Bliss, Remembered (42 page)

Maybe he saw me look at the car. Certainly he saw that my expression changed. He stepped right up to the porch railing, and this time when he spoke, his voice was full of actual menace. “Come up onto the porch,” he said, staring at me with hard eyes. He had heavy eyebrows, too, which accentuated the harshness. “Right now.”

You know, Teddy, every one of us has said things that we wish we hadn’t.

Well, I have too, I’m afraid, but never in my life, neither before or since did I ever say anything so stupid as I was about to utter. Just one word. And the instant it passed my lips—barely more than a whisper at that—I knew it was the dumbest thing I’d ever said. But just a reflex, Teddy. And it was done.

I said: “Goldstein.” And there it was. Now he knew I knew. In the next instant, he pulled a pistol out of a holster from under his jacket and pointed it right at me. “Now, come on up,” he said. Naturally, I obeyed. I’d never had a gun pointed at me. It’s a thing to make you shiver, lemme tell you.

So, I came up the porch steps and stood in front of him, lookin’ down at the muzzle of that pistol starin’ me in the face. I was surprised by how small Goldstein was. Horst hadn’t mentioned that. For some reason, that irritated me. The little Nazi creep. Made me think of that awful Goebbels. Still, I was scared to death, but I did ask him again if I couldn’t change my clothes.

“You’re welcome to,” he told me. “Only I’m afraid I have to be with you.”

“What are you, a peeping Tom?” I asked. (I don’t believe we said “pervert” back then, Teddy.)

“Look,” he said, without taking offense, “you can turn your back on me, but I’m not lettin’ you outta my sight.”

“All right. Never mind.”

“Have it your way,” he said, beckoning me, with the pistol, to go inside.

“Make sure you close that door so the flies don’t get in,” I said, which was really an idiotic subject to bring up under the circumstances, but the damn flies were always on my mind. And he did close the door, and there I was, alone in the living room with him. I asked him if I could at least throw something on over the bathing suit. I don’t know why, Teddy, but even if he killed me, I didn’t want him to see the outline of my . . . you know . . . through that sheer suit. At least I wasn’t gonna give him that little treat. So he let me go over to the coat closet, and I got out an old linen jacket that I’d wear when I was weeding and whatnot.

Then I crossed back and took the chair he motioned me to. He sat sort of catty-cornered from me, on the sofa, so he could keep that pistol close on me and pointed right at me. “Okay,” he said then, when we were settled, “where’s Gerhardt?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

He immediately raised the gun up, pointing it right at my face. “Don’t gimme that, lady. You know my name. He told you. So where is he?”

“Please lower the gun,” I asked, and at least he did that; he brought it back down. But he still kept it pointed at me. At my heart, Teddy. I tried to figure out what I could tell him that would be the most innocent. You see, I could tell he really didn’t know much himself, that he was fishin’.

“Go on, go on,” he snapped.

“Okay,” I began. “Horst called me.”

“Where from?”

“He didn’t say. This was a few days ago.”

“When?”

I tried to calculate. “Sunday. I’m pretty sure it was Sunday.” I said that because I knew that was the day Horst was in New York, supposed to be meeting Goldstein.

“So what did he say?”

I got a little sharp with him then. “Just relax and lemme tell you,” I said. “He wanted to talk to me.”

“Why?”

“Will you let me talk?” He nodded, grudgingly. “Well, obviously you know about me because Horst and I were in love at the Olympics, and he called me because he wanted to tell me that he wanted to see me again. Now you gotta understand, I haven’t seen him since ’36. He stopped writing me five years ago. I haven’t heard one word from him in all that time, and out of the blue, he calls me. And once I got myself together, I explained that I was married and having a baby.”

“You’re having a baby?”

“Yes, I’m almost four months pregnant.”

I thought that might soften him up a bit, but he just snapped: “So, okay, where’s your husband?”

I paused for a second. Maybe I should tell Goldstein he’d just gone out to the drugstore or something. Maybe he’d leave then. But I took too long to respond, and he got wise. “He’s not here, is he?”

