Heidegger's Glasses_ A Novel Part 13

Now and then he worked late and saw the night sky. The searchlights made it preternaturally bright and obscured the stars. Once he saw the moon and was surprised it was still in the sky. Sometimes he saw s.h.i.+pments of boxes outside Mengele's quarters-one labeled Furniture Furniture, another labeled Bones Bones. At least once a day he heard motorcycles.

One evening he saw a transport. People were in clotted groups. Children were crying. A floodlight illuminated the figure of Mengele. He was an elegant man with his right elbow on his left arm, gesturing with a gloved index finger that moved hardly at all. The night Asher and his son arrived Mengele had sent a tailor from Freiburg to the left and Asher's son to the right. After pausing, he'd also sent Asher to the right. He hadn't known what this meant until he'd whispered to a prisoner in the five-by-five bunk above him. Then he understood the tailor had been ga.s.sed.

As soon as Asher Englehardt began to make gla.s.ses, more and more officers wanted them. They didn't like rummaging through the collection from the gas chambers-a haphazard junk shop, annoying some and upsetting others because they'd looked too long in the eyes of women and men and children who'd waited in the quaint little woods that concealed one of the gas chambers.

Some officers said that they liked the new frames made from melted Jew-gold. Others said they liked the way Asher asked questions-as though everything they said had significance. But there was also something else that brought them to that room, and this was the aura of calm Asher emanated while he tested the eyes of people who had killed his friends. It was a deep and almost audible sense of peace that Asher himself didn't understand-especially since his son Daniel was digging trenches in air so cold your tongue would stick to anything it touched. He saw Daniel at night when he brought him bread and extra food. The guards looked the other way. They knew about Goebbels's orders.

After a week, a bed appeared in his workroom so Asher could nap during the day. He slept, not caring if he'd be murdered. Since coming to Auschwitz, he hadn't been aware of dreams. The barracks were filled with stench. People were up all night, moaning and begging for water. At least one person was in the process of dying.

But now, in this quiet white room, Asher dreamt of his wife playing Schubert on the piano. And of Daniel playing with blocks on their living room floor. When he woke up, he still smelled burning flesh. He was still surrounded by barracks and bloodstained snow.

From time to time he thought of Martin Heidegger, who came for gla.s.ses every year and had visited him a few days before the shop was raided. The October day had been warm, and Heidegger wore lederhosen and an alpine hat. The SS man who was Asher's friend had just told him there wouldn't be enough coal to get through the winter and that they were cracking down on people with Aryan mothers and Jewish fathers, making Heidegger's visit strained and splitting Asher into two people-one an optometrist who joked and talked about philosophy, the other a terrified man who thought he and his son were about to die.

Heidegger sat in a high-backed chair looking at the alphabet while Asher changed lenses and made notes. He went along with Heidegger when he said-as he often did-how ironic that the first person he'd told about a revelation caused by his gla.s.ses became an optometrist.

Usually Asher could ignore his terror. He could joke that Heidegger's gla.s.ses were the only reason he'd become an optometrist-as though it had nothing to do with losing his teaching job or his father being Jewish. But on that particular day he struggled to remember what to say.

Heidegger's eyes were somewhat worse, and Asher said maybe he should switch to an Aryan optometrist-because these days you never knew. Heidegger waved him off and tried to cheer him up by telling him how disappointed he was in the n.a.z.i Party.

I've warned them that they don't understand that machines have their own Being, he said. No vision. No guiding principles.

Vision always trumps machines, said Asher.

Heidegger nodded and told Asher he'd fallen out of the world as recently as a week ago. Elfriede Heidegger had been dis.h.i.+ng out stew, the handle had broken, and the ladle fell into the pot. Without the ladle the handle became a ludicrous stick, and eventually the whole kitchen felt tilted. Elfriede got irritated that he wasn't helping.

Martin, Asher said-as he always did-we're always in the world. So there's nothing at all to fall out of.

I know, said Heidegger.

Then why not just live here? said Asher.

Because no one can all the time.

Yet Asher had done it since Kristallnacht. After that night of broken gla.s.s, he'd never been able to sink into a soft, pillowy sense of comfort-however illusory. When he saw Daniel sleeping, he thought, He's safe for now He's safe for now. When he got a loaf of fresh bread, he thought, This might be the last This might be the last. And when he saw people at the train station holding suitcases, he thought, Daniel and I might be next Daniel and I might be next. In this state, many things were soaked of meaning. Suitcases and bread were oblong shapes. A wrench didn't look that different from a spoon.

