Voices of the Dead

by Peter Leonard

  “The German government has a democratic constitution that emphasizes the protection of individual liberty, and division of powers in a federal structure.”

  Stark looked over the top of the page, met his gaze.

  “Protection of individual liberty, huh?” Harry said. “That’s not how I remember it.”

  “They’ve changed,” Stark said with a grin.

  “Seven hundred and fifty years of anti-Semitism and now they’re tolerant. What do you think was the big influence?”

  “Got their ass kicked in World War Two.” Stark puffed on his cigarette.

  “What was Hess doing in Washington?”

  “Meeting with construction companies, selling the capabilities of his airships. Hess builds Zeppelins.” Stark put his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Claims he’s a distant relative of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who invented the first one in 1900.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I looked it up,” Stark said. “Remember the Hindenburg? Crashed and burst into flames over New Jersey in 1937. It was the largest flying machine of its kind ever built. Eight hundred and eight feet long. Almost three football fields.” He paused, straightening the knot of his red paisley tie. “Hess is trying to revive the concept. He’s developed an experimental line of airships that are smaller, lighter, faster and more practical. We’re not talking about the Goodyear blimp. Hess’ airships have an internal skeleton, built to carry more weight. Perfect for transporting heavy equipment and supplies to inaccessible areas: ski resorts, coastal developments.”

  “Doesn’t this strike you as a little odd, a German politician with diplomatic status coming here for personal gain?”

  “What’s good for Ernst Hess is good for Germany,” Stark said. “I’ve looked into it. You want to sue him? Say the word, I’ll file charges.”

  “What’s that going to do?”

  “Bring attention to what happened to Sara, public outrage.

  “I don’t want to start a crusade,” Harry said. “This is personal.”

  “It might get you a settlement.”

  “I don’t want money.”

  “What do you want?”

  Harry said, “Where’s he live?”

  “I don’t know,” Stark said. “Somewhere in Bavaria would be my guess. What do you have in mind?”

  Harry looked at him but didn’t say anything.

  “You want to find out more about Hess, I can call Fedor Berman. Private investigator, lives in Munich. He’s a survivor like you.”

  Harry went to the gun range on Grand River. Took the .357 Mag out of his pocket and pushed in his earplugs. He held the revolver with two hands. Fired six rounds at a paper target from thirty feet, putting all of the shots, perfect cylindrical holes, where he wanted them, mid-chest on the black outline of a man. Reloaded and did it again.

  After, he went to his office where he hadn’t been for almost two weeks, sat at his desk, shuffled through the mail, opened a letter from the IRS. According to their audit findings, S&H Recycling Metals underpaid on its 1970 Federal Tax return and owed $17,500, payment due by September 15, 1971. Harry paid all the bills and signed a dozen blank checks. Picked up the phone and told Phyllis to come in.

  She knocked on his door and opened it. “Need something, Harry?”

  “Sit down,” Harry said.

  She sat in a chair across from his desk.

  “I’m going to take some time off.”

  “Harry, you just got back.”

  “I’ll be gone for a while, couple weeks, a month.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” Phyllis said, “where’re you going?”

  “I’ll call you when I get there,” Harry said. He handed her the checks he’d just signed. “Keep these in the safe till you need them. There’s also plenty of cash, sixty grand. Don’t take it and run off to South America.”

  Phyllis gave him a dirty look. “Harry, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I’m kidding.”

  Harry called Pan Am and booked a flight to Munich with a stopover in London. He called the Free Press and told them not to deliver the paper till further notice. Called his niece, Franny, and asked her to bring in the mail and water the plants while he was away. He’d left two hundred dollars and a key to the house for her in an envelope in the garage.

  Upstairs, Harry put his American Tourister suitcase on the bed, the one that had been tested by a four-hundred-pound gorilla in a TV ad. He folded clothes and fit them in. Grabbed his shaving kit from the bathroom. When he was finished he went to the desk, opened a drawer and took out a dog-eared, sepia-tone photograph of him posing with his parents in front of their house on Sendlinger Strasse. Harry in a wool cap, standing between his parents in stylish hats and overcoats. He’d turned thirteen a few weeks before, on October 7, 1941.

