Boys from Brazil

3

MENGELE HAD MOVED the Führer’s portrait and all the smaller photos and mementos of him over to the west wall above the sofa—which had meant moving his own degrees and commendations and family photos to whatever spaces he could find for them between the two outside windows in the south wall and around the laboratory observation window and the doorway in the east wall. He had then had the cleared north wall fitted with a waist-level three-inch wood molding, above which the pale-gray wallpaper had been stripped away. Two coats of white paint had been laid on, the first flat and the second semi-glossy. The molding had been painted pale gray. When all the paint was thoroughly dry he had had a sign-painter flown down from Rio.

The sign-painter made beautifully straight thin black lines and lettered handsomely, but in his first light pencilings he showed an inclination to miscopy and/or misplace unfamiliar marks of pronunciation, and to go his own Brazilian way in the matter of spelling. For four days, therefore, Mengele had sat behind his desk, watching, instructing, warning. He had come to dislike the sign-painter, and by the second day was glad the dolt was going to be thrown from the plane.

When the job was done, and the long table with its neat stacks of journals in place against the wall, Mengele could lean back in his steel-and-leather chair and admire the very chart he had envisioned. The ninety-four names, each with its country, date, and square box as if for balloting, were set out in three columns, the middle one of necessity a name longer than the two outer ones (a small annoyance, but what could be done at this late date?). There they all were, from 1. Döring—Deutschland—16/10/74 to 94. Ahearn—Kanada—23/4/77 . How he looked forward to filling in each of those boxes! He would do that himself, of course, with either red or black paint, he hadn’t yet decided which. Perhaps he would try making checks, and if the first few didn’t turn out uniformly, then fill in the boxes.

He swung in his chair and smiled at the Führer. You don’t mind being moved to the side for this, do you, my Führer? Of course not; how could you?

Then, alas, there had been nothing to do but wait—till the first of November, when the calls would come in to headquarters.

He had busied himself in the laboratory, where he was trying, not very enthusiastically, to transplant chromosomes in frog-cell nuclei.

He flew into Asunción one day; visited his barber and a prostitute, bought a digital clock, had a good steak at La Calandria with Franz Schiff.

And now, at last, the day had come—a fine one, so blinding-bright that he had drawn the study curtains. The radio was on and tuned to the headquarters frequency, with the earphones lying ready beside a memo pad and pen. On a corner of the desk’s glass top a white linen towel was laid out; on it, in surgical line-up, were a small unopened can of red enamel, a screwdriver, a new thin short-bristled paintbrush, a coverless petri dish, and a screw-top can of turpentine. The left end of the long table had been drawn from the wall; a stepladder waited before the first column of names and countries.

He had decided to try the checks.

Shortly before noon, when he was beginning to get quite impatient, the drone of a plane came with increasing loudness through the curtains. The drone of the headquarters plane—which meant either very good or very bad news. He hurried from the study, through the hall, and out onto the porch, where a few servants’ children sat breaking up a flat cake of some kind. He stepped over them and went around the side of the house to the back and down the few steps. The plane was just dropping behind treetops. Shielding his eyes, he hurried across the yard—a servant stopped leaning, started hoeing—and past the servants’ house and the barracks and the generator shed. Jogging, he entered the greened-over pathway cut through thick jungle foliage. He could hear the plane landing. He slowed to a fast walk, tucked the back of his shirt down into his trousers, got out his handkerchief and wiped his brow and cheeks. Why the plane, why not the radio? Something had gone wrong; he was sure of it. Liebermann? Had that filth somehow managed to end everything? If he had, he himself would personally go to Vienna and find and kill him. What else would he have left to live for?

He came out onto the side of the grass airstrip in time to see the red-and-white twin-engine plane rolling slowly toward his own smaller silver-and-black one. Two of the guards were lounging there with the pilot, who waved at him. He nodded. Another guard was across the strip at the chain-link fence, holding something through it, trying to lure an animal. Against rules, but he didn’t call out to him; he watched the door of the red-and-white plane, stopped now, propellers dying. Silently prayed.

The door swung down, and one of the guards trotted over to help a tall man in a light-blue suit down the steps.

Colonel Seibert! It had to be bad news.

He started forward slowly.

The colonel saw him, waved—cheerfully enough—and came toward him. He was carrying a red shopping bag.

Mengele walked faster. “News?” he called.

The colonel nodded, smiling. “Yes, good news!”

Thank God! He speeded. “I was worried!”

They shook hands. The colonel, handsome with his strong Nordic face and white-blond hair, smiled and said, “All the ‘salesmen’ checked in. The October ‘customers’ have all been seen; four on the exact dates, two a day early, and one a day late.”

Mengele pressed his chest and breathed. “Praise God! I was worried, the plane coming.”

“I felt like taking a flight,” the colonel said. “It’s such a beautiful day.”

They walked together toward the pathway.

“All seven?”

“All seven. Without a hitch.” The colonel offered the shopping bag. “This is for you. A mystery package from Ostreicher.”

“Oh,” Mengele said, and took it. “Thanks. It’s no mystery. I asked him to get me some silk; one of my housemaids is going to make shirts for me. Will you stay for lunch?”

“I can’t,” the colonel said. “I have a rehearsal for my granddaughter’s wedding at three o’clock. Did you know she’s marrying Ernst Roebling’s grandson? Tomorrow. I’ll have some coffee and talk awhile, though.”

“Wait till you see my chart.”

“Chart?”

“You’ll see.”

The colonel saw, and was enthusiastic. “Beautiful! An absolute work of art! You didn’t do this yourself, did you?”

Putting the shopping bag by the desk, Mengele said happily, “God no, I’m not even sure I can make the checks decently! I had a man flown down from Rio.”

The colonel turned and looked at him, surprised and questioning.

“Don’t worry,” Mengele said, raising a reassuring hand, “he had an accident on his way home.”

“A bad one, I hope,” the colonel said.

“Very.”

Their coffee was brought. The colonel examined some of the Führer’s photos and then they sat on the sofa and sipped at small gold-and-white cups of steaming blackness. “They’ve all settled themselves in apartments,” the colonel said, “except Hessen, who’s bought a camping truck. I told him to call in once a week, since we won’t be able to reach him if we want to. He’s only going to use it till the bad weather sets in.”

Mengele said, “I need to have the dates the men were killed. For my records.”

“Of course.” The colonel put his cup and saucer on the coffee table. “I’ve had it all typed up.” He reached inside his jacket.

Mengele put his cup and saucer down and took the folded sheet of flimsy the colonel offered. He opened it, held it away, squinted at typing. Smiling, he shook his head. “Four out of seven on the exact dates!” he marveled. “Isn’t that something?”

