That evening, the Falcks sat down to a special meal that Elisabeth had prepared for Johanna's homecoming. Her brother Freddy's place was set, but he still hadn't returned from making his afternoon deliveries for the deli. From her father's grumblings, she gathered that his tardiness was a frequent occurrence.
That Freddy had stayed on to work for their father was surprising to Johanna. They both had spoken with equal fervor about wanting to leave Yorkville and strike out on their own as their re-invented selves. Freddy had never done well enough in school to consider continuing his education, and his ambitions in life varied wildly. For a time in high school, he was suddenly obsessed with being a soldier. Then, just as abruptly, he began talking incessantly about being a pilot, which he later dropped in favor of some other plan.
The reality of the Depression had then taken over. Their father was a shrewd businessman and his careful management of the deli had allowed them to stay in business, but at a cost. One by one, their three employees had been let go and the entire family took on the work of keeping the doors open. Johanna and her brother both worked long hours after school and on weekends to help their parents. Ten years later, Freddy was still there. Johanna couldn't figure out why.
Over the weisswurst and eisbein Johanna answered her parents' questions about her imaginary new teaching job at NYU. Eisbein – boiled pig's knuckle – was definitely not one of her favorites, but it always seemed to find its way into holiday dinners and special occasions. She managed to eat enough of it to avoid slighting her mother's cooking. As she was improvising a story about what she was going to be teaching, she could hear the sound of someone bounding up the stairs in the hallway. Friedrich Falck came in the front door of the apartment with a cardboard box under his arm.
The Falck's dining room opened into the living room, giving Johanna a clear view of her brother from where she sat. Seeing him made her realize just how long she had been away. The gangly, awkward teenager she saw last had been replaced by a man, but a man with the same boyish face she remembered. He looks like someone put Freddy's twelve-year old towhead on Vati's body, she thought, getting up to greet him.
She reached out to embrace him, but he took one of her outstretched hands and shook it firmly, saying, "Hello, Johanna." He pronounced it Yo-hanna.
He went around the table and sat down across from their father, who gave him an angry look. Johanna returned to her seat, still marveling at how much her brother had changed.
"Here you are, dear, we saved you some weisswurst," Elisabeth said, pointing to the platter in the center of the table.
Freddy heaped what was left of the sausages and warm potato salad on his plate and began to eat, hunched over his food, while Klaus and Elisabeth shared a look.
Klaus sat with his knife and fork hovering over his plate for a moment, staring at the top of his son's head across from him.
"Don't you want to say hello to your sister?" he asked.
"I did, just now."
"Don't you want to be asking her how she is doing?"
Freddy looked over at Johanna with a sarcastic smile.
"How are you doing?"
Johanna was taken aback by his demeanor. She thought that he didn't seem happy to see her. No, that's not quite right. It's more like he's not acknowledging that I'm here at all.
"I'm fine, Freddy. How are you?" she asked.
"Good" he replied, his attention back on his dinner. "And it's Friedrich, not Freddy."
Johanna must have had a quizzical look on her face when she looked over to her parents because her mother shrugged and her father grunted, shaking his head.
"All these years of asking us 'Call me Freddy' and now it is Friedrich again." Klaus said, stabbing a piece of sausage with his fork.
Friedrich looked over to Johanna and waved a hand towards their parents.
"I thought they'd be happy that I'm rediscovering our German heritage."
She offered a wan smile, pretending to understand. What the hell is he talking about?
Elisabeth spoke up. "We are happy, it just is confusing when, for all these years you and your sister want nothing to do with anything German, and now this sudden change."
Everyone ate in silence. Johanna couldn't ever remember this much tension around the dinner table, even during tough financial times.
"So, Johanna, have you met anyone there at university?" Elisabeth asked.
Oh, no, not this again.
"It is simply not natural," Klaus interjected. "You are a healthy young woman – you should be making a family and being a wife. There are plenty of bachelors in the neighborhood. I will introduce you."
"No, Vati. That's not necessary."
"She doesn't want anything to do with them because they're German," Friedrich said.
Time to change the subject, Johanna decided.
She had been dreading this moment, but decided to get it over with. If I try to put this charade off any longer, I'll never do it.
She cleared her throat.
"Speaking of German heritage, does anyone know anything about the Bund?"
The clattering of her father's silverware on his plate startled her.
"No," he barked. "We will not discuss that." He glared at her and then Friedrich.
"I'm sorry…I…I don't understand," she stammered, taken aback by his forcefulness.
Still not looking up from his plate, Friedrich answered her.
"Vati doesn't want to admit he is wrong."
Klaus pounded the table with his fist. "No! We will not discuss that!"
