Heidegger's Glasses Read online

  While Elie worked, the Scribes played word games, wrote in diaries, and answered a few letters from Operation Mail. Sometimes they typed one or two obligatory sentences. Sometimes they answered at length, usually by hand, because something about the letter writer moved them. Maybe the handwriting reminded them of a parent. Or the writer mentioned a town they knew. Or the letter was written the day they’d been scheduled to be deported. They kept these letters for themselves and didn’t send them to be stored in crates. Now and then one of them came across a letter from someone they knew, and there was weeping, mayhem, and commotion. Not today, though. And Elie, as always, was composed.

  Sophie Nachtgarten picked up her pen. She’d just read a letter from someone in the district of Fürth—the same district she’d lived in with her lover. There had been a lineup in their town square, and a guard shouted stand straight! in an accent Sophie recognized as Norwegian. On an impulse she’d said of course in Norwegian and was pulled from the line. It was a good guess—the guard had been raised in Norway. And while her lover was taken to the gallows, Sophie was pushed into a Kübelwagen.

  Dear Margot, she began, I don’t know you, but we lived close by—so close we could have passed each other in a marketplace….

  Elie let the Scribes do what they wanted because it didn’t matter how many letters they answered: Goebbels threatened to visit but never came. As for the building to exhibit the letters after the war—Elie knew it would never happen: Germany could barely feed her own people. These letters would never be read. And neither she, the Scribes, nor Lodenstein wanted to support a blasphemous distortion of history.

  Except for those arrested crossing borders, most Scribes remembered being pulled from a lineup in a town square or a crowd that exuded panic while surging toward cattle cars. They remembered being quizzed, and understanding their life depended on knowing a foreign language. Then a series of confusing car rides, their first glimpse of the shepherd’s hut, their startling descent into the earth—and their relief when they met Elie Schacten.

  Now she stood up and clapped her hands.

  It’s time to get ready for the feast, she said.

  Within moments, Scribes arranged eighteen desks side by side and eighteen more facing them. Elie found candles and wineglasses in a broom closet. A Scribe named Parvis Nafissian set out pitchers with water from the well. Sophie Nachtgarten took the mineshaft to the forest and came back with pine boughs that made the air fresh and the desks into a banquet table. They brought out platters with ham, chicken, bread, and cheese. Elie lit candles and poured wine. Then she banged on a metal pot.

  Everybody come! she called. It’s time for the feast.

  People began to appear from the most unlikely places: a short man in a skullcap and a taller woman with a long red braid came from a tiny house at the end of the cobblestone street. A green-eyed woman in an ermine coat darted from a corner. A blond woman with a cigarette holder and an elegant man in a long black coat walked out of Elie’s old room. And Lars Eisenscher, an eighteen-year-old guard who barely fit into his uniform, came from the mineshaft. As soon as Lars saw the man in the skullcap, he pulled out a seat for him and cut him a huge slice of bread. He sat behind him for the rest of the meal, pouring wine for him and the woman with the long red braid.

  Soon fifty-eight people were around the table—Lodenstein at one end, Elie at the other. The candlelight made faces float and the plates glow. Everything was illuminated and reminded Elie of an enchanted castle freed from a spell. She stood up and raised her wineglass.

  To the end of the war! she said. To victory for the Allies!

  The room was filled with the sound of clinking glasses. People passed platters and joked about the best word for bread in different languages.

  Pain is best, said the woman in the ermine coat. As soon as you say it, you see a baguette with butter.

  Brot is better, said Parvis Nafissian. As soon as you say it you see soup.

  Who cares? said the tall man in the black coat. What we need is a mazurka.

  And he grabbed the blond woman and began to dance.

  Above, in the shoebox of a watchtower, a man with a large face and several chins leaned against the glass. He seemed weighted by his chins, trapped in a different element, and looked forlorn. Elie Schacten nodded to Lars, who left the table and went up the winding stairs to the watchtower. Soon the heavy man was sitting next to Elie. She patted his arm and filled his plate with food. The woman in the ermine coat poured him wine.

  To each and every one of us! said Elie, tapping her wineglass.

  To all of us in the Compound! said Lodenstein, standing up.

  Over twenty Scribes touched glasses with the heavy man. He was surrounded by arched backs, bowed heads, curved arms. The sound of glasses filled the room like bells.

  To victory, he said under his breath.

  Beloved Dominik,

  I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye. I had to leave home quickly.

  Love,

  Krystiana

  When Elie woke up late the next morning, the first thing she saw was the telephone. It beckoned with such force that she dressed and ran to the mineshaft. She opened it and almost tripped over Lars, who had passed out drunk on the street. The main room was back in its spell—stained wineglasses, brittle pine boughs, Scribes asleep on the floor.

