Voices of the Dead

by Peter Leonard

  Yours sincerely, Recha Sternbuch.

  Harry stayed with them in Montreux till the end of the war. Recha and Yitzchok were gone most of the time on their crusade to rescue Jewish children, the orphans of Europe. She was the toughest woman he’d ever seen, standing up to the police in Switzerland, and the authorities in other European countries, protecting refugees, saving thousands of kids.

  When the war ended, Harry and a group of five hundred Jews sponsored by Recha took a train to Lisbon and boarded a ship on August 20, 1945, arriving in the port of New York two weeks later.

  With the American visa Harry had gotten from his uncle, he went right through customs and immigration, no one giving him a hard time, no one to bribe. He had money and a place to live and nothing to declare. He exchanged his Swiss francs for American dollars at a bank on Fifth Avenue. Harry walked the streets, looking up at the tall buildings, amazed by the size of New York, almost overwhelming. He had seen shots of it in movies, but nothing like the impact of being there.

  He stopped at a bookstore and bought an English–German dictionary and a map of the city. He walked to Grand Central Station at 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Bought a one-way fare to Detroit, a fourteen-hour trip with all the stops, arriving on September 4, 1945 at 8:17 in the morning.

  Harry took a taxi to his uncle’s house on Elmhurst, between Dexter and Linwood, the directions said, riding in morning traffic on Woodward Avenue, four lanes of automobiles in both directions, seeing Detroit for the first time, the city waking up, alive. It was small compared to New York, but still larger and more modern than the European cities he’d been to.

  It was a nice-looking house, two-storey brick with a big porch in front and a green lawn, in a pretty neighborhood with a lot of trees. Harry was excited. He hadn’t seen his aunt and uncle since they left Munich in 1940. He rang the buzzer, waited, the door opened, his aunt looked at him and yelled.

  “Sam…”

  Harry stepped into the foyer, Esther hugging him, hearing Sam’s voice in another room. “What is it?” And then Sam appearing, coming down the hall toward them.

  “My God, am I seeing who I think I’m seeing? Harry, why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Surprise us? I almost had a heart attack. Where are your things?”

  “This is it.”

  “Esther will take you to Hudson’s; it’s a department store. You’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like any of this.”

  “You like baseball, Harry? That’s right, you don’t know from baseball. I’m going to take you to see Hank Greenberg, greatest ballplayer in the world.”

  “Harry, you’re going to like it here,” Esther said. “We can buy fruit and vegetables even in winter.”

  “How about apples?” Harry said.

  “As many as you want.”

  “You hungry, Harry? Of course you are. Esther, get him something to eat.”

  It didn’t take any time, Harry fell in love with American girls and baseball, playing in the street and going with his uncle to see the Tigers. He fell in love with the pickles from Grunt’s market on Dexter, and television, watching Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and The Milton Berle Show. He loved going to movies at the Avalon Theater and going to Boesky’s and Darby’s for lunch and dinner. But mostly he liked the fact that in America you could do or be anything you wanted.

  Munich, Germany. 1971.

  9:15 the next morning, Harry was having breakfast, studying the grainy photographs of Ernst Hess’ estate taken with a long lens. The house was big, a classic Tudor with dark exposed timbers, with stucco walls, steep roof lines and half a dozen tall chimneys. The windows were rectangular, with one- and two-storey bays and decorative leaded glass panes.

  It was more mansion than house, ten photos showing the front, sides and rear, and the gardens, pool and tennis court behind it. There were several shots of Hess taken at different times. Hess in business attire, coming out the front, getting into a black Mercedes, Rausch, the linebacker he’d thrown over the table at Les Halles in Washington DC, standing in the frame. Hess in bathing trunks, climbing out of the pool, gut hanging out. Hess in the garden with a tall, slim dark-haired girl, identified as his daughter, Katya, age seventeen. There were also photos of Hess AG, the Zeppelin factory, two airplane hangars and a three-storey building built on an alpine meadow outside the city, the snow-capped Bavarian Alps in the background. And a final shot of Hess’ apartment building in downtown Munich.