  He slipped the photo in his passport and put it in the inside pocket of his sport coat. He closed the suitcase and took it downstairs. Turned on a light in the foyer, walked into the den and stood at the window. An airport shuttle pulled up in front and drove him to Metro.

  He picked up his boarding pass at the gate in the international terminal. Flew first class to London on a 747, had a couple drinks upstairs in the bar, and a filet and baked potato at his seat. He slept for a couple hours, arriving at Heathrow at 8:36 in the morning. He had a two-hour layover, and took a Lufthansa flight from London to Munich, arriving at 12:17.

  Harry took a taxi from the airport to the Bayerischer Hof hotel on Promenadeplatz, seeing Munich for the first time in thirty years, the snow-capped peaks of the Bavarian Alps on the horizon, perfect blue-sky fall day. Stomach knotted up, feeling strange, a lot of memories. Half expected to see Nazis on the streets. The city looked different, bigger and more modern on the outskirts but when he got to Altstadt it was much the same as he remembered it.

  He checked in and went to his room and stood at the window, looking out at the twin onion-domed spires of the Frauenkirche cathedral and the Neues Rathaus in Marienplatz, and he felt like he was home.

  At 1:45 Harry walked out of the hotel toward the Frauenkirche, crossed Frauenplatz to Kaufingerstrasse, saw the Renaissance tower of Peterkirche and the red tile roof of the Alter Hof, and there gliding over the rooftops was a silver Zeppelin that said HESS AG in black letters on the side. It was as if Hess knew he’d arrived and was following him, watching him.

  Harry went left to Marienplatz and stood in front of the Glockenspiel, looking up at the mechanical figures, thinking about coming here on weekends with his father, standing in the same place, watching the figures doing the Coopers’ Dance.

  He stopped at a cafe and had bratwurst and a beer. Then he walked down Sendlinger Strasse, past the Asamkirche to his old neighborhood, the silver Zeppelin hovering over him, moving southwest.

  He found his house and took out the photo. By rights Harry now owned the building, not that he was going to try to get it back. The ground-floor space that had been a pharmacy thirty years ago was now an antique shop. He thought about the last time he’d been here, getting his fake ID, and leaving his parents under the floor in the bedroom closet, assumed they were still there.

  Harry had contacted Wilhelm Martz, a good friend of his parents and uncle. He had gotten his address and arranged to stop by. Martz lived on Kreuzstrasse, a couple blocks away. He found the house, a Bavarian Tudor, and rang the bell. The door opened, and a good-looking woman with dark curly hair and glasses eyed him with caution.

  “I’m Harry Levin.”

  Now she smiled. “Harry, how are you? I’m Lisa. Do you remember me?”

  Remember her? She was the cutest girl in the class, in the whole Jewish school. He’d had a crush on her, felt like a bumbling fool in her presence. He used to sit in class and look at her, thinking she was perfect except for her nose. It had a sexy hook, one little imperfection that made her all the more attractive. “I think so,” Harry said.

  “You think so? Harry, I have to tell you I was crazy about you.” />
  “Really?” He grinned and walked in and she closed the door.

  “Really.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Girls weren’t supposed to make the first move, Harry.”

  She escorted him into a room with dark wood trim and plaster walls, old-world craftsmanship. It was stuffy like the windows hadn’t been opened in years. Martz was sitting in a heavy overstuffed chair, an alert old guy with a permanent grin. He stood up, fixed his rheumy gaze on Harry. He was tall and stoop-shouldered, with long silver hair combed back and dark eyebrows.

  Lisa said, “Nice seeing you, Harry,” and walked out of the room.

  “You look just like your father,” Martz said staring at him.

  Everyone told him that.

  “Your parents used to have parties. You would come down the stairs and ask us to turn down the music.”