“They’re good men,” the colonel said. “Schwimmer and Mundt have their next ones set up already. Farnbach needed some talking to; he’s a bit of a questioner.”

“I know,” Mengele said. “He gave me trouble when I briefed them.”

“I don’t think he’ll give any more of it,” the colonel said. “I chewed him out good and proper.”

“Good for you.” Mengele refolded the pleasingly crackly paper and put it on the coffee table’s corner, set it flush with the edges. He looked at the chart and imagined the seven red checks he would paint when the colonel left. He lifted his cup, hoping to set an example.

“Colonel Rudel called me yesterday morning,” the colonel said. “He’s on the Costa Brava.”

“Oh?” Mengele saw at once that the pleasure of flying wasn’t the reason the colonel had come. What was? “How is he?” he asked, and sipped his coffee.

“Fine,” the colonel said. “But a little concerned. He had a letter from Günter Wenzler, warning him that Yakov Liebermann may be on to an operation of ours. Liebermann spoke at Heidelberg two weeks ago. He asked the audience a rather unusual ‘hypothetical question.’ A friend of Wenzler’s, whose daughter was there, told him to pass the word, just in case.”

“What exactly did Liebermann ask?”

The colonel looked at Mengele for a moment, and said, “Why we—you and us—would want to kill ninety-four sixty-five-year-old civil servants. A ‘hypothetical question.’”

Mengele shrugged. “So obviously he doesn’t know,” he said. “I’m sure no one came up with the right answer.”

“Rudel is sure too,” the colonel said, “but he’d like to know how Liebermann came up with the right question. It doesn’t seem to surprise you very much.”

Mengele sipped his coffee and spoke casually. “The American wasn’t listening to the tape when we found him. He was talking to Liebermann.” He put his cup down and smiled at the colonel. “As I’m sure you found out from the telephone company yesterday afternoon.”

The colonel sighed and leaned toward Mengele. “Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked.

“Frankly,” Mengele said, “I was afraid you would want to postpone, in case Liebermann got an investigation going.”

“You were right, that’s exactly what we would have wanted,” the colonel said. “Three or four months—would it have been so terrible?”

“It might have changed the results completely. Believe me, that’s true, Colonel. Ask any psychologist.”

“Then we could have skipped those men and picked up on schedule with the others.”

“Reducing the outcome by twenty percent? There are eighteen men in the first four months.”

“And don’t you think you’ve reduced the outcome more this way?” the colonel demanded. “Is Liebermann only talking to students? The men, our men, could be arrested tomorrow! And the outcome reduced by ninety-five percent!”

“Colonel, please,” Mengele placated.

“Assuming, of course, that there is an outcome. So far we have only your word for that, you know!”

Mengele sat silently, inhaled deeply. The colonel lifted his cup, glared at it, set it down again.

Mengele let his breath out. “There will be exactly the outcome I promised,” he said. “Colonel, stop and think a moment. Would Liebermann bother with questions to students if anyone else was listening to him? The men are out, aren’t they? Doing their jobs? Of course Liebermann talked to others—maybe to every prosecutor and policeman in Europe!—but obviously they ignored him. What else would they do?—an old Naziphobe like him coming to them with a story that must sound insane when he can’t give the reason behind it. That’s what I counted on when I made the decision.”

“It wasn’t your decision to make,” the colonel said. “You put six of our men into much more danger than we bargained for.”

“And by doing so preserved your very large investment, not to mention the destiny of the race.” Mengele got up and went to the desk, took a cigarette from a brass cup of them. “Anyway, it’s water over the dam,” he said.

The colonel sipped coffee, looking at Mengele’s back. He lowered his cup and said, “Rudel wanted me to call the men in today.”

Mengele turned, took the lighted cigarette from his lips. “I don’t believe that,” he said.

The colonel nodded. “He takes his responsibilities as an officer very seriously.”

“He has responsibilities as an Aryan!”

“True, but he’s never been as sure as the rest of us that the project will work; you know that, Josef. Good Lord, the selling job we had to do!”

Mengele stood silently—hostile, waiting.

“I told him pretty much what you just told me,” the colonel said. “If the men check in and everything’s all right, then Liebermann hasn’t been able to stir anything up, so why not leave them out? He finally agreed. But Liebermann’s going to be watched from now on—Mundt’s taking care of it—and if there’s any sign that he is stirring anything up, then a decision will have to be made: either to kill him, which might only stir things up further, or to bring the men in.”

Mengele said, “Do that and you throw everything down the drain. Everything I achieved. All the money you spent on staff and equipment and arranging the placements. How can he even think of it? I’d send out six more men if these were caught. And six more. And six more!”

“I agree, Josef, I agree,” the colonel soothed. “And I’d like very much for you to have a voice in the decision if it ever actually has to be made. A strong voice. But if Rudel learns now that you let the men leave knowing Liebermann was alerted—he’ll cut you out of the operation completely. You won’t even get the monthly reports. So I’d rather not tell him. But before I can do that I have to have an assurance from you that you won’t…make any more solo decisions.”

“About what? There are no more decisions to be made, except to keep the men out and working.”

The colonel smiled. “I wouldn’t put it past you to hop on a plane and go after Liebermann yourself.”

Mengele drew at his cigarette. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You know I wouldn’t dare go to Europe.” He turned to the desk and tapped ash into a tray.

“Do I have your assurance,” the colonel asked, “that you won’t do anything affecting the operation without checking with the Organization?”

“Of course you do,” Mengele said. “Absolutely.”

“Then I’ll tell Rudel it’s a mystery how Liebermann got wind of things.”

Mengele shook his head incredulously. “I cannot believe,” he said, “that that old fool—Rudel, I mean, not Liebermann—would write off so much money, and the Aryan destiny along with it, out of concern for the safety of six ordinary men.”

“The money was only a fraction of what we have,” the colonel said. “We exaggerated its importance to keep you cost-conscious. As for the Aryan destiny, well, as I said, he’s never fully believed the project will work. I think it smacks a little of magic or witchcraft to him; he’s hardly a scientific-minded man.”

“You’d be insane to let him have the final say.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” the colonel said. “If we come to it. Let’s hope Liebermann stops talking even to students, and you get to make ninety-four checks on this beautiful chart.” He stood up. “Walk me to the plane.” He thrust out a robot-stiff leg and stumped in slow motion, singing: “‘Here comes the bride’—step!—‘All dressed in white’—step! What a nuisance! I’m for simple weddings, aren’t you? But try telling that to a woman.”

Mengele walked him to the plane, waved him into the sky, and went back into the house. His lunch was waiting in the dining room, so he ate it, and then scrubbed his hands at the lab sink and went into the study. He gave the can of enamel a good shaking and used the screwdriver to pry its lid off. He put on his glasses, and holding the can of bright red and the new thin brush, mounted the stepladder.

