The Letter Writer (21 page)
Authors: Dan Fesperman
Feinman puffed out his cheeks and exhaled loudly. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and then stuffed it in his pocket.
“She might have mentioned him once, this Werner creep. But she never told me he was dead. I didn't like the way she led them on.”
“Maybe she shouldn't have been working there at all.”
He looked up, suddenly furious. “Between the needle and the booze, I was the only person who'd hire her! Without the theater she would've been on the goddamn street, and without me she would've still been stuck in Berlin!”
“Admirable, but beside the point. Tell me about Lutz Lorenz.”
That backed him down right away. Feinman looked at the ground and shook his head.
“Don't know the name.”
“Angela said he fixed your ownership papers. For you and some guy named⦔ Cain flipped back through his notebook. “Albie Schreiber. To make it look like the real owner was Gerd Schultz.”
“She said a lot of stuff that didn't make sense.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe the DA's fraud squad would like to have a look at those papers.”
“Hey, man. Those Bundist assholes would rip me to shreds if that ever came out.”
“Like they did your sister, you mean? Your kind of help doesn't exactly seem to be making the world safe for democracy.” It was harsh, but provocation seemed to be the only way to get anything out of him.
Feinman backed down. He again blew his nose and shook his head.
“What do you want to know about Lorenz?”
“He's disappeared.”
“So I heard, but that's all I know. I hear the Feds took him.”
“Feds? What about maybe some guy from the DA's office, named Gurfein?”
“The rackets guy?” Feinman frowned. “Why would he be in it with a bunch of guys from Immigration?”
“Immigration?”
“That's what I hear. And Lorenz is a citizen, so go figure. People say they think he's some kind of enemy of the state, like a spy or something. They're even saying he might get, what do you call it?
Denaturalized.
Then deported. Last I heard, they'd moved his whole family right out into the harbor, to Ellis Island.”
“Where all the immigrants come in?”
“Used to. Now it's where Uncle Sam runs 'em out of the country. And if that's where they took Lorenz, then he's probably been ticketed for deportation. They've been rounding up quite a few krauts up my way. Guys with too many pictures of Hitler on the wall, or maybe with a shortwave set in the basement. That kind of shit.”
Cain wrote it down. Then he scribbled his name and number on a page, which he tore out and gave to Feinman, just like with Angela. He placed a hand on Feinman's shoulder.
“I'm sorry about your sister. I wish she'd leveled with me.”
“And what, you would've helped her? You fucks have never lifted a finger for any of us. You just figure all us mugs up in Yorkville can fight it out among ourselves, like the Chinks down in Chinatown. Or all the poor fuckers in Harlem.”
He tossed Cain's number aside and walked away. Larsen took off after him. A gust caught Cain's scrap of paper and blew it out onto the Harlem River, where it began floating away on the outgoing tide.
Cain lit a cigarette and watched until it was out of sight.
CAIN WAS IN A BLEAK MOOD
for the rest of the day. He tried phoning Danziger, but couldn't reach him. Then he called Beryl and invited her to dinner, hoping it would lift his gloom. They took Olivia with them and walked to a diner, one with booths so they wouldn't have to sit all in a row at the counter.
Olivia's presence meant Cain couldn't go into much detail about the events of that morning, which was just as well. Every time he shut his eyes he saw the cold whiteness of Angela Feinman's corpse, bare to the salty breeze, the tiny
L
gouged into her skin.
“Have you seen Danziger lately?” Beryl asked.
“We made kind of a house call together yesterday.”
“Who's Danziger?” Olivia asked.
She was observing them closely, as if trying to determine how important Beryl was to her father. This dinner was becoming a more complicated enterprise than he'd bargained for.
“Olivia hasn't met him?” Beryl said.
“No. Although he seems to know all about her, even from the first time I met him. Including how she got her name.”
“From that play, you mean?” Olivia said.
“Yes, sweetie.” Then, in answer to Beryl's questioning gaze, “Shakespeare.
Twelfth Night.
Clovis liked it, because in the play Olivia is beautiful, of noble birth, and has plenty of suitors.”
Olivia frowned, either because they were talking about her or because he had mentioned her mother's name in the presence of this other woman who hadn't yet earned the privilege. Or maybe, based on what she said next, it was because he still hadn't answered her question.
“I
said,
âWho's Danziger?'â”
“A man I'm working with. He's very smart and very mysterious. Miss Beryl knows him, too, and sometimes she calls him Sascha. But she won't tell me all that much about him.”
Cain smiled to show he was joking, but he wasn't sure Beryl took it that way.
“Why won't you tell my daddy about Mr. Danziger?”
