Heidegger's Glasses

by Thaisa Frank

  He wanted to write the first—if only to reach another mind across his unbearable sense of isolation. But he knew he had to write the second because it could save Asher’s son, who—if he were alive—must be terrified. He remembered Aaron’s eyes right before he’d been shot and replaced it with a memory of Aaron at nine after he’d thrown dirt at Mrs. Mercier’s porch. He was trembling when he got home, and Mikhail told him: Don’t be scared. Mrs. Mercier likes to yell.

  In addition to the dictionary, Stumpf had given him a typewriter—an Adler. Mikhail began to type, avoiding etymology because he didn’t want to make nonsense out of entfernen.

  While he wrote, Mikhail heard incessant rustling in the main room. It seemed to be talking to itself, as if resuming an interminable conversation it couldn’t have during the day. Maybe it was complaining about the smell of ink and earth. Or maybe it was troubled about the Compound’s mission. He also heard mumbling that sounded like a séance. Stumpf had told him he was going to invoke a button dealer from the 19th century: One of the respectable dead, as he’d put it.

  Mikhail debated when he came to the part of Heidegger’s letter that talked about the Being of machines. In Krakow he’d had an old Renault that was always breaking down. The car ran his life instead of him running it.

  But he couldn’t mention a car because he didn’t know if Asher Englehardt ever owned one. And the only other thing he could think of was the gas chambers. So he didn’t write about machines. Instead he indulged himself by writing something about etymology. Then he invented an imaginary text from the Talmud—but crossed out most of it because he thought he should leave the Talmud out of it. Not that he had faith left in anything.

  When he was finished, he read the letter over and saw that it was appropriately ludicrous. The hidden letter, he wrote in his coded notebook. The words we only dream.

  What a piece of nonsense, Talia said when she read the letter.

  It could save a child, said Mikhail.

  I’m tired of saving other people’s children, said Talia.

  She pulled the letter away and duplicated Asher’s signature. She didn’t include his last name because Heidegger had only signed Martin.

  While Talia wrote, Mikhail was aware of Dimitri’s quiet breathing on the couch, the rustling in the main room, and mumbling from the séance. There was a sudden blast of artillery and a chorus of shut ups and use your fucking pen for God’s sake. It was La Toya, who meant to publish his memoirs after the war.

  Then there was silence and no more mumbling. Undoubtedly Sonia’s delectable bum had distracted Stumpf, and it crossed his mind that he wouldn’t show him the letter but bring it straight to Elie. On the other hand, Stumpf had been hovering constantly. And he’d helped save Maria, even if Elie had done all the legwork.

  What nonsense, Talia said again when she was finished.

  Mikhail said he meant it to be nonsense and took the letter up to the shoebox. He heard the click of seven latches and entered a room rife with incense. Stumpf was so pleased by the letter’s utter incomprehensibility he abandoned Sonia and walked with Mikhail to the cobblestone street. Lars, who was going to take Mikhail to see the stars, raced over to them.

  It’s okay, Mikhail said. I’ll go with Stumpf tonight.

  Mikhail and Stumpf walked across the clearing, ice cracking under their shoes. Stumpf lumbered up to the watchtower and Mikhail followed. The stars were uncannily bright.

  What do you see? said Stumpf.

  A world to fall out of, said Mikhail.

  What do you mean? said Stumpf. The world is here. He gestured beyond the platform. The woods are all around you. Germany—the fatherland.

  He kept pointing toward the woods as though he owned them. Then he said:

  It’s a wonderful letter. I’ll deliver it myself.

  Not yet, said Mikhail, taking it back. Talia has to sign Asher’s last name. Otherwise Heidegger won’t believe it.

  But they were friends, said Stumpf.

  Mikhail ignored him and walked back to the shepherd’s hut, hurrying down the incline, with Stumpf heaving after him. After they’d walked down the street and were navigating the pear tree, Stumpf lifted the dictionary off the bench.

  You made good use of this, he said.

  Mikhail nodded and opened the door. Within moments he felt the dictionary crash on his head and the letter pried from his hands. By the time Stumpf ran to the main room and grabbed the box of glasses off Elie’s desk, Mikhail had lost consciousness. He didn’t hear Dimitri scream. He didn’t know that Lodenstein ran after Stumpf to try to stop him from driving away down the long, narrow road.

  THE BLACK FOREST

  Dear Martin,

  I have read your letter with great interest and have been giving some thought to the word Ent-fernen. You are obviously still preoccupied with the element of distancing from objects in order to see them, and, of course, I share your preoccupation. When we don’t see things as there for our use, we see them differently, perhaps as someone from another culture would see them. And for this purpose there is nothing more interesting than the word Ent-fernen.

