who could help.
You mean people even lower than us with less air to breathe? How can you think that way? We already live like animals.
Sonia smoothed the sleeve Stumpf had grabbed and walked downstairs. Moments later he saw her at her desk—white fingers poking from dark red gloves.
She looked angry and irresistible. Stumpf went down the spiral staircase to ask her back. But he wanted to disguise his reason for spending any time away from work, so he investigated the paraphernalia against the walls. He knew he was the only example of diligence in the Compound and shouldn’t take too much time. So he sorted quickly, haphazardly, and knocked over a bolt of wool. The bolt fell on the telescope, the telescope fell on the tailor’s dummy, and the tailor’s dummy fell on a clock. The Scribes applauded, and Stumpf was about to creep to his shoebox when he smelled Elie Schacten’s tea-rose perfume.
Dieter, she said softly. Just the person I want to see.
Even today after she’d so precipitously taken what he wanted to bury, Stumpf was happy to be intercepted by Elie Schacten. Whenever he saw her, or anything that belonged to her, he felt inexplicable excitement, including her enormous desk, which faced the multitude of Scribes. It had an aura of omnipotence, dauntlessness—like Elie.
It was to this desk that he pulled up a chair. Elie put aside a list—she never pretended to monitor the Scribes—and gave him a piece of brandied chocolate.
Stumpf savored the brandy exploding in his mouth. Elie gave him three more pieces. He didn’t like the way Elie got favors, but he relished the chocolate and schnapps she brought to the Compound and was sure they’d make perfect colleagues if only she believed, as he did, that Germany would win the war. He looked at Elie dolefully and hoped she’d know what he was thinking. She smiled at him and said:
I feel sorry for Goebbels, Dieter. He’s got too much on his mind these days.
It’s hard to be on the edge of victory, said Stumpf.
Exactly, said Elie. And Gerhardt doesn’t want to bother him. But the orders are confusing. So it might help if you could call him. You know how to talk to him.
Stumpf had a tick over his left eye. It began to pulse.
No one calls Goebbels, he said.
But you have clout, said Elie.
Of course I have clout, he said. But the more clout you have the more careful you are about using it.
Elie touched his arm and bent her head close. Once more he was enveloped in tea-rose. Maybe the optometrist could come here and write the letter himself, she said. After all, Heidegger wrote it to him.
Elie’s hand felt delicious, but the tick was distracting.
That’s impossible, whispered Stumpf. We only write to the dead. They need us. They’re waiting to hear.
That’s why the orders are confusing, said Elie. By the way…I just heard a story about someone who got out of Auschwitz.
You don’t mean that fucking angel they’re talking about?
No, no, said Elie, who in fact meant exactly that. It was a woman who got her husband out. His mother was Aryan—just like Asher Englehardt’s.
How did she meet her husband?
At a Hitler Youth Meeting.
That’s why he got out, said Stumpf. Every young person should go.
Stumpf eyed the square box filled with glasses on Elie’s desk. He moved closer and touched the box with furtive reverence.
