Pursuit (19 page)

Then his mind cleared and he smiled. Those struggles, he said to himself, made me strong enough to live through the camps—and to bring others through with me, Grossman included. And besides, Grossman was wrong. For any Jew one square meter of Palestinian soil, owned and brought to fruition by his own hand, his own sweat, had to be worth the whole of any country on earth.

The ferry pulled into Staad and docked with a great rush of water into the slip, bouncing jarringly against the straining planks, and settling down only when lashed into growling obedience by the dockside davits. And as Max Brodsky swung along the short road leading to Konstanz itself, he tried to seriously analyze exactly why he was undertaking this obviously useless trip. He decided it had to be because he had too much time and effort invested in bringing Benjamin Grossman through Bergen-Belsen to lose him now. He also decided he had changed his mind as to what he would do when and if he found his friend. Rather than pound on that thick German skull, he would strangle the man with his bare hands, and then toss his dead body across the border into Switzerland, if that was where Benjamin Grossman wanted to go so badly.

It was a comforting thought and kept his mind from food as he marched along.

The seventy-odd miles from Munich's Maximilian Platz to Leipheim on the Ulm road had been covered in a scant two and a half hours, a tribute to the bus driver's utter lack of caution or good sense on the unrepaired road. As Grossman climbed down and watched the bus tear off again, he wished he had waited at least until after breakfast before taking off on his journey. Or had not been so stubborn about accepting a few cans of food before taking off; even a lunch of Spam would have tasted good at the moment. The little money Max had given him—which would have been more if Max had not been so Jew-stingy—he had to save for more desperate times. He crossed the road and started to wave down the trucks that were passing in a steady stream, churning up dust.

As he stood there he felt a fine sense of freedom, simply for being alone. He had always been a loner, and that had been difficult if not impossible in either the camps or at Felsdorf. He was also pleased he had made the decision to leave, certain it had been the right one, even if arrived at on the spur of the moment.

A truck pulled up, interrupting his thoughts, and the driver motioned him to join him in the cab. He climbed in, slammed the door behind him, shoved the striped cap into his pocket, and leaned back, completely at peace with the world. And Brodsky and Wolf had thought there would be some trouble in getting to Konstanz! Here he was, well on the way to his goal, and it was only eleven in the morning! Maybe he could get the driver to buy him some lunch at a roadside inn; or maybe the driver had rations with him. All these Americans seemed to be loaded with chocolate bars, as if they grew them in their back yards.

His thoughts were interrupted and it was a moment before he realized he was being addressed in Yiddish. In surprise, he looked over at the driver, actually seeing him for the first time. It was an American soldier with two stripes on his arm, a corporal, a smallish man far older than one would expect for that lowly rank. He wore thick glasses and his uniform seemed too big for him. He kept wetting his lips as he spoke.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm trying to get to Konstanz, on the Bodensee,” he said, speaking pure German. There were enough rides to be had on this road without having to cater to the language tastes of some Jew corporal, probably from New York. Wasn't that where all American Jews lived?

“Konstanz. On the Bodensee,” said the corporal, frowning, and then understood. “Oh,” he said in English. “Constance. On Lake Constance.” He glanced over at Grossman and then brought his attention back to the road, changing to halting German. “I thought—I guess we all have the idea that all camp inmates were Jews. And you look …” He let it fade away. Grossman made no attempt to enlighten the man. “What camps were you in?” the corporal asked, trying to pass over the brief silence.

“Maidanek, Buchenwald, and Belsen.”

The corporal's eyebrows raised. “Good Lord! You're lucky to be alive!”

“I suppose.”

“What was it like in the camps?”

The nosy Jew bastard!

“It was like something I don't feel like talking about.”

“Oh.” The corporal's face turned fiery red. “I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I should have realized … I didn't mean …” As if in compensation for the faux pas, he said slowly, “Constance … I'm on my way to Freiburg with medical supplies. I'm a medic, you see-well, a dental technician, actually, but they were short of drivers and I said I'd go. I think I go near there, though …”

He pulled from the road, set the brake, and drew a map from the glove compartment, studying it, constantly pushing his glasses into position as they slid down his nose.

