Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel (29 page)

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Authors: Thaisa Frank

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The woods rustled—a deer darting through the pines. Lodenstein looked at the stars again and wished he could believe they were angels so he could ask them to keep everyone here safe. But he’d spent enough time in the Compound to know that everyone had a moment of believing in something or other, and was sure he could only believe in what he thought would probably happen: The SS would take them by storm, discover Asher, drag every Scribe and fugitive to the cobblestone street and shoot them, one by one. He and Elie would be forced to witness every death before they themselves were shot because they were the most responsible.
He looked for cigarettes, couldn’t find any, tore a rotting beam from the watchtower, and hurled it below. Every pine tree was a Gestapo. Every clearing a minefield. He climbed down from the watchtower, tripped on the plank, and hurled it to where Mueller had parked his Kübelwagen. He wished the plank were a gun, and he could shoot Mueller between the eyes.
When he came downstairs, Elie was sitting up in bed.
Are we safe? she said.
No, he said. We aren’t safe at all.
Marianne,
I don’t know if you’ll get this letter in this mad house. People are on the verge of escaping, then lose heart, then try to escape anyway, only to be shot. The other day two people knocked two SS men out, put on their uniforms and drove off in one of their trucks. It looks like they made it across the border. There were ten hangings from their cellblock. With so many making plans, I was able to sell my extra shoes for a loaf of bread. So I have more for you.
Love,
Luca
Ever since he’d been brought in, shrouded under blankets, Asher Englehardt hadn’t known what to make of the Compound. The frozen sky and the enormous room where over fifty people in fur coats and fingerless gloves spent hours answering the dead or writing an imaginary language—not to mention bizarre word games, lotteries for half-smoked cigarettes, and cries during the night—was the stuff of purgatory. What was once obviously a mine now contained a cobblestone street, gas lamps, and wrought-iron benches. Even the sky was confused: The moon was always a crescent. The sun groaned when it rose and set. The stars were the same, night after night.
At times it was hard for Asher to know whether the people here were alive, dead, or in a limbo. A woman with whom he’d once had an affair and hadn’t thought about in years had mysteriously reappeared and now left food outside his door. Letters to the dead sat outside his room in crates. The guard with the SS uniform wore wooly slippers.
And two people and a wraith of a child lived opposite his makeshift room with a Tiffany lamp in a little house with a number, even though the street didn’t have a name. Asher made a point of avoiding them because Daniel, who heard gossip, said the woman had forged his signature, and the man had written the utterly ridiculous letter to Heidegger—a letter that might have saved his life, but nonetheless had frightened him at Auschwitz. He made furtive trips to the kitchen for coffee and steered clear of the water closet that concealed a secret cavern in its ceiling. He never went to the main room where the Scribes talked and slept and instead kept to himself, reading the detective stories Lodenstein gave him.
Daniel, on the other hand, discovered the main room on his third day and began to look human after two weeks of eating everything Elie brought him. He also learned how to fix typewriters and sometimes showed them to Asher, littering the floor with keys, spools, carriages—amazing Asher with his ability to take them apart and put them back together. He’d also begun to sleep with Maria, creating a scene with Parvis Nafissian, who yelled at him and called him a
putz
.
Daniel told Asher that the other Scribes were in awe of him and viewed him as nearly mythic. He’d come from a place they’d managed to avoid and was proof that such a place existed—and proof that some people could survive there and return.
At first, the Scribes asked Daniel if he’d seen any of their relatives and friends. They mentioned name after name, places and cities halfway across Europe, described faces in detail. When they realized he’d never met them, not even one, they began to ask about the camp. Invariably, they asked the same question:
Were there real chimneys with real smoke?
Yes, Daniel would say. There were real chimneys. And the smoke coming from them smelled sweet.
He complained to his father that no one ever asked about beheadings by candlelight or people getting shot at morning roll call. Asher said this was because chimneys used to be part of something safe, and every house with a fireplace had one.
So if there are chimneys, he concluded, people understand how something safe can turn into something dangerous.