“Because my uncle likes me to keep my mouth shut about his friends, and Mr. Danziger is his friend.” She turned toward Cain and searched his eyes. He searched back. They held the pose long enough to annoy Olivia, who sighed and began slurping through her straw at the dregs of her milkshake.
“Sweetie, that's impolite.”
“He still has you at a disadvantage, doesn't he?” Beryl asked. “By knowing more about you than you do about him.”
Cain told her about the police file, yet to be exhumed from the Hall of Records. She didn't seem at all surprised to learn of the demise of Alexander Dalitz.
“Damon Runyon wrote about him once. I do know that, from Uncle Fedya.”
“
The
Damon Runyon? About Danziger?”
“About Alexander Dalitz. I've never seen it, but Uncle Fedya swears it was a whole column, not just a mention. He probably still has a copy somewhere, but I doubt he'd show me, now that I'm sleeping with the enemy.” She blushed, and glanced at Olivia. “Figuratively speaking, of course.”
“What does âfiguratively' mean?” Olivia asked.
“It means you shouldn't take what she just said literally.”
“About what?”
“It's not important.”
Olivia frowned, well aware that adults only said that when you'd missed something important.
“You mean about Damon Runyon?” she said. “Who is he?”
“A famous writer. He's got a column in the newspaper. Most of the people he writes about are really interesting, but not always in a good way.”
“Like saboteurs?”
“No, not like that. And Mr. Danziger is a good man, and is helping Daddy. I'd just like to know more about what he used to do, a long time ago.” He wondered how long it might take him to find the column at the public library.
“He sounds like one of those people who knows your business better than his own business,” Olivia said.
“That's a very good way of putting it,” Beryl said.
Cain was less impressed. The words were another favorite expression of Clovis'sâthe second time in as many days that Olivia had quoted her mother. He wondered if she was doing it to make a point. Letting him know that he was still a husband, for example, or that she still had a mom, absent or not. Or maybe, like him, his daughter was thinking about Clovis more now that she was living in her mother's old city.
“If he used to be bad, wouldn't he still be bad?”
Good question. Cain had no answer, so Beryl gave it a try.
“Unless he really wasn't so bad to begin with, but did bad things for good reasons.”
Olivia frowned. “That sounds like something Benny would say in my class at school.”
“I do know he worked as an interpreter for a while,” Beryl said. “On Ellis Island, for the government.”
“You're kidding,” Cain said. “Did you hear that from your uncle?”
She nodded. “Some rabbi got him the job, when he was only sixteen.”
He realized she meant a real rabbi, not a political hack.
“Who was the rabbi?”
“Rabbi Kaufman. Quite famous in his day. A do-gooder trying to keep all his promising young Hebrew scholars out of trouble, to hear Uncle Fedya tell it.”
“I'm guessing he was unsuccessful.”
“Not with Uncle Fedya. The rabbi got a storefront law firm on Delancey to take him on as a gofer. He stayed for thirty years. Sascha wasn't as lucky. Apparently he was fired his first week on the job.”
“As an interpreter? You'd think he would've been great at it.”
“I think it had something to do with lying on his application.”
“About his age?”
“About being fluent in Turkish and Greek.”
Cain laughed.
“Well, imagine that. Sascha Danziger, not being completely honest about himself. Ellis Island, though. Too bad he doesn't still work there.”
“Why?”
“There's someone out there who both of us need to see. Detained, or so I've heard. Apparently they're using the place now for sending people
out
of the country.”
“Yes. Enemy aliens. Even though some of them have been living here harmlessly for years. People we work with have ended up there.”
“Have you been there?”
“A few times. There's a charity boat that goes once a week. They deliver books and magazines, letters, clothing. You'd be surprised. There are probably six hundred people out there, living in a big barracks with nowhere to go.”
“Could they take me? Could you?” She frowned, so he retreated a bit. “Not as a cop. Or not
officially
as a cop. I'd be out of my jurisdiction anyway.” The frown deepened. Her usual reflexive reaction against authority, he supposed. Olivia didn't seem to approve, either. She, too, could sense when one friend was attempting to use another. But this was important, and for a moment he considered employing Beryl's earlier line about doing bad things for good reasons. Then he looked at Beryl's face and decided against it.
“Forget it,” he said. “What's for dessert?”
This coaxed a smile out of Olivia, and they moved on to a discussion of whether pie was better with or without ice cream. They opted for the former, and polished it off like pigeons attacking a crust of bread.
Coffee arrived. The waitress cleared their dishes and brought the check.
“My treat,” Cain said. “You hardly ate a thing. Well, except for that slice of pie.”
Beryl's expression turned solemn. She leaned across the table.
“This trip to Ellis Islandâwould Sascha be going with you?”
“Of course. I'd need him for language alone. German, in case you're wondering.”
