Pursuit (46 page)

“And the country itself?”

“Well, a good part of it is desert, unbelievably severe, wild, rugged, mountainous, and to me also very beautiful, although to be honest a good many people hate the desert. My father for one. Again I may be prejudiced; I was born on a kibbutz in the desert. And what isn't desert or cities in Israel is good farm land, much of it recovered from swamps; wide green valleys, orchards—” He looked at her across the table, aware of a feeling he had never before experienced with a girl. “When are you coming?”

“Oh, I do not know, of course—”

“You must come, you know, and very soon. We also have a very good library in Jerusalem that is dedicated to the holocaust.”

“I know, at Yad Vashem. It is very famous. I want very much to be visiting there.”

“Then come. Don't go to England, come to Israel. Look—” Herzl reached out impulsively, putting his hand on hers. “My father, if you'll pardon the immodesty of his son, is rather an important person in Israel; he's a brigadier general in the army, and he travels all over the world for the government. He's in Argentina for them now, as a matter of fact. And our best friend is in the Mossad, head of security in the government. I'm sure they would be very happy to help you get a job in Israel, in your own line. Possibly even at Yad Vashem.”

She smiled at him and gently disengaged her hand.

“These are dreams, no? Someday I am getting to Israel, I am sure, or at least so I am hoping, but not so soon.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said honestly, “one does not meet a stranger who talks of Israel, and the next day right away drop a job and travel to a strange place.”

“Stranger?” Herzl sounded hurt.

“We are meeting only yesterday.”

“I know, but people can know each other for years and still be strangers. And other people can meet and in five minutes know they were meant—” He reddened. “I mean, can be friends.”

“Possibly.” She stared down at her plate a moment and then looked up, quite obviously changing the subject. “About the movie film you are making—”

Herzl sighed. He had not wanted the subject changed.

“What about it?”

She hesitated a moment and then switched to German, looking at him seriously.

“I'm sorry, I know I should use English if I want to improve, but I want you to understand, and my English is not good enough. You think I am changing the subject because I don't want to speak of anything personal, and that is true; but I also want very much to speak to you of this. I have been thinking of it all day. I think the German people will like the film very much.”

“I hope so,” Herzl said, also speaking German.

“Do you? I did not mean it that way. The Germans want very much to humanize these men you call monsters. You will do it for them. Many are beginning to deny that the holocaust occurred, that there were any atrocities at all. In the library I can show you books, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, all emphatically denying that people were purposely slaughtered in concentration camps, that any figure like six million Jews—not to mention the millions of Russians, Poles, Rumanians, Gypsies, Germans, and others—French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Italian—I could go on—are pure fantasy, propaganda of Israel to extract reparations, lies of Jews around the world.”

“But that's insane—”

“Is it? Go to one of the beer halls around the university one night, talk to the people there, the students. Half of them will not even speak of the Hitler era, although many of them think poor Adolf was badly maligned. They do not want to believe their parents were the monsters you are speaking of. They've known their parents all their lives, and they've always been good people, nice to children, pleasant with animals—”

“I know,” Herzl said, “but to deny the holocaust is ridiculous! There's certainly enough proof, from Third Reich files alone, and libraries like yours—”

“The people who make these statements and who read these statements do not come to our library, they do not go to the files. They do not want the truth. They want to believe they have not descended from monsters. Your film will help them.”

“In what way?”

“You still don't see? What are you going to find when you investigate these people in depth?”

“I've already found why von Schraeder hated Jews—”

She brushed this aside impatiently.

“Many people hate Jews; they don't even need reasons. But they don't kill them by the millions. Did von Schraeder hate Russians? Or Poles? He killed them in battle as a soldier, but does a soldier truly hate the man he is killing to the extent that he also kills that man's mother and father and son and daughter in gas ovens?” She shook her head. “I do not believe so. And did you discover why Eichmann hated Jews? If you do you will be the first. Yet he was in charge of the entire extermination program, and once said he would put his own father in the gas chamber if he were ordered to do so—and there is no indication that he hated his father.”

“I still don't see—”

“I am trying to tell you. You do not want emotion; you do not want to show the camps or the horrors because that has been done too many times! Instead you just want to discover why these ‘normal' people became monsters capable of the crimes they committed. When you have finished with your investigation you will find you are unable to discover any valid reason for the change. And do you know why? Because these people did
not
change. And the Germans will love anyone who demonstrates that fact.”

He stared at her. “You're saying that they did what they did because they were German. You're a Jew but you're also German yourself.”

“I'm not saying that at all. And as for my being German or not being German, you don't know Germans and you don't know me.”

“My father is German—”

“You insist upon misunderstanding. It's also possible you don't know your father. But I am
not
saying they did what they did because they were Germans. The Russians did it, more than once; the Lithuanians did it. The Turks massacred over 600,000 Armenians in 1915, women and children included; the Manchus killed half a million to subdue Oirat in 1758. Chiang Kai-shek tried to outdo them in 1927 against the workers of Shanghai. The Americans did it to their Indians and they are doing it again this very minute in Southeast Asia.”

“You're saying that anyone could do it,” Herzl said slowly.

“Yes,” she said simply. “All history proves it. Do you want your film to show this?”

“You're saying we are all monsters?” He leaned over the table. “What made you come to an idea like that?”

“The books in the library,” she said. “The books in many libraries. You saw only a few in our one library. I've seen almost all of them. You saw a few feet of film. I've seen them all. Do you know that the neo-Nazi party in Germany is growing? Do you know there are neo—why do they call them neo? They're as old as history!—Nazi parties in England, in the United States, everywhere? But I am sure I will never convince you. You live in the safety of a Jewish state.”

