by Thaisa Frank
Love,
Tahari
To the left of the window, hidden from Lars, Elie was watching Asher play chess. On the one hand, she felt illicit because watching people who didn’t know they were being watched felt wrong. On the other hand, she felt innocent because she wanted to be sure this emaciated man really was Asher Englehardt—the one she had known. The lead-paned glass on the window was thick, making the interior seem cast in waves, adding to the sense that perhaps nothing inside it was real. She’d hidden behind the artificial pear tree, and its dappled light shifted as the sun rose in its jagged ascent. Elie inched closer to the bench.
Without question this man played chess the way Asher had—appearing to be indifferent but not indifferent at all. He didn’t seem to concentrate on the board and surrendered pieces with abandon. Elie saw him look amused when he checkmated Talia, just as he once checkmated her. He challenged Talia to another game—which she accepted with some annoyance. Asher was drinking tea—a procedure Elie watched with great absorption. He held a piece of sugar in his mouth and stirred first to the right, then to the left. He once told her that his grandfather drank tea by holding sugar in his mouth—a custom that belonged to peasants—and he liked to think about the tides when he stirred because he was sure that one day scientists would discover tides in something as small as a teacup. Watching him was like reading a book she hadn’t opened for years. She leaned closer to the window and stepped back when she heard footsteps in the hall. They belonged to Lodenstein and Stumpf— who both looked ponderous—and Dimitri, who ran ahead. She kissed him and told him to go inside.
I have such regret, she heard Stumpf say in a mincing voice. If I ever can do anything….
You can never stop being a fool.
Stumpf slunk away like a dog that’s been hit on the nose. As if a more formal appearance would undo the disaster he’d helped create, he’d begun to wear his black SS jacket in the Compound. It was too tight to button and billowed behind him when he walked. He still wore his woolly slippers, which made his appearance even more incongruous and out of sorts. Lodenstein walked toward her, and she felt unhinged, as though she had traveled back to Freiburg, played chess, gone to Heidegger’s lectures. She hadn’t believed there would be a war, then. She’d even told Asher she was sure his wife was safe. Yet someone she herself thought had been killed in that war was walking toward her now.
Alain,
Sometimes I imagine you. You are never doing anything remarkable—just going to the refrigerator for milk, or letting in the cat—yet I find these memories precious just because you are yourself. I do not know if I’ ll see you again.
Love,
Sylvie
In the dark, under the soft, grey quilt from Rotterdam, Elie and Lodenstein still found each other in bed. They made love as if at any moment the Gestapo would break down the door, and they must hold each other so tightly nothing could separate them. During these times, Goebbels, Mueller—the notion of danger itself—became the stuff of inflated fears. But during the day, when sun shone through the clerestory windows and light seemed to chase them, they worried. Lodenstein interrupted games of solitaire and patrolled the forest, afraid that a group of SS or Gestapo were using the pines as camouflage. Elie made lists of people who might help Asher, Dimitri, and Daniel find a boat to Denmark, and burned them in the forest. Once Lodenstein found her burning names under a pine tree.
Don’t burn those anymore, he said. You never know who’s watching.
You shouldn’t be out there, either, said Elie.
I always carry a gun.
I do too.
But I’m patrolling. And you write the same list over and over. Why?
Because it calms me.
They both felt paralyzed from taking action and talked in circles. If what Mueller said was true, the entire Compound would be implicated for harboring fugitives. Perhaps Maria was safe—she could blend in with the other Scribes during an inspection. But they had to get Dimitri, Asher, and Daniel to Denmark. Elie often repeated what a Resistance fighter once told her: A fugitive is like a puppet with a red string. The Reich can trace it to the end of the world. To which Lodenstein replied: We can’t think like that. It’s like focusing sunlight on paper on a hot day. If we do it long enough, there will be a fire.
They would eventually decide that Goebbels was too preoccupied to care. The Russians had penetrated Silesia. Allied troops were close to the Rhine. And the Germans hadn’t been able to split the Allied forces in the Ardennes. Furthermore, there hadn’t been any mail from the outpost since Asher and Daniel had arrived.
These rationalizations soothed them. But only for a while. And the next time they were caught by daylight, they found themselves terrified all over again—not just for Asher, Daniel, and Dimitri—but for everyone in the Compound. The Reich had become more brutal with every failure. There was talk of a scorched-earth policy and more plans to blow up the gas chambers.
Sometimes, as if the artificial sun could comfort them, they went downstairs, sat on a wrought-iron bench, and tried to strategize—about finding money to offer a bribe for safe passage to Denmark, or discovering a hiding place for Asher, Daniel, and Dimitri. One day, Stumpf came out of his shoebox to join them. He sat on the very edge of the bench, as if he didn’t deserve to take up any space. Then he said:
If only I’d brought the right glasses! I could have left without a trace, and Goebbels would be happy.
