The German Suitcase Read online

  As the agency’s Chief Creative Officer, Tannen worked with clients who paid GG handsomely to create, develop, and deploy advertising strategies across national boundaries and diverse cultures. There was no more global a client than Steinbach & Company, a high quality trunk maker founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1847. Prices started at $4,500 and went into the stratosphere.

  “That’s it?” Tannen asked, peering at the suitcase through his tortoiseshell Oliver Peoples. His eyebrows were as thick as the rough that bordered the fairways at his country club; and his long hair, pulled straight back to cover a bald spot, was fastened in a puppytail above his collar. “You going to tell me what it is?” he went on, smoothly striking a putt that rolled into the cup. “Or do I have to guess?”

  “Come on, boss. It’s a vintage Steinbach,” Stacey replied, surprised he had to ask. “The pebble-grain texture, the precise saddle-stitching, the machined fittings and latches; not to mention…” She angled it so he could see the bottom where a brass plate that proclaimed Steinbach was centered between the hinges. A serial number was engraved beneath the company name.

  Tannen ran a fingertip across it. “If their records go back that far, chances are we can find out who the original owner was.”

  “Chances are we already know,” Stacey said in her sassy way. She turned the suitcase, revealing white hand painted lettering on the other side. The large, characters were chipped, scratched and worn with age, but clearly read:

  EPSTEIN, JACOB

  GEB 1922 147

  GRUPPE 12

  “There’s also this,” Stacey went on, fingering a grimy luggage tag on which the same name, an address in Vienna, and several sets of numbers had been written.

  The furrows in Tannen’s brow deepened. “Where you going with this, Stace? I mean, we’ve got this filthy old piece of luggage with a name painted on it, probably by some rich-kid going off to boarding school or summer camp, and…and we’re building an entire, multi-million dollar campaign around it?”

  “Uh-huh, this one and others,” Stacey replied becoming impassioned. “They’ve got character. The imperfections are like…like the lines in someone’s face, footprints of our earliest ancestors in lava, hash marks in the military. I ever mention my daddy was a crew chief?” she prompted, lapsing into a West Texas drawl which, like so many who have ventured beyond the Longhorn state’s borders, she could turn on and off at will. “Yup, F-111 Wing based in Clovis, New Mexico. Just a spit and holler over the border from Lubbock where I grew up.” She smiled, faintly, and added. “Never was around much. He’s into ranchin’ now.”

  Tannen had become taken with her idea and managed a preoccupied nod. “In other words, each vintage Steinbach has a story to tell. The stickers plastered on the sides. The sweat-darkened leather on the handle. The dents, the bumps, the scrapes, the scars left behind by the vicissitudes of life…”

  “There ya go! They’re like people who—”

  “Hold it! Hold that thought!” Tannen stabbed at his intercom and said, “Astrid, see if the boss can pop in here will you?” He hung up and, prompting Stacey to continue, said, “They’re like people who…”

  “…Who’ve lived interesting lives,” she resumed without missing a beat. “Each one’s got as many stories to tell as it has stitches. The places it’s been, the people who sat on it in boarding lounges, waited for it in Baggage Claim, made love in hotel rooms while it watched from a luggage rack in the corner. Remember those fantastic Irving Penn shots of cigarette butts?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Tannen replied, baffled by what the connection could possibly be. “Large format camera. Poster-size, gritty, black-and-white platinum prints. Must’ve been like thirty-what years ago. Little before your time, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, I sort of acquired a copy of the coffee table book.”

  “Wait. Don’t tell me…”

  Stacey nodded sheepishly. “Yup, a dumpster dive. I’ll bring it tomorrow. Each shot’s like a…a portrait. Some crushed beneath a heel, others stubbed-out but standing tall. You can see every pore and fiber in the cigarette paper; count the strands of cellulite in the filters; see the texture of an ash that’s straining to keep from falling off, the glistening moisture on a lipstick imprint. Each one has its own character and story to tell. Just like pieces of vintage Steinbach.”

  Tannen gestured to the suitcase. “I hasten to point out that our Mr. Epstein threw this one away.”

