Pursuit (48 page)

He sat in his hotel room the following day, staring from the window at a heavy fog, trying to think what to do next. Go home without knowing for sure,
for absolutely sure
, whether Benjamin Grossman was or was not the man he suspected him of being? How could he go through life with that question always unanswered? How could he face his father? Or his mother? How could he live with the uncertainty?

The answer was that he could not. Hamburg—should he go there and attempt to trace Benjamin Grossman, to try and locate someone who might be able to remember a Grossman family who had a son named Benjamin? Born in April of 1917? Except that Hamburg had been utterly destroyed, wiped out, all records gone as well as all the people who lived there. But some had escaped before the fire storm, before Hitler, gone to America. Advertise? For a fact that was now almost thirty years old, just since the death of von Schraeder, and over fifty since the birth of this mythical Grossman? Not likely. What about Angermünde? On a sudden inspiration he picked up the telephone and was connected with the hotel operator.

“East Germany?” she said. “Of course. What city and what number?”

“Angermünde, in Mecklenburg,” he said. “I don't have the number, but I would like to speak with someone in the records section of their city hall. Is it possible?”

“Of course. However,” she added, “you may be monitored by the police there if you don't mind,”

“I don't mind.”

“In that case I will ring you when the call comes through.”

He hung up the receiver and shook his head sadly. What was he going to ask them when he was finally connected? Helmut von Schraeder had left Angermünde when he was less than nine years old; what could their records show that could possibly identify—or not identify—the man with Benjamin Grossman? But he had to do something; he couldn't just sit and wonder. He came to his feet and started to pace the room, and then made a sudden move for the telephone as it began to ring.

“Yes? Hello—?”

“Your party is on the line.” And in a lower tone of voice, “You are being monitored …”

He could not have cared less. There were a series of clicks, and eventually the voice of a woman in German, sounding quite efficient. “Records. May I help you?”

Herzl took a deep breath.

“I hope so,” he said. “I'm looking for any information I can get about a family named von Schraeder—”

“Von?” said the voice, mystified. “We have not had any ‘vons' for—”

“I'm speaking of a family that left Angermünde in 1925 or 1926,” Herzl said hurriedly.

“I'm sorry,” the voice said, and it seemed to sound relieved at not being able to help. “Our records were completely destroyed during the war. Totally. All of them. Now they begin again after 1946.”

“Not even—” Herzl knew he was wasting his time. “Thank you,” he said dispiritedly, and hung up.

It appeared as if both von Schraeder and Benjamin Grossman were beyond investigation. No records anywhere: No fingerprints, and photographs that meant little or nothing at all. Why not leave it at that? Forget it. Put the resemblance down as an odd similitude. Why beat a dead horse? But he couldn't drop the matter and he knew it. Another thought suddenly occurred to him and he raised the telephone again quickly, before he could convince himself it was useless. The hotel operator came on the line.

“This may sound insane,” Herzl said apologetically, wondering if she would hang up and call the authorities and not blaming her if she did, “but I'm really quite serious. I want to talk to the oldest person at a church in Angermünde. Not a parishioner,” he added hastily. “A priest, a minister—” He shook his head helplessly. “I don't know.”

He might have been asking for a connection to room service or to another guest in the hotel for all the surprise his request evinced from the operator; he wondered for a moment at the nature of some of the requests she received.

“Which denomination, sir?”

“I don't know,” he said, now convinced he must really be insane. “I have no idea of the denomination.” He knew it sounded stupid, but there was nothing else he could say. He felt like kicking himself; surely the information as to the von Schraeder family's religion had been available at either library had he had the intelligence to think of it. “What religion is most common in East Germany?”

“They are Communist,” the operator said, as if this answered his question.

“But they must have churches—!”

‘“A few, probably,” she said, conceding the possibility. “Lutheran, possibly?”