It had been almost a month since they’d arrived at the Compound, and it was the first time they’d talked about Auschwitz. For over three weeks, it had been enough to share real food, gossip about the Solomons, go to sleep knowing there wouldn’t be roll call, and not wake up to discover that eating utensils had been stolen by another prisoner.
You should come out of this room and tell them about the chimneys, said Daniel.
Never, said Asher, dipping some knäckebrot in soup. I’m sure this place is like Theresienstadt. It looks nice so people can be gassed without knowing it, until they can’t breathe.
It’s not like that at all, said Daniel. People are friendly.
I don’t want to be part of an exhibit.
You wouldn’t. You’d like it.
I’ve been too many places people told me I’d like, said Asher.
You could learn
Dreamatoria
, said Daniel.
I’d much rather read.
Daniel stood in the doorway, half-lit by the kerosene lamp. His hair had begun to grow—lank and blond like his mother’s—and he wore a dark green trench coat that could have belonged to one of their neighbors. He smiled at Asher.
Sometimes I think you don’t want to see the woman who met us at the door, he said.
What are you talking about? said Asher.
Elie, said Daniel. Elie Schacten. The one who’s always with that little kid. Is she the one who helped saved us? Who is she?
An old student, said Asher. Someone I knew at Freiburg. And I’m happy to see her. I’d just rather read. He paused and took a deep breath. Then he said:
I notice you don’t sleep in this room much these days.
I like the main room better, said Daniel.
Is there someone there you like too? said Asher.
You already know there is, said Daniel. Are you angry?
Asher shook his head. Suppose Daniel didn’t survive the war? This would be his only chance to lie next to someone in the dark and share the intimate durations of sleep. His only chance to feel the warmth of another body.
Just be careful, he said. The last thing this place needs is a baby.
Daniel looked insulted: It was the Compound of Scribes. There were French letters everywhere.
A few minutes after Daniel left, Asher heard a knock and opened the door. Talia Solomon stood in front of him with some resentment in her eyes—after all, she’d forged his signature without ever being thanked. But in a moment she smiled and said:
How would you like to come over and play chess?
On a Friday evening? Aren’t you Orthodox? Or—Asher smiled—maybe you don’t bother anymore.
I’m asking you to play chess, said Talia. Not have a hair-splitting discussion.
Asher hesitated. On the one hand, he loved chess. On the other, he didn’t want to be part of a world where people lived in an eternal limbo, and the Solomons were clearly among them, especially since they’d written the letter to Heidegger.
Lodenstein said to ask, said Talia. He says you live like a mole.
Asher reconsidered when he heard that name because Lodenstein was the only member of the Compound he was sure to be among the living. He’d come to Auschwitz, seen Auschwitz, and had driven him and Daniel away from Auschwitz. So he followed Talia. But when he saw the Solomons’ living room, he was in shock all over again: it mimicked an earlier century with velveteen chairs, antimacassars embroidered with nonsense in Hebrew, and portraits of men in skullcaps who would never have posed in the first place because they believed graven images were blasphemous.
There should be a piano, he said to Talia.
Why? she said. Neither of us plays.
Because. It would complete the picture.
What about a harpsichord? said Mikhail.
That would be too much, said Asher.
A violin then?
No. A piano. With some sheet music.
Not Wagner.
No! Scarlatti.
They all laughed. Talia and Asher began to play chess, and Mikhail played Beleaguered Castle—a game of cards Lodenstein had taught him. Just before Talia took one of Asher’s bishops, she told Asher he might not realize how much Elie had worked to save him.
What does this have to do with chess? he said.
Nothing, said Talia.
Asher took Talia’s knight.
Why did you mention it then?
I was just thinking of Elie, said Talia.
Asher took another knight. He was sure they wanted to tell him about the letter and then ask if he really had known Heidegger. No matter where you were in this war, there was gossip. It kept people going.
But no one said anything, and Asher was the one left to think about Heidegger in the Commandant’s room wearing a ski outfit and an Alpine hat, while Mozart drowned out gunshots and Solomon’s letter waved in front of him. Asher had a vivid sense of Auschwitz—corpses like sheets on the barbed-wire fence, melting snow that revealed blood, his daily, heartbreaking fear over Daniel’s safety. The idea that everything was infinitely reversible seemed far away, just as Heidegger’s agitation about never getting his glasses seemed absurd. As did his visits to the optometry shop in Freiburg and his incessant joking about the irony of Asher becoming an optometrist. He thought about the real laughter between them when he taught at the university, and the hills and valleys around Heidegger’s hut—the walks they would take in the Black Forest, their moments of joy and exhilaration. But that all felt remote, a world he no longer believed in. He would never walk with Heidegger again.

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