  Elie threaded her way to her desk and opened a dark red notebook with a silver clasp. She read fragments from a few pages, leafed through more blank ones, picked a page at random and started to write. When Scribes got up, fumbling with coats, she put her notebook in her desk and went to the kitchen.

  Take more, people said when she’d filled her tray.

  Yes! More!

  The voices were loving; happy to offer something. When Elie came upstairs, Lodenstein raced for the tray.

  That’s my job. You need to sleep.

  But I couldn’t, said Elie. By the way, did you notice how drunk Lars got last night? He’s passed out downstairs in front of the mineshaft.

  I’m not surprised. He’s too young to hold his liquor.

  How else can he handle missing his father? Elie took a velvet ribbon from the dresser, fussed with her hair, then threw the ribbon on the floor and said:

  I can’t take much more of this.

  More of what?

  All of it. People lost. People dying. Not enough of us to save them.

  The phone rang, and Elie and Lodenstein jumped. Lodenstein picked up the phone and acted pleasant—in a tone that Elie recognized as false.

  That officer at the outpost wants to see you tonight, he said when the conversation was over. He says something urgent has come up.

  By the time Elie left, the world was in blackout. She drove past houses leaking light from dark curtains and past villages that were invisible. When she arrived at the outpost, the officer was pacing.

  I just got an order from Goebbels’s office, he said. And it’s your neck and mine if we can’t come through.

  He handed Elie a paper from the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda that read:

  Joseph Goebbels demands that the enclosed letter from Martin Heidegger to his optometrist Asher Englehardt be answered by a philosopher at the Compound of Scribes who can absolutely duplicate what would have been Asher Englehardt’s reply—in other words act as his ventriloquist—and be delivered, along with the proper pair of glasses, to Martin Heidegger’s hut in the Black Forest in Todtnauberg. This must be done while maintaining absolute secrecy. No discussions are necessary.

  No discussions are necessary meant anyone who spoke about this to Goebbels would be shot.

  Elie tugged at the sleeves of her thick woolen coat.

  Why would Martin Heidegger bother to write to his optometrist? she said, careful to sound calm.

  Why indeed? The officer sat in a leather wing chair and lit a cigarette. His agitation had disappeared: no matter how lethal, gossip was intoxicating. He seemed to be inhaling it, straight from Berlin.

>   Heidegger and this guy taught at the same university, he said. But when they found out his father was Jewish, they wouldn’t let him teach, so he opened an optometry shop, and Heidegger went to him for glasses. I don’t know why. He’s a crackpot.

  I’ve heard that, said Elie.

  They kept writing each other letters, he continued. And this fall, when Heidegger didn’t get an answer, his wife began to poke around. First she bothered Himmler, then Himmler bothered Goebbels, and she and Goebbels had a meeting.

  Elie twisted her dark red scarf.

  Why should Goebbels meet with Heidegger’s wife? she said. She’s just an ordinary hausfrau.

  Shhh! said the officer. Every corner of these walls can hear. You know why Goebbels met with her. He’s always in that marketplace talking about the war. So what trouble is it to spend a pleasant hour with a hausfrau? Besides, if Goebbels is happy, things go better for all of us.

  He handed Elie two photographs. One was of Asher Englehardt’s optometry shop after it was raided, and the other was of Asher Englehardt and Martin Heidegger. In the first, Elie saw Fuck Jews scrawled across an eye chart and shards of glass on an optometrist’s chair. In the second, she saw Asher Englehardt by an alpine hut with his hands on Martin Heidegger’s shoulders. The photograph was labeled Black Forest, 1929.

  They were quite the friends, said the officer.

  What does that matter? said Elie. The Gestapo’s been watching Heidegger for years.

  Maybe, said the officer. But they don’t need to watch his wife. She’s in good standing with the Party.

  Elie stared at the clock between two bicycles and tried not to look upset about the orders. On the one hand, they were impossible. On the other, impossible orders sometimes led to extraordinary rescues.

  What’s the matter? said the officer.

  Nothing, said Elie. Except I don’t know a ventriloquist who can write like a philosopher.

  Then you have to find one, said the officer.

  But this letter was written last fall.

  But Goebbels and Frau Heidegger just met a month ago. Besides, his wife wants his glasses. And Heidegger wants an answer to his letter.

  The officer handed Elie a pine box overflowing with glasses. Each had a white tag on an earpiece and a different name on each tag. One pair was marked für Martin Heidegger. Elie stared at Asher Englehardt’s handwriting.

  You need to deliver the glasses and a letter, said the officer.

  I understand, said Elie, still careful to sound calm. By the way—do you know what happened to the optometrist?

