POI:The Reasons Behind His Names: A Red-Letter Day: Part Two
Author’s Notes:
Seconal® is trademarked; it’s also a barbiturate widely prescribed during the 1940s through 1970s for anxiety and insomnia
Sie werden unser Sohn töten und ich werde ihn nie wiedersehen: They will take away our son and I will never see him again (Thanks again to Anna for the corrections)
Ix-nay: Pig Latin for nix, which is slang and means “delete, drop, don’t use”
Napoleon Solo: main character in the “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” TV spy drama
Ilya Kuryakin: Solo’s partner, played by David McCallum.
phones hidden in our shoes: reference to “Get Smart”, a TV comedy about a bungling spy
Steyr 50: also known as the Steyr Baby, a two-door car with seating for four (http://lanemotormuseum.org/steyr-50-baby-1936)
Bezirk Mistelbach: a district in Austria, also known as Lower Austria
KPÖ: Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs)
dummer Esel: the only German word I ever heard my grandmother say
Masher: a man who forces his unwanted attentions on a woman
Standesamt: Vital Statistics Office, where civil marriage ceremonies are performed
The actual paperwork and process of finalizing an adoption is streamlined for the purposes of this story.
Residence of the Sutterfield Family
April 1967
Day -12,657 through -12,650
Daniel put Das Kapital back on its shelf then he went to his room to get the deciphered message. With it in-hand, he went down the back stairs to the family room, where his parents were on the couch reading and listening to music from a record on the stereo.
Dixieland jazz… I’m really glad it’s not Strauss waltzes… now, to make Mr. Wren proud of me… everything is going to come out okay… I hope….
Both adults lowered their books and looked up at Daniel’s approach.
“Dad, Mom,” he told them as he handed the notebook paper to his father, “I need to talk to you.”
“Let me guess,” Mr. Sutterfield said as he reached for the paper. “You earned an B-plus on your schoolwork so your teacher wants us in for a parent-oh.”
Daniel watched his father stare at the message for a moment then he showed it to his wife. Her eyes went wide behind her glasses and her lips formed the same “Oh.”
I wanted them to say something… something like ‘You discovered our secret,’ or maybe ‘Now we have to kill you,’ but all Mom and Dad did was stare at the paper… finally, Dad’s mouth twitched like he was trying to smile….
“You figured this out all by yourself?” Mr. Sutterfield asked.
The boy nodded.
“How?”
Daniel fixed his attention on his father as he recounted his finding the one-time pad and card in the desk.
“But I didn’t give you enough information to decipher that code,” his father said.
The boy shook his head.
“You told me enough. The rest was obvious. There’s no other way it could work.”
Mr. Sutterfield let out a long, slow sigh as he peered at Daniel then he tried another smile.
“That’s very clever of you, son.”
Daniel winced. His father sounded just like Mrs. Busby, the foster mom who thought Daniel wanted to murder her.
Dad’s scared… this is bad… really bad….
His father then turned to face his wife.
“Clara, isn’t it clever of him?”
The boy switched his attention to his mother.
Mom had gone white-even her lips were pale… and she was staring right at me, but I don’t think she saw me….
“Clara?”
His father scooted across the sofa until he was at her side then he put his arm around her.
“Clara, it’s okay,” he said. “It’s all right.”
His mother shook her head so hard a pin holding her braids flew away to hit the wall behind her.
“Nein, nein,” she moaned, “sie werden unser Sohn töten und ich werde ihn nie wiedersehen-”
That’s when Mom started trembling and panting like she was going to be sick… her next words were in English, but they were so faint, I could barely hear them….
“-and then they will-they will-”
His father pulled her close to him and wrapped her in a bear hug.
“No, Clara, they won’t,” he told her. “Not now, not here, not ever again.”
But Dad’s words didn’t help… Mom kept shaking like I did after a nightmare….
His father’s voice broke through the boy’s thoughts.
“Daniel, middle shelf of the cabinet where we keep your vitamins-there’s a bottle of pills with Mom’s name on them. Will you bring me one of them with a glass of water?”
He stammered out a “Yes, sir” then he ran for the kitchen. The use of a chair got him to the shelf, where he found a prescription bottle behind a bottle of aspirin. Daniel noted the name of the medicine-Seconal-as he opened the bottle then shook one of the red capsules into his hand.