  The phone rang, Berman saying he had the merchandise Harry ordered. Harry took the elevator down and met him in the lobby. Berman handed him a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper that weighed about four pounds. Harry handed Berman a hotel envelope that had five hundred-dollar bills in it, thanked him and went back to his room.

  Harry sat on the bed and pulled the tape off, unwrapped the paper and took out the gun, an untraceable blue-black Colt .38 Special, and ten rounds. He picked up the gun, pushed the latch forward and the cylinder popped open. The chambers were empty. He anchored the butt of the revolver against his belt, muzzle pointing at the floor. Held the cylinder with his right hand and fed rounds into the chambers, leaving one empty so he wouldn’t shoot himself by accident. He swung the cylinder closed with his left hand and heard it click. Harry thought about what he was going to do. Knew what Sara, the anti-war activist, would have said. She’d driven to Kent State on May 5, 1970 to join the protest after National Guardsmen fired sixty-seven rounds into a crowd of students in thirteen seconds, killing four, wounding nine. He took out her picture he carried in his wallet, a snapshot from a summer party, staring at his daughter’s innocent face, getting angry, thinking what he was going to do was justified. He flipped the wallet closed and put it back in his pocket.

  Harry rented a BMW 2002 a block away from the hotel on Prannerstrasse. Drove north out of the city and arrived at the Hess estate thirty minutes later. The house was set behind a brick wall on ten wooded acres. Hess’ neighbors’ homes were on similar-sized lots spread throughout the rolling hills. He parked the BMW, the car hidden by trees unless you were driving by slowly looking for it. He got out, closed the door, and walked across the road, moving along the six-foot-high wall bordering Hess’ estate, following it as it curved into the woods.

  He reached up and grabbed an oak limb and hoisted himself up on top of the wall, dropped to the ground on the other side. He picked his way through heavy timber and thick brush, and came out in front of the massive Tudor that had to be ten thousand square feet. There was a circular drive and two black Mercedes sedans parked near the front door.

  Harry moved through the trees on the west side of the house, catching glimpses of the wide sweeping lawn and gardens, the swimming pool and pool house on the opposite side of the property, tennis court just ahead.

  He could hear voices and see movement behind the fence. Harry crept up close to the court, crouching at the edge of the trees. He watched Hess, in tennis whites, blast a forehand at the girl from one of the photographs, a tall thin teenager whose moves seemed awkward, but she had a two-handed backhand, returned the ball with pace for a winner. Harry stared at the girl, innocent beauty reminding him of Sara, picturing her face in the morgue. He took the .38 out of his pocket, stepped to the fence and put the barrel through an opening, aiming at Hess across the court about fifty feet away.

  The girl moved to the baseline. She was serving, and maybe sensing his presence, glanced to her right, saw him and froze. Harry and the girl were looking at each other. He heard Hess ask her what she was doing. She glanced at her father, saw him running toward the net. Then the alarm sounded and Harry was moving back away from the fence, running through the woods.

  What was he thinking? Was he really going to kill the man in front of his daughter? Harry ran to the wall, jumped up, got his fingers on the limestone cap and hoisted himself up and over, the sound of the alarm stressing him, getting his adrenalin pumping
. He ran to the BMW, got in as a black Mercedes went by, bodyguard behind the wheel. The car slowed and stopped, letting out two armed men who moved along the wall into the woods.

  Hess had seen him out of the corner of his eye, someone standing at the fence, wondering what his security man was doing there. But he was not wearing a dark-blue jacket. Katya was turned looking at him, and now Hess saw the gun and realized he was not one of his security men. He was there to kill him.

  Hess had dropped his racquet and run toward the net, pushed the button on the net post and the alarm sounded: re-er, re-er, re-er, re-er. The intruder was moving back away from the fence, disappearing into the woods. Hess ran to Katya, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her with him toward the house as two members of his security team came toward him, pistols drawn.

  Harry backed out, swung the car around and cruised through the high-rent neighborhood, thinking he might get out of this yet, the sound of the alarm finally fading. But a black Mercedes was speeding toward him. It went by and skidded to a stop. Harry floored it, watched the Benz spin around and come after him.