Elisabeth put a hand on his arm. Johanna saw the gesture and suspected that there had been many such arguments, and many attempts by her mother to make peace.
"Can someone please tell me what's going on here?" she asked, looking at each of them in turn. Friedrich continued to eat while Klaus stared at the wall, his face red with anger.
Elisabeth patted her husband's arm again and answered Johanna in a low voice, "Your brother has been in the Bund several years now. He and your father argue about it."
Johanna was stunned into silence. Freddy is a Nazi? It was as if they were talking about someone else; she couldn't make the connection in her mind between her brother and the Bund. She swallowed hard and forced herself to hide her shock and play dumb.
"What is there to argue about?"
Friedrich took a long drink of water and leaned back in his chair, arms folded.
"Our father insists on being on the wrong side of history. What is it that he has been telling us for years about why he brought us all to America? Wasn't it because he was afraid the Communists would take over Germany after the Great War like they did in Russia? And now that Hitler is actually making a stand against the Communists, by smashing Stalin, no less, Vati is against him. And worse, he refuses to see the threat to this nation from Jews and Bolshevists, even after they boycotted his business and nearly bankrupted him."
Johanna looked over to her father, who looked like he was trying to avoid being baited by his son. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Do not listen to him, Johanna. Yes, the boycott hurt, but we were never in any danger of going out of business. And you," he pointed at Friedrich, "know perfectly well that the Jewish boycott was not aimed at me personally, but at all German businesses because of the gang of rowdies and criminals you associate yourself with. Nothing else. All the damned Nazi talk and Jew-hating is what caused it."
Friedrich rolled his eyes and avoided his father's gaze.
Pretending not to be aghast at what she was hearing from her brother's mouth was just too much. She wanted to reach across the table and shake him.
I can't say a word, she reminded herself. If I am going to pretend to everyone that I'm also a Nazi, I can't let on how disgusted I feel right now.
Klaus continued. "I understood when you first joined, thinking you were just getting back to our German culture and thought it would pass when you saw the Nazis for what they were. But you never did. Not
even after Poland. And here we are how many years later? How many people have they killed taking over Europe? And now they invade Russia. Almost everyone else has had the sense to get out of the Bund, even those that still support Hitler realize they are just making a bad name for all the rest of us. You ask Mrs. Schenker next time you deliver to her, ask her what it was like for Germans here during the Great War. You mark my words, it will be worse now if, God forbid, America gets in the war."
Friedrich turned to his father with a sneer.
"Germans were treated badly back then at the hands of the Jews and Bolsheviks, and if we are treated the same now, we should show them we are no longer to be trifled with. That is why I am in the Bund, so that someone will be left to stand up for us."
"Is that what you call frightening old women on the street, 'standing up for us'?" Klaus asked. "The real reason we are in this position is because Hitler sends his spies and troublemakers to America and we all get the blame. Look at all those spies they arrested a week ago. Now when people look at a German, they see a Nazi spy sent from Germany to destroy this country. You and your friends make it worse, not better."
Friedrich acted as if he hadn't heard anything his father had said. Pushing back his chair, he excused himself to Johanna and Elisabeth, and left the table. He walked down the hallway and Johanna heard a door slam.
"You see what has become of your brother?" he asked Johanna, pointing down the hall. "For years it was 'my name is Freddy, I don't want to eat German food, I don't want to go to Weinachtmarkt.' Now it's the other end. He never stops talking about how great is Hitler and Jews, Jews, Jews. If we didn't need his help at the deli, I think I would tell him to leave."
Johanna excused herself from the table and walked downstairs to sit on the front stoop.
She had detected a note of anguish in her father's annoyance, and she felt the same. At first, she was angry at how stupid her brother must have been to fall in with those thugs and idiots. Now, she was starting to feel sadness, as if the brother she had remembered was dead and had been replaced by this angry, hateful person. She couldn't imagine how her parents must feel as prominent members of the community having to live with their son the Nazi every day.
Watching the evening traffic pass on First Avenue, she sat up with a start. No, that's not right. I can imagine how they must feel, and I've been imaging it since I got on the train this morning. It's exactly how I thought they would feel when I had to make them believe I was a Nazi in order to infiltrate the Bund and get to Germany.
She decided then to hide her activities with the Bund from her parents. One child with Nazi sympathies was bad enough, two would be unbearable. Her brother was going to be her way in to the Bund and she would make him promise not to tell their parents. If she was successful and was able to make her way to Germany, she would have to think of something to tell them to shield them from the truth.
This is going to be even more difficult than I thought.