  “I remember everyone dancing, having a good time.”

  Martz directed him to a green velvet couch that was next to the chair he’d been sitting in. “I think about your parents every day,” Martz said. “Your father was well liked by everyone. Jews in the neighborhood would come to him for advice instead of the rabbi. I used to call him Sol, short for Solomon.” He paused, taking his time. “It is amazing how much you are like him, same voice, same mannerisms. Your father used to pick his fingernails like that.”

  Harry looked at his hands, not even aware he was doing it, and stopped.

  Martz pushed his hair back with his right hand. “Your mother was a great beauty. She had her pick of the men. But when she met your father that was it.”

  Harry took the photo out of his shirt pocket and showed it to him.

  “Both of your parents had exquisite taste. Always well dressed.” Martz glanced across the room. “It is too bad.”

  “I remember seeing Hitler in the neighborhood,” Harry said.

  “He lived not far from us. He would drive around with his Nazis, honking the horn at people on the street, saluting. In the early years he was a curiosity. We made fun of him. Didn’t think he would last. How could he? That was in 1928. Five years later he became chancellor,” Martz said. “Do you remember the food rationing and the curfew for Jews?”

  Harry nodded.

  “By 1940 we couldn’t buy shoes or clothes. Then we couldn’t have cameras. Then we couldn’t buy coffee, chicken, fish, or vegetables. We couldn’t buy coal to heat the house. In September ’41 all Jews over the age of six had to wear a yellow star.”

  “I remember,” Harry said.

  “I was taken to Dachau about six months before you. I was in the yard the day the SS put you and your father on the truck. There was no logic to the selection. The important thing, Harry, you survived.”

  The silver Zeppelin was gone when Harry came out of Martz’ house an hour later and walked back to his hotel. He crossed the lobby, stopped at the front desk and asked the clerk if there were any messages for Harry Levin.

  “Herr Berman is in the lounge waiting for you.”

  Harry saw him sitting at a table, a stocky, ruddy-faced man wearing a tweed sport coat, reading the newspaper. Stark said Fedor Berman had spent three years at Auschwitz. He was the only person in the bar, and looked up as Harry approached. “Herr Berman, Harry Levin.”

  The man stood up and they shook hands. He pulled a chair out for Harry. “Bitte.”

  They sat at opposite sides of the table. “Will you join me in a drink?”

  Harry ordered a beer. “Bob Stark tells me you’re a skier.”

  “I spend the morning hiking, walking up the hills I will be skiing down in a couple months. Must get the legs ready.”

  Berman poured schnapps in his coffee and sipped it. Opened a briefcase on the chair next to him, took out a manila envelope and handed it to Harry. He opened the envelope and slid out the contents, a dozen photographs of a country estate shot from different angles, and several pictures of Hess’ airship factory. “Where does he live?”

  “Schleissheim,” Berman said. “His main residence. Thirteen kilometers north of here. He has a sophisticated security system and a security team watching the estate.”

  “Who’s the big guy that’s always with Hess?”

  “Arno Rausch. His bodyguard. He’s worked for him since the end of the war.” Berman paused. “Hess also has an apartment in the city.”

  Berman handed him a photograph of the building, the address written at the bottom in the margin. He drank his coffee and schnapps.

  “Have you been to Munich before, Herr Levin?”

  “A long time ago,” Harry said.

  “Enjoy your stay. If I can be of further assistance—”

  “There is one more thing,” Harry said. “I need a gun.”

  Montreux, Switzerland. 1942.

  The four Nazis got off the train at Konstanz, the blond SS Sturmbannführer eyeing him as he walked by. The train stopped again at the border. The rabbi had told him Swiss authorities were cracking down on refugees trying to enter the country. Jews who were caught were deported or handed over to the Nazis.

  Swiss police boarded, checking papers. A heavyset officer, hat pulled low over his eyes, looked Harry up and down the way the Nazi had, as if he was guilty of something. Studied his identification, glanced from the photo to his face.