She sipped her coffee and thought it over.
“The next boat is tomorrow. It's short notice, but if I made a few calls I might be able to get us aboard. Do you think you can reach Sascha?”
“Yes.”
“Because if he doesn't go, then you're not going.”
“Scout's honor.”
She held his gaze before nodding. Then she reached for the check. “In that case, I'll pay my own way. I won't be bought, you know. I'm not a police informer.”
Cain would've smiled, except she was serious. With mixed emotions, he nodded and began totaling their shares.
I HAD EXPECTED A LARGER BOAT,
something solid and seaworthy, but this so-called ferry more closely resembled a tugboat in shape and size, and as I stepped aboard it rocked slightly, which brought back a myriad of fears and hesitations.
“You okay?” Mr. Cain asked, sounding more like a New Yorker than he ever had. “You don't look okay.”
“It has been a long while since I last put to sea.”
“To sea? We're crossing the harbor. It'll take fifteen minutes, tops. Look, you can see where we're going, right over your shoulder.”
I knew the view he was referring to. The long red rooftop of the Great Hall. The four domed towers with their spires and elaborate brickwork, looming above the island like minarets. Even from our point of departure at the Battery you could see all of it clearly in the morning sunlight, although it was already etched into my memory as solidly as the carvings upon a marble memorial. Less from the last time I'd gone there than from the first, forty years ago, when it had all been brand-new and I was a mere boy, flanked protectively by my parents, Solomon and Anna. We first cast our eyes upon this prospect as we stood upon the open deck of an oceangoing steamship, eagerly awaiting our arrival upon the shores of the United States.
The crew cast off the lines, and the diesel fumes blew toward us with a roar of the engines. The boat surged out into the harbor. I lurched toward the rail, holding on to steady myself.
“Maybe you should sit down,” Mr. Cain said. Beryl had boarded ahead of us and was showing our Red Cross permission forms to the crew.
“No. Let us go forward. We will stand at the stern.”
“The bow, I think you mean.”
“Yes. The bow. I am not a nautical man.”
And with good reason, although it was not a reason I wished to elucidate to Mr. Cain, or even to Beryl, now or ever.
I initiated our trip to the bow because I had decided to lay siege to my anxieties by confronting them head-on. We stood at the rail, where the spray heaved up at us from the bouncing hull. HullâI do know that word. Then, in an act of defiance against my emotions, I turned my face toward our destination just as Mr. Cain addressed me again.
“Something I should tell you before Beryl joins us,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Our two missing Germans might not be lying as low as we thought. I think one of them might have killed Hansch's Sabine. Except that wasn't her real name. It was Angela Feinman.”
“The young lady from the movie house?”
Cain nodded.
“How horrifying. Perhaps they discovered she was a Jew.”
“Or maybe they blamed her for what happened to Hansch, and then Schaller.”
“Either would be sufficient grounds for their sort. But how do you know it was them?”
“I don't. But whoever did it marked her up with a knife. They carved one of those little
L
s just above her right breast.”
I shuddered at the thought of it, and then nodded.
“Another good reason to find them as soon as possible,” I said. “Perhaps Lorenz will know their whereabouts.”
I tried to turn my attention to the task at hand, although I certainly drew no comfort from the sight facing me from across the water.
As our benefactor for this excursion, Beryl was officially representing her employer, the American Red Cross. Also aboard were minions of the National Council of Jewish Women, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and the YWCA. This cadre of charities had filled the cargo area with boxes of mail, books, and hand-me-down clothing for use by the marooned inhabitants of the island.
Beryl had already given us our marching orders for how to behave once we went ashore.
“Stick with me if you hope to succeed,” she said. “They're pretty strict about access, but I know a few tricks that might help give you a little more freedom of movement.”
I sensed in her demeanor an eagerness to tweak the noses of the federal authorities who ran the island. I suppose that is her way of rationalizing lending assistance to a police investigation. Having done so, she was now caught up in the spirit of our enterprise, and seemed intent on helping us locate and then interview Lutz Lorenz in as much privacy as possible.
She had suggested that once we arrived she should act as our intermediary. Her very sound reasoning was that a policeman asking for Mr. Lorenz might send him scurrying for the nearest bolthole. Mr. Cain thought that was a splendid idea, although it is clear to me that he would agree to almost any suggestion of Beryl's, such is his level of enchantment. It was fortunate that Fedya was not present to see the two of them exchanging admiring glances.
She soon joined us at the rail as the spray continued to blow into our faces.
“Are you all right, Sascha?” She could read the discomfort in my eyes.
“Fine,” I said, nodding with what I hoped was a mien of steely resolve.
“I don't think he likes boats,” Mr. Cain said.