With the pill and a tumbler of water from the tap in-hand, he hurried back to his parents. His father nodded his thanks then he patiently coaxed his wife into taking the pill from Daniel’s hand then sipping some of the water.
After she swallowed the pill, Mom rested her head on Dad’s shoulder… it took a long time, but she finally stopped shaking and breathing so hard… that’s when Dad suggested she stretch out and get comfortable… I ran to get an afghan from the linen closet… by the time we got Mom covered, she was asleep… Dad stood by the couch looking down at her… then he leaned over and began to stroke her hair… all I could do was stand there… I didn’t know what was wrong with Mom or if it could be fixed….
“Is Mom okay?” he asked, the question whispered from fear its answer would be “No.”
His father straightened then he turned to face Daniel.
“She will be,” he replied, “when she wakes up. The medicine and a night’s sleep always help.”
Daniel slid one step closer to his father. His questions and fears roiled in his head, all so jumbled together that none of them could be spoken aloud. Mr. Sutterfield laid a gentle hand on Daniel’s shoulder then he pointed toward the kitchen
“How about we go sit down where we won’t disturb Mom?”
Daniel followed his father into the kitchen then he pulled his chair from the kitchen table while Mr. Sutterfield went to the cabinet where the pots and pan were stored.
“Feel like some hot chocolate?” he asked as he set a pan on the stove.
The queasy feeling in his stomach made Daniel shake his head.
“That’s okay. I don’t want any, either.”
With the pan left on the cold stove, Mr. Sutterfield took his usual seat at the head of the table.
Dad can see Mom from his chair… he spent a couple seconds looking at her… then he turned to me and tried to smile… it didn’t work… he’s still looks as scared as I feel… Mrs. Busby was scared of me and she sent me back… I didn’t do anything to her and she sent me back… I don’t want to be sent back… I want to stay here… but I just made Mom have a fit and I proved they are spies… maybe getting sent back is the best thing that can happen to me….
Daniel slid into his chair. His father then folded his hands on the table and he drew in a deep breath. The boy braced himself.
“I guess,” his father said, “I’d better start with the elephant in the room. That message you decoded-well, it was meant for your mother and me. We’re both foreign agents.”
The bald fact, so calmly confirmed, robbed Daniel of words. He sat gape-mouthed, staring at his father, until his mouth managed to form a question.
“Communist foreign agents?”
Mr. Sutterfield nodded.
“We work for the Committee for State Security’s First Chief Directorate. It’s also known as the Foreign Operations office of the KGB.”
The acronym was like a kick to Daniel’s gut.
KGB? They’re the ultimate bad guys… they kill... they torture… they steal state secrets… and my dad’s sitting there acting like it’s nothing….
An odd thought started to form in the back of Daniel’s head.
Maybe it is nothing… after all, Dad said ‘foreign agent…’ he didn’t say ‘spy….’
“What,” he stammered, “do you do for the KGB?”
“Ix-nay on the KGB, son,” his father corrected him. “Always use euphemisms. Saying ‘KGB’ will bring the FBI to your door in no time, but nobody’s ears prick up if they hear you talk about ‘the Committee.’”
Daniel accepted the correction by rewording his question. His father smiled his approval.
“I collect intelligence and send it on to my superiors. Mostly, it’s newspaper clippings, reports on local commerce and politics, your mother’s and my interpretations of regional and national events. Sometimes, I help other agents send their information in or I get new instructions to them. We also keep maintain bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, post office boxes-whatever is needed to keep another agent’s cover active and valid.”
Daniel let out a sigh of relief.
That sounds really dull-nothing like what spies do on TV or in movies and books….
“I suppose it sounds boring,” his father continued, “if your mental image of a spy is James Bond or Napoleon Solo, but real life agents are mostly paper-pushers-no fancy cars, no deadly weapons, no phones hidden in our shoes.”
The boy smiled at the reference.
Yeah, Dad looks nothing like Maxwell Smart or Napoleon Solo… maybe Ilya Kuryakin, but only if Ilya wore horn-rimmed glasses and his hair was falling out….
The bit of humor was enough to break Daniel’s mental logjam. Questions began to tumble from him.
