Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

A man lurched out of the doorway, jostled him, his galoshes leaving a trail of dark pockmarks as he trudged off through the snow. The thin man opened his eyes. He blinked. The image was gone, replaced by the reflection of his own vacant face, the weak chin and thin lips a pale smear against the dark upturned collar of his coat. He stared at the reflection, feeling sorry for himself. The odor of fresh-baked bread lingered in his nostrils. He hugged the violin case closer to his chest, sneezed, dropped his gaze to the fingerless left hand protruding from a threadbare sleeve.

With a barely discernable shrug, he turned, choking back the bitterness in him as he trudged two more blocks on Sixth Street to his room.

His name was Heinrich Fischer. He was born in Germany in the early twenties, a remarkably-gifted child, who at the age of seven was studying music under his Jewish father at the Akademie in Munich. At eleven he played before royalty at the Opera House in Salzburg. It was the following year that the pogroms started. Heinrich’s parents were put into a concentration camp, but they managed to leave him with friends who still had some influence with the Nazis. He stayed on at the Akademie, even after he heard that his father and mother were dead, until one day they came for him too. He was sent to a camp a few miles outside of Munich where he miraculously survived the war. But his health was broken. Afterwards, he wrote to friends who had escaped to America before the war. They helped him get to New York where he was able to make a meager living teaching young people to play the violin.

It was on Thursday, three days later, that Fischer saw the face clearly again. The snow had changed to a chilling rain. He stood under the faded canopy in front of Liebermann’s, peering silently into the dimly-lighted window, like a bundle of wetwash waiting to be spun dry. Today it was smoked herring, spilling out of a wicker basket into the window, and at a price!

He was about to go inside and buy one of the fish, when he saw the face, bobbing back and forth behind the sausages like a demented child’s painted balloon. Something in his stomach went suddenly berserk. His throat went dry. He knew this time that the face was no terrible invention of his tortured mind. It was impossible — but he saw the face with his own eyes. His eyes did not lie.

He moved closer to the grimy window. There was no mistake. The face belonged to Erich Haller, the man he hated more than the stench of death.

It was too good to be true. Haller! Here! In America!

For a moment he could not move. He just stood there, his heart sending a pounding rush of blood through his system, uncertain of what he should do. He sidestepped awkwardly as Haller came out of the store, pudgy arms struggling with brown-wrapped packages. Their eyes met, and for an instant Fischer thought that he saw a flicker of recognition in the other’s gaze, but he was not sure.

Lurching crazily, like a man with too much whiskey in him, he hurried into the store. The end of the violin case caught a stack of cereal boxes, nearly toppling them.

“That man—” he said coarsely. His tongue flopped.

“Heinrich!” Liebermann’s greeting was husky and warm. He stopped what he was doing and wiped big hands on a soiled apron. “You saw the herring, eh? You know, you’re my best customer for herring, Heinrich. Every time there is herring I know you will come into the store to buy some. For you, I have saved a nice prize. A beautiful fish, believe me. And such a price, eh?”

“That man.” Fischer repeated the words, his eyes wide, his mouth working. “Don’t you know who that is?”

“What man, Heinrich?” He looked puzzled.

“The one who was just here,” Fischer shouted. “I tell you, I saw him with my own eyes.”

“Of course.” Liebermann looked at him peculiarly. “His name is Schulze. Karl Schulze. He is just over from the Old Country.”

“Schulze? He told you his name is Schulze?”