  Do you think he went on vacation to the Badensee? said the officer. The SS man watching out for him was shot, and he got sent to Auschwitz. He ran his finger across his throat—the slash of a knife. Maybe his mother was Aryan, but these days no one’s lucky. And that Angel of Auschwitz got just one chance.

  Elie nodded. The officer stubbed out his cigarette.

  Do you want anything else? he asked, pointing to the walls.

  We can always use coats. And another kilo of chocolate.

  The officer carried the coats across the snow, and Elie carried everything from Asher Englehardt’s optometry shop, including Heidegger’s glasses and his letter to Asher, the last sentence of which read:

  How could either of us have known you would be the person to make me real glasses—that unwitting source of my falling out of the world?

  Elie, who had met Heidegger and read Heidegger, understood exactly what he meant. But she agreed that the letter was crazy. They got to her jeep; she let the officer kiss her on the lips again and hold her longer than she would have liked. Then she drove to the North German woods, thinking about Goebbels’s orders. At the clearing, she shone her flashlight on the photographs. She folded them in half and pushed them deep into her pocket.

  Anna,

  You mustn’t believe what people are saying. This place is good, and if you get this letter, I can only tell you to come here. Bring mother and father and the children. Please, bring everyone.

  Love,

  Mordecai

  When Elie walked into the hut, Lodenstein was wearing his Navy trench coat and toying with his compass on the wooden table. It was a liquid compass from the British Royal Navy—he had found it in a shop before the war. The compass was used on ships, but Lodenstein took pleasure in using it on land. It helped him feel close to the sea, especially the horizon where he saw the sun and moon over far-flung water. Sometimes he joked to Elie: Suppose the earth is flat after all? If you’re near the sea, you can escape.

  He reached for the orders and Heidegger’s letter and read them a few times to see if they were coded. But the messages were exactly what they were meant to be: From Heidegger, brilliance and bombast. From Goebbels’s office, orders to deliver Heidegger’s glasses and a letter without a trace of where they’d come from.

  A hausfrau’s leading Goebbels around, said Elie.

  But even generals can’t do that, said Lodenstein.

  It’s Heidegger’s wife, said Elie. A great example of Kinder, Küche, und Kirche.

  I thought her kinder left home.

  Heidegger hasn’t.

  Lodenstein laughed, and Elie didn’t mention she’d once been to a party at the Heideggers and gotten Frau Heidegger’s recipe for bundkuchen.

  Maybe it’s all made up, said Lodenstein. Or maybe they want a reason to shoot me.

  No one wants a reason to shoot you, said Elie. And I’m pretty sure the optometrist is real.

  Why are you sure? said Lodenstein. People invent themselves like flies these days. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone invented us.

  Maybe they did, said Elie. But I happen to have met Martin Heidegger.

  I thought you read in linguistics.

  I did, said Elie. But everybody knew each other.

  There was a cracked mirror on the fireplace, and Elie walked to it and worked the ribbon in her hair. When she’d tied a bow that met her standards, she said:

  Heidegger and Asher Englehardt were friends. They wrote each other letters. They met for coffee.

  Except now Englehardt’s at a place where no one writes letters. Except the ridiculous ones you read.

  Elie came back to the table. Her eyes were preternaturally bright.

  Maybe these orders could get Englehardt out, she said.

  Listen to me, Elie. People don’t leave Auschwitz.

  I know about a few.

  Yes. As ashes.

  Not always, said Elie. Just a week ago an SS man came to the Commandant and said a prisoner owned a lab and the Reich needed it for the war, and he had to leave Auschwitz to sign the papers. So he did. And guess what? There aren’t any records of the lab, and no one knows the SS officer. People think he wasn’t real. They call him the Angel of Auschwitz.

  Who told you that?

  The outpost officer.

  He’s losing it, said Lodenstein.

  But it’s all over the Reich. And Asher Englehardt is the only ventriloquist we’ll ever find.

  There are plenty of people who can write a good letter.

  Who?

  Lodenstein waved his hands. I’m sure we can find one.

  But these orders might get him out.

  Listen to me, Elie. If we fool around, Goebbels will shoot everyone in the Compound. And these orders aren’t even signed. Anyone could have sent them.

  But the glasses are real. And I’ll talk to Stumpf about the letter.

  You can try, Lodenstein said. But Major Stumpf is a fool.

  That’s exactly why I want to talk to him, said Elie.

  Stumpf can never help anybody, said Lodenstein. And it was bad enough that you asked him to the feast.

  Dieter Stumpf was the man who lived in the shoebox overlooking the Scribes. He was short and stout and reminded Elie of a shar-pei dog whose skin is all in folds. The shar-pei hadn’t come to Germany, but a Chinese painting of one turned up at the outpost, and Elie took it because it reminded her of Stumpf. The painting was
her private joke with Lodenstein.