11
Early the next morning, Johanna awoke in her old bed, taking a moment to remember where she was. With the exception of a small sewing table in the corner, her mother had maintained Johanna's bedroom exactly as it had been when she left. A large dollhouse sat on a low bookcase by the window, the dolls where she had left them. Although she recognized every decoration and piece of furniture, it was as unfamiliar as a hotel room. Swinging her feet onto the floor, she listened for a moment to be certain that everyone had already gone downstairs to open the shop.
She peeked out into the hallway and listened. The apartment was empty.
Grateful to have avoided a potential replay of last night's events, she quickly readied herself for her briefing with the FBI. The appointment had been made for her by Len Pollack before Johanna left for New York. All she had been given was the address of the FBI's downtown office, the name of a Special Agent Daniel Wexler, and the time – 9 o'clock. Pollack had described Wexler to her as the Bureau's Bund expert and as someone sure to be of great use to her.
Just as Johanna was nearing the door to leave, her mother came in with some hot coffee and a sweet roll wrapped in a paper napkin.
"Morgen. I brought you something to eat from Gutenberg's."
"Good Morning. I'm sorry, I don't have time for breakfast. I have to go to …the university… for a meeting."
"Well, you have to eat something. You can not start your new job on an empty stomach. Here, sit down with me," she said, gesturing to the dining room.
Johanna could tell her mother wasn't so much interested in feeding her as in having someone to talk to. She suddenly felt sorry for her, living in this apartment with her father and brother fighting all the time. Now, all the letters her mother had written to her at school made sense. At the time, she had resented them as an attempt to prevent her from beginning her life anew. Now, she realized it was loneliness that made her mother send weekly letters without fail, even when Johanna would go months without replying.
"I'm sorry, Mutti. I really have to go. We'll talk later, though. I promise."
"All right," Elisabeth replied. She put the sweet roll in Johanna's hand. "At least bring this with you."
She took the roll and walked out the door, trying not to let her mother see the guilty look on her face.
Dan Wexler was not what Johanna had expected. Although the only FBI agents she had ever seen were in movies, the images of chiseled jaws and J. Edgar Hoover's forthright heroes had stuck with her. When Wexler walked into the small meeting room where she was waiting, her first impression was that he must be an accountant. He was of medium height, with dark, thinning hair and undistinguished features. His adequate suit and plain tie had the look of being worn every day. She thought he was the type of person you would always recognize but could never place.
The room was cramped enough with just the table and two chairs, but now with Wexler in the room, Johanna was starting to feel claustrophobic. This must be an interrogation room, she thought as he took his seat. If whoever designed it intended to put people on edge, he has succeeded masterfully.
Wexler didn't offer his hand to Johanna or introduce himself until he sat down and opened a manila file folder on the small rickety table between them.
"I'm Special Agent Daniel Wexler," he said without looking up. "I've been asked to brief you on the German-American Bund." He flipped through a few sheets in his folder. "You are Johanna Falck, working for the State Department."
He looked up at her with an expression that told her he did not want to be here.
"I thought you were supposed to be some college professor," he continued.
Johanna immediately felt herself getting defensive.
"I've just been awarded my PhD and I'm taking a sabbatical of sorts to help with the war," she replied.
"What war?" he asked, with eyebrows raised.
"The European war. For when we get in it, I mean."
"When, not if?"
"Yes, I believe when." Is this a debate or a briefing?
"So, just out of college. How old does that make you, then?" he asked, flipping through his file again.
"I'm twenty-nine." She re-crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap in an attempt to portray a patience she was not feeling. Now I know why we're meeting in an interrogation room. What exactly is the point of this?
"Mmm hmm…twenty-nine," he murmured. Looking back up at her, he folded his arms and squinted at her like he was trying to divine her answers before he asked the questions. "So, what experience do you have working undercover?"
"Well, none, actually," she replied, trying to affect an air of casualness to deflect his condescension.
"Mmm hmm. So what makes you think you can infiltrate the Bund and spy on them?"
"I'm confident I can figure it out as I go along." She paused and reminded herself that she was probably going to need the FBI's help. "With your assistance, of course."
"Yes, well…it would seem that I'm being ordered to do just that. My superiors are quaking
in their boots at the notion that FDR is going to create some new super spy agency, and they want to make sure they protect their turf. I personally couldn't care less, but here I am just the same. Their panic means I have to waste my time with you."
Johanna said nothing and kept her face as passive as she could.
"I don't mean to be rude. I'm sure you're very eager to do your job. It's just obvious that you are in no way qualified to do it. So, if you foul it up with the Bund, I'm the one that's going to have to pick up the pieces. You can think that if you wear a pretty dress and smile and flirt with those rats, they'll fall all over themselves to let you spy on them. They might – who knows. But being pretty won't keep you from getting caught."
Fifth Column Page 6