“How did you decide to do this? Have you been doing it a long time? Were you recruited or did you volunteer? Do they pay you?”
He watched his father chuckle at his stream of questions as they kept coming.
“How do you get your instructions? Why do the Soviets care about our town’s politics and news? Does Mom-”
Mentioning his mother reminded Daniel of her recent fit. He twisted to see if she was still asleep then he swallowed hard against the dread that filled him.
“Did something happen to Mom because she’s a foreign agent?”
Mr. Sutterfield’s expression lost all its good humor. Daniel watched him glance at his wife then turn his attention back to his son.
“No,” he replied, “it’s more like she’s a foreign agent because of what happened to her.”
“Oh.”
Daniel drew the single syllable out while he considered his father’s answer.
What happened to Mom? Why did she say I’d be taken away and never seen again when Dad’s acting like all this is nothing special… who are the “they” that Mom’s so scared of?
The boy’s confusion drew Mr. Sutterfield’s hand to his shoulder.
“Maybe,” his father said, “I should start at the beginning….”
Flashback:
April 3, 1938
Day - 23257
Twenty kilometers NE of Vienna, Austria
To Clara Holzer, a sixteen-year-old girl crowded next to her two brothers in the back seat of a borrowed Steyr 50, that day’s drive felt almost like a summer excursion.
Except the season is wrong… I’m wearing my winter coat… I should be in school and my brothers at university… my mother should be teaching in her classroom, and my father should be at his teller’s window at the bank … this isn’t a vacation-we are fleeing Vienna because my parents were members of the outlawed KPÖ who opposed the May Constitution and the Austro-Fascist state it created… now that Germany has annexed our country, we all are in danger: Papa, Mama, Karl, Willi, and me… the plan is to get over the border at Mikulov to meet with people Papa knows in Poland… he hopes to get us to the Ukraine with their help… Mama is from there….
Twenty kilometers outside Vienna, their progress was halted by a line of stopped vehicles. At the head of the line, Clara could see a portable barricade, its bar blocking the road, and a dozen Germans in uniform. The officers had pistols in holsters at their side; the soldiers had rifles slung on their shoulders. Clara’s heart froze in her chest, but her father shook his head as though merely annoyed at the checkpoint.
“Remember,” he warned his family, “we are the Altmanns, and we are driving to our farm in Bezirk Mistelbach because we graciously lent our apartment to the National Socialist Party. Checkpoints are now a normal part of our lives. Answer any questions asked, and we soon will be on our way.”
Clara nodded, as did her two older brothers, but she saw her mother frown at the instructions.
“The children know this, Otto. If we are caught, it will be due to something we could not foresee, not because of them.”
The gentle chiding brought a smile to her father’s lips.
Mama always corrects Papa… it’s how she shows she cares for him….
“Ida,” he replied, “if we could foresee problems, we would plan for them. As it is, we must trust our luck.”
Clara sat back in her seat and watched the woodlands that lined the road as the car inched forward. Once it was at the checkpoint, a German lieutenant, his moustache still wispy with youth, recited his questions with bored disinterest.
Who are you? Who is travelling with you? Where did you come from and where are you going? What is your reason for travel today?
Herr “Altmann” answered the officer’s questions with no sign of ill humor or anxiety. When asked, Clara handed her forged ID card to her father for examination by the officer.
The man handed it back with a smile at me… I dropped my gaze and pretended I was blushing-instead, I was hiding my fear…my father and mother had planned our escape carefully, but I already knew better than to trust our luck… if we truly were lucky, we would not have to run….
The officer next asked for her brothers’ identification. Karl was giving his up for examination when Clara noticed that a soldier at the barricade was staring through the windshield at her family. He held his stance for a moment then he turned to the sergeant next to him and said something.
Clara whispered to her brothers, “Do you know that soldier who is talking?”
Willi shook his head, but Karl’s breath caught in his throat.
“Leopold Renner,” he whispered back. “We both were in Professor’s Grotke’s ancient philosophy class last term. Renner is a dummer Esel.”
“A dumb ass who is reporting us,” Willi whispered. “Father, we need to-”
The sergeant snapped an order to his men, who scrambled to aim their rifles at the Steyr. Both Clara’s parents unlatched their doors, but the lieutenant drew his sidearm too quickly, trapping them in the little car.
