Searching for Wallenberg (41 page)

Manny had an impulse to open his laptop, but it was over at the studio. Could he walk there and find it in the dark night? He knew it was up the road a bit; he had a flashlight, and it wasn’t exactly downtown Detroit; coyotes weren’t going to mug him. Wearing a light windbreaker, he walked outside into the soft cool air, a pleasant wave. The walk from the driveway to the road was brief. A full moon was up, and though it went in and out of the clouds, it lit his way well enough, with the flashlight doing the rest. There were no cars, only the sounds of the whispering wind and stray calls in the night. Periodically, when the clouds allowed, he saw the blinking stars, and he tried to identify the constellations, sighting the Big Dipper and the North Star, and even finding Cassiopeia. Seeing the W-shape from a different angle out here, he strained his neck around to catch the full W. Those billions of stars, those sparkling shapes and designs, reassured him. His sneakers crunched on the gravelly path. If he kept up his pace, he figured it couldn’t be more than fifteen minutes, and if he felt lost, he’d turn around.

He hadn’t been alone this way, in nature, in the moonlit darkness, since he was a seventeen-year-old boy sailing on Norwegian ships and, as a “dekksgut,” serving on the graveyard shift as the lookout. Standing on the bow from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., facing the rolling Atlantic, he’d stand for an hour with the blue-black sea crashing beneath him and the black night above, waiting and watching to sight the first lights of any ship headed toward them. If he saw one, he’d clang the loud metal bell, one, two, or three times, depending on the approaching ship’s direction, to alert his partner three stages above in the pilot’s cabin on the bridge, so he could turn the ship ten degrees starboard. Back in his seventeen-year-old sea-youth, he had experienced an early sense of the solitariness of man in the world, a perception of the physical beauty of the natural world. Now, near fifty years later, in the September night walking out on this high destert plateau, he felt a return of those youthful emotions and perceptions, the same sense of solitude and stark beauty.

When the moon passed behind the clouds, he thought it best to keep the flashlight on, and his silver metal whistle in his other hand. You never knew when a coyote would become a pack, or turn into a wolf, he figured, walking on. In the bracing night air, before the stars, Manny felt somehow on the right track in his long search for Raoul. He wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but whatever its destination or meaning, he felt it as a journey worth continuing, worth interpreting.

Lo and behold, after twenty minutes or so he came upon the studio building and was gratified—as though he had undertaken a vast adventure, not a mile walk in the empty night. When he tried the back door, on his side of the studio, he found it open still, a bit of luck. Though he hated to turn on the light, he had to, to find the wired laptop. He sat down, opened it up, waited for the dialup, and read first a few messages.

Another message from a foreign destination, Pecs, Hungary.

Gellerman wondered, How long will this go on? Or is this just the beginning? Now, armed with a new public website, was he open territory for all the new (old) witnesses, those pursuing wish fulfillment, with selective memory, with dementia? Get ready, my friend, they are coming at you, full steam ahead!

Another message, from the department secretary, asked how many students he was ready to admit into his fall term’s seminar, History and the Novel? More than fifteen, or not? It was getting crowded.

Suddenly Manny felt the pressure in his chest of having to teach in three weeks or so … He was not in a mood for that.

A third message came from his infamous lady in Budapest: “Prof. Gellerman, where are you? I have not heard from you in several weeks. Write and tell me how things are—. How deep have you progressed with my papers? Have you started the formal writing yet?”

Yes, she had a point; well, he’d drop her a note tomorrow.

When he turned around, there was the familiar gentleman sitting in the upholstered chair, wearing an open-necked shirt and jacket, hat in his lap. The face was sober, narrow, familiar.

Startled, Manny said, “You? What are you doing here?”

“The better question is, what are
you
doing here?” the fellow paused and turned his hat. “Haven’t you had enough?”

Manny shook his head slowly, bewildered.

“You have pursued this diligently, with intelligence and with dedication, but isn’t it time to give it up now? And get back to living your own life?”