“I'm guessing it's more than that,” she said. “This must bring back a lot of memories. You first came here, when, around the turn of the century?”
I eyed them closely. There were some things I could comfortably reveal, and others I could not. Fortunately, the tale of my arrival was among the former.
“It was 1902. They had just reopened the Great Hall, after the old one burned to the ground. There were probably three hundred people out on the decks that day. Everyone was exhausted by our crossing, but exhilarated by our arrival. My father put me up on his shoulders while my mother held my right hand.”
As I spoke, the Statue of Liberty loomed closer on our left. Not nearly as close as it had been on that day of my arrival, when our ship had approached from the open waters of the Atlantic, but close enough to stir some long-dormant emotions. Judging from what Mr. Cain said next, he'd seen me glancing at it.
“It must have been thrilling to see her for the first time. After coming all that way, I mean. Thrilling for everybody.”
I saw in the glitter of his eyes his love for his country, and I was pleased for him. Still, I owed him the truthâon this matter, at least. So I offered it. “I found her to be terrifying.”
“The Statue of Liberty?” He looked crestfallen. “I thought everyone was supposed to be overjoyed?”
“My parents were. My father lifted me as high as he could, to see above the crowd. That is when the fear began to grow inside of me. She was too stern, too forbidding. Look at her closely, Mr. Cain, and see her as a child might, standing guard with those blank, pitiless eyes. And her torch, raised like a weapon.”
Mr. Cain did as I asked, but I knew he didn't see it. Even Beryl looked perplexed, although she nodded politely, as if to humor me.
“When we passed directly in front of her, I began to cry. I was sure she was about to reach out with her torch and set our ship aflame. I screamed for my father to put me down.”
Mr. Cain laughed.
“My father laughed also. He was so happy that day that he wept tears of joy. But when my mother saw my face she became very quiet. Even then, I think she knew.”
“Knew what?” Beryl asked.
“That my fear was an omen.”
“An omen?”
A long pause. The hull boomed beneath our feet, sending a sheet of spray, higher than the others, into our faces like a slap from a barber after a shave. Beryl and Mr. Cain exchanged puzzled glances.
“That is a story for another day,” I said, averting my eyes from Lady Liberty's, which were still as unfeeling as ever. “Look! On the island. You can see them coming out into the yard.”
A line of bedraggled-looking people in dark clothing spilled out of a doorway onto the open ground between the front of the Great Hall and the harbor. There was no grass, only a barren tract of pounded gray soil. A high chain link fence blocked them from the water, but their view of Manhattan was unobstructed. A group of young men ran to one end and began kicking a ball between them. To the side, another cluster of people huddled in almost formal poses, and as we drew closer I saw that they were Japanese. Now I heard a smattering of Italian on the wind, lively and expressive, from a knot of three men gesturing with their hands. A language that will forever make my heart fill. There was German, too, low and bristling with its stout consonants.
“Do you see him?” Cain asked, from over my right shoulder.
I realized he was asking about Lorenz. I scanned the crowds, which were still trickling onto the grounds for their afternoon promenade.
“No. I suppose he might still be indoors.”
“I asked about him among some of the others,” Beryl said, nodding toward the representatives of the other charities. “Apparently he has a bit of a reputation. A cardsharp, an operator. And that's after only a few days on the island.”
“Yes, that sounds like Lutz.”
By then the boat had begun turning into the mouth of the long slip that bisects the island. My view of the building and grounds was almost exactly as it had been in 1902. A tremor coursed up my back. This was one reason I was never able to stomach working here in those later years when a kindly rabbi landed me a job. Three days was all I could bear. Then I stopped coming. I told the rabbi that I had argued with a supervisor. For my friends, I concocted a far more colorful version, saying I'd lied on my application, claiming fluency in Turkish.
Perhaps if the rabbi had found me employment elsewhere I might have stayed the course he had charted for me, thus avoiding all that happened laterâthe good as well as the bad. But once we have made our appointments with fate, I suppose it is impossible to weasel out of them. Maybe that is why I am returning now, to begin attending to unfinished business that has awaited me for far too long.
The boat eased toward its place at the wharf, and the crew stood ready to toss the lines ashore. My heart fluttered. I saw that Mr. Cain was again watching me carefully, in the manner of a scientist studying a specimen. He had enjoyed the boat ride, I could tell. He was relieved to be momentarily free of Manhattan, with its crowds and its close smells and its rising warmth which, all too soon, will gave way to the soft-tar furnace of summer. He may even have been wishing his daughter were here, to make an outing of our crossing.
But for me it was all memories, a ship of ghosts. Even now, silent hosts were filing past me, smelling of their weeks at sea, of the tattered world they'd left behind.
The boat bumped the wharf. We had arrived.
