The One Man (5 page)

Strauss reread the cable as his stomach fell. It had been a year. A year of carefully setting this up, of getting the documents into the hands of the one man they sought, then routing him and his family out of Poland and through occupied territory. Secretly arranging transport. A year of petitioning the government of Paraguay to resist German diplomatic pressure and to stand behind them.

A year that was now lost.

All bearers rounded up and placed on a sealed train. Destination: labor camp in southern Poland.

Strauss put the cable down. Operation Catfish was finished.

As the son of a cantor, who could still recite the prayers and Torah as well as he could his own name, the hollowness in Strauss's gut felt even deeper. His father's brother was still in Vienna; they had no idea what fate had befallen him, or his entire family. In a way, Strauss had put all his faith and belief in a positive outcome for this war into the hope that this mission would succeed.

And now both had crumbled.

“Any reply, sir?” The young lieutenant who had delivered the communiqué was still standing there.

“No.” Strauss shrugged glumly. “No reply.” He took off his wire-rim glasses and started to wipe the lenses clean.

“So then it's over? Two hundred and forty of them…” the aide inquired. That was as much as the lieutenant knew. “I'm sorry, sir.”

“Two hundred and forty lives…” Strauss nodded. “All worth saving, no doubt. But only one that was vital.”

 

SIX

FOUR DAYS LATER

They heard the hiss of steam and the jolt of the brakes and after three agonizing days of pressed-together, foul-smelling confinement, the train finally came to a stop. “Where are we?” people asked in the dark. It was night. “Can anyone see?”

For a while they just stood there, hearing shouts in German outside. Dogs barking.

Someone said, “I've heard they let the dogs attack people right off the train. They just take their pick.”

“Shut up,” a woman replied harshly. “You're scaring the children.”

Suddenly they heard the rattle of locks being opened and the doors of the train car were flung wide. Cold air rushed in, along with glaring lights.

“
Rauss, rauss.
Everyone out! Get out!
Schnellen.
Faster.” Gray-clad soldiers carrying sticks rushed up to the train and started pulling people down from the cars. “Quick! Now! Assemble on the platform with your things.”

Fear leaping up in their blood, Alfred, Marte, and Lucy stepped down from the packed car, pulling shut their jackets against the biting cold and shielding their eyes from the sharp glare. During the endless trip at least four in their car had died. An old woman who was sick; another, a pregnant one, just fell and gave up. Two were infants. There was a moment or two when Alfred wasn't sure if Marte would make it; in the cramped quarters, the rattle in her chest seemed to grow even worse. There was little to eat except what people had brought along and were willing to share. And the thirst … Their throats were parched. There was only one water break per day. “You remember on our honeymoon in Italy?” Alfred had tried to cheer Marte up on the journey. “How mad you were at me?”

“Because you bought us third-class tickets.” She had nodded, her voice no stronger than a whisper.

“It was all I could afford. I didn't have a teaching position yet,” he had explained to Lucy, as the cars rocked back and forth. “In retrospect, doesn't seem quite so bad now, does it?” he had said to Marte with a laugh.

“Your father always knows how to turn a failed experiment into a life lesson,” Marte had joked to Lucy.

Then she had let her head fall against him and coughed. It made the time go by.

On the platform now, there was shouting everywhere, dogs barking. Lights being flashed. In the background, Alfred could see guards with submachine guns. Black-clad guards were blowing shrill whistles and herding everyone around.

“This way! Over here. Leave your things where they are! They'll be taken care of.”

These past months, Alfred had grown to detest the French guards at Vittel, but now the French were no longer around, and the sense quickly set in that what they knew before would seem like a fond memory compared to what they faced now.

“Stay together,” he said, helping Marte amid the surging crowd. “At least we're off that godforsaken train.
Look…”
He pointed upward to letters forming an arch high above the gate.

“What does it say, Papa?” Lucy asked. It was in German.

“
Work will set you free.
See, you have to get strong again, Marte. If we work here, we will be safe. You'll see.”