Elie said he should never have meddled in the first place, and Lodenstein stayed quiet. Why bother to mention that Elie should never have gone behind his back? But when Stumpf talked about Elie getting Frau Heidegger’s recipe for bundkuchen, he shouted to him:
Go back to your fucking shoebox! I never want to talk about this again.
Then he went to the kitchen and poured a glass of schnapps.
You’re angry with me too, Elie said.
Maybe, said Lodenstein. But I don’t love Stumpf.
You’re still too hard on him.
At this very moment, Asher and Sophie Nachtgarten came from the main room and walked to the mineshaft. Elie began to stop them from going upstairs, but Lodenstein held her waist.
Let him get some air. Nothing will happen today, he said.
As if you were sure, said Elie.
Sophie and Asher disappeared into the mineshaft, and Elie felt an ache in her heart—not jealousy, but pain. Seeing Asher with Sophie made her think about other people she’d seen with Asher—people she could never bring back.
Dear Tessa,
A soldier who says you know him has asked me to give you a message: When the war is over, come meet me. But be careful, Tessa. You don’t know what’s happening with people deserting right and left.
Love,
Lottie
Asher had come to the main room that day, after a month in which the only people he saw were Talia and Mikhail. He resented their writing the letter to Heidegger. Yet the Solomons were a link, a tether to Auschwitz, and superstitiously—although Asher despised superstitions—he was afraid if he forgot Auschwitz completely, some unexplained force would send him back there. He also loved chess and the illusory justice of detective stories where every criminal was punished. But one day he closed a book and realized he’d been immersed in a world of antiseptic murders, as well as tiny conquests on a wooden board.
I’m restless, he said to Talia. And that’s the only virtue of living in fear. There’s no such thing as monotony, tedium, or ennui.
He was surprised he’d confided in Talia, and Talia caught his surprise. She smiled and took his bishop.
You must be very bored to think of all those words, she said. And you’ve just lost two games in a row. Why don’t you spend some time with the Scribes?
They’d ask questions, said Asher.
Don’t answer them.
Talia smiled again, and he smiled back, realizing he’d forgiven her and Mikhail about the letter to Heidegger, which—even if absurd—had saved his life. He carri
ed a detective story and a treasured blue and white mug from Holland to the main room where he got a desk as well as pillows so he could sit in a corner and read. The Scribes saw the numbers on his arm and remembered, as they had with Daniel, how close they’d come to that place themselves and how willing they’d be to come close again just to keep him safe. They also decided not to annoy him by asking about chimneys. Except for Parvis Nafissian, who wanted to annoy him because he was still angry with Daniel for taking Maria away.
Of course there were chimneys, said Asher. They were the hardest workers at Auschwitz. They were alert, even lively.
Sophie Nachtgarten smiled at him.
Lively chimneys, she said. Now there’s an interesting idea. By the way, you should get a coat so we can go outside.
From people who are dead? said Asher. Do you answer their letters now? Dear Frau So-and-So…. Not only is your husband fine, but I happen to be wearing his coat!
Listen, said Sophie. There’s not one of us who hasn’t scrambled and clawed our way to get here. There’s not one of us who hasn’t lied or faked languages or done whatever we could to stay away from where you’ve been. So what if we wear gloves and hats and scarves that belong to people who are dead or have lice eating into their skin?
He watched her grab at the coats with increasing fury. He heard tears in her voice.
I lost my entire family, she said. My mother and father, my two brothers, their wives, and my four-year-old niece. I think I should be allowed to choose a coat.
While she spoke, she’d been rummaging through the coats until she found a leather jacket with a fur collar.
This might be interesting on you, she said. Once more her voice was calm.
After what you just told me? No.
Just try it, said Sophie.
Asher put on the jacket, and Sophie stood back to look at him.
It fits you, she said. You can pretend you’re a bomber with the Allies.
Not unless I have a scarf, said Asher.
Then I’ll get you one, said Sophie, pulling a white scarf from a burlap bag.
Perfect! she said. You can pretend you’re a British pilot on his day off.
Should I play cricket? said Asher.
Cribbage would be fine, said Sophie. She took his arm. Please take me for some air. Let’s go to the well.
Asher refused. As much as he distrusted this compound in purgatory, he thought his upsetting version of eternity might be better than being shot, or hung, in the forest. Besides, his very presence put everyone at risk. He should remain hidden below the earth.
But there was an upwelling of nos, and Niles Schopenhauer said Asher had come from a place they’d all barely escaped, and they owed it to him to make sure he got fresh air.