  The road curved right, left, right. He lost the Mercedes through the turns and then saw it roaring toward him, closing in on the straightaway. Up ahead was the two-lane highway to Munich, running perpendicular, traffic steady, heavy. Harry knew he didn’t have another choice, he braked hard and went right onto the shoulder, backend sliding, horns honking as he cut into traffic. It was risky but it worked: the Mercedes was stopped behind him, waiting for an opening.

  He got off at the next road, went right into the village of Schleissheim, pulled over on Haupstrasse and waited. Sat parked, watching people walk by and cars pass him in both directions but didn’t see a black Mercedes, and after fifteen minutes put the BMW in gear and drove thirteen kilometers back to Munich, parked at the hotel and went up to his room.

  Hess was trying to make sense of what had happened. He had finally managed to calm his daughter. Thank God Elfriede was out of town. He’d never hear the end of it.

  “Papa, who was that man?” Katya had said. “What is this about?”

  Hess had asked himself the same questions and there were no clear answers. He had lied and said, “The man is a lunatic from the factory. The police have arrested him. Don’t worry. You will never see him again.” Hess smiled to reassure her.

  “Papa, if anything happened to you I don’t know what I would do.” She hugged him and went upstairs.

  An hour later, Hess was sipping a glass of single malt, his third, trying to relax. He tossed a pile of surveillance photos onto the desktop. Rausch picked them up, looking at half a dozen shots of the intruder, different angles showing him going over the wall, moving through the trees, standing behind the fence next to the tennis court. But none clearly showed his face. He was about six feet tall, dark hair, medium build. “Do you recognize him?” He stared at Rausch’s blank face, waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t think so,” Rausch said.

  “Are you sure?” Hess was looking at the scar on his cheek, the red line of tissue where the stitches had been.

  Rausch shook his head.

  “You should after what he did to you.”

  “The one in the restaurant?”

  “The crazy Jew from Detroit,” Hess said. He could not understand the man’s behavior, coming to his home with a gun for what had been an accident. It didn’t make sense.

  “What do you want me to do?” Rausch said.

  “Find him.”

  Cordell Sims walked out of the brig at the United States Army Garrison in Heidelberg, Germany at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 10, 1971. He’d been in five days—going out of his mind—for punching out his sergeant. Cordell decided he’d had enough of this man’s army.

  He’d gone before his commanding officer, Colonel Stubbs, a Korean War vet, career officer, the colonel behind his neat, spotless desk. Cordell in a chair in front of him, looking at this pale-skinned dude white as Cordell was black.

  “Private Sims, when you enlisted in the United States military you swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same. You swore to obey the orders of the president of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over you, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. With that you made a promise to the United States military,” Colonel said, giving him a howitzer round of army-speak, eyes on him like lasers. Man paused. “Military discipline and effectiveness is built on the foundation of obedience to orders, private.”

  Colonel‚ all worked up now, had white stuff in the corners of his mouth looked like mayonnaise, made him kind of sick at his stomach. “This ain’t about defending the Constitution or questioning orders,” Cordell said. “It about racism. I think maybe I better talk to a lawyer.”

  “If your situation had become acrimonious, you should have gone through proper channels and filed a complaint. Was there antilocution?”

  Cordell said, “Anti-what?”

  “Badmouthing.”

  “He call me shitskin and nigger,” Cordell said. “That qualify?”

  Colonel Stubbs opened his desk drawer, took out a folder, opened it and started to read.

  “According to Article 90 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, any enlisted person who strikes his superior commissioned officer or draws or lifts up any weapon or offers violence against him while he is in the execution of his duty; or willingly disobeys a lawful command of his superior commissioned officer; shall be punished. If the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court martial may direct.” He closed the folder and glanced at Cordell. “Private Sims, I’m trying to impress upon you the consequences of your actions.”

  Cordell said, “You going to put me to death ’cause Sergeant don’t like black people?”

  Colonel wiped the white stuff off his mouth with his thumb and index finger, looked at it and brought his hand under the desk, probably wiped it on his pants.

