“I have money, thank you. And I had an enormous Argentinean lunch before I came here.”
He thinks I am a refugee. I am, but not the way he thinks.
“I can’t leave here now. I will come, we will come, as soon as we can. Would you put Sarah on the telephone?”
Inge sobbed and dabbed at her eyes when she embraced him, but quickly recovered and announced, “We will have a coffee, David. Like old times.”
She motioned with her head for Sarah to come with her, and went into the kitchen, leaving Klausner and Ettinger alone.
“So, David,” Klausner said. “You are really all right? You need nothing?”
“Nothing, but I thank you for the thought.”
Klausner smiled. “You look prosperous. Can I ask? Did you bring anything out?”
“My Spanish cousins have been more than generous; and so far, I understand, they have kept the business from being sold to some deserving National Socialist.” He paused, then decided he could, should, tell Klausner everything. “I sold my interest in the German businesses to them. Technically, they are now owned by Spaniards. Germany has yet to expropriate Spanish-held property.”
“And you’re now living in Spain?”
“No. In the United States. Ernst, not for Inge’s ears, I am in the American Army.” He paused and chuckled. “I am a staff sergeant in the United States Army.”
Ettinger expected surprise at that announcement, but not the look of total bafflement that came to Klausner’s face.
“I was working in New York City,” Ettinger went on. “When I went to America, I took the examination for radio engineer, and I was working for RCA, the Radio Corporation of America…you know the name Sarnoff, Ernst, David Sarnoff? A Russian, a Jew, one of the great geniuses of radio…?”
“Why did you leave Spain?” Klausner interrupted.
The question surprised Ettinger.
“I didn’t, I don’t, trust Franco,” he said. “It is only a matter of time before he joins the Axis. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already. What happened in Germany will happen in Spain.”
Klausner closed his eyes and shook his head, as if shocked and saddened by Ettinger’s stupidity.
“Franco is not as bad as you think, David,” he said.
What the hell is that all about? Franco is El Caudillo only because of the Germans, their Condor Legion, and all their other military support. He is as much a fascist as Mussolini and Hitler. But this is not the time to debate that.
“I was working for RCA, and I registered for the draft…”
“The what?”
“Military service, conscription,” Ettinger explained. “And Mr. Sarnoff—Ernst, you must know who he is. He worked with Marconi…”
Klausner was obviously wholly uninterested in a Russian Jew named Sarnoff, radio pioneer and genius or not. And Ettinger realized his attitude annoyed him.
“Mr. Sarnoff called me to his office. He said my work was essential to the war effort, and I did not have to go into the Army; all I had to say was that I did not wish to go, and he would arrange it.”
“So why are you in the American Army?” Klausner asked.
“I told Mr. Sarnoff that I wished to be an American citizen, and that I felt it my duty to serve.”
There he goes, shaking his head again. Or has his head ever stopped shaking, as if he is dealing with a pitiful idiot?
“And Mr. Sarnoff said to me, I know how you feel. I myself am going in the Army. And he told me when the war is over, I will not only have my job back, but that while I am in the Army, RCA will pay the difference between my Army pay and what I was making at RCA.”
“If the Americans win the war,” Klausner said.
“There is no ‘if,’ Ernst,” Ettinger said. “The Americans will win.”