Unspeakable Prayers: WW II to Present Day (Thaddeus Murfee Series of Legal Thrillers)

by John Ellsworth

  "My goal has always been to become licensed as a lawyer," said Lodzi. He took his linen napkin and dabbed his mouth, a courtesy forgotten at Treblinka and now, once again, becoming part of his civilized repertoire.

  His uncle nodded. "Well, there are several law schools in Chicago. They say the best one is the University of Chicago, but that is—how do you say it—hearsay. Which I always mix up with heresy."

  The joke was lost on Lodzi. "Then it is where I shall apply."

  The doctor looked at Rajski. "And what about you, young man?"

  "I can't think of anything better, so I will probably attend school with my friend."

  "You could do worse," said the uncle. "Jewish lawyers do very well in America."

  "It is time for Jews to do well at many things," said Lodzi. "We have learned that Jews must excel in the world in order to remain safe."

  The doctor nodded vigorously. "I couldn't agree more. I have been trying to impress on my girls the importance of education. Sometimes, however, I feel like I'm talking to the wall."

  "Well," said Rajski, "maybe your nephew and I will be good examples for them. How old are they?"

  “Twenty and eighteen. The eighteen-year-old is about to become engaged, I fear. Her love is a truck driver for Midwest Foods. There is nothing wrong with being a truck driver, but I have great reservations about marriage at her age. There's a great big world out there that she needs to experience before she gets serious."

  Rajski smiled. "Maybe we can help her see beyond her current situation."

  The doctor lifted a hand. "You will be welcome guests in my home, but friendship is as far as I want to see you involved with my daughters. Until, of course, you have passed the bar exam and become productive."

  "I totally agree and promise to abide by your wishes," said Rajski.

  "That is really all I can ask. Beyond that, please feel free to spend time with them and get to know them, and who knows?"

  Lodzi shook his head and gave his friend a severe look. "We are here to work and go to school and that is all," he said. "My friend would never take advantage of your gracious offer of a place to stay. Along those lines, we expect to be self-supporting by the end of this month and we will rent our own room and allow you to live in peace."

  The waiter came around and offered coffee once the plates were cleared. All three men accepted and conversation continued. The two friends were relieved that the uncle did not inquire about their time in the extermination camp. That was a topic neither of them wished to go into ever again. What was left unsaid would hopefully begin to fade from memory.

  * * *

  Lodzi found a job before the weekend. He would be working as a bus boy at the Varsity Inn on the campus of the University of Chicago.

  He arrived at work at 5:30 in the morning. With the other bus boy, they scrambled eggs and added pinto beans and hamburger to the mix and each downed a quart of orange juice with the concoction. Lodzi was happy his full appetite had returned and he was even gaining a few pounds. His face was filled out somewhat and no longer did people give a second look at his grotesquely gaunt features.

  He had matriculated at the University. Much to his dismay, the registrar along with his advisor had set him up with a six-year plan to obtain his law degree. Three years of pre-law would be required, followed by three years of law school. He was admitted to the University conditionally, as he could not provide a high school diploma.

  Rajski changed his mind at the last minute and matriculated in the pre-engineering curriculum. At Treblinka he had worked as an automotive mechanic and because of that experience he had become interested in mechanics.

  The friends found a one-bedroom apartment downtown, which they could afford. They agreed they would trade off sleeping in the bedroom. They drew lots, and Rajski won the bedroom for the first month. Which meant Lodzi would be sleeping on the living room couch. They shared the bedroom closet, and had half the space left over, as neither man owned anything more than blue jeans and T-shirts. As October changed the leaves, and the air was made smoky by November leaf burning in their neighborhood, they visited a war surplus store and found winter coats on sale for two dollars. The coats were American army green, lined with wool, and were very warm. The clerk explained the coats had been shipped to Europe by the Army but were never actually issued to the troops.

  Thanksgiving came and went and the men spent the holiday with Uncle Nadal and his family. It was a new experience, dining with the family, and after several glasses of wine, tears were shed and promises made. They were a family forever.

  At the end of the semester both of the young men learned they had earned their way onto the Dean's honor roll. To celebrate, they enjoyed a night of drinking and carousing, something neither of them had ever experienced before. They danced and drank and laughed until sunrise, when they found their way home and proceeded to spend the day in bed—Lodzi in the bed, Rajski on the couch—nursing hangovers and wishing they had celebrated in a different manner. Neither one had been drunk before, and they made a solemn oath it would never happen again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lodzi fell in love his junior year at University. The woman was a tutor in the languages department where she taught English as a second language.

  Her name was Anne-Marie Eisenstadt and her grandparents had emigrated from Munich, Germany in 1900. Anne-Marie was two years older than Lodzi. She was a Ph.D. candidate in Romance languages, never married, and lived with a roommate, another woman, one block from campus. The only problem was, Anne-Marie had no idea Lodzi was in love with her.