  “After completing an inquiry I understand there are extenuating circumstances.”

  “Yes sir,” Cordell said. “Like Sergeant Nobis stepping on my spit-shined boots could see your reflection in. Sergeant says, ‘Boy, them boots is all scuffed up,’” doing his best Sergeant Nobis impression. “‘Better shine ’em real good,’” grinning like a redneck. “Or he check out my bed during inspection, sheet and blanket so tight could bounce a dinner plate off it. Sergeant Nobis picks up the mattress dumped it on the floor, says, ‘Private Sims, looks like you had better square up your bunk.’”

  Cordell had been there a month, arriving right after he finished boot camp, and this treatment had gone on every day. Cordell took it till Sergeant Nobis called him shitskin. And to his credit, he didn’t just swing away. He brought his arms up, fists clenched, gave the redneck a chance. “‘Sarge, get ready. Going to knock your cracker head off.’ He says, ‘Keep talking darkie, I’m going to write you up for insubordination.’”

  “You should have come to me,” Colonel Stubbs said. “Punching out your superior isn’t good for discipline or morale. I might’ve been able to handle this under Article 15, you didn’t knock him out in front of the whole platoon.” He stopped like he was thinkin’. “Way I see it there are two ways you can go here, Private. I can dismiss the charges and reassign you, or I can try to arrange a special court martial with a military judge and have you dishonorably discharged from the United States Army.”

  “I take the discharge,” Cordell said. He had had enough of the uniform, the bad food, taking orders.

  “Consider your decision very carefully,” Colonel said. “A dishonorable discharge is on your record. It could come back to haunt you.”

  If it got him out the army he didn’t care.

  The DD was his second break.

  First one happened after getting busted for selling heroin to an undercover cop, dude giving an Academy Award performance. Cordell shocked
when the man pulled his badge and gun. Looked, smelled, talked like a junkie. Should a handed in his badge gone to Hollywood.

  At the time he was trying to make money to support himself, momma had took to the streets, disappeared for weeks at a time. Show up for a few days, disappear again.

  Case was going to trial. Cordell’s court-appointed lawyer, Mr. Paul Monicatti, told him he could get five years or more, first offense, depending on the judge. But Counselor Monicatti had an idea.

  He went to the man said, “Your honor, Mr. Sims is only nineteen years old. He has his whole life ahead of him. In lieu of incarceration, he would like to join the United States Army and make something of himself.”

  “I’ll bet he would,” the judge said. “And I agree. Mr. Sims is on probation until he enlists, at which time I will discharge his probation with improvement. The court will have no further involvement. Let the army have Mr. Sims. A tour in Vietnam might do him good.”

  Maybe his honor had got laid that morning. Whatever the reason for his leniency, a week later Cordell was sitting in a barber chair, Fort Benning, Georgia, getting his Afro shaved.

  After boot camp Cordell had looked at his options. No way he wanted to go to Nam, fight some Orientals ain’t done nothing to him. So where? Brother from Nashville was shipping out to join the 7th Army at the garrison in Heidelberg, Germany. Looked good. Picturesque town with castles like in a Disney movie. He could see himself all over it. Check out the German food and the German ladies, get himself some German poon. Base was there to keep an eye on the Commies and the Berlin Wall.

  Now he was free, a civilian again, wearing a chocolate-brown leisure suit, riding a train, duffel in the overhead, heading for Munich. Had been there once on leave. City with nightlife. He looked out the window, saw Heidelberg back there in the distance and said, “Auf Wiedersehen, motherfuckers.”

  “Gentlemen, the frame has been greatly simplified from the airships of old. There you see.” They were in Hangar 1. A team of workers was welding the skeletal frame of a Zeppelin, a long triangle of aluminum girders running from end to end. Hess had flown the heads of three American construction companies over to demonstrate the capabilities of his airships. A shiny new Zeppelin skinned in silver canvas hovered above concrete anchors, moored by heavy rope. “Let’s go outside. I have told you what the Hess AG Zeppelin can do. Now I will show you.” He extended his arm in a theatrical gesture. “Gentlemen, if you please.”