He dipped the bristles, pared them against the can’s rim, took a steadying breath, and brought the red-tipped brush to the box next to Döring—Deutschland—16/10/74.

The check came out quite nicely: gleaming red on white, straight-edged and jaunty-looking.

He touched it up a bit and painted a similar check in the box of Horve—Dänemark—18/10/74.

And Guthrie—V.St.A.—19/10/74.

He got down off the stepladder, backed away, and studied the three checks over his glasses.

Yes, they would do.

He climbed back up on the stepladder and painted checks in the boxes of Runsten—Schweden—22/10/74, and Rausenberger—Deutschland—22/10/74, and Goodwood—England—24/10/74, and Oste—Holland—27/10/74.

He got back down and took another look.

Very nice. Seven red checks.

But hardly any pleasure at all.

Damn Rudel! Damn Seibert! Damn Liebermann! Damn everybody!

Pandemonium, that was what he came back to. Glanzer the landlord, who would have made a marvelous anti-Semite if not for the fact that he was Jewish, shouted accusations at a trembling little Esther while Max and a gawky young woman Liebermann had never seen before pushed at Lili’s desk, forcing it toward the corner by the bedroom door. A musical pinging and plopping came from pots and bowls that sat everywhere catching water-drops that fell from dark wetnesses all over the ceiling. A piece of crockery smashed in the kitchen—“Oh rats!” (that was Lili in there)—and the phone rang. “Aha!” Glanzer cried, turning, pointing. “Now comes the big world figure who doesn’t care about the average man’s property. Don’t put that suitcase down, the floor won’t take it!”

“Welcome home,” Max said, hauling at an end of the desk.

Liebermann put his suitcase down, and his briefcase. He had expected, because it was Sunday morning, a quiet, empty apartment. “What happened?” he asked.

“What happened?” Glanzer squeezed toward him between the backs of two desks, his bulbous face fire-red. “I’ll tell you what happened! We had a flood upstairs, that’s what happened! You overload the floor, you put strain on the pipes! So they break! You think they can take this load you’ve got here?”

“The pipes upstairs break and I’m to blame?”

“Everything’s connected!” Glanzer shouted. “Strain is transmitted! The whole house’ll come down because of the overloading you’ve got here!”

“Yakov?” Esther held out the phone with a hand on its mouthpiece. “A man named von Palmen, in Mannheim. He called last week.” A wisp of gray hair stuck out from under the side of her red-brown wig.

“Get the number, I’ll call him back.”

“I just broke the pink bowl,” Lili said, standing mournfully in the kitchen doorway. “Hannah’s favorite.”

“Out!” Glanzer shouted, on top of Liebermann, spewing bad breath. “All these desks go out! This is an apartment house not an office building! And the file cabinets too, out!”

“You go out!” Liebermann shouted just as loud—the best way to deal with Glanzer, he had found. “Go fix your rotten plumbing! This is my furniture, desks and file cabinets! Does it say in the lease only tables and chairs?”

“You’ll find out in court what it says in the lease!”

“You’ll find out what you pay for this water damage! Get out!” Liebermann thrust a finger toward the door.

Glanzer blinked. He looked at the floor beside him as if hearing something, looked at Liebermann worriedly, nodded. “You bet I’m getting out,” he whispered. “Before it happens.” He tiptoed his bulk toward the open door. “My life is more precious to me than my property.” He tiptoed out, and drew the door cautiously closed.

Liebermann stamped on the floor and called, “I’m stamping on the floor, Glanzer!”

From a distance came “Fall through!”

“Yakov, don’t,” Max said, touching Liebermann’s arm. “We’re liable to.”

Liebermann turned. He looked around, and up, and let out a woeful “Ei, yei, yei” and bit his lower lip.

Esther, stretching to wipe at the top of a file cabinet, said, “We caught it early, it’s not that bad. Thank God I baked this morning. I brought over a nut cake. When I saw what was doing I called Max and Lili. It’s just in here and the kitchen, not the other rooms.”

Max introduced the gawky young woman, who had beautiful large gray eyes; she was his and Lili’s niece Alix from Brighton, England, staying with them on her vacation. Liebermann shook her hand and thanked her for helping, and took his coat off and joined in the work.

They wiped the desks and furniture, replaced full pots and bowls with emptied ones, held towel-covered brooms to the wet places in the ceiling.

Then, sitting at desks and the accessible half of the sofa, they had coffee and cake. The leaks had dwindled to half a dozen slow trickles. Liebermann talked about the trip a little, about old friends he had visited, changes he had seen. Alix, in halting German, answered questions from Esther about her work as a textile designer.

“A lot of contributions, Yakov,” Max reported, nodding his gray head solemnly.

Lili said, “Always after the Holy Days.”

“But more this year than last, darling,” Max said, and to Liebermann: “People know about the bank.”

Liebermann nodded and looked to Esther. “Did anything come for me from Reuters? Reports? Clippings?”

“There’s a Reuters envelope,” Esther said, “a big one. But it says Personal.”

“Reports?” Max asked.

“I spoke to Sydney Beynon before I left. About the Koehler boy’s story. There wasn’t anything about him, was there?”

They shook their heads.

Esther, rising with her cup and saucer on her plate, said, “It can’t be true, it’s too crazy.” She moved to Max’s desk. Lili rose, gathering her plates, but Esther said, “Leave everything, I’ll clean up. You go show Alix the sights.”

Liebermann thanked Max and Lili and Alix as they put on their coats. He kissed Lili, shook hands with Alix and wished her a happy vacation, patted Max on the back. When he had closed the door after them, he picked up his suitcase and carried it into the bedroom.

He went to the bathroom, took his twelve-o’clock pills, hung his other suit in the closet, and exchanged his jacket for his sweater and his shoes for his slippers. With his glasses in his hand he went back into the living room, picked up his briefcase, and went around and between desks toward the French doors to the dining room.

Esther said from the kitchen doorway, “I’ll stick around and keep an eye on the dripping. Do you want me to get that man in Mannheim?”

“Later,” Liebermann said, and went into the dining room—his office now.

The desk was heaped with magazines and stacks of opened letters. He put the briefcase down, switched the lamp on, put on his glasses; moved a stack of letters from several large envelopes beneath. He found the gray Reuters envelope, hand-addressed, bulkily full. So many?

Sitting, he cleared everything else out of the way, pushed piles of mail to the sides and back of the desk. Hannah’s picture turned; magazines slapped the floor.