Manny didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know …”

“Well, I do. You have taken this as far as you can. Look, here you are, at a lonely edge of the world, far from Moscow, Budapest, Stockholm archives, still searching … As your friends would counsel, enough is enough. You have been … tried and true in this pursuit.”

Gellerman smiled at the use of the idiom. “Is that what you came here for, to tell me to give it all up?”

The fellow fiddled with his hat and leaned forward. “Would you propose a different reason?”

Manny said, “Maybe to answer some questions, or to reveal some truths?”

The stoic gentleman studied the wall with the Hopi designs, drawings, shapes. “They were very inventive, weren’t they? In symbolic nonwhite ways. My professor in Ann Arbor, Dr. Slusser, suggested that I travel here, spend some time with Hopi and Zuni, and observe Southwest architecture, the materials, like burnt adobe, and the manners. So I always wanted to visit and observe, and while in Arizona visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West. Later on, I even made a few preliminary sketches for a desert project—just right for a Swede,” he said dryly.

Manny admired the allusion to the old professor and his own aspiration.

“But you,” the visitor narrowly smiled, “You seem to know the territory and to value it highly.” He reflected. “Maybe I should have come down this way, and designed a place to return to, after my Budapest duties? … In any case, Emmanuel, you have been nothing less than valiant, as I said, but it is probably time to leave it go.”

“And let history take its course?”

The gentleman smiled ruefully.

“May I ask you,” Manny gambited, “did you have a family in Budapest?”

The Swede stared. “Do you think I have arrived here to answer such … esoteric questions?” he shook his head. “My mission is simply
to relieve you of yours. Of pursuing the odd case.
What happened to me,
happened.
It is not a handsome story. For it to end—without resolution, without answers—that is a suitable ending, I would think.”

“Ironically, you speak as if I am a burden upon you, rather than the other way round.”

A generous smile. “You have a clever way of putting matters. But there is no need anymore. The facts speak for themselves, the absences and mysteries speak also. So, what else is left? … Interpretations? They will go on and on. And will resolve little.”

“But supposing they blacken you, tarnish what you did? Who you are?”

“Oh,” he said, adjusting the band of the hat, “that is the nature of things, don’t you think, when it comes to human beings? And maybe historians?” He laughed a little. “Besides I can bear all that, I assure you.”

“Well, maybe I can’t.”

They faced each other, in the small spare studio, and Manny felt the oddness of that new request. What was he to do now? …

“I will take into consideration what you are asking of me and try somehow to find a response.”

“Good.”

The gentleman stood up, lifting his obscure backpack, and Manny joined him.

Manny said, “Too bad you don’t have your old Studebaker outside, huh?”

This warmed Raoul, who nodded in agreement. “Absolutely. Along with Vilmos to drive us, perhaps.”

Manny turned away for a second, hearing the beeping on his laptop of a new message, and when he turned back, RW was gone, vanished, just like that. Manny opened the door and peered out into the darkness, adjusting his eyes, staring, searching for a clue, but there was no sign of him. Manny stood there, transfixed, hearing the wind and the eerie calls from the mountains. Jackals?

He began to walk back, but now the treeless landscape, dark shapes, and eerie cries were much less scary than on the adventurous trek out. As for the little occurrence inside, why and how did the stranger know he was there? … Who had summoned him here? No matter now. Manny knew he had many things to consider, so he’d get up early and attend to them—simple and complicated things.

Back inside the hotel room, he was conscious of the sharp differences between the bewitching studio and the cozy familiar room. Here he could remember clearly why he came in the first place, to retrieve his AWOL student, and bring him back for his schoolwork and degree. To that simple task he’d devote himself more fully in the next day or two …

As for the deeper journey, he couldn’t let that go; it had hooked him, he knew.
(Was Mr. Wallenberg worried that he was getting closer to the—or a—truth?)