  Yet I fear you are playing with leaves on trees when you should be looking at the forest. (And you, of all people, should know about forests!) The mystery of Being found in falling through the paths is of utmost importance in these times. And paths can become abstract unless they are real paths, and you are actually walking through them. I must tell you that recently I have come upon an ancient text (in the Zohar of all places!), which talks about the Mystery of the Triangle, and for some reason it’s caught my attention. The text reads as follows:

  The triangle is the most paradoxical of human situations. It is the secret of all covenants and a cause of betrayal. Indeed, it’s a great challenge to the human heart because it has the power to create incredible good and cause incredible grief, as well as induce states of ecstasy and lunacy. Making a triangle with integrity is in the service of God.

  Even though it’s an archaic text, I think it speaks to the need for a clear understanding between people, especially during troubled times. If there are two things, there has to be a third thing to be sure they balance. This third thing is to keep the first two things in place but it should never interfere with the spirit of their interaction.

  As for poetry, it can evoke. And I think that poetry often brings people to the heart of experience. But references to etymology, as wonderful as roots are, often escape people.

  And you want them to understand, Martin, so they can arrive at a perilous edge from which they dare to leap into new understanding. This is what happened with your glasses, didn’t it? (Your new pair is enclosed, by the way.) You experience them—as much as anyone is capable—as things in themselves, and we must do this with everything, particularly with each other.

  Your faithful friend,

  Asher

  Stumpf drove recklessly, screeching over the ice, and skidded into a snowbank several kilometers after leaving the Compound. Three large tanks of petrol crashed around in the back of the jeep. Stumpf was terrified Lodenstein was following him. He didn’t have a shovel, so he lugged stones under the back tires and spun them mercilessly until the jeep heaved free. An auspicious sign, he thought. Goebbels must want me to deliver everything tonight.

  But when he reached the main road he felt panic and dismay. In his hurry to leave, in his exuberance about snatching the letter and finding the glasses, he’d forgotten that the Black Forest was six hours away. He’d imagined it an hour away—a peaceful drive in the moonlight—not over six hours away on a dark, empty road.

  He reminded himself that Germany was a vast country, about to become even more so, and he should feel privileged to be able to drive such a long distance. Yet the sheer emptiness of the road unnerved him. And he kept thinking of Mikhail lying face down on the floor after he’d hit him with the dictionary. He saw Mikhail’s head, half-covered by his skullcap; his arms stretched slack on the Oriental rug. He was sure he hadn’t killed
Mikhail. He was sure he hadn’t even hurt him. Nonetheless he distracted himself by imagining the best way to deliver the letter and the glasses.

  Should he say Heil Hitler! before or after he knocked at Heidegger’s hut? And suppose Heidegger invited him in? Should he say he had to leave or share a glass of schnapps? He’d forgotten the orders were to deliver everything without a trace of where they came from and kept recycling the same alternatives: To come in or leave. To announce other missions or be mysterious.

  Goebbels would probably want him to drink with Heidegger; he approved of mingling with the people and spent at least an hour a day in the marketplace talking about Germany’s victory. On the other hand, Stumpf had forgotten his SS jacket, and it was sheer luck he’d been wearing boots instead of his wooly bedroom slippers when he hit Mikhail on the head and ran out of the Compound. It would be best to say Heil Hitler! and leave. And not to imply that he had other missions.

  Toward dawn, light began to leak from the sky, and pines hulked on the side of the road. The cold, grey morning came too close, and Stumpf pulled over to get his bearings, careful to avoid snowbanks. He leaned back, began to nap, and startled awake when he heard crackling in his pocket. It was Mikhail’s letter—too creased to bring to Heidegger without disgracing the Reich. Thank God he’d been holding the German dictionary when he left; it would smooth out the creases. But when he saw the cover splattered with blood, he had visions of Goebbels’s rage in case he really had killed Mikhail, who was, after all, an Echte Jude—so important to the cause.

  Stumpf put the letter in the dictionary without looking at the blood and pulled back to the main road. When the sun rose higher, more cars appeared and there was much waving and honking because of the swastika on the Kübelwagen. This waving and honking raised Stumpf’s spirits, and he was sure Goebbels would commend him. Very good, he heard him say. Very good work indeed.

  Yet his spirits sank two hours later when he reached the Black Forest and found no directions to Heidegger’s hut. He’d expected a sign that said Todtnauberg as soon as he turned off the main road. Yet the more he drove, the taller the pines and dimmer the light, until he was in a canopy of darkness. Stumpf remembered a story about a road that led to a place where it was always night. There had been two peasants who’d walked down that road and were never seen again. He turned around—a treacherous maneuver. But the open road upset him too. He’d been expecting quaint huts surrounded by small trees. Instead there were large huts far apart on barren knolls. The people who lived in them were unimpressed by his hat when he knocked and gave him stingy directions to Todtnauberg. He drove higher into fields of snow until he found a monstrous Alpine hut with two attics, dark wood trim, and deep overhanging roofs. This was where Heidegger lived.