He unwound the envelope’s string fastener and tore the taped flap open. Tilting the envelope to green blotter, he shook out, pulled out, a mass of newspaper clippings and teletype tear-offs. Twenty, thirty, more, some of them photocopies, most quick-scissored patches of newsprint. Mann getötet in Autounfall; Priest Slain by Robbers; Eldsvåda dödar man, 64. Blue and yellow labels with dates and the names of newspapers were pasted to some of the clippings. A good forty items altogether.

He looked into the envelope and found two more small clippings and a sheet of white paper that had been folded around the whole bundle.

Keep me posted, it said in small neat handwriting at its center. S.B. Dated 30 Oct.

He put it aside along with the envelope, and spreading the clippings and tear-offs with both hands, opened them out to greater visibility, a layered patchwork of French, German, English—and Swedish, Dutch, others, indecipherable except for a word here and there. Död was surely tot and dead. “Esther!” he called.

“Yes?”

“The dictionaries for translating, Swedish and Dutch. And Danish and Norwegian.” He picked up a German clipping: an explosion in a chemical plant in Solingen had killed a night watchman, August Mohr, sixty-five. No. He put it aside.

And took it back. Mightn’t a civil servant, a low-level one, have a second job at night? Unlikely for a sixty-five-year-old, but possible. The explosion had happened at one in the morning on the day before the story appeared, making it October 20th.

The overhead light went on, and Esther, crossing the room, said, “They must be in here.” She went to the dining table against the wall and read the sides of the cartons on it. “We don’t have a Danish one,” she said. “Max uses the Norwegian.”

Liebermann got a pad from the drawer. “You’d better give me the French too.”

“First let me find.”

He reached for his pen standing up among the mail. Glancing again at the clipping, he wrote on the large yellow pad—after a scribble at the top to get the pen going: 20; Mohr, August Solingen, and put a question mark after it.

“Dictionaries,” Esther announced, and opened the flaps of a carton. “Norwegian, Swedish, French?”

“And Dutch, please.” He put the clipping to the left, where he would keep the possibles. He looked for the one in English about the priest, found it, skimmed it, and—“Ei”—put it to the right.

Esther came, unsteadily carrying four thick blue-bound volumes. He pulled mail in from the side of the desk to make room for them. “Everything was organized,” she complained, setting them down.

“I’ll reorganize. Thanks.”

She tucked hair in under the side of her wig. “You should have kept Max here if you wanted translations.”

“I didn’t think.”

“Should I try to find him?”

He shook his head, picked up another clipping in English: Dispute Ends in Fatal Knifing.

Esther, looking troubledly at the spread of clippings, said, “So many men murdered?”

“Not all,” he said, putting the clipping to his right. “Some are accidents.”

“How will you know which ones the Nazis killed?”

“I won’t,” he said. “I’ll have to go look.” He picked up a German clipping.

“Look?”

“And see if I can find a reason.”

She scowled at him. “Because a boy calls up and disappears?”

“Good-by, Esther dear.”

She went from the desk. “I would be writing articles and making some money.”

“Write them, I’ll sign them.”

“Do you want something to eat?”

He shook his head.

A few of the items reported the same deaths as others; a few of the dead men were outside the age-range. Many were tradesmen, farmers, retired industrial workers, vagrants; many had been killed by neighbors, relations, bands of young hoodlums. He searched the bilingual dictionaries with his magnifying glass; a makelaar in onroerende goederen was a real-estate broker, a tulltjänsteman a customs officer. He put the can’t-bes to his right, the possibles to his left. Most of the words in the Danish clippings were in the Norwegian-German dictionary.

Late in the afternoon he put the final clipping with the can’t-bes.

There were eleven possibles.

He tore the list of them from the pad and started a fresh list, setting them down neatly according to the dates of death.

Three had died on October 16th: Chambon, Hilaire, in Bordeaux; Döring, Emil, in Gladbeck, a town in the Essen area; and Persson, Lars, in Fagersta, Sweden.

The phone rang; he let Esther take it.

Two on the 18th: Guthrie, Malcolm, in Tucson—

“Yakov? It’s Mannheim again.”

He picked up the phone. “Liebermann speaking.”

“Hello, Herr Liebermann,” a man’s voice said. “How was your trip? And did you find the reason for the ninety-four killings?”

He sat still, looking at the pen in his hand. He had heard the voice before but couldn’t place it. “Who is this, please?” he asked.

“My name is Klaus von Palmen. I heard you speak at Heidelberg. Maybe you remember me. I asked you if the problem was really hypothetical.”

Of course. The shrewd-looking blond young man. “Yes, I remember you.”

“Did any of your audiences do better than we did?”

“I didn’t ask the question again.”

“And it wasn’t hypothetical, was it.”

He wanted to say it was, or to hang up—but a stronger impulse took hold of him: to talk openly with someone who was willing to believe, even this antagonistic young Aryan. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The person who told me about it…has disappeared. Maybe he was right and maybe he was wrong.”

“I suspected as much. Would it interest you to know that in Pforzheim, on October twenty-fourth, a man fell from a bridge and drowned? He was sixty-five years old, and about to retire from the postal service.”

“Müller, Adolf,” Liebermann said, looking at his list of possibles. “I know already, and about ten others besides: in Solingen, Gladbeck, Birmingham, Tucson, Bordeaux, Fagersta…”

“Oh.”

Liebermann smiled at the pen and said, “I have a source at Reuters.”

“That’s very good! And have you taken steps to find out whether it’s statistically normal for eleven civil servants, age sixty-five, to die violently in—what is it, a three-week period?”

“There were others,” Liebermann said, “who were killed by relations. And still others, I’m sure, that Reuters missed. And out of all of them, I think only six at the most could be…the ones I’m afraid of. Would six over normal prove anything? And besides, who keeps such statistics? Violent deaths on two continents, by age and occupation. God, maybe, would know what’s ‘statistically normal.’ Or a dozen insurance companies put together. I wouldn’t waste the time writing them.”

“Have you spoken to the authorities?”

“It was you, wasn’t it, who pointed out that they’re not so interested in Nazi-hunting these days? I spoke, but they didn’t listen. Can you blame them, really, when all I could say was, ‘Maybe men will be killed, I don’t know why’?”

“Then we must find out why, and the way to do it is to look into some of these cases. We have to investigate the circumstances of the deaths, and more important, the men’s characters and backgrounds.”

“Thank you,” Liebermann said. “I figured that out for myself, back when I was an ‘I’ not a ‘we.’”

“Pforzheim is less than an hour’s drive from here, Herr Liebermann. And I’m a law student, the third highest in my class, quite capable of making observations and asking pertinent questions.”

“I know about the pertinent questions, but this really isn’t your business, young fellow.”

“Oh? And why is that? Have you somehow secured the exclusive right to oppose Nazism? In my country?”

