Apt Pupil

23

Dussander’s sleep was uneasy; he lay in a trench of bad dreams.

They were breaking down the fence. Thousands, perhaps millions of them. They ran out of the Jungle and threw themselves against the electrified barbed wire and now it was beginning to lean ominously inward. Some of the strands had given way and now coiled uneasily on the packed earth of the parade ground, squirting blue sparks. And still there was no end to them, no end. The Fuehrer was as mad as Rommel had claimed If he thought now -jf he had ever thought -there could be a final solution to this problem. There were billions of them; they filled the universe; and they were all qfter him.

‘Old man. Wake up, old man. Dussander. Wake up, old man, wake up.’

At first he thought this was the voice of the dream.

Spoken in German; it had to be part of the dream. That was why the voice was so terrifying, of course. If he awoke he would escape it, so he swam upwards…

The man was sitting by his bed on a chair that had been turned around backwards ~ a real man. ‘Wake up, old man,’ this visitor was saying. He was young — no more than thirty. His eyes were dark and studious behind plain steel-framed glasses. His brown hair was longish, collar-length, and for a confused moment Dussander thought it was the boy in a disguise. But this was not the boy, wearing a rather old-fashioned blue suit much too hot for the California climate. There was a small silver pin on one lapel of the suit. Silver, the metal you used to kill vampires and werewolves. It was a Jewish star.

‘Are you speaking to me?’ Dussander asked in German.

‘Who else? Your roommate is gone.’

‘Heisel? Yes. He went home yesterday.’

‘Are you awake now?’

‘Of course. But you’ve apparently mistaken me for someone else. My name is Arthur Denker. Perhaps you have the wrong room.’

‘My name is Weiskopf. And yours is Kurt Dussander.’

Dussander wanted to lick his lips but didn’t Just possibly this was still all part of the dream — a new phase, no more. Bring me a wino and a steak-knife, Mr Jewish Star in the Lapel, and I’ll blow you away like smoke, ‘I know no Dussander,’ he told the young man. ‘I don’t understand you. Shall I ring for the nurse?’

‘You understand,’ Weiskopf said. He shifted position slightly and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. The prosiness of this gesture dispelled Dussander’s last hope.

‘Heisel,’ Weiskopf said, and pointed at the empty bed.

‘Heisel, Dussander, Weiskopf… none of these names mean anything to me.’

‘Heisei fell off a ladder while he was nailing a new gutter onto the side of his house,’ Weiskopf said. ‘He broke his back. He may never walk again. Unfortunate. But that was not the only tragedy of his life. He was an inmate of Patin, where he lost his wife and daughters. Patin, which you commanded.’

‘I think you are insane,’ Dussander said. ‘My name is Arthur Denker. I came to this country when my wife died. Before that I was—’

‘Spare me your tale,’ Weiskopf said, raising a hand. ‘He has not forgotten your face. This face.’

Weiskopf flicked a photograph into Dussander’s face like a magician doing a trick. It was one of the two the boy had shown him years ago. A young Dussander in a jauntily cocked SS cap, swagger stick held firmly under one arm.

Dussander spoke slowly, in English now, enunciating carefully.

‘During the war I was a factory machinist My job was to oversee the manufacture of drive-columns and power-trains for armoured cars and trucks. Later I helped to build Tiger tanks. My reserve unit was called up during the battle of Berlin and I fought honourably, if briefly. After the war I worked in the Essen Motor Works until—’

‘- until it became necessary for you to run away to South America. With your gold that had been melted down from Jewish teeth and your silver melted down from Jewish jewellery and your numbered Swiss bank account. Mr Heisel went home a happy man, you know. Oh, he had had a bad moment when he woke up in the dark and realized with whom he was sharing a room. But he feels better now. He feels that God allowed him the sublime privilege of breaking his back so that he could be instrumental in the capture of one of the greatest butchers of human beings to ever live.’

Dussander spoke slowly, enunciating carefully.

‘During the war I was a factory machinist—’

‘Oh, why not drop it? Your papers will not stand up to a serious examination. I know it and you know it. You are found out’

‘My job was to oversee the manufacture of—’

‘Of corpses! One way or another, you will be in Tel Aviv before Christmas. The authorities are cooperating with us this time, Dussander. The Americans want to make us happy, and you are one of the things that will make us happy.’

‘- the manufacture of drive-columns and power-trains for armoured cars and trucks. Later I helped to build Tiger tanks.’

‘Why be tiresome? Why drag it out?’

‘My reserve unit was called up—’

‘Very well then. You’ll see me again. Soon.’

Weiskopf rose. He left the room. For a moment his shadow bobbed on the wall and then that was gone, too. Dussander closed his eyes. He wondered if Weiskopf could be telling the truth about American cooperation. Three years ago, when oil was tight in America, he would have believed it. But the stupid Iranian militants had hardened American support for Israel. It was possible. And what did it matter?

One way or the other, legal or illegal, Weiskopf and his colleagues would have him. On the subject of Nazis they were intransigent, and on the subject of the camps they were lunatics.

He was trembling all over. But he knew what he must do now.