“No.” There were tears in her eyes, but she was shaking her head with disbelief. “This is just another lie of convenience. Like telling me those people in the burial pits at Dulce were not Jews. You’re just saying all this because you can’t bear the idea of going away on your own. I can’t blame you for wanting me along. If I were you, I’d probably say the same thing. I like you a lot, Bernie. But I’ll get over it. We both will. Only I do wish you’d stop trying to scare me. That’s pretty low of you.”
“You can’t believe I’m making this up, surely?”
“Why not? Bernie, everything about you is made up. I really don’t know anything about you.”
“I told you everything there was to know, on the train.”
“How do I know that? All I know for sure is that you’re here on a false passport. Even the real name you’re supposed to have given to your old comrades-the ones who brought you here-even that’s not yours. That man at the ranch. Heinrich Grund. You told me he was a murderer. But you knew him. He greeted you like he was an old friend.”
“He was, once. Before the war. Before Hitler. I had lots of friends before Hitler.”
“For all I know, you’re one of them, too. How can I possibly trust you? How can I believe a word you say? I’m a Jew. And you’re an ex-SS officer. What kind of trust could there ever be between us?”
“You came to me for help,” I reminded her. “I helped you the best I could. I’m trying to help you now. I asked for nothing in return. Whatever you gave you gave because you wanted to. I saved your life once before. I’m trying to save it again. I put my own life in peril for you. I have to leave the country because of you. Maybe that doesn’t mean so much to you. But I’m still glad I did. I’d have done anything for you. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I love you, Anna. Well, what of it? There’s just this. If there’s any small part of you that feels the same way I do, then forget everything else. Forget everything your head tells you and listen to your heart. Because that’s all that matters between two people. I know I’m not much of a catch for a girl like you. You could do a lot better, I know. If you weren’t standing in an airplane doorway, I’d probably tell you to go and do a lot better, too. But you’re there. I can see the bruises on your face and the wind in your hair, angel.”
I pulled her toward me and kissed her hard, as if trying to breathe some sense into her body. She put her arms around me and kissed me back, so that for a minute or two I almost thought it might be working.
Then she said, “I suppose I do love you. But I won’t leave the country for you. I won’t. I can’t. Every time I see you, it reminds me. Of what happened to my aunt and uncle.”
I wanted to slap her hard on both cheeks, the way you’re supposed to when you’ve been in the SS. That might have worked, too. With anyone but Anna. Hitting her would have been like giving the Hitler salute. It would only have confirmed what she already suspected. That I was a Nazi.
I let her go. “Listen, angel. This probably isn’t going to work, but I’ll try it once more and then I’ll leave you alone. When two people are in love, they’re supposed to look out for each other.”
“Being in love doesn’t make any difference,” she said. “It’s not enough of a reason.”
“Let me finish. When you get a little older-maybe too old-you’ll understand that it makes all the difference to everything and anything.”
Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t going to get any older. Not if Colonel Montalban was as bad as his word.
“Love is all the reason you need, angel. It’s the only reason in the world that exists for you to trust me. That might not be the kind of reason that would satisfy a Greek in a chiton. I don’t know if you could ever use that kind of reason as the basis for a truth that exists outside of ourselves. But all I know is that you have to give it a chance if you’re to know if someone is what we want or what we think we want. It needs a little time. Let’s just make it this. Come with me for just a few days. As if we were just going back on the train to Tucuman. And then, if it doesn’t work out, you can say to hell with you, Gunther, I’m going back to Buenos Aires because I’d rather die than be with a man like you. So, don’t say another word just now. Think carefully about what I’ve said. Speak to your father. I did. He’ll give you some good advice. Fathers usually do. I’ll buy you a ticket for tonight’s boat. We can be in Montevideo in less time than it takes to say that I’ll wait for you at the CNFA office.”
And then I left.
26
THAT NIGHT IT RAINED HEAVILY. The river was calm. The tide and the moon were full. Somewhere on the other side of the Plate was Uruguay. I stood in the office of the CNFA, staring out of the window at the pier and the boat and the waves lapping at the jetty. I kept half an eye on the clock. With each shuddering movement of the second hand, I felt my hopes ebbing away. I wasn’t the first man to be stood up by a woman. I wouldn’t be the last. That’s how poetry gets written.
What are you supposed to do when you know you’ll be murdered if you stay behind to be with a girl you love? Meet death together, like you were both in some crummy movie? It doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to walk out of the picture, hand in hand, to the sound of some invisible choir heralding your joint arrival in paradise. When death comes, it’s usually nasty and brutish and sharp. I should know. I’d seen it often enough.
A voice came on the Tannoy loudspeaker. The last call for passengers on the twenty-one hundred to Montevideo.
She wasn’t coming.
I walked along the pier and felt it move under my feet as if I had been standing on the breathing chest of some enormous giant. Rain sprayed my face. A melancholy rain, like the tears of the night wind that stirred my hair. I stepped off Argentina and into the boat. There were other passengers, but I didn’t notice them. Instead, I remained on deck, waiting for the miracle that wasn’t going to happen. I even started to hope that the colonel might show up to see me off so that I could beg for Anna’s life. But he didn’t come, either.
The rumbling engines roared into life. They were casting off our ties. Water stirred in a maelstrom underneath the boat, and we lurched away from the pier. From Buenos Aires. From her. We retreated into darkness like some abandoned, pagan thing, cast adrift from the world of men. Overwhelmed with self-pity and confusion and struggle and flight, I almost threw myself over the side and into the sea, in the hope of swimming to the vast edges of the shore. Instead, I went below.
In the galley, a steward lit a little gas ring to boil some water for coffee. The blue flame girdling the pot tickled it quietly. And I pictured that other flame. The small, quiet flame inside me that burned with neither joy, nor peace, nor hope, nor help from lonely pain. Not for Adolf Hitler. But for her. It burned for her.