“Herr von Palmen—”

“You presented the problem in public; you should have informed us it was your exclusive property.”

“Listen to me.” Liebermann shook his head: what a German! “Herr von Palmen,” he said, “the person who presented the problem to me was a young man like you. More pleasant and respectful, but otherwise not so different. And he’s almost certainly been murdered. That’s why it isn’t your business; because it’s a business for professionals, not amateurs. And also because you might muddy things up so that when I get to Pforzheim the job will be harder.”

“I won’t muddy things up and I’ll try to avoid getting murdered. Do you want me to call and tell you what I find out or shall I keep the information to myself?”

Liebermann glared, trying to think of a way to stop him; but of course there wasn’t any. “Do you at least know what information to look for?” he asked.

“Certainly I do. Who Müller left his money to, who he was related to, what his political and military activities were—”

“Where he was born—”

“I know. All the points that were suggested that evening.”

“And whether he could have had any contact with Mengele, either during the war or immediately after. Where did he serve? Was he ever in Günzburg?”

“Günzburg?”

“Where Mengele lived. And try not to act like a prosecutor; it’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar.”

“I can be charming when I want to, Herr Liebermann.”

“I can’t wait for a demonstration. Give me your address, please; I’ll send you pictures of three of the men who are supposed to be doing the killings. They’re old pictures from thirty years ago and at least one of the men has had plastic surgery, but they might come in handy anyway, in case anyone saw strangers around. I’ll also send you a letter saying you’re working on my behalf. Or would you rather send me one saying I’m working on yours?”

“Herr Liebermann, I have the utmost admiration and respect for you. Believe me, I’m truly proud to be able to be of some help to you.”

“All right, all right.”

“Wasn’t that charming? You see?”

Liebermann took von Palmen’s address and phone number, gave him a few more pointers, and hung up.

A “we.” But maybe the boy would manage; he was bright enough surely.

He finished making the second list, studied it a few minutes, and then opened the desk’s left-hand bottom drawer and got out the folder of photos he had pulled from the files. He took out one each of Hessen, Kleist, and Traunsteiner—young men in SS uniforms, smiling or stern in coarse-grained enlarged snapshots; next to useless but the best there were. “Esther!” he called, putting them on the desk. Hessen smiled up at him, dark-haired and wolfish, hugging his beaming parents. Liebermann turned the photo over, and below the mimeographed history taped to its back, wrote: Hair silvery now. Has had plastic surgery.

“Esther?”

He picked up the photos, got up from the chair, and went to the door.

Esther sat sleeping at her desk, her head on her folded arms. A bowl of still water sat by her elbow.

He tiptoed over, put the photos on the desk’s corner, and tiptoed on through the living room and into the bedroom.

“So where are you going?” Esther called.

Surprised that she was up and should ask, he called back, “To the bathroom.”

“I mean where are you going. To look.”

“Oh,” he said. “To a place near Essen—Gladbeck. And to Solingen. It’s all right with you?”

Farnbach paused outside the hotel. Admiring the luminous blue-violet twilight, which the clerk had assured him would stay as it was for hours, he pulled his gloves on, turned up his fur collar, and snugged his cap down more warmly over his ears and the back of his head. Storlien wasn’t as cold as he had feared, but it was cold enough. Thank God this was his northernmost assignment; Brazil had made an orchid of him. “Sir?” His shoulder was tapped. He turned, and a black-hatted man taller than he offered an identity card on his palm. “Detective Inspector Löfquist. May I have a word with you, please?”

Farnbach took the card in its leather-and-plastic holder. He pretended to have more difficulty reading it in the twilight than he in fact had, so as to give himself at least that moment to think. He handed the card back to Detective Inspector Lars Lennart Löfquist, and putting a pleasant smile (he hoped) in front of the alarm and confusion inside him, said, “Yes, of course, Inspector. I’ve only been here since noon; I’m sure I haven’t broken any laws yet.”

Smiling too, Löfquist said, “I’m sure you haven’t.” He put the card-holder away inside his black leather coat. “We can walk while we talk, if you’d like.”

“Fine,” Farnbach said. “I’m going to take a look at the waterfall. That seems to be all one can do around here.”

“Yes, at this time of year.” They started across the hotel’s cobbled forecourt. “Things are a little livelier in June and July,” Löfquist said. “We have sun all night then, and quite a few tourists. By the end of August, though, even the center of town is dead after seven or eight, and out here it’s practically a graveyard. You’re German, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Farnbach said. “My name is Busch. Wilhelm Busch. I’m a salesman. There’s nothing wrong, is there, Inspector?”

“No, not at all.” They passed through an arched gateway. “You can relax,” Löfquist said. “This is entirely unofficial.”

They turned toward the right, and walked side by side along the shoulder of the crushed-stone road. Farnbach smiled and said, “Even an innocent man feels guilty when he’s tapped on the shoulder by a detective inspector.”

“I guess that’s so,” Löfquist said. “I’m sorry if I worried you. No, I just like to keep an eye out for foreigners. Germans in particular. I find them…enlightening to talk with. What do you sell, Herr Busch?”

“Mining equipment.”

“Oh?”

“I’m the Swedish representative of Orenstein and Koppel, of Lübeck.”

“I can’t say I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re fairly big in the field,” Farnbach said. “I’ve been with them fourteen years.” He looked at the detective walking along at his left. The man’s upturned nose and pointy chin reminded him of a captain he had served under in the SS, one who had begun interrogations with exactly this disarming bullshit of “nothing to worry about, it’s entirely unofficial.” Later had come the accusations, the demands, the torture.

“And is that where you come from?” Löfquist asked. “Lübeck?”

“No, I’m from Dortmund originally, and I live now in Reinfeld, which is near Lübeck. When I’m not in Sweden, that is. I have an apartment in Stockholm.” How much, Farnbach wondered, did the son of a bitch know, and how in God’s name had he found it out? Had the whole operation been blown? Were Hessen and Kleist and the others facing the same situation right now, or was this his own private failure?

“Turn in here,” Löfquist said, pointing toward a footpath into the woods at their right. “It leads to a better vantage point.”

They entered the narrow path and followed its near-night darkness uphill. Farnbach unbuttoned the breast of his coat, concerned about getting his gun out quickly if worse came to worst.

“I’ve spent some time in Germany myself,” Löfquist said. “Took ship from Lübeck once, as a matter of fact.”

He had switched to German, and fairly good German. Farnbach, disconcerted, wondered whether there might really be nothing to worry about; was it possible that Lars Lennart Löfquist wanted only a chance to use his German? It seemed too much to hope for. In German too, he said, “Your German’s very good. Is that why you like speaking with us, to get a chance to use it?”