It was as good as any. “Would you try them please? If there is only one Lutheran church, I suppose we'll have to try other denominations—”

“There won't be many of those, either,” the operator said, and repeated, “… oldest person … not a parishioner,” quite as if the request was completely normal. “I'll ring through to you.”

This time the wait was interminable. Herzl looked at his watch every minute until he realized this made the time creep even more slowly. After that he picked up the morning newspaper, but the words made no sense at all and he tossed it aside, staring out the window at the fog. What was the weather like in Munich at this hour? It would be ten in the morning there; what would Miriam Kleiman be doing at this minute? Going through the mail? Having a cup of tea? Helping another researcher who would probably ask her out to dinner? The thought rankled. He really ought to write to her and apologize for his behavior the day before, maybe even go back to Munich and explain to her in person. But if he discovered anything in Angermiinde he would have to go there and get affidavits, sworn statements. And he would have to advise Zion Films where he was, and why. That might take some doing, although he really wouldn't have to explain until he got back—

The telephone rang.

He reached for it eagerly. “Hello?”

“Your call.”

Another operator on the line, another language. Again, “Your call …”

He continued to wait, hearing breathing at the end of the line, but nobody spoke. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Finally, “Yes?”

“Hello? May I ask who I'm speaking to?”

The voice at the other end was instantly suspicious. “Who is asking?”

“My name is Grossman,” Herzl said, feeling ridiculous to be identifying himself to some stranger who had no idea who he was or why he was calling. “I'm looking for information, any information, I can get about a family named von Schraeder. They left—”

“Von?”

There it was again!

“They left Angermünde in 1925 or 1926,” Herzl said desperately. “An aunt and a boy, after both parents died. The father was General von Schraeder. The mother's name was Langer, her maiden name. I thought possibly there might be some church records. The town records were destroyed—”

“We have no records of anyone of that name.” The voice sounded positive, which Herzl thought extremely odd considering that there had been no attempt to verify any of the facts.

“But—”

“Good-bye!” There was a sharp click as the telephone at the other end was hung up abruptly.

The telephone rang again almost instantly.

“I did not lose the connection to Angermünde,” the hotel operator said, and for the first time there was a touch of emotion in her voice; it was pride. “I will now ring the second church. It is also the last church as far as we can tell,” she added as if to say I told you so, and disconnected.

He sat with the receiver to his ear, listening to the eerie exchange of sounds and languages between unknown parties, and then found himself alone on the line.

“Hello?” he said tentatively.

The answering voice was faint, quavering with age. “Yes?”

“Could I ask who I'm talking to?”

“My name is Father Gruenwald. You wish—?”

Herzl took another deep breath. He had a feeling he was wasting his time but he also knew there was nothing better to do with his time until the riddle was solved.

“I am looking for information about a family named von Schraeder, General von Schraeder,” he said, speaking slowly, evenly, and as clearly as possible, and feeling as if he had repeated the statement a hundred times that morning. “They left Angermünde in the year 1925 or 1926—”

“They did not leave,” the wavering voice said, sounding petulant at the incorrectness of the statement. “They are buried in our churchyard, both the general and his wife.”

Herzl felt an electric shock.

“Helmut von Schraeder—” he began.

“No, no!” said the old voice querulously. “Karl Klaus! General Karl Klaus! We were children together. He always sat in the front pew, on the left. We played chess together every Thursday—”

“But they had a son,” Herzl said insistently, his fingers biting into the molded rubber of the receiver.

“—he always took the black, even without choosing, but of course he was the better player. I don't play anymore …”

“They had a son,” Herzl said, trying to pierce the curtain of the past. “His name was Helmut. Helmut. There must be some records—”

“A son?” Father Gruenwald sounded doubtful. “I do not remember—”

Herzl gritted his teeth. Not now! he thought. Not when we're this close! “A son,” he said, as if by mere repetition he could bring the old man's memory back. “His name was Helmut.”

