Meanwhile, he had begun studying at the University of Hamburg. At first he thought of majoring in ancient Greek history, but classical Greek proved too hard for him and he switched to twentieth-century history. In the 1950s he taught history at a high school not far from his estate, and being a bachelor, he had plenty of time for his political activities in the Liberal Party. His relations with his mother and stepbrother were correct but little more than that.
In the 1960s, when the Social-Democrats came to power in Germany with Liberal backing, Egon was appointed to direct the Goethe Institute, in Athens. It took a few months for him to gather the courage to visit Crete — where, concerned he might be recognized, he went about with a beard and dark sunglasses. But no one recognized him, not even the proprietress of the grocery store in Heraklion where he had bought tobacco during his three years on the island. He was able to establish that the Mani house in Knossos was lived in by an unfamiliar Greek family, but he did not dare approach and ask about its former inhabitants. Eventually, he rented a motorcycle and took to roaming the mountainous back roads of the island, knocking on the doors of little monasteries and asking about the Jewish woman and her son. He was unable to come up with any information, however, except for the standard assurance that there were no Jews left in Crete, because they all had gone down with the Danae. It surprised Egon Bruner that no one sounded at all sorry about it.
Egon visited Crete several more times during his term at the Goethe Institute in Athens, and once, in 1963, he even continued on from there to Israel, where he spent an interesting week as a guest of the Goethe Institute in Tel Aviv. One day, while waiting there in the office, it occurred to him to ask his colleague’s secretary to look up the name Mani in the telephone book. When asked by her how to spell it, he confessed to having no idea, and so she gave him a list with all the possible variations; yet seeing how long it was, and that it included families from all over the country and even one Arab, Egon Bruner gave up and did not pursue the matter further.
After the generals’ coup in Greece, Egon Bruner returned to Germany, but in 1973 he went abroad again to direct the Goethe Institute in Istanbul. Subsequently, he left his work and retired to his small estate in northern Germany. Although occasionally he took part in the Jewish- and Israeli-German dialogues that were organized by the Liberal Party-sponsored Baumen Institute, he reacted with distaste to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and discontinued his participation in these meetings.
ANDREA SAUCHON The old woman was so shocked and upset by Egon’s tearing up of his transfer order on the hilltop in the Cretan twilight that for a moment she literally lost the power of speech. Even when she regained it, her indignation and sorrow were such that she resolved not to say another word to her grandson until she had thought the matter over. They descended the hill slowly. Although it was clear to her that she had failed miserably in Egon’s education, she could not put her finger on what went wrong or what lapse in Egon’s moral code could explain (if indeed there was any explanation) his behavior over the past three years in Crete. When they reached the army base after a slow hour’s walk, dusk was already falling and an impatient Bruno Schmelling was waiting worriedly for them. At once he informed them of the banquet he was giving in honor of Admiral Sauchon’s wife, but to his astonishment, Frau Sauchon begged off, pleading a headache and the need to rest up for her trip home. Schmelling turned red and was mortified. The meal, which he had prepared himself, meant a great deal to him, yet the old lady stubbornly stuck to her guns despite all his remonstrances.
Andrea Sauchon could not fall asleep that night. At first she was kept awake by her grandson’s pacing outside her locked door, and later, by the premonition that she would never see her native land again and would die on her way back to it.
It was with this feeling that she ate the breakfast that Egon, who had spent a sleepless night too, brought to her room in the morning. He managed to address her in a way that did not demand any answers, and although she was willing by how to talk to him, she could not think of a way to break her silence. And so at 7 A.M. Egon brought her, still not talking, to her light plane, which took off at once for Athens. Near the island of Phorus it was detected by two patrolling British Spitfires that sought at once to intercept such easy prey. Sighting them, the pilot called to Andrea Sauchon, who, unlike him, was not wearing a parachute, “I’m sorry to inform you, meine Frau, that you must prepare for the worst.” “That’s exactly what I have been doing for the last seventy-four years,” was her answer. In another moment she was astonished to see the face of a young British pilot looking down at her. For a split second, before his machine gun opened fire, he reminded her of Egon.
THIRD CONVERSATION
Jerusalem, Palestine
The Conversation Partners
LIEUTENANT IVOR STEPHEN HOROWITZ Born in Manchester, England, in 1897. His father, Joseph Horowitz, immigrated with his family from Russia at the age of fourteen and went into the textile business. His mother Diana, née Elias, was born in Manchester to a Jewish family that came to England from Algeria in the early nineteenth century. At first Ivor attended a local grammar school, but he did so well in his studies that his parents transferred him to a prestigious public school in Derbyshire, not far from Manchester. Upon graduating in 1913, he was admitted to King’s College, Cambridge, where he began to read law and English literature. After a year of debating between the two he decided, in consultation with his parents, to study law.
Ivor Horowitz was not immediately mobilized when war broke out in August 1914. During his second year in Cambridge, however, he was asked to report for his physical, and at the start of his third year, in October 1915, he was called up. After basic training in southern England, he shipped out with his regiment to France.
Ivor, a medium-height, chubby, bespectacled young man, tried unsuccessfully to obtain a position as a regimental clerk and in April 1916 was sent to the front — where, between the French villages of Dompierre and Méricur, he saw action in nine weeks of hard fighting and was nearly killed twice. In late June his request was granted to be sent to a hastily improvised officers’ training camp in Normandy that turned out replacements for the depleted ranks. Meanwhile, having suffered heavy casualties, his regiment was pulled out of line for rest and regrouping.
In early September 1916 Ivor rejoined his regiment, which was then stationed at Compiegne, north of Paris. No position of command could be found for him, however, and so he was posted to the adjutant’s office, where he served as a liaison officer with the French forces, especially in matters concerning order and discipline. Seeing that a knowledge of French would be most valuable for carrying out his duties, he set about learning the language with characteristic diligence, doing everything to make himself administratively indispensable so as to avoid being sent back to the trenches, the very thought of which made him quail. Nevertheless, despite all his efforts, a last-minute reshuffling of the regiment before its return to the front at Verdun compelled him to leave his new post and become a platoon commander.