“I don’t speak to all Germans,” Löfquist said, his voice charged with suppressed merriment. “Only former corporals who’ve put on weight and call themselves ‘Busch’ instead of Farnstein!”

Farnbach stopped and stared at him.

Smiling, Löfquist took his hat off; looked up and moved aside into better light; and laughing now, faced Farnbach and gave himself the substitute mustache of an extended finger.

Farnbach was astonished. “Oh my God!” he gasped. “I thought of you just a second ago! I guess I—My God! Captain Hartung!”

The two shook hands enthusiastically, and the captain, laughing, embraced Farnbach and clapped him on the back; then jammed his hat back on and grasped Farnbach’s shoulders with both hands and grinned at him. “What joy to see one of the old faces again!” he exclaimed. “I’m liable to cry, God damn it!”

“But…how can this be?” Farnbach asked, thoroughly confused now. “I’m…astounded!”

The captain laughed. “You can be Busch,” he said; “why can’t I be Löfquist? My God, I’ve got an accent! Listen to me; I’m really a fucking Swede now!”

“And you are a detective?”

“That I am.”

“Christ, you threw a scare into me, sir.”

The captain nodded regretfully, patting Farnbach’s shoulder. “Yes, we still worry that the ax might fall, eh, Farnstein? Even after all these years. That’s why I keep an eye out for foreigners. I still dream once in a while that I’m hauled up on trial!”

“I can’t believe it’s you!” Farnbach said, not yet composed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so surprised!”

They walked on up the path.

“I never forget a face, I never forget a name.” The captain laid an arm over Farnbach’s shoulders. “I spotted you standing by your car, at the gas station on Krondikesvägen. ‘That’s Corporal Farnstein in that elegant coat,’ I said; ‘I’ll bet a hundred kronor.’”

“It’s Farnbach, sir, not ‘stein.’”

“Oh? Well, ‘stein’ is close enough, isn’t it, after thirty years? With all the men I commanded? Of course, I had to be absolutely certain before I could speak. It was your voice that clinched it; it hasn’t changed at all. And drop the ‘sir,’ will you? Though I have to admit it’s nice hearing it again.”

“How in the world did you wind up here?” Farnbach asked. “And a detective, of all things!”

“It’s no great story,” the captain said, taking his arm from Farnbach’s shoulders. “I had a sister who was married to a Swede, on a farm down in Skåne. After I was captured I escaped from the internment camp and got over by ship—Lübeck to Trelleborg; that was the sailing I mentioned—and hid out with them. He wasn’t too keen on it. Lars Löfquist. A real s.o.b.; he mistreated poor Eri something awful. After a year or so he and I had a big row and I accidentally finished him. Well, I simply buried him good and deep and took his place! We were the same type physically, so his papers suited me, and Eri was glad to be rid of him. When someone who knew him came by I bandaged my face and she told them a lamp had exploded and I couldn’t talk too much. After a couple of months we sold the farm and came up north here. To Sundsvall first, where we worked in a cannery, which was awful; and three years later, here to Storlien, where there were openings on the force and jobs for Eri in shops. And that’s it. I liked police work, and what better way to get wind if anyone was looking for me? That roaring you hear is the fall; it’s just around the bend. Now what about you, Farnstein? Farnbach! How did you become Herr Busch the affluent salesman? That coat must have cost you more than I make in a year!”

“I’m not ‘Herr Busch,’” Farnbach said sourly. “I’m ‘Senhor Paz’ of Pôrto Alegre, Brazil. Busch is a cover. I’m up here on a job for the Comrades Organization, and a damned crazy job it is too.”

Now it was the captain’s turn to stop and stare, astonished. “You mean…it’s real? The Organization exists? It’s not just…newspaper stories?”

“It’s real, all right,” Farnbach said. “They helped me get settled there, found me a good job…”

“And they’re here now? In Sweden?”

“I’m here now; they’re still down there, working with Dr. Mengele to ‘fulfill the Aryan destiny.’ At least that’s what they tell me.”

“But…this is marvelous, Farnstein! My God, it’s the most exciting news I’ve—We aren’t done! We won’t be beaten! What’s going on? Can you tell me? Would it violate orders to tell an SS officer?”

“Fuck orders, I’m sick of orders,” Farnbach said. He looked for a moment at the startled captain, then said, “I’m here in Storlien to kill a schoolteacher. An old man who’s not our enemy and who can’t possibly affect the course of history by so much as a hair. But killing him, and a lot of others, is a ‘holy operation’ that’s going to bring us back to power somehow. So says Dr. Mengele.” He turned and strode away up the path.

The captain, confused, watched him go, then hurried angrily after him. “Damn it, what’s the idea?” he demanded. “If you can’t tell me, say so! Don’t give me—Was it all shit? That’s a lousy trick to pull on me, FarnBACH!”

Farnbach, breathing hard through his nostrils, came out onto a small balcony of jutting rock, and grasping its iron railing with both hands, gazed bitterly at a broad sheet of shining water that sheared down torrentially at his left. He followed the gleaming water-sheet down and down into its thundering foaming basin, and spat at it.

The captain yanked him around. “That’s a lousy trick to pull,” he cried, close and loud against the fall’s thunder. “I really believed you!”

“It wasn’t a trick,” Farnbach insisted. “It’s the truth, every word of it! I killed a man in Göteborg two weeks ago—a teacher too, Anders Runsten. Did you ever hear of him? Neither did I. Neither did anyone. A complete nonentity, retired, sixty-five. A beer-bottle collector, for God’s sake! Bragged to me about his eight hundred and thirty beer bottles! I…shot him in the head and emptied his wallet.”

“Göteborg,” the captain said. “Yes, I remember the report!”

Farnbach turned to the railing, held it, and stared at rock wall across the thundering twilit chasm. “And Saturday, I’m to do another one,” he said. “It’s senseless! Insane! How could it possibly…accomplish anything?”

“There’s a definite date?”

“Everything is extremely precise!”

The captain stepped close to Farnbach’s side. “And your orders were given to you by a ranking officer?”

“By Mengele, with the Organization’s endorsement. Colonel Seibert shook our hands the morning we left Brazil.”

“It’s not only you?”

“There are other men, in other countries.”

Grasping Farnbach’s arm, the captain said angrily, “Then don’t let me hear you say again ‘Fuck orders’! You’re a corporal who’s been assigned a duty, and if your superiors have chosen not to tell you the reason for it, then they have a reason for that too. Good Christ, you’re an SS man; behave like one! ‘My Honor Is Loyalty.’ Those words were supposed to be engraved on your soul!”

Turning, facing the captain, Farnbach said, “The war is over, sir.”

