Aces (12 page)

“I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends,” Goldstein said dryly. He stood up, and placed some money on the
table. “I’ll buy my own coffee, thanks.”

“As you wish,” Froehlig nodded. He opened up his pamphlet and began to read.

Goldstein stared at his lost friend another moment. “I would like to read that pamphlet, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“I can get another copy easily,” Froehlig replied, handing it over.

That night, in his room, Goldstein read the damned
Protocols
through, three times. When he was finished he tore the pamphlet up into little pieces and burned it in the washbasin.

As he watched the smoke curl against the cracked ceiling plaster, the idea came to him that he should leave Germany. He had
no family or friends here, and more and more it looked as if he had no future.

His eyes fell on a stack of old newspapers taking up one corner of the room. He thought about America. The American President
Wilson had wanted to be merciful; it seemed that of all the world, America was the least vindictive toward Germany and its
people…

Now that the idea had crystallized, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. Excited, he went through the entire newspaper
stack, tearing out anything that had to do with America, arranging the articles in chronological order, trying to construct
a mosaic of facts about America out of the brief clippings. He came upon a photograph of Wilson. The American president was
clean-shaven and had short gray hair. He wore spectacles and had the look of a benevolent schoolmaster.

Goldstein tore the photograph out of the newspaper and propped it up beside his bed. He was not someone to go off half-cocked
about something as important as immigrating to America. He would sleep on the idea.

He wished President Wilson good night, and slept soundly.

At dawn he woke, to tell the American president that he was sure. He would be coming to America.

Air Park No. 34 was really an airplane graveyard. Located on the outskirts of Munich, the Air Park was created in response
to the Versailles Treaty, which stipulated that Germany disarm. All tanks, warships, and military aircraft not confiscated
as desirable equipment by the Allies had to be destroyed. The Air Park, which had been a plumbing supply warehouse before
the government had requisitioned it, was admirably suited to destroying airplanes. It fronted on a stretch of straight, paved
road that could serve as a landing field, and it had plenty of space to stack the broken-winged carcasses once they were stripped
of their engines.

Periodically, Goldstein, who’d been manager of the Air Park since September, would have his work crews pile the fuselages
in the yard and burn the war birds in great, towering bonfires.

The former warehouse’s loading docks were exposed to the elements, and today the weather was raw, with a mixture of sleet
and rain slanting down. Goldstein and the Russian, whose name he could never remember, stood stamping their feet against the
dock floor’s iron grating. A trash fire flaring and waning in an old petrol barrel afforded them some warmth as they watched
the work crews wrestle aircraft engines into the back of the lorry.

Goldstein studied his clipboard as the last of the engines were loaded and the lorry pulled out of the loading dock. Another
lorry, motor idling, was waiting to take its place. Now it began backing into the loading dock.

“It must please you that the German Air Service will survive,” the Russian said. “Even if it is on foreign soil. Perhaps,
someday, you too will come to my country. We could use your talents as a flier and mechanic.”

Goldstein smiled politely. The only place he was going was America. He’d already begun studying the language and had worked
more than halfway through an English primer, thanks to the help of a language tutor he’d found in Munich.

Goldstein waited until the last lorry was in position and the workers had begun loading it with engines. He then guided the
Russian into the warehouse, out of the line of sight of the workers.

“My money, please,” Goldstein murmured. The Russian handed over a sheaf of bills, which Goldstein quickly crammed into his
pocket.

It had been easy for Goldstein to get the manager’s job. The government bureaucrats in charge of the Air Park needed someone
who could on occasion pilot an airplane as well as dismantle them, and most fliers, ex-officers all, were refusing to cooperate
with the disarmament program, considering it another example of cowardly surrender on the part of the government. To disarm
was simply beneath the dignity of officers and gentlemen.

Goldstein had hardly begun the job when he was discreetly approached by a group of high-ranking German officers who were willing
to pay if he’d help them channel a certain number of the best aircraft engines to Russia. It seemed that aircraft fuselages,
instruments, and machine guns that were to be matched up with the engines were moving to Russia from other German disarmament
facilities, and that the same thing was happening with tanks, and so on. The Russians were allowing the Germans to reassemble
and train with their illicit equipment, in exchange for the Germans teaching the Red Army how to soldier.

“See you in two weeks,” the Russian said as the last engines were loaded in the lorry.

Goldstein nodded. It struck him as ironic that the Russians and the right wing German military were in bed together concerning
this rearmament conspiracy, considering that it was the politically conservative Friekorps and Reichwehr which were so violently
against Germany’s current socialist left wing government. Goldstein had wondered if the officers had thought he’d be amenable
to the scheme to benefit Russia as well as Germany because he was a Jew.

Finally, he didn’t care what the officers thought. He would have been willing to send the engines to hell if it helped pay
his way to America.

He’d already inquired into the cost of the steamship ticket. By summer, his bribes combined with his meager salary would total
enough cash to allow him to set sail. He figured his English would be pretty swell by then as well.

On the day Goldstein set sail for America the newspapers carried brief articles buried in the back pages concerning the meeting
of the Deutsch Arbeiter-Partei in Salzburg. The newspaper coverage was sparse because D.A.P. was just a fringe organization,
but Goldstein was interested because it was the political organization to which Heiner Froehlig had said he’d belonged when
they’d met that night in Berlin, almost eighteen months ago.

Goldstein carefully read every article on the D.A.P. convention. He felt sentimental now that he was bidding Germany farewell,
so, although he couldn’t abide Froehlig’s views, he was nevertheless happy for the man who had once been his friend. Since
Froehlig’s little organization had seemed so important to him that night, it was nice that the newspapers had him as a prominent
figure in his party, along with someone named Adolph Hitler.