Stupid me: I’d blown my chance. First I’d said something I shouldn’t’ve said. Then when I should’ve said something, I didn’t have the sense to. Now there was no use pretending. I just told him: “He’s a Marine. He’s . . . he’s in Guadalcanal.”

Goldstein only nodded at that. “So, then what’d Gerhardt say?”

“Well, he said he wasn’t surprised that I’d gotten married, but it disappointed him. So, naturally, I asked him what in the world he was up to? I mean, it’s a little baffling, a German in the United States when we’re fighting a war against Germany. And what he told me was that he was on an undercover mission here, and he was supposed to meet a guy named Goldstein in New York, but his intention all along was not to carry out the mission, and so if he couldn’t see me, he was just gonna get lost.”

“That’s all he said?”

“That’s about it.”

“You don’t know where he was goin’?”

“Frankly, at that point, I don’t think Horst knew where he was goin’. I mean, where he wanted to go was here, and when he found out that wasn’t in the cards, I don’t think he had any idea.”

“And he didn’t say anything more about me?”

“No. Well, when he said he was supposed to be meeting a guy named Goldstein, I remarked how that was strange, meeting a Nazi with a Jewish name, and he said, of course, it’s an alias. So that was it. I don’t really even know who you are.”

I thought that was a good idea to put that on the record. It was pretty apparent to me that Goldstein didn’t have a whole lot of options, vis-à-vis me, Teddy. If he was used to killing people in cold blood, he’d just shoot me and be done with it. I thought that’d probably be his preferred option, because obviously, if he left me alive, the minute he drove off, I was gonna be on the phone to the FBI or the State Police and so on and so forth, reporting him.

Or, if I was lucky, and if he’d already abandoned his apartment and was headed for parts unknown, then, if he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer who could shoot a pregnant woman, then maybe he’d just rip out my phone and screw up my car, something like that, and leave me be and take off.

Well, Teddy, I put myself in Goldstein’s shoes, and, quite honestly, I figured it’d be a whole lot more likely that I’d just kill me if I was him. Don’t they say “whack” now?

Well, that’s what I figured: he’d whack me. After all, how could anyone ever possibly connect him to my murder? But if he lets me be, and I blow the whistle on him, and he gets caught, they’d hang him in a July minute. Why take a chance on that? No, Teddy, I didn’t like my chances at all. I was scared to death. I think I would’ve peed in my pants, except all I had on was my WSA bathing suit, and he would’ve noticed it, and I didn’t wanna give the SOB the satisfaction of seeing me so scared. You understand?

Well then, I thought, besides not peeing, what could I do? Just for the record, Teddy, since it happened to me, let me tell you: after a while of having a gun pointed at you, you relax a little. I don’t mean it gets old hat, but you do regain some of your composure.

So, I kind of shifted in my seat, which gave me a chance to glance around without lookin’ like I was. On my right, at the corner of the L between my chair and the sofa where he was sitting, was an end table. There were two things on it. One was a large lamp and the other was a cigarette box. Well, it really wasn’t a box. It was a wooden duck that had a lid on its back, where you could stick cigarettes in. Somebody had given it to my father. Mother hated it because she had no interest in ducks whatsoever and thought that grown men going duck-hunting was the stupidest form of entertainment known to man or beast, but some buddy of Daddy’s had given him that wooden duck, and after Daddy was killed, Mom felt guilty about removing it. So, there it was, still on the table, and I thought, well maybe if Goldstein drops his guard, I can pick up the duck by its neck and slug him with the duck body. It was not, I’m afraid, a very viable weapon—especially with a pistol pointed at me from about two feet away, but it was about all I had to make do. You see?

Well, Teddy, Goldstein was silent for a while, mulling. That encouraged me. Somebody who mulls might not be quick on the trigger. Finally, he spoke up. “Did he say he’d call you again?”

“Yeah, actually, he did.” Goldstein brightened, but I took all the air out of that balloon. “He said he’d gimme a call when the war was over.”

He frowned. “And you don’t know anything else?”