“With our Arabs,” Herzl said dryly. “On all sides.”

“Who supported Hitler during the war,” Miriam said. “But you want to select a few Nazis and discover why they are different.” She shrugged and looked at her watch, changing back to English. “But it's late. I must be leaving.”

“No. Let's talk some more. Tell me why you're so bitter.”

She looked genuinely surprised. “I'm not bitter. I'm simply a realist, a librarian who reads books. But I must leave.”

“Just a while longer …”

“No.”

“Then I'll see you home.”

“No, I am preferring not.” She came to her feet. “Thank you for a good—I mean, nice—evening.”

He wished he could tell if she were sincere or being sardonic. “But—wait—at least let me put you in a cab.” He raised a hand for the waiter's attention.

“No. Please. I do not take taxis. The trolley passes very near my house.” There was a finality in her voice that did not permit further discussion.

“But I'll see you tomorrow at the library?”

“Of course.”

“And we won't miss lunch tomorrow, we'll take it together. And dinner. Possibly in a beer hall where I can meet students, and some of these neo-Nazis. Or we can eat anywhere you like. After all,” Herzl said with a smile, “I'm a stranger in town, and as a native the least you can do is show me proper hospitality. For example, I would never have found this perfect restaurant if it hadn't been for you. I might have starved.”

“Tomorrow in the library I am showing you the telephone book,” Miriam said with only the faintest of smiles. “It has lines and lines full of restaurants.”

She walked from the table, leaving him to look after her with an odd combination of curiosity and admiration, almost longingly. He had never felt like this before; he had never met anyone like her before. Beautiful, intelligent—although he would scarcely subscribe to her theory that all men were monsters—or potential monsters. Next to her he somehow felt callow, unsure, almost uneducated—with two years in the army and over three in pre-medical school. Rifkah Zimmerman suddenly came to mind. He had felt more adult with her. He suddenly smiled. And thank you, Rifkah, he said silently, for showing me what love was not. Maybe now I'm old enough to learn what love is, or could be. It will be interesting to get to know this Miriam Kleiman better, to prove to her that at least one man is no monster. He suddenly knew he was not going to leave Munich until he had had a chance to convince her of that, although he had no idea what argument could be called upon to help in making the judgment. Still, the longer it took, the better.

The thought was so enticing that the waiter had to tap Herzl on the shoulder several times before he looked up.

Chapter 3

The following day was a Wednesday, a rainy morning with a blustery wind that carried its chill through the streets of Munich, distributing it impartially among the souls leaning into it, struggling to reach their destination; but to Herzl Daniel Grossman the sun might have been shining brightly for all the attention he paid the weather. As he stood and rang the doorbell of the library all he could think of was Miriam Kleiman and the fact that he would be seeing her in a matter of minutes. He had counted the time since their dinner the night before in eons, and his great fear was that somehow she might have disappeared during the night, suddenly taken the job in London, packed and gone, or for some reason decided not to appear at work that day. But after being admitted, and after he had mounted the stairs to the second floor two at a time and tried not to burst into the room, there was Miriam Kleiman, as beautiful as ever, calmly studying a book behind her cluttered desk.

Herzl breathed easier. “Good morning!”

“Good morning,” she said in an impersonal tone, quite as if they had never had dinner the night before, almost as if they had not met previously at all. Herzl knew he was being foolish but he could not help but feel hurt. He had known, of course, that she would scarcely throw herself into his arms at sight of him, but a bit more warmth might have been expected. After all, they had held hands the night before; or at least he had put his hand on hers for several moments before she pulled her hand away, and that ought to count for something. Could it be she felt so strongly against the film project that she was allowing it to affect their personal relationship? Well, he had the entire day in which to improve that relationship, and many more days should they be needed, and he expected to work hard at it. Miss Kleiman put down her book. “Your films are ready downstairs.”

“Can't you join me? It's only film on von Schraeder, and from what you say there shouldn't be much footage on him. It will probably take only a few minutes.”

“I'm sorry, but no. I have much work.”

“Ah, well …” he said dispiritedly, and trudged from the room. Behind him Miss Kleiman smiled for several minutes, looking after him, before returning with a sigh to her book.

Rolf Steiner looked so sad when Herzl entered the small projection room that for a moment he wondered if something had happened to the film he wanted to see, but as soon as Steiner saw him the explanation was forthcoming.

“Almost nothing, a few clips is all, plus the one of the parade which I also put on the reel, just that part of it with von Schraeder on it, ah, yes, ODESSA, you know, they destroyed so much film, even file film, you know, a terrible thing, yes, oh yes …” He clicked his tongue.

“Whatever you have,” Herzl said, his mind on Miriam Kleiman and really not all that interested in von Schraeder at the moment.

“Not much, not much, a pity, oh, yes …” Steiner clicked his tongue again and reached for the lights.

The first clip was the short section of the parade that Herzl had seen before. There was von Schraeder looking out of the car, smiling at the lens. The resemblance this time seemed to be even stronger at that younger age; uncanny! How could he have failed to notice it the day before? For a moment he had the odd feeling that it was him in the car, staring out at the people throwing streamers, and he could almost feel the car lurch as it stopped and started. Remarkable! he thought.

There was a click, a slight stutter, and the scene had changed. Now they were in a field outside a town that could be seen burning in the distance, the smoke being carried in waves across the sky; planes darted in and out of the smoke, but that was in the upper part of the film. In the lower section a group of German officers were standing next to a jeep whose engine hood was being used as a sort of table for maps which were unrolled on it. From both sides of the jeep officers bent over, their fingers tracing routes. Von Schraeder could be seen in the center of the group, pointing; a breeze came up and von Schraeder put his arm down awkwardly to prevent the top map from blowing.