“I go through a place called Tuttlingen. Constance is off the road quite a bit, but I guess I could take you at least partway to Constance from Tuttlingen …”

“There's a good road from Tuttlingen to Singen,” Grossman said.

“Singen … yes …” said the corporal. He put the map away and got the truck back on the road, after which he concentrated on his driving, saying nothing.

A typical Jew, Grossman thought with disgust. All nosy and pushing as long as you let them; all fawning and toadying once you put them in their place. Although it was true that Brodsky wasn't that way, and to call Wolf fawning was ridiculous. Well, there were exceptions to every rule, and Brodsky and Wolf merely proved it. This little Jew was as standard as they came; he would not only take him where he wanted to go, but he would buy all the meals en route, as well. Grossman would have bet on it.

At Singen the border was only three miles away, at a small village called Thayngen, but Grossman knew the border there would be loaded with guards. According to the stories he had heard at Felsdorf, they constituted half the population of the small town, and the huge dogs they had constituted most of the remaining half. No, Thayngen was not the place to cross any more than Konstanz itself was. Let Wolf and Brodsky think that was his goal; let them think what they would. Grossman knew where he was going to cross and had since he had made up his mind so quickly to make his attempt at last. It made him wonder why he had waited so long.

They had lunch at Ehringen, dinner at Stochach—both meals paid for by the diffident corporal almost as if it were a compulsion—and then under Grossman's direction they took a winding dirt road down to Radolfzell on the Zellersee, only twelve miles from Konstanz. Here Grossman had the Jew corporal turn south; he was giving orders now, no longer asking. They passed through Allenbach, less than four miles from Konstanz, and on the far side of the small town he had the corporal stop the truck and drop him off. He started to give perfunctory thanks and then remembered something. It never hurt to be sure of things. He got back up on the running board and leaned in the window.

“Do you have a tool kit?”

“A tool kit?”

“Yes,” Grossman said impatiently. “Tools. To fix things. To change a tire if you have to.”

“Oh. I—why, yes. Under the seat. Why?”

“Let me see it.”

“I really don't think—” the corporal started to say, and then sighed. He climbed down, brought out the tool kit, and opened it. Grossman leaned over, studying the tools, and then selected the largest screwdriver in the set as being best suited to his needs. He tucked it into his belt, jumped down, and waved.

“Thanks.” He backed into the darkness, watching the truck make a difficult turn in the narrow road and flee back toward Radolfzell as if pursued by the hounds of hell. Grossman laughed. Typical! I could have taken the truck from him, he thought; I could have told him to drive me over the border somewhere along the line, and the poor fool would undoubtedly have tried it! We were wrong to try and wipe the Jews from the earth; we should have used them for slaves. They would have made excellent slaves.

It was a dark night, with a sliver of a moon trying halfheartedly to peer through the banks of curdled clouds. He realized this was pure luck; when he had made his impulsive decision to try for the border he had not even considered the phase of the moon. Maybe it augured well for his mission; it was time things went right for him. Still, while he had not considered the phase of the moon, the place of his crossing had occurred to him almost instantly. He had spent many a weekend with girls of various standards of morals here on the Zellersee when he had been at the university in Munich. He remembered well the small rowboats that had been rented out to lovers at the dock below Allenbach, boats one could use to row to Reichenau Island in the lake and there enjoy all the privacy a lover could desire. It was a long row, but certainly within his power to make, for he would not only have to reach the island, but would have to row around the tip to the edge facing the Swiss shore.

