Dark Tunnel (3 page)

“Do you suspect Schneider?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why? On what grounds?” His judgments were impulsive at times and I wondered if this was a time.

“Who else?”

“That’s what I was thinking. What about me, then? I need the money more than Schneider with his ten thousand a year.”

“Sure. Do you suspect yourself? Do you love Germany?” His irony was as subtle as a blowtorch.

“Not passionately,” I said.

“Schneider loves Germany.”

“Maybe he does. But he hates the Nazis and Hitler. Remember what he said about Hitler in that open letter? ‘When a hyena drapes a lion’s skin over his narrow flanks and attempts to improvise a lion’s bearing and a lion’s voice, the imposture is immediately and pitifully apparent to all sensitive eyes and ears, and to all discriminating noses.’ Something like that.”

“There’s such a thing as protesting too much,” Alec said. “There have been wolves in liberal’s clothing before.”

“There’s such a thing as suspecting too much.”

“Perhaps. If Schneider really hates the Nazis so violently, why did he leave his son in Germany to be educated after he left himself?”

“That doesn’t prove anything. I heard that the Nazis wouldn’t let the boy go. He stayed with his mother’s family in Germany and then they conscripted him.”

“They let him go two years ago,” Alec said. “He’s been in this country since 1941.”

“Well, you seem to know more about it than I do. But you haven’t shown me a case against Schneider.”

“There’s been a leakage of information from the War Board,” he repeated in a whisper like a leakage of steam from a boiler. “Maybe Schneider isn’t responsible. If he isn’t, who is? Who else is there?”

“How much do you know about Vallon? Your secretary, Helen Madden, has access to everything we touch. I’m not accusing anybody, but how much do you know about her?”

“Enough,” he said. He drained his glass and got off the stool, looking at me slantwise. The jaw muscles under his ears moved like a tangled bunch of worms. “Helen promised to marry me last week.”

As I got off the stool, I saw my face in the mirror behind the bar. It was red and flustered-looking. I said, “Oh! Congratulations,” and Alec said, “Thanks.”

We went out the door and around the corner to the car and drove back to Arbana through the domains of King Henry the First, American model. Alec had relapsed into his deaf-mute phase, a new thing to me though we had been friends for years. I sat in the seat beside him and thought about Schneider. The only thing I knew against Herman Schneider was that he privately held the opinion that Shakespeare was a German on his mother’s side. And that he was vain of his beard, which he treated like a pet mink.

We had driven into Detroit in the morning and lunched there, so it was barely four o’clock when we got back to Arbana. The little city was a relief after Detroit, which gave me the megalopolitan blues in spite of what I had said to Judd. Arbana is different. In the leafy season it looks almost like a forest from an airplane, there are so many trees. Now in September the trees were beginning to turn, but most of the leaves were still green. There was green grass on the campus, and when Alec stopped the car in front of McKinley Hall I could hear the power-mowers humming.

He said, “No hard feelings, Bob. You’re perfectly right to keep an open mind, of course. I’ve got to go over to the Board office to catch up on some work, but I’d like to talk to you to-night.”

“Fine. About Helen, I think she’s a fine woman. I was just using her as an example, but I picked one hell of an example. What time to-night?”

“Will you be free at ten? How about my office up in McKinley? There’ll be nobody to disturb us.”

“Right. See you at ten.” I slammed the door and Alec drove away to the Graduate School. I could have gone to the Library and done some work but I didn’t feel like working. I decided to go up to the English Department office to see if there was any mail in my box, and started up the walk to McKinley Hall.

McKinley Hall is the British-Museum-classic building five stories high and a block long, which houses the college of arts and the administrative offices of Midwestern University. Arbana is the Athens of the West and McKinley Hall is its Parthenon and I am Pericles.

I started up the sweeping steps of the stupendous portico without even an alpenstock to lean on. There were students sitting on the steps, mostly girls in sweaters and young soldiers in their new winter uniforms. It was the end of the summer term, and they were holding post-mortems over the examinations they had been writing. A few pioneer couples were holding hands.