She coughed and nodded and, jostled by the bustling throng, reached down for her bag.

“
Here…”
Alfred took it from her. “Let me help you.”

As the cars cleared, everyone huddled together for a time, mothers holding their children's hands, people comforting the elderly, not sure what was next. They'd all heard the rumors of these dark and terrible places where no one was ever heard from again. Suddenly, to their amazement, the sounds of music started up. An orchestra playing.
How could that be?
It was Schubert. Alfred was certain. He'd heard it played in Prague at the Rudolfinum Hall.

“Schubert's Violin Concerto in D Major,” someone confirmed.

“See, they even have an orchestra here.” Alfred put his arm around Marte. “What do you think, Lucy?” He tried to sound upbeat. “It can't be so bad.”

“This way! This way!”
Black-clad guards with SS markings elbowed through the crowd. “Women and their children form over here. All men, even fathers”—one pointed the other direction—“over there. Don't worry, it's just for processing. You'll all be reunited soon.”

“We should try and stay together,” Alfred said, picking up both their suitcases and squeezing his briefcase under his arm.

“You there!” A large guard in a black SS cap jostled him. “You women and children to the left. You over here.”

“Meine frau ist nicht gut.”
Alfred appealed to him in German. “She's sick. She needs care.”

“Don't worry, she'll be well taken care of here. You'll see her soon. Everyone will be happy. Just leave all your belongings.”

A large pile of luggage and satchels had formed on the platform, like that of a tour group awaiting transportation.

“But how will we find them?” a woman in a fur wrap asked. “How will anyone know whose is whose?”

“Don't worry, it will all be worked out.” The German officer smiled politely. “Now, just go, quick, there, double time … You two as well…”

Amid the people crisscrossing, the dogs barking, and officers herding everyone around, Alfred noticed a handful of people in blue and gray candy-striped uniforms and tiny caps weaving through the crowd, taking people's abandoned luggage and rucksacks and throwing them onto a rapidly growing pile. Hunched like downtrodden workers and rail thin, they avoided direct eye contact with the new arrivals as they went about their jobs, though one's gaze seemed to land on Alfred's. His gaunt, dark features, shaved head, and sunken eyes with a kind of soullessness in them seemed to tell a different story about what life was like here.

“Women and children must go here!
Schnellen!
Quick!” a German barked, grabbing Marte and Lucy by the arms and dragging them away. In a second they had been separated from Alfred, pushed on by the throng.

“Marte!”
Alfred lunged after them. “
Lucy!
”

“Alfred!”
his wife answered him, his name drowning into the din of shouting and wails as she desperately tried to grasp hold of him.

“Papa!”
Lucy cried out. “I'm over here!”

Alfred dropped his cases and tried to make his way to them, fear lighting up in him as they were being pushed away. “Please, I need to get to my wife and daughter. I—”

“Don't worry, they'll be fine. You'll see them soon,” an SS officer interceded. He pointed to the other direction. “You, over there.”

“I'm sure I will see you both soon,” Alfred called after them. “Be strong. I will find a way to contact you.”

“I love you, Alfred!” Marte called out. Through the dark sea of the crowd, he managed to catch a last, plea-filled glance, and in her surrendering eyes he saw a kind of finality he had never seen before.

He waved, giving them both a hopeful smile though his heart was suddenly overrun with sadness and terror and the feeling that he might never see them again. “I love you both, too.”

And then they were gone.

All around, on the platform, many were making their last, tearful goodbyes and futile pleas. “Be safe!” “I will see you soon.” “Watch over our son,” they would tell one another. “Don't worry, I will.” The guards told the men to leave their valises and all belongings. Alfred clutched his briefcase. One of the candy-striped prisoners brushed into him and went to take it from him.

“No.” Alfred grasped onto it tighter. “These are my books. My formulas.”

“Don't resist,” the prisoner said under his breath. “They'll shoot you.”