  Well done, he heard Goebbels say again as he drove closer. But his voice was barely audible. Stumpf blew his nose and opened the dictionary. Two hours between all those words hadn’t smoothed out the creases in Mikhail’s letter. They were still as deep as the lines of an ancient palm. And since no respectable member of the Reich would deliver a letter in such miserable condition, Stumpf decided to leave everything outside the hut and drive away as quickly as he could. He rummaged through the box of glasses, certain Elie had shown him a pair marked für Martin Heidegger, but he couldn’t find them, so he settled on a pair that looked familiar but didn’t have a white tag. Then he tiptoed to the house, his feet making little imprints in the snow. There were three slippery steps before the hut’s dark door, and Stumpf decided not to risk them. Instead he left the glasses and letter on a stone and turned away. He froze when a voice called out:

  What are you doing outside my hut?

  Stumpf turned around and saw a short stolid man in black boots and thick black overalls. Without a doubt this was Martin Heidegger. Heidegger had a walking stick and waved it in front of Stumpf’s face.

  Explain yourself, he said.

  I’m making a delivery, said Stumpf.

  What delivery? said Heidegger.

  An important one.

  Why did you sneak away if it’s so important?

  Because I have other deliveries, said Stumpf.

  That’s not a good reason to leave, said Heidegger. He pointed toward the hut as though Stumpf were a dog. It was dark inside—a cavernous hole that could swallow him up. Stumpf backed away and picked up the glasses and the letter.

  Stop standing like a moron in that snow, said Heidegger. He grabbed Stumpf’s arm and yanked him to a cramped, cold room filled with coats, gloves, umbrellas, boots, and scarves.

  Put everything there, he said, pointing to a three-legged milking stool that belonged in a barn.

  I can’t, said Stumpf. It’s too important.

  Then we’ll go to the kitchen, said Heidegger, steering Stumpf toward a room with low beams and a bed behind the stove. There was a table by a window that let in pale, peaked light. The table had a loaf of bread, a few forks, and Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Heidegger picked it up and waved it at Stumpf.

  Nothing like the Greeks, he said. I’m going back to the source.

  Don’t let me interrupt, said Stumpf.

  You already have, said Heidegger. And once before, too, at a conference about the nature of Being.

  I never went to anything like that, said Stumpf.

  Then your people did, said Heidegger.

  I’m not with any people, said Stumpf.

  What’s that then? said Heidegger, pointing to the insignia on Stumpf’s hat.

  Something delivery people wear, said Stumpf, who realized he shouldn’t have worn the hat in the first place.

  Since when does the SS have its own postal system?

  Stumpf was about to say it always had. Then he realized he should say it never did. Then he heard Goebbels tell him not to say anything. He put the letter and glasses on the table and turned to leave. But Heidegger clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  You have to come for a walk with me, he said. I want to know what you people are up to.

  Stumpf said again he had to leave on another mission. But Heidegger laughed.

  Don’t think you can leave without explaining yourself, he said. Don’t think you’ll get away with it.

  He steered Stumpf back to the cold room and rummaged for a jacket, a green pointed hat with a feather, and boots. They were all for Heidegger—not Stumpf, who now realized Heidegger’s overalls were actually a ski suit. Who except someone dangerous and strange would wear a ski suit indoors? he thought. No one safe enough to walk with.

  They left the hut, and Heidegger led the way up a snowy hill.

  Now tell me about your mistake, he said.

  What mistake? said Stumpf.

  You know what mistake. The fucking interruption.

  I don’t know about an interruption.

  Of course you do, said Heidegger. You’re one of the herd, and every single animal in the herd knows what the rest of the animals are doing.

  They’d come to a slight rise. Stumpf held a pine branch to keep from falling.

  I don’t know what you mean, he said.

  The Gestapo interrupted me, said Heidegger. They led me to the hall. They made a fuss. At an important international meeting.

  I don’t know about international meetings.

  Then why is the Gestapo watching me? said Heidegger.

  Stumpf had forgotten the Gestapo was watching Heidegger. Now he was sure they were hiding under mounds of snow, ready to leap out at him. He decided not to affirm or deny anything.

  The fucking herd, Heidegger continued. Of course you don’t understand because you’re one of them. A bunch of noses following more noses. You’ve forgotten your roots. All you can do is graze.

  Stumpf had no idea what Heidegger was talking about and panted to keep up with him. They came to a cluster of pines that gave him a momentary sense of shelter, but after a few steps the pines grew thick and the air almost black. They came to another clearing—much too bright. And now to more woods where Heidegger shook pi
ne branches, drenching Stumpf in snow. He rambled on about the meeting, and Stumpf kept saying that the only meetings he knew about were meetings of the Party.

  Every time they came to a clearing, Heidegger said it was like finding one’s way in philosophy. Every time they came to a cluster of pines, he said it was like losing one’s way. Then he said:

  We always walk on paths that lead us back to getting lost.

  Stumpf wondered if this was a paradox and grunted. Twice, the feather on Heidegger’s hat caught on a branch, and Stumpf had to untangle it. He wondered what Heidegger did about the feather when he walked alone.

  Stumpf’s breath gave out in the darkest part of the forest, and he had to rest on a log. He looked around for wolves that might be hiding in pine trees. Heidegger hit him on the knee with his walking stick.