He calculated it would take three hours to bring him into the proper position on Reichenau. Then possibly another hour of rowing, but after that it meant a swim, since he could not risk the noise of oarlocks near the shore. But he would still have the boat for support. An hour out of Reichenau he would strip, place his clothing in the boat, and paddle behind the boat to Switzerland. It would be a long job, but it would be the sure safe way to get there; the shore from Steckborn to Gottlieben had to be as deserted as any section of the border. Of course he could row down from Allenbach to Stomeyersdorf in the swamp area above Konstanz and cross there; that was only a few hundred yards wide—but that portion of the border would be heavily patrolled.

No; his way was best. The water would be chilly, and his bad arm would be a problem on the long row, but it was the proper method of getting into the country. Then, once inland, over the low hills to Pfyn and on to Frauenfeld. It was an area he knew well, and he was sure he could get by. There were many out-of-the-way farms in the district, and from them he could get less identifiable clothing, and even—with his money—a ride to Zurich by some farmer pleased to be earning ten American dollars. And in Zurich, once the banks opened, everything would be resolved.

He cautioned himself not to dwell on the future so much, but to concentrate on the immediate requirements of the plan. The small dock with the rowboats had been about a mile east of the town; he was sure they would still be there. This part of Germany and the world had been untouched by the war, people still came here for vacations. The boats might be chained, of course, which is why he had required the screwdriver, but no chain was going to stop him at this point. He hitched the screwdriver into a more comfortable position in his belt and started down the road.

Deiter Kessler had never enjoyed the war, even in those heady days when the armies of the Third Reich were sweeping all opposition easily before them. Deiter Kessler was by nature a peaceful man, as many large powerful men are peaceful, and while he had been forced at times to kill, he had never done it with the obvious pleasure of some of his companions. And as the war continued, Deiter Kessler enjoyed it less and less. But when the war was over, he found that peace had dealt him worse blows than the war ever had. For when he returned to Konstanz, whence he had been called to arms, it was to find that his wife had gone off with another man, taking not only their children but the furniture as well. The factory where he had been employed was no longer in existence, a fire having reduced it to hot bricks and a hole in the ground while he had been away. It never occurred to Deiter Kessler to leave the area; it was his home and the only solid recognizable thing in a world rapidly shifting beneath his feet. In order to live, therefore, Kessler was reduced to taking a job guarding the small boat dock near Allenbach.

It was not too bad a job. It required almost no labor and allowed much time for thinking, although few of Deiter Kessler's thoughts were pleasant. It also paid very little; on his salary it was difficult to find a boardinghouse he could afford. And, of course, the distance from Konstanz made it impossible to pay for daily transportation back and forth. But there was a small boathouse on the dock where oars were normally kept at night, and here Deiter, therefore, had arranged a cot where he could sleep on cool nights. On pleasant evenings, though, he preferred to sleep in one of the boats, lost in its shadows, stretched out on the duckboards with his arm for a pillow, lulled by the pleasing motion of the water. There was an additional advantage of sleeping among the boats; it made it unnecessary to unship and store the oars each night, as well as not having to bring them out again each morning.

The boat in which Deiter Kessler chose to sleep this particular night was chosen because it was the dryest and would remain dry throughout the night, which could not always be said of all the others. As he lay down, Deiter was looking forward to dreaming a dream he often had, of coming home from the war to find his buxom wife there to greet him, kissing him passionately with promise in the kiss, with his son and daughter there, the house all bright and shining, the odor of his wife's excellent cooking even edging into his dream to make him hungry. It was a nice dream, a good dream, and even though when he woke it was always to feel more depressed than ever, he still looked forward to his recurring dream. For that brief period, at least, he was happy.

This night, though, there was an inexplicable variation in the dream. When he came home from the war it was to find the door of his house locked, and to discover he had no key. He started to shake the door, using his great strength, and the lock sprang open, but there was a chain inside, holding the door closed, and he realized his wife must be home to have put up the chain. She not only was home but he could see her inside, talking to some strange man, laughing, paying no attention to her husband. It made him furious. He started to shove the door against the chain, making it rattle, but to no avail. When at last he stood back to consider some other means of entrance, for some unknown reason the chain continued to rattle.