“Look, I’m telling you, sir.” (I can’t believe I called him “sir,” but I distinctly remember I did.) “I loved Horst once, but that was long ago and far away, and I haven’t had any contact with him in years. He calls me, finds out I’m married, we talk for a couple more minutes, and then he’s gone out of my life again.”

Goldstein just glowered, so I thought maybe it was time to appeal to his better instincts—assuming that a Nazi might have any. I think you’d say now, Teddy, that I tried to play the sweet-little-thing card. I lowered my head and rubbed my eyes. “Oh, sir, please, won’t you just leave me alone? I don’t know anything else. I don’t know who you are. I can’t help you. Just please.” And I tried to cry. In fact, I began to cry. Well, not really, Teddy, but at least I made as much noise as if I was crying. I mean, I really boo-hooed to beat the band.

You see, at just that instant I was sure I’d heard the kitchen screen door open, and I had a pretty good idea who it was who’d opened it, and I wanted that person, who must be Gentry Trappe, to hear me cry, and then I wanted to keep on making enough noise so that Goldstein wouldn’t hear the kitchen door close. Luckily, Teddy, Gentry Trappe never slammed a door in all his born days. He was the quietest door-closer I’d ever encountered in my entire life.

And Goldstein, with all his mulling and my faux crying, didn’t hear a thing. “Come on, come on,” is all he said.

“Well, you wouldn’t let me get dressed, and I don’t have a hankerchief,” I said. “Lemme get a Kleenex.” And Teddy, I reached over to that duck, like it was a Kleenex box.

And sure enough, just as I did, I glanced up, and I could see Mr. Trappe coming into the room from the kitchen. He was to my right, but behind Goldstein. He was carrying a few ears of sweet corn he’d brought for me, and his eyes were wide open with confusion and fear at the scene he’d chanced upon.

Thank God for Gentry Trappe or I wouldn’t be here today. And come to think of it, Teddy, you wouldn’t have been any place any day, ever.

Promise me you won’t hate me, Teddy.

I opened my eyes as wide as I could—on purpose. You see, now I wanted to make sure Goldstein did see that I saw something. I wanted him distracted. Sure enough, he turned his head a little, and when he did, I screamed out, “He’s got a gun!” Then I grabbed that wooden duck, the cigarette box, by the neck, and I brought it down across Goldstein’s arm. I hit him square on the wrist, where he was holdin’ the pistol.

Okay, Teddy, Goldstein turned back from spotting Mr. Trappe at that instant and pulled the trigger, and the gun fired, which scared the living you-know-what outta me. But because I bopped his wrist in the nick of time, his aim was off, and the bullet missed me. In another second, Mr. Trappe had sorta shoveled the ears of corn he was carrying into Goldstein’s direction, and then he tumbled over the back of the sofa, grabbin’ him round the neck, and I smashed Goldstein on his wrist again with the duck.

At that point, he managed to get off one more shot. It went through the screen door. I found the hole later. But that was when I fell forward onto his arm, just as Mr. Trappe had come all the way over the back of the sofa onto Goldstein’s back, so he couldn’t keep hold of the gun anymore. It dropped to the floor, and I snatched it up and pointed it right at his head.

“Okay, Mr. Trappe, I got it now,” I said. By then, he had Goldstein in a headlock from behind.

Poor Goldstein, Teddy. I must say, he looked more chagrined than anything. Here he was, the top-dog Nazi in the whole United States, and an old man and a pregnant woman had beaten the crap out of him and taken his gun away. I was still scared out of my wits, but, at the same time, there was something comical about it.

Gentry Trappe, of course, was mostly just puzzled. “Miss Trixie,” he said. “Who is this?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said. “First, go into the garage and get something to tie him up with. There’s some clothesline in there.”

He was reluctant to leave me alone with the guy, but I gave a little wave of the gun, to assure him that I was quite capable of handling the situation, and he hurried off to the garage.

At this point Goldstein turned a little sullen, trying his best, I think, to affect a tough-guy pose. “So what’r’ya gonna do?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll call the FBI.” Then I got a little smug, Teddy. I couldn’t resist lettin’ him know the score. “Actually, I already reported you to them. Your goose is cooked.”