We were ordered out… told to stand by the side of the road while our luggage was searched… they did not find proof we were the Holzer family, but the soldier’s word was enough… the sergeant used a field telephone to call for transportation… they separated us into two groups, me with my parents… my brothers held at gunpoint on the other side of the road… we were ordered to keep silent… the officers were too far away to hear their conversation, but I knew what it was… they were congratulating each other for capturing us….
An hour passed before an army truck arrived at the checkpoint. Its driver kept its engine idling as the five Holzers were herded to its rear.
The soldiers made my brothers climb into the truck first… then my parents… I helped Papa assist Mama as she struggled onto the tailgate and into the truck… then I helped my father… when I grabbed the frame to climb up, the lieutenant shouted at me to stop….
“Your parents are criminals,” he told Clara, “and your brothers are strong and will make fine workers, but you are too beautiful for such a fate.”
He pointed to the soldiers guarding the barricade. Clara turned her back on her family to see why he was pointing.
He was indicating the soldier who told on us….
“Trooper Renner,” the officer continued, “deserves a reward for his efforts, don’t you think?”
Clara watched Renner’s expression shift from surprise to a truly salacious grin that seem to bore through the coat she was wearing. She shrank back, wrapping her arms around her body to shield herself from his attention.
“Take them away!”
The truck’s engine roared, its noise drowning all but one of her family’s cries.
Every time I dream of Renner-of him grinning at me.. of him handing his rifle to the man next to him … of him coming toward me… I heard Mama screaming her pet name for me… Klaruska! But I can’t come to her call… I can only stand there, my arms wrapped around my coat… I can only shake with fear as Renner puts his hand on my back and shoves me towards the woods….
Sutterfield Kitchen
April 1967
Mr. Sutterfield spared his son the gory details, but Daniel caught the gist of the outcome.
They hurt Mom the way that man wanted to hurt Miss Bellinger… later, I found out that’s why my parents didn’t have kids of their own… because Mom couldn’t anymore… and it’s why Mom was so scared about never seeing me again … she never saw her family again… her parents died in an internment camp… her brother Willi died when his work camp was accidentally bombed by the British... and Karl was forced to clear mine fields….
“Your mom was left at the side of the road when they were finished,” his father continued. “She walked the twenty klicks back to Vienna then she hid with family friends until she hooked up with the Communist resistance. She spent the war working with them.”
“Wow.”
“Wow is right. Your mom is a strong and very resourceful woman.”
The pride in his father’s voice made Daniel nod in agreement.
“Dad, do you have any family?”
His father’s eyebrows shot up at the question.
“Beside you and Mom? No, not living ones. My mom died when I was in grade school; my dad while I was in boot camp. My dad and me moved around a lot so I lost track of whatever kin I might have had.”
I found out later Dad’s dad was an organizer for the Wobblies-the Industrial Workers of the World… Wobblies believe workers should elect their supervisors and get shares of the profits instead of wages… which leaves nothing for the man who founded the company… who came up with the idea or the product then risked his money and put his time and effort into making it successful… trade unions seem sort of selfish to me… but it does prove both my parents’ families were socialists… I wonder if Dad and Mom were going to tell me that fact before or after they got around to telling me they are spi-foreign agents….
The boy put that question aside.
Sometimes, if I got a foster parent talking, I’d find out stuff I wouldn’t have learned if I asked about it directly… since Dad was willing to talk about family history, I was happy to let him….
Daniel put his elbows on the table-a no-no during meals, then he rested his chin on his hands.
“Dad,” he said, “Mr. Jeffries at the Family Services office told me you met Mom in Vienna after the war.”
The prompt for more info earned a nod from Mr. Sutterfield.
“That’s right. I was part of the U.S. Occupational Forces-the army units sent to Austria to keep the peace after the war was over. One of my duties was to stand guard at a supply depot in the city. Every morning, I’d see your mother walk down the far side of the street. There was something about her-I’m not sure what it was, but it made me want to talk to her, find out if she was as smart and capable as she was pretty. Finally, I worked up the nerve to wait for her to come back one evening then I tried out my pitiful German on her.”
“What did you say?”
“Guten Abend, Fraulein. Darf ich mit dir gehen?”
“And what did Mom do?”