“No, I won't let them go,” Alfred said, tightening his arms around it.

“Don't worry, you won't be needing any formulas here, old man.” A German officer came up with a grin of amusement. “There's only one formula here, and you'll learn it fast, I promise.”

“I'm a physicist. This is all my research. My life's work, Herr Obersturmführer,” Alfred said, observing his rank.

“This is now your work,” the officer said, and motioned to the prisoners hurling their belongings onto a pile. The officer tried to take the case from Alfred's hands. “Do it well and maybe you'll last. Your German is quite good.” He pointed to a line. “Go over there.”

“Please…” Alfred resisted even further. “No.”

In a flash, the German's politeness morphed into something completely different. “Did you not hear me, I said, let go, Jew!” He reached in his holster and pulled out a Luger. “Or would you rather your stay here be short-lived?”

“Give it here. Please,” the prisoner begged, with what looked like a dire warning in his eyes.

Alfred could see the rage and anger stiffen in the German officer's eyes and neck, knowing that if he resisted even seconds longer he would be dropped right here on the tracks, the way the old rabbi and his wife had been shot back in Vittel. He had to stay alive, if only for Marte and Lucy's sake. He had to see them again.

Reluctantly, he let go.

“Now get over there.” The German pushed him toward the line of younger men assembling. “Your German will come in handy.” He blew his whistle and moved on to someone else.

Alfred watched as the prisoner took his leather case and flung it onto the mountain of bags and belongings that was growing by the minute. In horror, he saw the clasp become undone, and pages and pages of his work—equations, formulas, research for papers he had written for
Academic Scientifica
and the
Zeitschrift für Physik,
the toil of twenty years—slowly slide out of the case and scatter like debris over the mounting pile of bags, rucksacks, children's toys and dolls, until they disappeared—every page, like bodies hurled indifferently into a mass grave and then covered over by the next.

If only they knew what that was …

He was handed a uniform and told to march to a processing building and change his clothes. Over the ubiquitous wailing on the platform and the desperate last goodbyes and shouts of “I love you!” and “Stay strong,” Alfred thought he heard his name. He spun around, his heart springing up with hope.
“Marte!”

But it was likely only another person shouting for someone else. He searched the crowd for one last look at his girls, but they were gone. Then he was pushed along in the throng.
Twenty-eight years …
he said to himself. In all that time, they rarely spent a day apart. She had typed every one of his papers and listened to hundreds of his talks in advance, correcting his syntax and cadence. She made him cakes and meat pies, and every Thursday he came home with flowers from the market on King Stanisław Street on his walk back from the university. A panic rose up in him that he would never see her again. Neither of them. That they would all die in this place. He prayed they would be all right. Up ahead, he saw the line he was in being separated into two new ones. He sensed that in one he would live and in the other he would die. But it was too late for fear now, or for prayers.

Looking back and watching his papers scatter like dead leaves on that pile of bags and people's belongings, the small part of him that was still even capable of fear or hope felt nothing.

It had already died.

 

SEVEN

LATE APRIL, THREE MONTHS LATER
LISBON

A black Opel pulled up to the curb at the Lisbon airport, and Peter Strauss climbed into the backseat, ducking out of the rain.

He was not wearing his officer's cap, nor, beneath his raincoat, his army captain's uniform. Only a sport jacket with flannel trousers, rumpled from the two-hour flight in from London. With his valise and leather briefcase, he might have been any businessman arriving who was trying to profit from the war, selling steel or food or buying Portuguese tungsten, as Lisbon was one of the last open and thriving centers of commerce in Europe during the war.

“Captain Strauss,” the Swiss-born driver who worked with the War Refugee Committee greeted him, taking his bags. “I know you've had a long trip. Would you like to stop off at the hotel and freshen up?”

“Thanks,” Strauss replied. He'd caught a diplomatic night flight to London, then spent two days absorbed with secret phone calls and cables in order to set up the meeting he was here to be part of. “But I'd just as soon get going if it's all the same.”