  “Yeah, just like Penn’s cigarette butts,” Stacey countered, unwilling to concede the point.

  Tannen smiled in tribute. “Still, we’ve got nothing if we can’t come up with a bunch of vintage Steinbachs whose owners agree to sign on, right?”

  “Right,” Stacey said, her mind racing for a way to keep him engaged. “You know those Louis Vee ads? The ones with the aging movie stars, the retired athletes, the deposed Russian leaders…”

  “Cathy, Andre, Steffi and Gorby,” Tannen said with a glance to the door where Mark Gunther, his boss and the agency’s CEO had materialized. He had the physique and pulse rate of a marathoner, and a cool temperament that perfectly complemented his stable of hyperactive creative teams. There were those who attributed it to the fact that his father, who had founded the agency in the 1960s, left no doubt who would inherit the CEO’s chair when he retired.

  Stacey was on a roll and too charged-up to notice him. “Yeah, they’re all so…so pretentious and staged. I mean does anybody who can spring for a Steinbach care about celebrity endorsements? I want to use real people who’ve lived fascinating lives with pieces of Steinbach that’ve lived it with them.”

  Tannen’s eyes were wide with intrigue, now. “…that have accompanied them on life’s journey,” he chimed-in, with another glance to Gunther who was smiling broadly. “Not one that they’ve never seen before, that the product wrangler handed them just before the strobes flashed and the shutter fired.”

  “Exactly,” Stacey said, delighted he’d become so engaged. “Our customers don’t buy a piece of luggage, they choose it, like they’d choose a friend…a friend who’ll always be there for them; and we’re going to help them make that choice by introducing them to people who’ve already made it, people like—” She paused, having noticed Gunther, and spun the suitcase around so the hand painted name and data, were facing him. “—like Jacob Epstein! By telling their stories, by—”

  “Excuse me for interrupting,” Mark Gunther called out, crossing toward them. His tone was polite; but he had become stone-faced, his amused smile replaced by tight-lipped concern. “You may not want to tell his story once you hear it.”

  Tannen looked puzzled. “Why not? What’re you talking about, Mark?”

  “That,” Gunther replied, indicating the hand painted lettering. “A couple of years ago, there was a story in the Times about a guy who went to a Holocaust exhibit and came upon a display of victims’ suitcases. Most of them looked just like that one. The kicker was one of them belonged to his father who died in Auschwitz.”

  “I’ve got chills,” Stacey said, hugging herself as if shivering. “This…this belonged to someone who died in the Holocaust…” she went on barely able to speak.

  “Maybe they died; and maybe they didn’t,” Gunther replied. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Pile of trash across from my building.”

  “Chances are it belonged to a survivor,” Gunther concluded. “Someone who made it to America.”

  “Someone named Jacob Epstein,” Tannen said.

  “Who lives in The Apthorp,” Stacey added, starting to brighten.

  “Lived would be more like it,” Gunther corrected. “That was a long time ago.” He looked off for a moment, then asked, “Anything in it?”

  Stacey nodded. “You can hear stuff moving around inside, but it’s locked.”

  “Get a locksmith,” Gunther ordered, softly. “I don’t want it damaged. It’s hallowed memorabilia.”

  “And we’ll treat it as such,” Tannen said in a respectful tone
. “I think Stacey’s got something solid, here, Mark. If you’re on board, I’d like to run it up the flag pole and see if Sol salutes.” The latter was a reference to Solomon Steinbach, great-great grandson of the company’s founder and its current CEO.

  “Tough old buzzard,” Gunther said with an amused smile. “The only thing Sol salutes is the suitcase full of cash he takes to his bank at the end of every quarter. “Reminds me of the old timer who ran that Italian soup company.”

  “Alessandro Involta,” Tannen said with perfect inflection, savoring the syllables. “The capo di tutti cappi of the minestrone mafia.”

  “My first campaign,” Gunther said, reminiscing. “We put together an across-the-board program: logo, packaging, ad campaign. The works. We do the dog and pony show for the marketing guys, the product managers, the exec committee. Everybody loves it. The place is buzzing. We’re all waiting for old man Involta to weigh-in. He sits there, arms folded, not a word. Finally he mumbles, ‘I’m’a-no-like,’ and heads for the door.”

