The Incidental Spy

Chapters 5 & 6

Chapter Five

September, 1936 -- Chicago

By fall Josef's letters were less frequent. He was fine, he said in the one letter she received. His mother was sick. When she coughed, her handkerchief was tinged with blood, and they feared it was tuberculosis. But he was working with a carpenter in Budapest and learning a trade. "Think how useful that will be when we build our house."

She wanted to share his optimism, but she hadn't heard from her parents in months, and Josef said he hadn't seen them in Budapest. The émigré German Jewish community there was small; everyone knew each other. She had heard the rumors about the SS rounding up Jews and sending them to forced labor camps. She prayed that wasn't the case and that she would soon receive a joyful letter from Paris or London or Amsterdam.

She was in the filing room one afternoon, in reality just a cramped closet, when a male voice called out from the front.

"Halloo. Is anyone there?" It was a tentative voice, speaking heavily accented English that sounded like a German national. Bavarian, actually. Lena had learned how to figure out what part of Germany someone was from by the way they spoke English.

She hurried out. A young man with dark curly hair and glasses that magnified his brown eyes leaned against a wall. He was about six feet—she was using feet and inches in her calculations now—and solidly built.

"How can I help you?" She said, knowing her own accent marked her as a foreigner.

His face lit. "You are German!" Something about his expression, so innocent and yet full of delight, instantly put her at ease.

She nodded. "And you are from Bavaria."

He switched to German "How did you know?"

She tapped her lips. "I hear it."

He smiled back. "You have a good ear." He raised his palm. "Munich."

"Berlin." She did the same.

"Do you work here?"

"I am the department secretary. Since last May." She tilted her head. "Are you new?"

He laughed. "No. But I have been away."

"Oh. You are Karl."

He brightened even more. "Yes."

"You have been at Columbia in New York."

He nodded. "And you?"

She held up her hand. "As I said, I am not a student."

"Your name." There was a softness in his voice as he said it.

She felt a flush creep across her face. "Of course. Lena Bentheim."

He offered his hand. "Karl Stern."

She took it. Stern could be a Jewish name. They stood with their hands clasped a beat too long. Neither appeared to mind.

***

Karl came to the Physics office with a different reason every day. He needed a book from the library—she often checked them out for the students. He needed to find a paper someone else had written. He lost his schedule of classes for the fall. Lena never said anything, but she looked forward to his visits.

Two weeks later he mustered up the courage to ask her to tea.

"Tea? How – lovely." She giggled. "But we are not in London."

"Yes, of course." He flushed from the neck up. "Coffee, then."

She cocked her head. "Not in Vienna either, although it is true that Americans are in love with their coffee."

Karl's face turned crimson. He stammered. "Well—well then, I apologize for—for... " His voice faded and he seemed to shrink into himself.

"But beer," Lena smiled. "Now that's another matter. Do you think we might find a nearby tavern?"

Karl's face glowed.

"Come back at five, yah?" She said.

He nodded enthusiastically.

Lena took him to a restaurant just off campus. The menu boasted the Budweiser logo, and the words "Makes Good Food Taste Better" at the top. The tavern offered thick soups, meat loaf, and even hamburgers at prices students could afford. All washed down with beer. The pleasant smell of grease drifted through the air; Lena's mouth watered. They both ordered the meat loaf.

They talked about everything, but focused on what was happening in Germany. The Berlin Olympic Games had just ended, and Hitler had taken a keen interest, hoping his Aryan athletes would dominate the competitions. It was the irony of ironies that Jessie Owens, a Negro from America, won practically all his events. Because of the games, moreover the German government had temporarily refrained from actions against Jews.

"But more restrictions are on the way," Karl said.

Lena sat back. "Are you Jewish?"

"Of course. I thought you knew."

She leaned against the back of her chair. A deep wave of relief passed through her. Karl understood. The other German graduate students were sympathetic, but they weren't Jewish. It wasn't the same. For the first time since she'd come to America she realized how guarded she'd been.

"Where are your parents?" she asked. "And the rest of your family?"

"In Austria. I am trying to get them here. I think it will happen, but I don't know when. The U.S. has become quite restrictive about who can get in." He paused. "What about yours?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. "I don't know."

He reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

Chapter Six

By the end of the year Lena and Karl were a couple. She spent more time at his apartment, a shabby room in the southern part of Hyde Park, than Ursula's, but Ursula didn't seem to mind. It was as if her aunt knew what was happening and tacitly approved. Karl was invited to Shabbos dinner every Friday; it became the only big meal they ate, except when they went out.

The night she and Karl made love for the first time, she had the feeling she was his first. Afterwards she knew she had to write Josef. At first she had been wracked with guilt, and tried to keep Karl at a distance. But he was so unassuming, gentle, and smart she soon developed feelings for him. There had been no letter from Josef in months, anyway. Memories of him were fading like dried flowers inside a book, a book that had been written centuries earlier.

Meanwhile the Physics Department was suffused with an enthusiasm that hadn't been present before. Compton, the head of the department, was known for studying cosmic rays, but the experiments that intrigued the students were those Enrico Fermi started in 1934 in Europe.

One night, after they made love, Karl tried to explain Fermi's work in a way Lena could understand. "It has to do with bombarding elements with neutrons instead of protons. One of the elements Fermi uses is uranium, which is one of the heaviest of the known elements."
"Why is that important?" Lena asked.

"Because the result turned out to be lighter than the elements he'd started with."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Fermi himself didn't really understand why, but others were quick to link it to Einstein's theory of E=mc2."

"Why?"

Karl grinned. "Because a great deal of energy was released during the bombardment." He paused. "When we figure out exactly how it happened and what exactly was released, a new world of possibilities will emerge."

Lena loved to listen to Karl. She barely understood what he was talking about, but his eagerness and love of learning kindled a desire in her to go back to school. To finish what they called, in the States, high school. Maybe, afterwards, she would even enroll at the university.