“She stopped just long enough to tell me, in English: ‘I will go faster alone.’ ”
“She did?”
“Yep. She shut me down completely.”
“Then what did you do?”
Mr. Sutterfield chuckled.
“I told her, ‘Sure, but two can haul a heavier load.’ It sounded dumb at the time, but it made Clara take another look at me, and it gave me time to convince her I wasn’t a masher. We ended up at a café where her friends hung out. It was a lot like the evenings I’d spent with Dad and his friends, food and wine and discussions of how we’d change things for the better when we got the chance.”
“Were Mom’s friends sp-foreign agents?”
“Some of them. Some of them were just trying to get by under the occupation, just like they had gotten by under the Nazis.”
“Did you become an agent because of Mom?”
“Sort of. When it was almost time for my unit to leave Vienna, a man took me aside to ask if I would be willing to work for them after I got back to the States. I said I would, but only if they could pull some strings and get Clara approved as my war bride so she could follow me home. I didn’t dare request it because I knew the Army would find out about her ties to the Austrian communists and deny my application.”
Mr. Sutterfield paused to check on his sleeping wife then he continued his story.
“It was a near thing. I was packed and ready to go when a runner from HQ came by the barracks and told me Clara’s papers had come through. I had to scramble to get both of us to the Standesamt for the ceremony before I boarded the train with my unit. Clara followed three months later with a group of other war brides. By then, I was enrolled in draftsman classes and angling for a job with McKenna.”
“So you could spy on them?”
The question slipped out. Daniel winced even as he was saying it, but his father seemed to take no offense.
“No, son,” he replied, “I never have been asked to steal secrets from my employer. There may be agents actively attempting to collect intelligence from McKenna, but it’s not me-or your mother. Our bosses know our talents are better suited to other jobs.”
Mr. Sutterfield then leaned back in his chair and regarded his son with a raised eyebrow.
He’s thinking hard about something… about me… I guess this is when I find out what happens….
After a few seconds, his father adjusted his glasses then he spoke.
“Daniel, your mother and I had to get permission from our supervisors before we could apply to adopt a child. We had to assure them that a background check would not blow our covers or put any other agents at risk. We also had to promise to say nothing to any child placed with us until the adoption was final. That way, if we had to send the child back, no damage would be done to us or to those we work for.
“That’s why your mother reacted the way she did when you brought us that message. She was afraid we would be ordered to give you back to the state, and the thought of losing you triggered those memories and caused her to… uh-become emotional.”
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said. “I didn’t mean to.”
His father waved the boy’s apology away.
“Not your fault, son. There’s no way you could have know. However-”
Mr. Sutterfield peered at Daniel for a moment as though unsure of his next words. The boy leaned forward, partly to look attentive, partly to ease the sudden sick feeling in his stomach.
“Now that you know about us, I guess I should ask: would you rather to go back to foster care?”
The boy’s throat went dry. He gulped several times as he considered his answer.
No, I don’t want to go back… I want to be your son-but you’re KGB agents… and you’re good people who love me-but you’re KG-no, you’re Committee agents… and you’ve been great to me... and you want me-Mom said I’ve been your son since you saw my photo… and when I was all beat up and grimy and scared, you still wanted me… you said I’d be home with you that night-and I was… but-
To Daniel’s surprise, nothing followed that last ‘but.’
It doesn’t matter what you are… you both love me and want me and I don’t want to live anywhere else… or be anyone else… I want to be Daniel Sutterfield… and I don’t care if that means I have to be a sp-foreign agent … I want to be your son….
Even though his nose was stuffing up and his lips were trembling from fear his answer would not matter, Daniel shook his head.
“Can you keep our secrets and not say anything to anyone?
“Yes, sir-I can.”
His father peered at Daniel for what felt like hours to the boy then he smiled and nodded.
“I’m sure you can. You’re really a remarkable kid.”
He then glanced at his wristwatch.
“Good grief-look at the time. I should get you to bed; you have school tomorrow.”
He got to his feet. When Daniel did the same, his father sidestepped the corner of the table and dropped to his knees.
And he wrapped his arms around me… hugged me close… my eyes started watering all over his shoulder… then he told me how proud he was of me… and how glad he was that I was his son… and I should never forget how much Mom and he loved me….
Daniel worked an arm loose so he could hug his father back.
