The Trespassers (40 page)

Franz waved his hand again.

“Well, finish what you’re about with this fellow,” he said graciously. “I shall wait here.”

He seated himself in a chair near by, ignoring the usual waiting room. With the profile of his vision, he saw the flustered hands of the Vice-Consul busy themselves with the pages before him.

Then he was right in his estimate of this creature. In his first interview, he had noted the respectful friendliness accorded him after the first glance at his good British clothes, and because his
Arian-Nachweis
showed that he was not one of the despised.

He had been really clever to prepare for that first visit by wiring Christa’s family and his relatives for these “Aryan certificates,” the birth and baptism certificates of their grandparents on both sides. In a decent day, it might have been quite a task to find them, buried in some old trunk, or locked in a safe-deposit box. But now that one had to have these papers constantly to hand in Austria in order to get rationing cards, the return mail had brought him photostatic copies.

Only when he had them did he take the train for Lugano for that first interview. Luck, pure luck, had ushered him to the desk of this clerkish, bespectacled Vice-Consul, who undoubtedly was as great a bully as any Nazi with the poor, the frightened, the “tainted,” but who, like all bullies, was obsequious to any man he thought his superior.

Secretly, Franz laughed again. That first time, he had not thought of this ruse. Then it was only his own contempt for the swastika outside the Consulate, his own loathing for the very room he entered, with its flamboyant maps and posters of
Gross Deutschland,
its printed threats of “Death Penalty” for removing funds to a foreign country—all that had steeled his voice to the tone which the young Nazi had so misread. But recalling his first curt sentences, he could see how he must have sounded very impressive indeed. The constant “Yes,
Herr Doktor
,” “At once,
Herr Doktor
,” gave him all the clue he needed.

He had quailed inside, when the Vice-Consul, full of alacrity and beneficent respect, had murmured something about “the routine letter to the Gestapo at Vienna.” But he had kept that momentary tremor a dark secret, and merely said crisply, “Wire them instead. I want this expedited in every way.”

That had been a week ago. Back in Ascona, he had seen that there was safety only in speed, only in a cursory investigation. Ordinarily, a month or more might elapse before he would be summoned back to Lugano. He had waited seven days and here he was.

“Yes,
Herr Doktor
Vederle,” the Vice-Consul said. “Now I am at your complete service.” He smiled and half bowed. “You see, I immediately sent the page boy for your file.”

Franz seated himself in the chair at the desk. He tossed his gray suede gloves on the desk, placed his gray Homburg carefully over them, and lit a cigarette without offering one to the Vice-Consul. Only then did he speak.

“I had to be here in Lugano today—on other business,” he stated. “So I came by to see why there is this infernal delay.”

“Delay? Oh, no,
Herr Doktor,
sometimes this conversion of passport takes two to four months.”

“Sometimes, sometimes. But not when it is important to have passports for instant departure from this confounded country. Did you wire Vienna? You should have had your reply overnight. I have given you six days more—still no word.”

The pale-blue eyes behind the lenses blinked.

“Oh, I am sorry, I misunderstood—I had no idea.” He thumbed rapidly through the forms in the file envelope. “The
Herr Doktor
did not tell me he might be leaving at once.”

Franz’ laugh was cold and brief.

“You’re quite right. I did not tell you.”

“May I ask, sir, it is a routine question—may I inquire to which country you are going?”

“If I knew, I should be glad to tell you,” he answered, with elaborate politeness. “Though that can, of course, have no conceivable bearing on this conversion of passport. I am not asking for visas, after all. Still—if I knew, I would answer your question. All I can—may reply now is: perhaps my destination will be France, perhaps England, perhaps the United States—perhaps, even, back to Vienna.” Again he paused. “Or I may even stay in Switzerland for some time before I know where I am to go next.”

“I see. I—I assure you, I am not trying to pry. I—no, there has been no reply from Vienna. They often—they are so pressed there.”

Franz made a gesture of impatience. He stood up.

“Let us discuss this with the Consul General,” he said coldly. “I must tell him that the Reich seems to be poorly represented in Lugano, when such inaction is permitted for days on end.”