As I reached the top, Hunter the linguist, Professor of Comparative Literature, came out through one of the swinging glass doors. He was a small, wiry man with little black eyes like licorice drops and a face as brown as his Harris tweeds.

“Hello, Hunt.”

“Hello, Bob, how did it go?”

“It looks as if Alec will make it. They turned me down.”

“They did? I thought you were in good shape.”

“It’s not my shape they objected to. My left eye is weak.”

“That’s tough. What’s the matter with your eye?”

“I had an accident a few years ago in Munich—”

“Oh, yes, Alec said something about that. You weren’t as lucky as I was. One time in Naples they put me in jail for brandishing a Leica in the harbor, but there was no rough stuff and they let me go next morning.”

“My crime was worse. I objected to the murder of a Jew.”

“What happened?” Curiosity shrank Hunter’s small eyes to raisins.

“He was killed. But there’s more to it than that, it’s a long story. When we get together sometime, remind me to tell you about Ruth Esch—”

“Ruth Esch? Do you know Ruth Esch?”

“Do you know her, Hunt? We were engaged to be married—years ago. If she’s alive, we still are, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I didn’t know. You shouldn’t be so secretive. No, I don’t know her, but she’s coming here.”

“Coming
here?
” My heart hit me under the chin. “When?”

“This week, I think. If it’s the same Ruth Esch—”

“Is the woman who’s coming here an actress? Tall? Red-haired?”

“I wouldn’t know, but Schneider can tell you about her. She’s been given a special instructorship in his department to teach German conversation.”

“You don’t know where Schneider is now, do you?”

“I was just talking to him in his office. If you hurry you should catch him.”

“Thanks. I want to talk to him,” I said, and opened the door.

Hunter called after me, “I hope it’s the right girl.” As I climbed the stairs to the second floor, my brain pounded out the words over and over like somebody practising on a typewriter in my head.

Schneider was just about to leave when I reached the German Department office on which his private office opened. He was standing with his topcoat on and a grey Homburg in his hand, giving last-minute instructions to the departmental secretary.

Dr. Herman Schneider’s appearance was as impressive as his reputation, which was awesome. Until 1934 he was the greatest Shakespearean scholar in Germany. It was generally acknowledged that he knew more about the First Folio than Heminge and Condell, and that some of his footnotes were as valuable as whole books by other men. As the President of the University said when Schneider came to Midwestern to become head of the Department of German: “With the advent of Dr. Schneider, we may say with some assurance that the cultural centre of gravity of the earth has shifted perceptibly towards the American Middle West.” This was printed in the newspapers, and print never lies.

I stood behind him and waited for him to finish talking to the secretary, not realizing that our conversation was going to shift the cultural centre of the earth again. It’s not that it wasn’t an impressive conversation, to me at least. When he finally turned and gave me the full benefit of his beard, I was quite overpowered.

He was a huge man with large brown eyes, deepset under a bald dome for which his black beard compensated. He would have stood about five feet kneeling in prayer, if such a Jupiter of a man could ever feel the need of prayer. His belly, once the pride of the Hofbrauhaus, was a cenotaph to thousands of perished liters of beer.

“What can I do for you, Dr. Branch?” He spoke with the slightly exaggerated and aggressive courtesy of many Germans. His English was better than my German, but it seemed to rumble in his belly and lollop around in his throat.

“I was just talking with Hunter, Dr. Schneider.” Schneider called all college teachers doctor and expected the same in return: his beard demanded it.

“Oh, yes, he and I had a very pleasant conversation a few minutes ago.”

“He mentioned a certain Ruth Esch, who is coming to teach in your department.”

“Yes,” Schneider said. “Yes, that is so. A very talented young woman. Why do you ask?” A hardness that may have been suspicion made the mellowness of his voice seem suddenly shallow.

“Is she an actress, a tall, red-haired girl?”

“Why, yes. I hadn’t realized that her fame had penetrated to America. I must tell her.”

“It hasn’t so far as I know. I knew her in Munich.”

“You did?” He seemed astonished and his eyebrows jumped like black mice. “She played a season with the Schauspielhaus in München. You saw her on the stage, perhaps?”

“Yes, I did. But I knew her personally as well. We were very good friends, in fact.”