There was a pause as Father Gruenwald did his best to remember; then with a sigh he conceded defeat to the years that had gone. “I'm sorry.” A thought occurred. “But maybe my housekeeper will remember,” he added with a slight brightening in his voice. “She worked at the von Schraeder estates as a—maid?—when she was young. Or was it as the cook …” There was a pause as the old voice could he heard raising itself feebly. “Magda!” There was another pause and then Father Gruenwald returned to Herzl apologetically. “I will get her. She doesn't hear too well without her hearing aid, I'm afriad. I will insist she put it on. She hates it, you know …”

There was a murmur of voices in the background; then an old woman's voice was on the line. She sounded very suspicious, as if telephone calls to the church were rare, and then only to bring trouble.

“What do you want?”

“I was speaking with Father Gruenwald about the von Schraeder family,” Herzl said, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible, as little like an East German police official as possible, “and I was asking about their son—”

“What about him?”

Herzl felt the repeat of the shock at finally having found someone who might be helpful. He tried to maintain the same tone of voice, afraid to break the spell.

“Do you remember him?”

“He's dead,” the old lady said. “His name was Helmut. He was a pretty boy—”

Herzl took a deep breath and asked the important question. It was just the sort of thing a person could so easily slip up on, as he might slip up on winking alternately with both eyes at a spellbound child.

“When Helmut was a child,” he said slowly, clearly, “did he ever fall out of a tree and break his arm?”

The old lady took the receiver from her ear and stared into it suspiciously as if the person at the other end of the wire had lost his senses. Who called up to ask a ridiculous question like that about a little boy fifty years before? Then she shrugged and adjusted her hearing aid. If someone wanted to waste their time asking idiotic questions, it was no problem of hers.

“No,” she said.

Herzl felt his heart jump. “You're sure?”

“Of course I'm sure,” she said disdainfully. “You think I don't remember just because I'm old? I should know, I took him to the doctor myself. It wasn't his arm. It was his shoulder.”

Chapter 4

To Brigadier General Benjamin Grossman, the city of Buenos Aires was quite reminiscent of Paris when he had visited the City of Lights on a long rest-and-recreation holiday from the war shortly after the fall of that city to the Germans in June of 1940. He had been young then, only twenty-three years of age, the same age as his son Herzl was now, and he now had discovered a similar place, a city that also made a great impression on him. While the yellow, muddy Plate was no Seine, and while the rather stocky Argentinian women were not the coquettes of Paris, still Buenos Aires had the same broad boulevards, the same florally decorated squares and parks, the same statues of horsemen carrying unfurled banners or of maidens modestly covering themselves while water spouted from their navels, and—the general was pleased to find—the same delicious food, which was not always the case in most Tel Aviv restaurants. His trip had been quite successful, his mission being accomplished to the satisfaction of both his superiors in Israel and the generals in the Casa Rosada, and as he sat down to his dinner in the dining room of his hotel that night before his departure, he was in the best of moods.

He did not remain in the best of moods for long.

As he studied the menu in the noisy restaurant, attempting to determine the most fitting final meal before leaving such a gourmet's paradise, he was interrupted by the diplomatic clearing of a throat at his shoulder. He looked up to find a waiter there. The waiter bore a tray and the tray bore an empty but sparkling balloon glass together with a bottle as yet unopened of what he recognized as an excellent Argentinian brandy and one he had enjoyed before during his visit. He looked at the waiter in some surprise.

“I didn't order this.”

“I know, señor. It is from the gentlemen over there.”

The waiter tipped his head the merest fraction of an inch in the direction of a nearby table even as he put the tray down and proceeded to expertly remove the cork from the bottle. Benjamin Grossman turned around with a smile. He had wondered a bit at not having been entertained on his last night by the emissaries of the Departmento de Abasticimientos with whom he had dealt in his mission—especially since they had seemed so insistent upon his eating at this particular restaurant—but apparently their hospitality was to be extended in another form. But the two men at the other table were certainly not the men he had dealt with during his trip, and he felt that most probably an unfortunate mistake had been made. He looked up questioningly at the waiter.