“I—that is, it is my fault,
Herr Doktor.
If I had realized, I should have wired again to Vienna. I—”

“Well, go see the Consul General yourself, then. I shall wait here. I do not wish it to seem like a report of your—your…” He cleared his throat. “You might tell him that I know Klotzmann extremely well.”

The next moment he was alone. He lit another cigarette. This was precisely like a third-rate cinema. Yet it would work. He was sure of it. Or was he? If he were as sure as all that, why was his heart now so obvious in his breast? No, it would work. This frightened little toad—not good enough for the army—was reacting precisely to pattern. Put him in the brown shirt, give him a holster and a gun, yes, then he would be brave. But his face had actually twitched at the mention of Klotzmann’s name. The head of the entire German Consular Service.

And the odd part was that it was true. He had known Klotzmann years ago, before he had turned into the Nazi. Klotzmann would know nothing of him now, but he would remember the name. If they did telephone Berlin, he was still on the safe side of the odds.

He glanced at his watch. Five minutes had gone by.

Perhaps this decision to speed it along was a needless risk to take. But if, by some miracle, the American Consulate should suddenly notify them to come to Zurich for their final examination for the visas, they would have to show valid passports in order to receive them. Not to have them then, to have to wait “from two to four months” after being notified—God, what new complications would ensue, what new dangers.

No, his instinct was the right one. The risk was commensurate with the need for taking it.

He extended his left wrist once more, and again looked at the time. Ten minutes had gone by.

He wanted to turn his head, toward the door through which the Vice-Consul had vanished. He forced himself not to. Instead he rose, and walked to one of the windows and looked out at the city. The busy streets filled with bundle-laden shoppers told him again what his heart had told him a hundred times in the past week: soon it would be Christmas. In two days, on every simple or elegant hearth of the Western world, the undying, homely festival would begin. Even in the houses of the Nazi and Fascist maniacs and their millions of duped followers, even there in the houses of the dark-shirted, dark-venomed troopers, the old habits of worshiping that Great, Lonely Jew would creep out and come to brief life again.

And for those millions of the homeless, the travelers, the migrants—for them, this time of Christmas could only be a time of more poignant thorns, the thorns of wondering, of longing for home.

His mind clicked back to his errand. He looked once more at his watch. Twenty minutes had gone by. Fear thumped through him.

A door closed sharply. He wheeled around, then immediately schooled himself back into the role he was playing.

The Vice-Consul was coming rapidly toward him. Behind him was a solid, squat man with pale jowls and a stiff gray brush of hair.

Both faces were smiling.

Franz wished he were leaning against something. Then he too was expectantly smiling. He saw the grayish-brown cardboard book lets in the Vice-Consul’s hand. “The color of cow dung,” he thought.

Greetings and introductions were rapid. The Consul General had come out himself to explain to
Herr Doktor
Vederle. Everything was cleared now; two long-distance telephone calls had had to be made, and thus this twenty-minute delay.

“You called Klotzmann himself?”

“Oh, it was not necessary. I simply called Vienna for the report—merely the routine report, you understand. The top official was not there, I could only get an underling.” His voice dipped in apology.

“And the second call?” Franz sounded faintly amused. His eyes strayed to the cardboard booklets. There were two of them.

“That was Vienna calling back. The head official was still absent. But the clerk reported there was no dossier. That means one hundred per cent.”

Franz’ mind flashed congratulations to him that he had left Döbling before the new spying registrations of each individual had reached him, listing his friends, his colleagues.

“That is good,” he said dryly. “You understand I do not wish to press you needlessly. I may remain stuck in Ascona for some time—on the other hand, I may be leaving at once. I never know what will develop overnight.”

“Oh, you will have your own passport right now, before you leave here today,” the Vice-Consul put in eagerly. “The other, for your wife and children, you will please mail us with their signatures, and you will have them back by return post. You see, while the call was going through, I had the passport pictures affixed and the data copied out of the old ones.”

“That is what I call ‘expediting,’ ” Franz complimented him.

Only after the Consul General had withdrawn did the eyes behind the lenses seek Franz’ directly. There was a wistfulness in the voice as he asked his question.