(advertisement-advertisment-advertisment)

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION!

EX-MILITARY FLIERS!

VETERANS AND NON-VETERANS

CAPTAIN BOB’S TRAVELING AIR EXTRAVAGANZA, the world’s premier barnstorming troupe, is looking for experienced aviators to
perform in its 1921 National Tour.

You must be young, physically fit, unmarried, and military-trained pilots skilled in aerobatics. You must be willing to learn
wing walking, stunt flying, and sky vaudeville.

Interested, qualified individuals should apply in person, Monday, March 3rd, at Hillsboro Aviation Field, Hillsboro, New Jersey.

(advertisment-advertisment-advertisment)

—
The New York Times

“Please, if you’d tell me where I might find Captain Bob? I wish to apply for the position of stunt pilot advertised in
The New York Times
.”

“You and every other squirt hereabouts.” The gaunt, elderly watchman standing guard at the Hillsboro looked disgusted. He
wore a shabby overcoat and a wool knit cap, and had a clipboard. It was a cool, damp spring morning, and the weather was making
him suffer. His ears and nose were red, and his pale eyes were runny. He kept stamping his feet and blowing into his hands.
“Well, what’s your name, kid? Can’t go in until I’ve got your name wrote down…”

“Herman Gold.” He watched the guard write it down on his clipboard. His new name still sounded funny to him, although he liked
the way it looked on paper: much more American than Hermann Goldstein. He wasn’t sure just which immigration officer had cropped
it for him as he was being processed. It wasn’t until much later that he noticed his new name inked into permanence on his
entry papers.

“What’s a kid like you want to get mixed up with them fliers, anyhow?” the guard scolded. “I’m only telling you because I
can see you’re an immigrant, and maybe ignorant about such things.”

Gold stiffened, feeling insulted. Look like an immigrant, indeed! He had on his brand new, brown wool suit and was wearing
a white shirt and a green and red, striped four-in-hand—not knickers and a cap… “Sir, if you don’t mind…”

“Take my advice, learn yourself an honest trade. You wouldn’t catch me up in one of them flying contraptions. No sir. If the
Lord wanted men to fly, he’d given them wings.”

“May I go through the gate, now?” Gold asked politely.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the watchman sniffled. “You go through here, and follow the crowd to hangar three.”

“Thank you.”

“Good luck with the captain,” the guard called after him. “You’ll need it. Lots of young men are here today looking to be
stunt pilots. I can’t figure why.”

Gold hurried away, scowling as he tried to pick a path through the mud. He’d dressed up to make a good impression on his prospective
new employer, but it was just as well he hadn’t been able to afford new shoes, and so was forced to wear his high, lace-up
work boots. Hillsboro Aviation Field was just a large expanse of mud and weeds, bordered with crude wooden buildings. The
control tower was a rickety wooden scaffolding with two lamps on top. The white lamp stood for caution, Gold surmised; green
for all clear to land. Hillsboro had been used by the Americans as a pilot training school during the war, but it was far
more primitive than the training fields in Germany. In fact, Hillsboro reminded him of the temporary, wartime aerodromes he’d
frequented in France.

The feeling of being back in Europe with J.G. 1 was intensified as Gold approached hangar three. It was a large, barnlike
structure, painted a blistered, peeling yellow, with
CAPTAIN BOB’S AIR EXTRAVAGANZA
in fading black script on the hangar’s side and above its door. Parked nearby were a number of motortrucks and trailers painted
the same yellow with black lettering, and ten similarly painted biplanes, tethered down to keep them from being blown about
by the wind. Gold recognized the large, ungainly, two-seater machines as Curtiss JN-4D war surplus military trainers, nicknamed
“Jennys.”

It had been a long time since Gold had been near a flying machine. He would have enjoyed poking around the Jennys, but he
didn’t want to get grease on his new suit, nor waste any time. There were at least twenty men queued up at the door to the
hangar, and when Gold looked over his shoulder he saw that more would-be barnstormers were coming through the gate.

Gold quickly took his place in line, mentally rehearsing what he intended to say to Captain Bob in order to get the job. He
was going to be sincere and honest; those qualities had so far served him well in America.

He’d had good luck since his arrival seven months ago. He’d already gone looking for work at the many motor garages and trucking
companies in New York City. On his second day of looking, he was hired as a mechanic at Red Apple Trucking, a firm on the
lower west side of Manhattan. The Russian Jew who owned the company was impressed by Gold’s mastery of English and his mechanical
skills, and for some reason the Russian thought it was humorously ironic that he was giving a newly arrived German Jew an
opportunity to make a start in America.

The job went well. After six months Gold’s boss had given him a raise and had promised to make him maintenance manager as
soon as the position opened up.

Gold should have been happy, but he wasn’t. Something was lacking in his life. In the beginning he thought it was just the
inevitable disparity between his expectations and the reality of life in his new country.

Gold had imagined taking his place in an adventurous, energetic American society, a confident nation ready to lead the world,
but he’d actually arrived just in time to witness the president he’d worshipped from afar leave office a rejected, broken
man. The new president, Warren Harding, inaugurated just ten days ago, had won office by promising Americans a return to the
serenity and normalcy of the past.

This new America being trumpeted about in the newspapers disturbed Gold. It was one thing for those already prosperous, who
could sit fat and complacent, quite something else for those still anxious to raise their lot in life, and perhaps do some
greater common good in the process.

He’d been spending his evenings reading American history as well as current events, eager to understand everything about his
new country. He’d come to the conclusion that America’s most successful pioneers had made their own opportunities. He’d decided
that if America’s past was any indication of its future, he would not achieve success working for someone like his current,
kindly, but unimaginative employer, who believed, like President Harding, that hard work should be its own reward and that
dullness was a virtue.