  Anne-Marie was dark skinned and her smile flashed white and often. Lodzi had discovered he was enthralled with writing poetry and short stories, and Anne-Marie used his writing as a teaching tool. She also purchased and gave him a thesaurus as well as a list of writers he should read. Sometimes, after a tutorial, Lodzi would invite Anne-Marie to the student union for coffee. He had taken up smoking and she was a smoker, too, and the habit was reasonably priced as the tobacco companies were in an era where they haunted university campuses and give away free cigarettes in packs of four. They would sit across from each other at a table in the student union and discuss writing, books they had read or were currently reading, as well as Lodzi's progress in the English tutorial program.

  Lately he had taken to walking her home to her apartment after their coffee meetings. She invited him inside and turned on the radio for music. Benny Goodman played three songs when suddenly a newsflash interrupted the music. The date was May 14, 1948. It was announced the United Nations had voted that day to recognize Israel as a sovereign nation. The war of 1948 was over and Israel had prevailed. As he heard the announcement, Lodzi sat back on the couch, crossed his legs, and tears began to stream down his face.

  Anne-Marie sat beside him. "What is it?"

  "The dreams of the Jews have been answered today. We no longer have to run and hide and ask other powers and governments for a place to live. We now have our own home. And this makes me very happy."

  "Will you ever tell me about the war?"

  "There is nothing to tell. I did not fight."

  "What did you do?"

  "I survived. I was captured by the Nazis and taken to Treblinka and I survived. There's really nothing else to tell."

  She nodded slowly. "That says it all. I won't ask again."

  "It would be better if you did not. It is a time I am doing everything I can to forget and put behind me."

  Anne-Marie went into the bedroom and returned several minutes later wearing blue jeans and a University of Chicago T-shirt. She pulled her hair to the top of her head and clipped it there. Lodzi watched all this and couldn't help but smile.

  "Change of clothes?"

  "Because I'm getting ready for a long evening and wish to be comfortable."

  "Long evening, why?"

  She returned to the couch and sat down very close to him. "Because I'm going to ask you to stay here tonight. It is my hope you will agree to
."

  Lodzi swallowed hard. He would never have dared dream Anne-Marie had feelings for him and he wondered if maybe his own feelings for her had been obvious. Being inexperienced at romance and never having been in love despite his arranged marriage, he felt totally lost and vulnerable. He sat back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. He began counting tiles, and hoping she would speak next.

  "Well? You haven't answered me. Will you stay or go?"

  "I would like nothing better than to stay here tonight. But there is one thing."

  "What's that?"

  He shuffled his feet on the floor. It was a new feeling, this feeling of total confusion in her presence. "To tell the truth, I have no experience in love."

  "Love? Did I say love? I only want you to spend the night with me. That requires no commitment. You are free to go tomorrow. I have a feeling you have been captured before, and my request might make you feel like a caged bird. More than anything, I want you to feel free with me. I would never try to take away your freedom. No one should ever do that to you again, as I believe I know how you spent the war."

  "Then I will stay. Just please, have no expectations of me."

  At which point she poked him in the side. "I promise."

  She took his hand in hers and began gently stroking his hand and arm. He turned his face to her and she turned her face to him. She leaned toward him. Lodzi closed his eyes and placed his lips against her lips. Her mouth opened and he could feel the warm air exchanged between them when his mouth opened, too. Her tongue moved across his lips and he felt a chill race down his back. This was a good sign, something he had never before felt. She moved her hand to the back of his head and stroked his hair. She moved her other hand to his thigh and began tickling him softly with her fingertips. Without hesitation, he was aroused, his mouth fully opened to hers. Her tongue entered his mouth and he knew intimacy with another person which he had never known before. She moaned and moved against him when his tongue entered her mouth. Without thinking, he moved his hand to her breast and placed it there. Lodzi immediately realized what he had done, and jerked his hand away as if he had touched a hot stove. She lifted her hand from his thigh, grasped his hand and replaced it on her breast. He pulled his face away from hers and looked into her eyes.

  "I am so ready for you. I have loved you forever."

  Lodzi blinked hard. He found himself at a loss for words. He said, simply, “Thank you,” which made him immediately feel like a fool. "Please, bear with me. While you have been kind enough to teach English, I have yet to learn the language of love. But I am a very willing student."

  Anne-Marie laughed and pressed against him. "There is no need for words. What we will do is universal and needs no words. Please, come with me."

  She stood without releasing his hand, and pulled him to his feet. She then walked him into her bedroom and began to slowly unbutton his wool shirt.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lodzi was in his third and final year of law school when one day he suddenly stopped in his tracks. He was in the law school library and a pane had opened in his brain and for an instant he saw things as they really had been in 1942. Janich Heiss was a murderer. He existed apart from the Third Reich. While he was a member of the Third Reich, he was not the Third Reich. Just because the Third Reich had ceased to exist did not mean Janich Heiss had also ceased to exit.

  This knowledge exploded in his mind like a bomb. It opened a new neuron pathway. For the first time, he knew evil had been personified in a real person, not just in an institution. There were thousands of other Janich Heiss’s, of course, maybe millions. But for right there, right then, for Lodzi there was only Captain Heiss.