“Could you,
Herr Doktor,
I mean—is there any way one can be helped to get into the foreign service of the Gestapo? It must be so—so exciting to be sent to this country or that.”

Franz made a mask of his face.

“I know nothing to tell you,” he said. “I am sorry.”

“Yes,
Herr Doktor,
I understand. Of course.”

The children and Christa were at the station to meet him. Even before the train stopped, he nodded to her to tell her he had succeeded. For once he had succeeded, completely and with dispatch.

In return, she waved an envelope at him. It could only be a radiogram. Christa looked pleased. Paul and Ilse were as eager for him to get off as if he had been away a year instead of one night. Their bouncing, shrieking greetings were absurd in their disregard for the facts. And they delighted his heart.

“I have them with me,” he said to Christa.

“Have what, Daddy? Have what? Oh, tell me,” Ilse shouted.

“It’s secrets, about Christmas,” Paul said. “Shut up, anyway, you make too much racket.”

“I do not. You think just because—”

Franz had taken the radiogram from Christa:
ASKED INTERVENTION AND HELP FROM WASHINGTON … HAPPIER YEAR IN THE U.S.A. IN 1939
. Inexplicably, he felt as if he would cry. The very words made it seem a nearer possibility. She knew, she deeply, truly understood.

Slowly he folded the cable and put it into his pocket. Christa had taken his arm.

“I felt that way, too,” she said. “She sent it, instead of writing, to make the holidays better for us.”

“That is a sweet woman,” he said gravely.

When they were alone at home, he put gingerly fingers into his inside pocket. He drew out the passports, and handed them to her as if the very touch were offensive.

“
Deutsches Reich. Reisepass
,” she read aloud from the cover. “I never could have imagined that
we—
”

She turned to the pages inside, a green color with pinkish-brown spots. Except for the first four, the rest were blank. She kept turning over the empty pages. The last one was numbered 32.

“How ugly they make everything,” she said. “And how many blank pages for visas.” She began to read the descriptive matter opposite Franz’ picture. “
Nervenarzt.
Those fools in Lugano probably take it as nerve doctor, not anything so degenerate as ‘psychoanalyst.’”

“Not only in Lugano,” he chuckled. “In Vienna, at the Gestapo. I counted on that.”

He told her the story, relishing the memory of every bit of it. She was dazzled at his temerity, a little frightened, too. How could he still have the sureness within him to do such things, now, after all the terrible months? She had never known until this year what a boon it must be to have unbreakable determination and courage. She admired him for these qualities, yet the very admiration made her more ashamed of her own inability to have them too. Even now, listening to his recital, she could only feel how different they were, for all that they lived together, shared everything.

No human beings were ever the same. Each had his or her own weakness or strength. It was when life forced you enough so that you could feel the discrepancy that you felt separated and alone.

Her face showed nothing of her thoughts. At the end of his story, she praised him, denied that it was “third-rate cinema stuff.” But she felt far outside his strong, clear laughter when he said, “Well, second-rate then; I won’t allow it to be better than that for any Nazis.”

That night, a group of their Ascona friends came in, and Franz played the piano. There were more than a dozen of them; some had come years before from Germany and were on their way to becoming Swiss citizens. Others were, like themselves, Austrians or Germans, waiting for visas. Some had waited longer than they. Tonight at least there were
Gemütlichkeit
and forgetfulness; she and Franz were almost like social leaders of this group. It was pleasant to feel looked up to.

Ilse was asleep, but for these weekly gatherings, Paul was permitted to stay up until after ten. Franz played so beautifully, so warmly; all the faces in the room were relaxed and pleased. It was almost like being at home, this life in Ascona. She was used to it now, and the other
émigrées
gave her a sense of solidarity and safety. She could imagine settling in Ascona…

She caught herself up. That was a new nonsense, and she must not drift with it. It was folly to imagine anything. She knew only what each day told her. That and the fact that Franz had warned her that many weeks would go by before the letters from his patients could arrive. Late February or March. He had guessed March. That would be almost a year from the time they had set forth.