Back in the classroom two weeks later, he felt on home ground again, like someone sitting back in his favorite automobile or in his position on the field. Here with his fifteen students ready to become educated, a few even devoted, he handed out his reading list and outlined the course:

“So we are going to study the intersection of history and literature, and where and how history is best served through the lens of literary works. In no particular order, we’ll read
Homage to Catalonia
by George Orwell, a work of literary journalism about the Spanish Civil War. Another classic,
Man’s Fate
by André Malraux, is a fictional portrait of the Chinese Communist Revolution. Closer to home, we’ll read
The Book of Daniel
by E. L. Doctorow, a novel about the Cold War in America and the Rosenbergs. While there are many good books about World War II, I’ve chosen two first-class novels,
History: A Novel
by the Italian writer Elsa Morante, and
Life and Fate
by the Russian Vassily Grossman; the former is well known, the latter, obscure. For a work imagining political revolution in South America, let’s do Joseph Conrad’s
Nostromo.
And for a modern view of that history, Gabriel Márquez’s
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Later, if we have the time, we’ll try
Rebellion in the Backlands
, by da Cunha, a Brazilian journalist who wrote what I think is the greatest South American novel.”

He paused and shuffled in his book bag, to ready his private manuscript. “To explore Nazi history, we’ll read
The Tin Drum
by Günther Grass, and the lesser known
To the Unknown Hero
by Hans Nossack, about a young man writing a doctoral thesis in history.”

Knowing smiles. He went on.

“And we might try the hybrid works by W. G. Sebald, reflections upon World War II, which mingle fiction with history—maybe
Austerlitz.
Among works on the Holocaust, let’s look at
An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty
Hillesum
, and two great autobiographical fictions,
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
by Tadeusz Borowski, and
A Scrap of Time and Other Stories
by Ida Fink. Of course, one of the memoirs of Primo Levi. That should give us enough to start with.”

That remark got the class laughing. “Obviously, we will choose
from among
those works, and not read all of them.” He paused, fiddled with pages.

“But first, I want to begin the course with a problem in basic historiography, namely how to examine sources, study the various materials, and consider how they get developed and transformed into an actual book. In other words,
you
are going to be the historian here, not just the student. So for the first few weeks let’s look at this updated source book for the trials of the Rosenbergs and the Alger Hiss/Whittaker Chambers trial, and how they emerged into the history books, and the notable novel I cited above. This will be interesting. But maybe more exciting, and more exacting, will be this”—and here Manny raised high the manuscript from his tote bag—“a bunch of collected papers by a woman in Budapest who claims that she is the daughter of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat.” He paused. “Anyone know the name? Who he was?”

A few hands went up, and he called on a student, a European who uttered a few sentences about Raoul. “Good,” Manny nodded, and went on.

“It’s not all that long, maybe 150 pages in sum. But it will be like digging into an original archive of historical material. As I said, you’ll play the historian. And alongside that, I will have you read some of the essays and maybe a few select books written about the subject, Wallenberg. What you and I will be examining are the notes and letters for a memoir written by this private lady, the self-proclaimed daughter of that Swedish hero who saved Jews in Budapest.
If these papers are real, they will change the way we look at Wallenberg, and you graduate students will be engaged in making history.
” He paused, for emphasis. “We will read the materials, explore ways to verify their authenticity, and finally try to determine their ultimate historical value. Is this a collection of papers of major significance? Or is it a minor contribution to the subject? Or hardly even that? Perhaps a few of you will try to put all this together here, into a publishable form. It could be an end-of-term project for one or two of you. Start with a long paper, and turn it into something more extended for a thesis or monograph?”

The class buzzed and took notes. Several questions were posed. And while he answered, Manny understood that now, while he was doing as Raoul had suggested—getting back to his own life—he was also continuing with his own preference, keeping up his long pursuit. No, he would not abandon Raoul—not abandon him as Bartleby’s former boss had abandoned that lonely scrivener—he would pursue Raoul in the classroom, with his students. And in writing. Further, via his newly “discovered” website, he’d keep up with RW’s wish-fulfillment “followers” and “would-be witnesses” who buzzed him from all corners of the world, weekly, monthly. Yes, Raoul would stay with him, stay in his daily life, in teaching, e-mailing, and maybe even in occasional private conversations.