“No!” the captain cried. “Not if the Organization is real and working! Don’t you think your colonel knows what he’s doing? My God, man, if there’s a chance in a hundred of the Reich being restored, how can you not do everything in your power to help make it happen? Think of it, Farnbach! The Reich restored! We could go home again! As heroes! To a Germany of order and discipline in this fucked-up undisciplined world!”

“But how can the killing of harmless old men—”

“Who is this teacher? I’ll bet he’s not as harmless as you think! Who is he? Lundberg? Olafsson? Who?”

“Lundberg.”

The captain was silent for a moment. “Well, I’ll admit he seems harmless,” he said, “but how do we know what he’s really up to, eh? And how do we know what your colonel knows? And the doctor! Come on, man; stiffen your spine and do your duty! ‘An order is an order.’”

“Even when it makes no sense?”

The captain closed his eyes, breathed deeply; opened his eyes, glared at Farnbach. “Yes,” he said. “Even when it makes no sense. It makes sense to your superiors or they wouldn’t have given it to you. My God, there’s hope again, Farnbach; will it come to nothing because of your weakness?”

Frowning uneasily, Farnbach moved to the captain’s side.

The captain turned to stay facing him. “You won’t have any trouble at all,” he said. “I’ll point Lundberg out to you. I can even tell you his habits. My son had him for two years; I know him very well.”

Farnbach snugged his cap down. He smiled quizzically and said, “The Löfquists…have a son?”

“Yes, why not?” The captain looked at him, and flushed. “Oh,” he said; and coldly: “My sister died in ’57. And then I married. You have a dirty mind.”

“Forgive me,” Farnbach said. “I’m sorry.”

The captain thrust his hands into his pockets. “Well!” he said, still flushed. “I hope I’ve managed to put some starch back into you.”

Farnbach nodded. “‘The Reich restored,’” he said; “that’s what I have to keep thinking of.”

“And your officers and fellow soldiers,” the captain said. “They’re depending on you to do your job; you’re not going to leave them out on a limb, are you? I’ll give you a hand with Lundberg. I’m on duty Saturday but I’ll switch with one of the other men; no problem.”

Farnbach shook his head. “It isn’t Lundberg,” he said. He lunged; gloved hands pushed black-leathered chest.

The captain, one eye gaping from under his hat, fell backward over the railing, pulled his hands free of his coat and scooped armfuls of air. Turning feet-over-head, he dropped away toward the foaming basin far below.

Farnbach leaned over the railing and looked down unhappily. “And it doesn’t have to be Saturday,” he said.

Getting off the Frankfurt-to-Essen plane at the Essen-Mülheim Airport, Liebermann was surprised to find that he felt pretty good. Not great, no, but not rotten either, and rotten was the way he had felt the other two times he had set foot in the Ruhr. This was where everything had come from: the guns, the tanks, the planes, the submarines. Hitler’s armory this place had been, and its pall of smog had seemed to Liebermann (in ’59 and again in ’66) like a mark, not of peacetime industry but of wartime guilt; a sun-blocking shroud laid down from above rather than raised up from below. Going into it he had felt depressed and disheartened, reached for by the past. Rotten.

He had braced himself for the same reaction this time, but no, he felt pretty good; the smog was only smog, no different from Manchester’s or Pittsburgh’s, and nothing was reaching for him. On the contrary, it was he—in a smooth-speeding new Mercedes taxi—who was doing the reaching. And about time. Almost two months ago he had listened to Barry Koehler’s wild story from São Paulo and felt Mengele’s hatred assailing him; and now, finally, he was taking action, was going into Gladbeck to ask questions about Emil Döring, sixty-five, “until recently on the staff of the Essen Public Transport Commission.” Had he been murdered? Was he linked in any way to men in other countries? Was there a reason why Mengele and the Comrades Organization should have wanted him dead? If ninety-four men really were to die, there was a one-in-three chance that Döring had been the first of them. By tonight he might know.

But ei…what if Reuters had missed some of the October 16th possibles? The chance might really be one in four or five. Or six. Or ten. Don’t think about it; stay feeling good.

“He went into the passageway to relieve himself,” Chief Inspector Haas said in his guttural North German accent. “Bad luck; the wrong place at the wrong time.” He was a hard-looking man in his late forties, his face ruddy and pitted with pockmarks, his blue eyes close-set, his fair hair almost gone. His clothes were neat, his desk was neat, his office was neat. His manner to Liebermann was courteous. “It was a whole section of third-floor wall that came down on him. The foreman of the job said later that someone must have worked at it with a crowbar, but of course he would say that, wouldn’t he? It couldn’t be proved, because the first thing we did, naturally, after getting Döring out from under the rubble, was to use crowbars ourselves, to knock down everything that still threatened to fall. We felt we were dealing with a straightforward accident. Which we were; that’s what it’s been declared. The wrecker’s insurers have already reached an agreement with the widow; if there were any suspicion of murder, you can be sure they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry.”

“But still,” Liebermann said, “it could have been murder, conceivably.”

“It depends what kind you mean,” Haas said. “Some tramps or hoodlums might have been scavenging around in the building, yes. They see a man go into the passageway and decide to have themselves some sick excitement. Yes, that’s conceivable. Slightly. But murder with a more normal motive, aimed specifically at Herr Döring? No, that’s not conceivable. How could anyone who was following him have got up to the third floor and pried loose a whole section of wall in the short time he was in the passageway? He was in the act of urinating when he died, and he’d had two beers, not two hundred.” Haas smiled.

Liebermann said, “The prying could have been done in advance. One man is waiting, ready to give the final shove, and another, with Döring, induces him somehow to…go to the right place.”

“How? ‘Why don’t you stop and piss, my friend? Right over there on that X someone’s painted’? And he left the bar alone. No, Herr Liebermann”—Haas spoke with finality—“I’ve been through this before; you can be sure it was an accident. Murderers don’t go to such lengths. They choose the simple ways: shoot, stab, strike. You know that.”

Thoughtfully Liebermann said, “Unless they have many murders to do, and want them all…not to be similar…”

Haas squinted his close-set eyes at him. “Many murders?” he asked.

Liebermann said, “What did you mean just now, you’ve ‘been through this before’?”

“Döring’s sister was in here the next day, screaming at me to arrest Frau Döring and a man named Springer. Is this…someone you’re interested in? Wilhelm Springer?”

“Possibly,” Liebermann said. “Who is he?”

“A musician. Frau Döring’s lover, according to the sister. The Frau is much younger than Döring was. Good-looking too.”

“How old is Springer?”

“Thirty-eight, thirty-nine. The night of the accident he was filling in with the orchestra at the Essen opera. I think that lets him out, don’t you?”