Asher tried to forget this last conversation with Heidegger the way he tried to forget all the conversations with people he couldn't talk to anymore. He tried to forget angry conversations with his wife, who'd joined the early Resistance and blamed him for not paying attention to the rise of the Party. And animated conversations with a woman-lovely, blond, compa.s.sionate-who became his lover when his wife disappeared. The woman had disappeared too.

As Asher ground lenses, he wondered if his eternal conversation with Heidegger about death was prescient because in Auschwitz people were pushed so closely against death they couldn't fall away from an awareness of mortality. The sweet smell of burning flesh permeated the camp. Shots blasted every few minutes.

Even the SS men walked rigidly, as if trying not to hurtle into death. The whole camp reminded Asher of a ghoulish Black Forest of Being, a bizarre amus.e.m.e.nt park, with barracks instead of trees.

The only person who didn't seem to feel on the precipice of death was Asher's a.s.sistant, Sypco Van Hoot-a large, compa.s.sionate man who'd been a successful bank robber in Holland. His generosity confirmed the opinion at Auschwitz that bank robbers were the most trustworthy and straightforward of criminals because they'd always been honest about their motives. Sypco told Asher he'd gotten used to living with danger, so what was the difference now?

Sypco, who knew how to weld, took the lenses and Asher's instructions to another part of the camp to make frames. He always stopped at a place called Kanada, where inmates, most of them women, most of them beautiful, sorted possessions from new arrivals. Now and then Sypco brought Asher gifts from Kanada-a watch, a pair of shoes, a sweater. Asher gave them to Daniel as barter for food.

Two weeks after he'd been transferred to the clinic, Sypco brought him a suit and a fedora.

So they're going to shoot me in style, said Asher.

They never shoot anyone in style, said Sypco. It's too much trouble to take off good clothes.

Gas me in style, then.

They'd never give me anything from Kanada for someone who's about to die, said Sypco. It's too much trouble to sort again.

That night no one came to take him back to the barracks. Asher sat at his worktable, sure he was about to be shot. He was astonished and resentful that his instruments still gleamed and kept thinking about his son. After what seemed like hours, an officer brought him beef, potatoes, warm milk, a loaf of bread, and beer-another last meal. Only this time Asher was so used to food, it didn't occur to him not to eat. The same officer came back and helped him into the suit. When he put the fedora on his head, the officer looked at it critically, adjusting it until he was satisfied. Then they left the clinic.

Asher had seen Auschwitz many times at night, but now he imagined how his own blood would stain the snow. The searchlights would turn it black. By morning it would be pink. By afternoon it would fade to rust. No one would give it any thought except Daniel, who would realize what happened when his father didn't answer roll call.

The officers' quarters were filled with drunken singing. One officer walked up to them, raised his stein, and spilled beer on Asher's shoes.

For G.o.d's sake, said the officer escorting him. If you can't hold your liquor, can't you at least hold your gla.s.s?

The other officer bowed and wiped Asher's shoes. They kept walking until they came to a large mahogany door.

You're honored, said the officer. This is where the Commandant entertains visitors.

Asher entered a wood-paneled room with leather armchairs and a fireplace with a fire-the first fire in four months he was sure wasn't meant for burning people. The Commandant stood in front of the fireplace, a man in an SS uniform to his right, and Martin Heidegger next to him. He wore a ski outfit and an alpine hat.

What on earth are you doing here? said Asher.

My friend, said Heidegger. I had to see you.

He walked over and put his arms around Asher. My G.o.d, he said. How do you spend your time here?

Making gla.s.ses, said Asher.

You came all the way for that?

Yes. But it was worth it.

They laughed and entered a realm no one else could follow-the realm of old friends and private jokes.

For a moment there was a festive feeling in the room. But when the Commandant told everyone to sit down and poured brandy, the air was imbued with silence. The silence continued until the SS officer pointed to a 17th-century painting of a man with a ruched collar.

That's a wonderful Rembrandt, he said.

The Commandant nodded. We went to a lot of trouble to get it.

Everyone should go to trouble to find roots in the past, said Heidegger.

Exactly, said the Commandant.

To Das Volk Das Volk, said Heidegger, raising his gla.s.s.

Well put, said the Commandant.

