Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel by Thaisa Frank

think that?

    Because sometimes you act like it does. I wonder if you know how many notes I send Goebbels to make him happy. Dear Goebbels: We love your stories about winning the war. Keep them up. And your denials about the Final Solution are breathtaking.

    I’ll bring you something special, said Elie.

    Just come back, said Lodenstein.

    He walked her to her jeep, and she drove off on the unpaved road. It was treacherously slick. But when she turned to the paved road, she wasn’t relieved because there were other cars, and no rescue was without danger. On her last foray, Elie had hidden three children under a marble statue covered with blankets. Everything had gone smoothly until an SS officer at the Swiss border began to uncover the statue. Elie said it was for Frisch—a banker she thought he’d know. He pressed her arm, she pressed back, and an erotic current passed between them. Go! he’d said. And go quickly!

    She kept looking in the rearview mirror—an endless stretch of road and cars. She felt remorse about lying to Lodenstein and was haunted by a vision of him running to keep up with her.

    Maria’s safe house was in a town due south of the Compound and—to Elie’s relief—she had to take a road that forked off the main highway. She drove by farms and a dense forest, where she saw a man and a child behind a tree. She thought about the Angel of Auschwitz who had bargained a laboratory for a life. She wondered if a letter could do the same.

    The town with the safe house was a patchwork of commerce and neglect, like other towns that hadn’t been bombed beyond recognition at this stage of the war. It dipped into dilapidated structures then bloomed into islands of prosperity. One street had boarded-up buildings throbbing with misery. Another had elegant shops. Yet another had a train station where people held suitcases. They were dressed in good coats, but Elie knew in less than a week they’d be wearing striped uniforms. She parked the jeep in a crowded section and began to walk. A jeep with a swastika in front of a safe house would attract attention.

    Light snow began to fall—swirls of white on grey. The streets widened, narrowed, widened again, expanding and contracting, as though they were breathing. Nothing felt quite real to Elie—not the sky, or the air, or a coffeehouse where customers drank from incongruously large cups of ersatz coffee. People hurried by, surrounded by pale grey air—the only thing that seemed to hold them together. Elie passed a muddy street with a chain-link fence followed by a row of prosperous houses. The town was breaking up, and she felt she was breaking up with it. It began to snow thickly, surrounding everyone in white. We’re only bound by veils , Elie thought, fragile accidents of cohesion .

    No one was quite visible in this snow, and for a moment Elie imagined she saw her sister. She wore a dark red coat and kept her hands in a white muff. She smiled then disappeared.

    Near the outskirts, streets were arranged in a circular pattern. Elie passed grey row houses, brick buildings, more row houses. The last were close to where Maria was hidden. But before she made the last turn, a Gestapo officer stopped her, said he’d lost his watch, and asked the time. Her heart began to race, and her answer— Fourteen hours and twenty minutes —sounded like a confession. He thanked her and asked if he could help find an address. Elie said no, she was just taking a walk. He asked for her papers—she was aware of his fleshy hands—and was confused when she showed him the red silk ribbon.

    What are you doing at the outskirts? he asked.

    I work with Goebbels, said Elie. And I’d be shot if I told you more.

    The Gestapo officer shook his head. Goebbels would never shoot such a beautiful woman. Only the undesirables: shot or guillotined. Take your pick.

    He laughed when he said Take your pick and told Elie she reminded him of his wife. Then he took her arm and walked with her