The black mice had convulsions and even the beard was perturbed. “Is that so? I didn’t know you had ever visited Germany, Dr. Branch.”

“I was there for a month in 1937, studying the influence of English romanticism on the continental garden.” On a travelling fellowship you have to study something that justifies travel. “I don’t often talk of my visit to Germany. It ended unpleasantly.”

“Unpleasantly?”

“Very. I was arrested and ordered to leave the country. I have an irrational prejudice against Jew-baiting.”

“It is a commendable prejudice, Dr. Branch.” He spoke as if he meant it. “And it was in 1937, then, that you met Ruth Esch?”

“Yes.”

“You were close friends, you say?
Wunderbar!
” The enthusiasm seemed a little forced. “Fräulein Esch was a pupil of mine, you know. A charming and talented girl. I am greatly looking forward to seeing her again. Dr. Branch, you must make one of the party at our reunion.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I should like to very much. When will she arrive?”

“When? Will you excuse me for a moment? I must make a telephone call.”

“Certainly.”

He unlocked his office and closed the heavy oak door behind him. I sat on the edge of the secretary’s desk and thought about Ruth. I remembered her every time Germany was bombed and many times between, but I had been afraid she was dead or in some way lost to me for good. Now coincidence had reached across an ocean and she was coming to Arbana. For the first time in six years, I felt the ambiguous bittersweet ache of being in love. Would she be the same? Would I seem the same to her? Six years of Hitler’s Europe are like a century.

When Schneider opened the door five minutes later, he woke me from a day-dream thronging with bright, possible futures. He closed the door carefully behind him and said, “Dr. Branch, it is late to ask you, but will you have dinner with me to-night?”

His beard loomed benignantly and the amiability of his expression surprised me. To a full professor, especially a German one, an Assistant Professor is an
arriviste,
just up from the purgatory of an instructorship. Besides, I was in the Department of English, and the greatest Shakespearean scholar of Germany knew what American departments of English are. Hell, yes.

Schneider had never gone out of his way to be friendly to me before, but now he was smiling at me like a father and saying, “It would be so pleasant to talk with you about Fräulein Esch, and about old times in München. She was my favorite pupil, and to think that she is a common friend!”

Scratch a bronze statue of Jupiter made in Germany and you get a sentimental ooze, or so I thought. I resented his emotionalism, perhaps because enthusiasm over a wom—Fräulein an’ resents competition. After all, he was a widower.

But I didn’t refuse the invitation: I wanted to find out more about Ruth Esch, and he could tell me. I also wanted to find out more about Dr. Schneider.

“I’d be delighted,” I said.

“Will seven suit you?”

“Perfectly. When is Ruth to arrive?”

“She will arrive on the nine o’clock train from Detroit tonight. Perhaps you will come with me to the station.”

“I certainly will.”

He ushered me into the corridor and locked the door of the German office. Before we separated, he patted my shoulder clumsily and said, “My boy, it will be a charming reunion. Charming.”

As he strode off, I felt a little like a matador to whom a bull has been making advances: interested but dubious.

He turned and bellowed, “Seven, don’t forget. Just a family party.”

I hope I smiled as urbanely as any matador. I felt like a character in Ernest Hemingway.

I
REMEMBERED THAT I
had come into McKinley Hall in the first place to see if there was any mail for me, and climbed the stairs to the English office on the third floor. The secretary was gone and the door was locked and I had left my keys in my apartment. I thought of using my knife on the lock as I had once or twice before, but decided it would be too much trouble. I went downstairs and out the front door, and crossed the street to the coffee-shop on the other side.

When I went in, I saw Hunter sitting by himself in a booth at the back. He raised his hand and I sat down opposite him and ordered coffee.

“Is it the right girl?” he asked.

“Yes. She’s coming here to-night.”

“You look excited.”

“I am. She’s a wonderful woman. You’ll meet her.”

“I hope so. She’s an actress, you say?”

“She was when I knew her. Apparently she studied under Schneider before he left Germany. She never mentioned him to me so far as I can remember.”

“You told me to remind you to tell me about her some time. How about now?”