  “I’m’a-no-like,” Stacey blurted with a laugh.

  “Yeah, that was thirty years ago; and to this day, nothing’s changed, and—their sales and profits are off the charts.”

  “So the old buzzard was right,” Tannen said.

  Gunther nodded, his eyes darkening with concern. “We’ve still got our own old buzzard to deal with, Bart. I’m hearing ugly rumors…”

  “Yeah, I know,” Tannen said, sounding contrite.

  “Be a shame to lose him,” Gunther said, pointedly, heading for the door. “Concept’s good. Really good. I’m counting on our dogs and ponies to take first prize.”

  Tanned nodded, then noticed Stacey staring at the suitcase. Despite Gunther’s light-hearted story, the impact of its connection to the Holocaust hadn’t diminished. “Cheer up kid.”

  Stacey frowned. “I’m trying.”

  “Come on, the boss loved it. So will Sol. Besides, no way we’re using the Holocaust to sell roll-aboards. You just acquired your first piece of vintage Steinbach.”

  Stacey nodded sadly and sighed. “I don’t know if I could bear to live with it.

  “Yeah, well, I guess Mr. Epstein felt the same way.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The University of Munich consisted of two main complexes connected by a great domed hall. The multi-story Ludwig Maximilians block and the Amalien annex were built during the late 1830s and early 1900s, respectively, in the Italian Renaissance style. The urban campus spread across several square blocks and enclosed a number of treed courtyards. The Medical School fronted on Amalienstrasse, a broad boulevard that bordered the west side of the University District.

  Christmas break was over and classes had resumed. Students bundled in winter coats, with wool watch caps pulled down over their ears and scarves wrapped about their necks and mouths, were streaming through the arched entrance arcades into the lobby. Many of them were young—almost too young to be attending Medical School; but the war had created an overwhelming demand for physicians; and the nation resorted to funneling students with high science aptitudes into accelerated Medical School programs. Specialization in Emergency Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery was encouraged.

  Every morning, the vast lobby became a swirling crossroads as students with book bags and briefcases trudged up the staircases to classrooms and lecture halls in their clumsy galoshes. Others milled about chatting noisily. The marble walls and vaulted glass ceiling amplified the din into a deafening cacophony that rivaled the window-rattling thunder of yesterday’s Allied bombing raids.

  Professor Martin Gerhard strode swiftly down a corridor that connected the University Hospital to the lobby, lighting a cigarette. A surgeon’s mask hung from his neck and a red-spattered gown billowed behind him as he made his way between students and up the stairs to his office on a mezzanine that ringed the lobby. The walls of the high-ceilinged room were lined with bookcases and covered with anatomical diagrams and step-by-step illustrations of surgical procedures. Skeletal structures wired to armatures stood against one wall. A Nazi flag hung against another.

  The harried professor tossed the surgical mask on the desk, and was setting his cigarette in one of several Petri dishes that served as ashtrays when the phone rang. He slipped out of his gown, then returned to the door and closed it; but the cacophony that came from below easily penetrated its frosted glass window on which gold leaf lettering proclaimed: Department of Orthopedic Surgery Office of the Dean. A slight man in his mid-fifties, he wore bifocals that balanced on the bridge of his nose and lifted the phone with long delicate fingers that were pink from decades of pre-surgical scrubbing. “Professor Gerhard,” he said, retrieving his cigarette from the Petri dish.

  “Professor? It’s Max, Max Kleist!” the young Captain said in an urgent whisper into the telephone. The far end of the bar in Cafe Viktoria angled into the wall, forming a corner. Max had tucked himself into it and cupped his hand over the mouthpiece so those at the tables couldn’t hear him. “Thank God you’re there.”

  “Yes, and I expected you would be too,” the professor said with a slight edge, referring to his former student’s habit of trading his uniform for a surgical gown when the number of bombing casualties became overwhelming. “We need every surgeon available, Max. Even SS surgeons.”