“I love you, too,” he said, the words muffled by shirt and shoulder.
I didn’t end up in bed that night… Dad said he was going to sleep on a chair in the family room in case Mom woke up… I asked if I could sleep in the other chair… so we brought our pillows and blankets downstairs and spent the night watching over Mom… I was fine in the morning, but Dad moved like he was really stiff… Mom woke up while I was eating my cereal… I overheard Dad telling her about our conversation at the kitchen table….
Daniel quietly slid from his chair then he sidled along the counter until he was at the doorway to the family room, stopping out of sight of his parents in the family room.
“Did you suspect,” he heard his father ask, “that Daniel had found the code pad?”
“No,” Mrs. Sutterfield replied, “not at all. He must have been terrified we’d find out and do something to him.”
Daniel winced.
You bet I was… especially after I deciphered that message….
“I’m telling you, love-if our son can hide something that big from us, we won’t have to worry about him keeping our secrets.”
His mother let out a loud sigh of relief then she hissed the breath in again.
“Daniel,” she called, “are you listening to our conversation?”
The boy pressed himself back against the cabinet doors.
“Daniel?”
Since she did not sound angry, the boy poked his face around the door frame. He saw his parents, his father dressed for work, his mother still in the rumpled shirt and slacks she had slept in, holding hands on the sofa. Both were eyeing him with bemusement.
“Yes, Mom,” he admitted. “I was. I’m sorry.”
Mr. Sutterfield squeezed his wife’s hand then said, “Like I told you-our son’s a natural.”
His mother peered at her son then she shook her head slowly.
“A natural who needs to be more aware of his surroundings. I saw his reflection move on the toaster.”
Daniel twisted to look at the shiny chrome appliance across the kitchen from him.
I thought I was good at being sneaky, but it turned out I had a lot to learn… first thing Dad taught me was about secret hiding-places… that Saturday, I got to help him make a new one for the one-time pad and the conversion table… he carefully removed a piece of baseboard right inside my closet door then he made sure there was enough room behind it… next, Dad attached dowels to the baseboard and drilled holes into the floor so, when it was replaced, it would stay put like it was nailed there… but I could remove it easily….
“Why move them from Mom’s desk?” Daniel asked when the task was completed.
“Because this very smart kid I know,” his father replied, “compromised their original hiding place.”
“Why hide them in my closet?”
“Because I’m making you our chief cryptographer,” his father told him. “Let your mom check your work until she’s certain you can fly on your own, okay?”
The new assignment made Daniel beam with pride.
From that day on, I did almost all the coding and decoding… Dad even increased my pay... Pete said he wished his parents gave him as much allowance as I got… I never told him how I was earning the money… maybe it was odd, but I had no trouble keeping my family’s secrets from Pete and everyone else… it’s like I was Daniel Sutterfield, normal kid, with them and I was Daniel Sutterfield, foreign agent, with my parents… I always wanted a secret identity… now, I had one and I didn’t even have to change my name… and, on Tuesday, Daniel Sutterfield became my name forever….
The appointment at the courtroom was something of an anti-climax, not that Daniel cared.
The judge was in his robe, but he never got up on his bench… although he did let me sit up there… there was a lawyer representing me-a Guardian ad Litem to make sure all the laws were followed and I wasn’t being bought or forced against my will… Mrs. Rayburn was there and Miss Bellinger, and my parents and me… the judge asked if all the paperwork was in order… when the lawyer said it was, the judge asked if I wanted to be adopted… when I said I wanted to-very much, he opened a folder and read the following:
“Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, adjudged, and decreed by the Court that, from this day forth, the said minor before me is declared adopted for life by the petitioners before me and that said child shall henceforth be known by the name of Daniel Sutterfield.”
Mom starting crying and Miss Bellinger was sniffling, but they were both smiling like mad…Mrs. Rayburn handed me the folder with the adoption decree and my new birth certificate with my parents’ names on it… the lawyer and the judge both shook my hand… Mom and Miss Bellinger hugged me… everyone congratulated my parents… then we went to eat at Edie’s Restaurant, where Mom let me have a ice cream sundae even though it was only lunch… it doesn’t sound like much when I describe it, but it was the best day of my life….
The next chapter will be titled The Bifurcated Boy.