The Commandant cleared his throat, and Heidegger took a paper from his ski suit. It was covered with dried soup and strands of potato peels.

Did you write this letter? he said.

Asher looked at a letter he was sure he hadn't written. But he saw his own signature. Had he written it in his sleep? The letter was about poetry and the mystery of the triangle and the word to distance to distance as in as in I distanced myself from the controversy I distanced myself from the controversy. He never would have written such a letter. Yet his signature was there. And the wrong answer could get him shot.

I can't say, he said.

For G.o.d's sake, said Heidegger. I need to know. Because if you wrote this, the whole world has gone mad.

The Commandant laughed. Let's drink to that, he said. The sanity of the world depends on who answered a letter.

You don't understand, said Heidegger. This man was my colleague. He brought Leibniz to the modern age. The two of us think think.

I don't do that anymore, said Asher.

You mean you did did write the letter? write the letter?

At this point three shots rang out. The Commandant walked to a gramophone and put on a Mozart piano concerto in C Major.

I'm sorry for the commotion, he said, turning the handle of the gramophone as though it were a meat grinder.

Well did you? said Heidegger.

What? said Asher.

Write the letter.

It's been so long.

But you can't have, said Heidegger. You have a remarkable mind. Believe me, he said, turning to the Commandant. You have no idea who you're talking to. It's not just a question of whatever little thing you might have read in school about whether trees make a noise when they fall in the forest. This man understands Leibniz.

The Commandant raised his fists to either side of his head and pulled his hair. Then he poured Asher more brandy.

You can talk freely here, he said to him. You're a privileged person. Believe me-he addressed the SS officer-this man has been given everything. And he makes wonderful gla.s.ses.

I know, said Heidegger. I always go to him. And I never got the last ones he made.

Well, now he makes gla.s.ses for officers, said the Commandant. And they're very pleased with them. He has every a.s.surance of continuing.

Every a.s.surance of continuing could mean could mean is just about to be shot is just about to be shot. Asher wondered if his status as a philosopher made his death deserve a witness like Heidegger. The SS officer seemed to share his mistrust because he said there was probably one thing Asher wasn't sure about at all and this was being able to go on living.

No one gets that anymore-not even me, said the Commandant.

There were more shots outside the window. The Commandant turned up Mozart.

You see? he said. I can't even ask for quiet.

Then why did you bring me here? said Heidegger. We're in a room with a fireplace, and my friend looks like a ghost. There are gunshots outside, and we can't even hear. This whole place is tilted.

How could anything be tilted? said the Commandant. We're in a pleasant room. We've just made a toast to the past. There's no place that's safe to talk anymore.

I can think of other places that are safer, said the officer.

Where? said the Commandant. That ridiculous alpine hut where this pontificator lives? Or the street in Holland where they wiped out twenty people for hiding two fugitives?

No one spoke. The phone rang, and the Commandant didn't answer. When the ringing stopped, he said: I understand you gentlemen have matters that are best talked about in private. So we'll leave you in peace. Help yourself to brandy.

He left with the officer, and Asher faced Heidegger alone. The Mozart concerto intensified his sense that he was in Freiburg: his wife had played this piece many times. But he kept himself from lapsing into a feeling of well-being and looked carefully at the man sitting opposite him. Was this really Heidegger, or someone pretending to be? And would a philosophical discussion be a prelude to death?

But this person was so bulbous in his ski suit-indeed it seemed as though the chair was about to extrude him-Asher decided he was really Martin Heidegger.

Martin, he said, leaning over and touching his shoulder, you came all this way.

I had to, said Heidegger. You didn't answer my letter.

I never got it.

But why did you leave in the first place?

To make gla.s.ses.

Did you ever make mine?

Yes, but I don't know if you got them, said Asher. Don't you remember I told you to find another optometrist?

I thought you were joking.

I wasn't.

The Commandant stuck his head in the door and wanted to know if they'd finished their conversation. Heidegger said not at all. The Commandant disappeared, and Heidegger fell silent. Then he said: What were we laughing about when you first came in?

I can't remember, said Asher.

Something about but it was worth it but it was worth it, said Heidegger, looking around as though he could find the joke. But it had vanished beyond the walls. So he reached for something else.

Did you know I'm not teaching anymore? he said.

You told me, said Asher.

I miss it, said Heidegger.

But you said you were writing.

Not every minute of the day. And it's hard to escape mortality without teaching.

I thought not trying to escape was the highest calling, said Asher.