  “Volker Spengler,” he said. “A German boy traveling alone in a time of war. Where is your visa?”

  “I don’t have one,” Harry said.

  “How do you expect to enter this country without a visa?”

  “I’m going to stay with my grandmother.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Montreux,” Harry said. “She is the only relative I have left. My father was killed in France during the invasion, my mother in Hamburg by an Allied bomb.”

  “We have a strict policy concerning refugees.”

  Harry had five hundred marks folded in his pocket, hoping it was enough. The rest of the money was hidden in the linings of his shoes. He handed the bribe to the policeman. “My grandmother asked me to give you this. To thank you, to show her gratitude for helping me.”

  The policeman looked at the folded pile of bills, tucked it in the front pocket of his uniform shirt. “Welcome to Switzerland, Herr Spengler.”

  He was finally free but didn’t trust the feeling. After all that had happened he couldn’t let himself relax. Thought about his parents, took the photograph out of his pocket, Harry posing with his mother and father in front of their house. He slid the picture in his pocket and looked out the window at the lush countryside, mountains in the distance, reminding him of Bavaria.

  The train went on to Montreux, arriving in the late afternoon. He got off, walked into the station and found a city map in a rack next to the ticket booth. He went outside, studying the street grid of Montreux. He had no idea where he was going and asked a policeman for directions. It took twenty minutes to walk to the Sternbuch residence. He found the address and knocked on the door. It opened and a bearded man in a fedora said, “What can I do for you?”

  He looked about forty, wore round tortoiseshell glasses and a shirt and tie.

  “I’m looking for Frau Sternbuch.”

  “And you are?”

  “Harry Levin.”

  “I’m Yitzchok, her husband.”

  They talked for a couple minutes, Yitzchok asking where he was from, and where were his parents, and how he had escaped?

  There were tables set up in the main room, people sitting around them drinking coffee and talking. It looked like a party. Yitzchok led him through the house to the dining room. A woman wearing what looked like a turban was sitting at the middle of the table, speaking to a group of bearded men wearing hats like the husband’s. She saw them enter the room and stopped talking. The men at the table turned to look at him.

  “Recha, I want to introduce you to Harry Levin, a Dachau survivor from Munich.”

  The woman stood and came around the table, her face telling him she und
erstood what he’d been through. She put her arms around him, held him the way his mother did.

  “Harry, there is nothing to worry about. You are safe,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “It is a blessing you have joined us for Shabbos.”

  Now the men got up, came over and shook his hand. It was a bit overwhelming these strangers welcoming him like this.

  They lit candles and had Shabbos dinner, Recha Sternbuch, her family and forty displaced French, Czech and German Jews, a rabbi saying prayers, people passing platters of food. After dinner the tables were taken out of the rooms downstairs and replaced by mattresses where the refugees slept. It was an open house for anyone who didn’t have a place to stay.

  Recha put Harry in a room upstairs with her son, Avrohom‚ who was thirteen, nice quiet kid who had a book in his hands, reading by lamplight.

  “What is that?” Harry said.

  “Talmudic scripture. Historical writings of the ancient rabbis. It is the legal code that forms the basis of religious law.”

  “This is what you read for pleasure?”

  Avrohom looked like he didn’t understand.

  “What does it say? Read something.”

  “Here is a passage: Babia Mezia 114b. ‘The Jews are called human beings, but the non-Jews are not humans. They are beasts.’”

  “It should be changed to ‘the Nazis are beasts.’”

  “You were in Dachau, my mother said. What was it like?”

  Harry told him the whole story, the kid listening without expression.

  “God was sitting up in the sky watching over you,” Avrohom said.

  Harry didn’t see it that way, but didn’t say anything. The Sternbuchs were deeply religious Orthodox Jews. He didn’t want to offend them.

  Recha cabled his uncle in Detroit the following week.

  Harry Levin is alive and well, living with us in Montreux, Switzerland. Will arrange for passage to the United States when possible. Please send visa.