Asher said they might not be so heroic if they’d actually been to Auschwitz, and he followed Sophie to the cobblestone street, avoiding the miserable little group on the bench. The lift rumbled as it took them from the earth. Asher remembered gunshots.
Sophie led Asher up the incline, through the shepherd’s hut, to the snow-covered clearing. Asher followed slowly, looking at the forest. Sophie urged him on. It was the first time he’d seen real sky in months. It was an extraordinary blue with white clouds that moved swiftly, miraculously. Not long ago he’d felt like a scrap covered with rags, lighter than the wind. Now he could feel he had weight, substance, gravity. He touched his arms, his legs, and his face. He felt taller than the trees.
Sophie kept beckoning until he got to the well. And even though his face quivered in the water, Asher could see that it was no longer the face of a skeleton, but the face of a living man. Sophie handed him the big tin dipper.
Drink! she said.
Asher drank. Water had never tasted so good.
Dear Diane,
You probably know about the insurrection. Some of the prisoners repairing uniforms found a way to break into the armory. Then the timing was off and they had to put the guns back. Two days later they snuck them again. All of them were killed, but before they were killed they shot the officer I had to sleep with. He was protecting my parents, so I worry—
Love,
Homa
When he came back from the well, Asher barely looked at Elie, who was sitting at her enormous desk. She was part of what came before his life snapped in half, and he didn’t want her to be part of it now. Indeed—in some odd boomerang of the mind—he wondered if their affair had something to do with his wife joining the earliest Resistance, which later resulted in her death. And even though he’d met Elie after his wife disappeared, he decided it had, and he didn’t care if Elie had anything to do with his being in this dungeon instead of Auschwitz. He stared at her over his detective story and remembered everything about their affair that had been unpleasant: Sneaking to cafés where people from the university couldn’t find them. Impaling himself on a filing cabinet in his office when they made love. It had rained a lot during that time, and they were always taking cover under awnings. Once Elfriede Heidegger walked by and saw them. Ever since she had treated him with disdain.
He also wondered why Elie Kowaleski deserved adoration when other people were dying like flies. And how a discreetly rebellious student of linguistics had been reborn as a star in this underground world. When she came back from a mission, people applauded. And sometimes, for no apparent reason, people toasted her. What had she done to deserve it? How did she get so much food?
Yet when Gerhardt Lodenstein sat by Elie’s desk—as he did now—Asher watched their every move. They often seemed passionately worried, and the intensity of their absorption made Asher realize he was lonely because it had been a long time since he’d been intimate enough to share worry with another person. And even though he’d long forgotten Elie, he began to feel jealous of Gerhardt Lodenstein—a feeling that upset him because Lodenstein had saved his life, Daniel’s life, and had nearly gotten killed in the process.
Now he got up and stood near Elie’s desk, pretending to be fascinated by the jumble shop against the wall. He couldn’t hear what she and Lodenstein were saying but listened to their tone. It was clearly passionate, with a timbre of anxiety, even anger.
He turned around and met Lodenstein’s eyes. Lodenstein smiled—a smile of truce and good will. Of course he knows, Asher thought. And what’s more, it doesn’t matter to him that much.
He hardly ever thought about the past during the war because he was so preoccupied with Daniel’s safety and his wife’s disappearance. But Elie’s face opened a floodgate to times long before the war, times when something as simple as a walk could make him happy. He remembered his wife reading in the evening, light against her face, and Daniel crawling into bed to hear a story. He remembered snow on skylights, warm air after winter, the first lectures of fall. Everything was a pathetic stand-in for what his life had been since then—even this underground world. And every time he saw Elie, he was pushed against this earlier world that he wanted to forget because he had been happy.
He barely smiled back at her and returned to his cluster of pillows, where he buried himself in another detective story and thought about the time he’d been relegated to before the war: He thought about his wife playing Mozart. Daniel doing homework instead of this absurd preoccupation with typewriters. And he thought about his house filled with plants and books. He felt irritated with the Scribes, who behaved like children—writing in secret codes, inventing languages, exalting in a spirit of privilege and discontent. He was tired of seeing Lodenstein’s rumpled green sweater and eccentric compass. He even hated Mikhail and Talia Solomon and their preoccupation with chess, which seemed ponderous. As well as Dimitri, who liked to collect stamps.
My dearest sister,
Where are you when I come to the edge of your cellblock at night? People say you’re in charge of feeding the rabbits, but I’ve heard of hangings by candlelight, especially of women under twenty. I need you to be outside so I can see your face.
Love,
Gijs
It was early spring, and snow was melting. Asher saw grass in the clearing and buds on the ash trees. There was no more snow that could make things infinitely reversible. It was a world without camouflage. They navigated mud puddles, and La Toya asked what was going on between him and Elie Schacten. Asher tightened his hold on the pail.
Nothing. What makes you ask?