  Last Spring, Max was conscripted by the Waffen SS—as many doctors were—and ordered to report for duty upon completing medical school. His father, a wealthy Munich industrialist, saw little sense in his son dying for a lost cause, and used his connections to keep him from being assigned to the front where surgeons were in demand. Instead, the young Captain—who would have been a Lieutenant if not for his family’s prominence—was put in charge of enforcing Nazi policy and programs at his alma mater.

  The position was created in 1942 after Dr. Kurt Huber, a Medical School professor, and several of his students formed a resistance group known as the White Rose that distributed anti-Nazi leaflets denouncing Hitler and his regime. All its members were arrested, convicted of treason at show trials, sentenced to death and guillotined. Giving this assignment to a citizen of Munich, let alone a graduate of its medical school, violated a strict SS rule that prohibited members from being posted in their home town, city or district. The dictum was Himmler’s way of insuring that the ruthless enforcement of Nazi policies wouldn’t be compromised by personal considerations; and this rare exception was testimony to the elder Kleist’s powerful influence with the Party hierarchy.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t be there,” Max replied, sounding shaken. “I was on my way when I was picked-up and taken to SS Headquarters for a debriefing—or so they called it.”

  “You were interrogated?!” the professor asked, sounding alarmed.

  “Yes, they kept me there all night. I’m being reassigned.”

  “Why?” the professor prompted with a nervous drag of his cigarette. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  “They’re cracking down. You’re in danger. So are Eva and Jacob,” Max replied, referring to two other students. “You have to warn them. When I left her yesterday, Eva said she was going to the E-R to—”

  “I know,” the professor interrupted. “They’ve both been at it all night; and as soon as—”

  “The SS is on their way, now!” Max interrupted, through clenched teeth. He glanced over his shoulder, nervously, at those in the cafe and added, “You have to warn them. You have to get them out of there!”

  “Now? My God, I—” Professor Gerhard paused, his eyes darting to the door in reaction to the sudden silence that came over the lobby below. The arrival of an SS staff car, always a black Mercedes sedan with the runic double-S insignia on pennants flying above the headlights, always had the same chilling effect. It was as if the students had been suddenly rendered mute and left to wonder who would be arrested for crimes against the Third Reich, this time. “I can’t. It’s too late,” the Professor concluded.

  “The SS is already there?” Max prompted, his voice
breaking at the thought.

  “Any second now,” the Professor said, his eyes still on the door. “We’ll come by the house as soon as we can. They wouldn’t dare invade your family’s privacy.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that after last night.”

  “We’ll have to take that chance.” The phone was still in the Professor’s hand when someone rapped on the glass. The door swung open before he could respond. Three uniformed SS men strode through it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Pretty damn good,” Sol Steinbach said, sounding like he meant it after Stacey Dutton and Bart Tannen presented the concept for the ad campaign. He had quick eyes, a wiry physique, and a crusty familiarity that went with his hands-on management style. “It’s classy and genuine. Good stuff. Real good. I like it a lot.”

  “Thought you might,” Tannen said covering his sigh of relief with professional swagger.

  Stacey’s book of Irving Penn’s photographs of cigarette butts was on the conference table next to the suitcase. It served as a prop during the presentation and, now, Steinbach was eagerly turning the pages of the exquisitely printed volume. “Amazing. I remember this show. I’ve belonged to MOMA for forty years. Haven’t smoked in twenty; but I’m dying for a cigarette now.” He laughed and closed the book with a thwack. “You think we could get Penn to do the print ads?”

  Tannen shrugged. “I don’t even know if he’s still working. He’s no kid. I can tell you that.”

  “Yeah,” Stacey chimed-in, her thumbs dancing over the keys of her Blackberry. “Here we go. Born 1917. Makes him…ninety-two.”

  “Hey, I’ll take twenty more years,” Steinbach said with an infectious cackle. “I’m going to have ’em too. Know why? Competitive cycling. Now, that’s a sport. Muscle tone. Cardio-vascular conditioning. Take it from me, Bart. Trade-in your golf cart for a racing saddle before it’s too late.”