  And the man was waiting for Lodzi.

  Waiting for Lodzi and maybe ten thousand others to find him.

  And if he did find him, what then?

  Lodzi ran down three flights of stairs in the law school and out into the quadrangle. He headed straight for the undergraduate library. Deep down, he didn't expect to find anything, but it would be something to cross off the top of the list which was only right now beginning to arrange itself inside his head. Top of the list: university library. Next on the list? Who could tell? It would take some thought. But if college and law school had taught him anything, it had taught him how to access information.

  The year was 1952. Research materials in the library consisted of the library's card catalog. There was no Internet, no Skype, no Twitter, no TV (very limited, at least) and no email. Computers were years away. Which meant people like Janich Heiss were all but immune from discovery. Given a few thousand dollars, access to passenger ships and a passport—forged or otherwise—the man could be anyplace in the world.

  A search of the card catalog was fruitless. In the entire University of Chicago library system he was unable to turn up even one reference to Heiss. In fact, the full extent of Treblinka itself, Camps 1 and 2, was just becoming known and documented.

  He wrote "2" on his yellow legal pad. It was the placeholder for the second place Lodzi would look for the SS man. Beside it, he wrote, "Ellis Island." If the man had escaped to America, he would have passed through Ellis Island. What name he would have been using was anyone's guess. Lodzi knew without inquiry the man's real name wouldn't be found on the Ellis Island books. Nevertheless, he wrote the government. A long, heart-breaking letter setting out his story and the story of his survival against all odds.

  Three months went by.

  At long last a letter arrived from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. The letter was only four lines and said a record search had been undertaken by the USCIS and National Archives and no one by the name of Janich Heiss had immigrated to the United States.

  Lodzi sat with the letter dangling between his fingers. He wasn't surprised. Nor was he upset. He had known the Nazi would be smarter and cleverer than to travel under his real name. He was left with the entire world population to sift through.

  Which, amazingly, did not worry him. Instead, he was challenged. He had overcome the most impossible situation ever to threaten man's existence and he was still standing, still asking questions, still sticking his nose in where maybe it didn't belong.

  On the second day of looking, Lodzi came across a New York Times article on a Nazi hunter named Simon Wiesenthal. It was the first Lodzi had heard of the man, although he knew a man blessed with the burden of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice would one day emerge. It just had to be.

  He read the article, which included this paragraph:

  “Wiesenthal was asked to explain his motives for becoming a Nazi hunter. According to one writer, Wiesenthal once spent the Sabbath at the home of a former Mauthausen inmate, now a well-to-do jewelry manufacturer. After dinner his host said, ‘Simon, if you had gone back to building houses, you'd be a millionaire. Why didn't you?’ ‘You're a religious man,’ replied Wiesenthal. ‘You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.’ Another will say, 'I have smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.’ Another will say, 'I built houses.’ But I will say, 'I did not forget you.’”

  Lodzi put the newspaper aside and stared out the window of the library. Tears rushed into his eyes and he looked around sheepishly. Across from him sat a young coed, her nose in a book, making notes and ignoring the world around her. He stood and went back behind a stand of books. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his eyes. "I did not forget you," played over and over again in his mind.

  Finally he carefully folded the handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. He was finished crying. It was time for action. Maybe it wouldn't be this year, maybe not next year, maybe not in ten years. But find Heiss he would. And when he did, there would be a moment of justice. Only then could Lodzi continue peacefully with the rest of his life. Until then he would not rest, would not become complac
ent, would not become the jeweler of the story. He would remain a man robustly engaged, a man in hot pursuit. He would become one of the hounds of hell, nipping at the heels of Janich Heiss.

  He returned to his seat in the library and smiled broadly. The young coed happened to look up just then. She was about Lodzi's age. She returned his smile and then turned back to her research and writing.

  He clenched his jaw and thought it through. Even now, Heiss must feel me nipping at his heels, threatening to tear up his back and destroy him. Well, let him feel it. In fact, the longer he has to run, the better. For there will be no surcease, no rest for the man. His evil will eventually see him dead. Now it is just a matter of time.

  Lodzi closed his books and put away his legal pads. He took his briefcase in hand and left the library. Outside, he drew a deep breath and looked off into the clouds. He loved this place, this America, and he would never leave his adopted country. But as long as one Nazi remained there, it wouldn't be perfect.

  And America deserved no less than perfection.

  Lodzi would do his small part to make it so.

  On May 7, 1952, he received his law degree. Graduation took several hours, thanks to the G.I. Bill and all the American servicemen who had returned from the war and enrolled in school. But Anne-Marie, Uncle Nadal, and Rajski applauded, and Rajski even stood up and whistled when Lodzi had his moment at the podium and received his diploma.

  Now to take the bar exam, which he did, three months later, becoming a member in good standing of the roll of attorneys admitted to practice before the Illinois Supreme Court. He received his law license and marriage license on the same day in November.

  The following Monday he kissed his new wife goodbye and caught the L-Train for downtown.

  It was time to find an office.

  Chapter Fourteen