“Can you tell me anything about Döring?” Liebermann asked. “Who his friends were? What organizations he belonged to?”

Haas shook his head. “I only have the vital statistics.” He turned a paper in the folder lying open before him. “I saw him a few times but I never met him; they moved here just a year ago. Here we are: sixty-five years old, one hundred and seventy centimeters, eighty-six kilos…” He looked at Liebermann. “Oh, one thing that might interest you; he was carrying a gun.”

“He was?”

Haas smiled. “A museum piece, a Mauser ‘Bolo.’ It hadn’t been fired, or cleaned and oiled, in God knows how many years.”

“Was it loaded?”

“Yes, but he probably would have blown his hand off if he’d fired it.”

Liebermann said, “Could you give me Frau Döring’s address and phone number? And the sister’s? And the address of the bar? Then I’ll be on my way.” He sat forward and put a hand down to his briefcase.

Haas wrote on a memo pad, copying from a typed form in the folder. “May I ask,” he said, “how you come to be interested in this? Döring wasn’t a ‘war criminal,’ was he?”

Liebermann looked at Haas busily writing, and after a moment said, “No, as far as I know he wasn’t a war criminal. He may have had contact with one. I’m checking a rumor. Probably there’s nothing in it.”

To the bartender in the Lorelei-Bar he said, “I’m looking into it for a friend of his, who thinks the collapse may not have been an accident.”

The bartender’s eyes widened. “You don’t say! You mean someone purposely…? Oh my.” He was a small bald man with a mustache with waxed tips. A yellow smile-face button smiled on his red lapel. He didn’t ask Liebermann’s name and Liebermann didn’t offer it.

“Was he a regular customer?”

The bartender frowned and stroked his mustache. “Mmm, so-so. Not every night, but once or twice a week. An afternoon sometimes.”

“I understand he left here alone that night.”

“That’s right.”

“Was he with anyone before he left?”

“He was alone, right where you are now. One seat over maybe. And he left in a hurry.”

“Oh?”

“He had change coming, eight and a half marks on a one-fifty bill, and he didn’t wait for it. He was a good tipper, but not like that. I meant to give it to him the next time he came in.”

“Did he say anything to you while he was drinking?”

The bartender shook his head. “It wasn’t a night I could stand around and talk. They had a dance at the business school”—he pointed over Liebermann’s shoulder—“and we were packed solid from eight o’clock on.”

“He was waiting for someone,” a man at the end of the bar said, a round-faced old man in a derby hat and a shabby overcoat buttoned up tightly to the collar. “He kept looking at the door, watching for someone to come in.”

Liebermann said, “You knew Herr Döring?”

“Very well,” the old man said. “I went to the funeral. Such a small turn-out! I was surprised.” To the bartender he said, “You know who wasn’t there? Ochsenwalder. That surprised me. What did he have to do that was so important?” He picked up his stein with both hands and drank from it.

“Excuse me,” the bartender said to Liebermann, and went away toward the other end of the bar, where a few men sat.

Liebermann got up, and with his tomato juice and his briefcase, went over and sat down near the old man, around the bar’s corner from him.

“Usually he sat here with us,” the old man said—he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—“but that night he sat alone, in the middle there, and kept watching the door. Waiting for someone, looking at the time. Apfel said it was probably the salesman from the night before. He was some talker, Döring. To be honest, we weren’t sorry he was there not here. But he could have come over and said hello, couldn’t he? Now don’t get me wrong; we liked him, and not just because he picked up the tab sometimes. But he told the same stories over and over again. Good stories, but how many times can you listen? Over and over, the same stories; how he’d been smarter than different people.”

“He was telling them to a salesman the night before?” Liebermann asked.

The old man nodded. “In medicine. First he was talking to all of us, asking about the town, and then it was him and Döring, Döring talking and him laughing. The first time you heard them they were good stories.”

“That’s right, I forgot,” the bartender said, back with them. “Döring was here the night before the accident. That was unusual for him, two nights in a row.”

“You know how old his wife is?” the old man asked. “I thought it was a daughter, but it was the wife, the widow.”

Liebermann said to the bartender, “Do you remember the salesman he was talking to?”

“I don’t know if he was a salesman,” the bartender said, “but I remember. A glass eye, and a way of snapping his fingers that annoyed the hell out of me; as if I should have been there ten minutes ago.”

“How old was he?”

The bartender stroked his mustache and sharpened a tip of it. “In his fifties, I’d say,” he said. “Fifty-five maybe.” He looked at the old man. “Wouldn’t you say that?”

The old man nodded. “Around there.”

Liebermann, unstrapping his briefcase on his lap, said, “I have some pictures. They were taken a long time ago, but would you look at them and tell me if one of the men in them might have been the salesman?”

“Glad to,” the bartender said, coming closer. The old man shifted around.

Getting the photos out, Liebermann said to the old man, “Did he give his name?”

“I don’t think so. If he did I don’t remember it. But I’m good with faces.”

Liebermann moved his tomato juice aside, and turning the photos around, put them on the bar and separated the three of them. He pushed them closer to the old man and the bartender.

They bent over the glossy photos, the old man putting a hand to his derby.

“Add thirty years,” Liebermann told them, watching. “Thirty-five.”

They raised their heads, looking at him warily, resentfully. The old man turned away. “I don’t know,” he said. He picked up his stein.

The bartender, looking at Liebermann, said, “You can’t show us pictures of…young soldiers and expect us to recognize a fifty-five-year-old man we saw over a month ago.”

Liebermann said, “Three weeks ago.”

“Still.”

The old man drank.

Liebermann said to them, “These men are criminals. They’re wanted by your government.”

“Our government,” the old man said, setting his stein down onto its wet print. “Not yours.”

“That’s true,” Liebermann said. “I’m Austrian.”

The bartender went away. The round-faced old man watched him go.

Liebermann, putting spread hands on the photos, leaned forward and said, “This salesman may have killed your friend Döring.”

The old man looked at his stein, his lips pursed. He turned the stein’s handle around toward him.

Liebermann looked bitterly at him, and gathered the photos and put them back in his briefcase. He closed the briefcase, strapped it, and stood up.

The bartender, coming back, said, “Two marks.”

Liebermann put a five-mark note on the bar and said, “Some coins for the phone, please.”

He went into the booth and dialed Frau Döring’s number. The line was busy.

He tried Döring’s sister, in Oberhausen. No answer.

He stood crated in the phone booth with his briefcase between his feet, tugging at his ear and thinking of what to say to Frau Döring. She might very well be hostile to Yakov Liebermann, Nazi-hunter; and even if she weren’t, after her sister-in-law’s accusations she probably wouldn’t want to discuss Döring and his death with any stranger. But what could he tell her except the truth? How else gain a meeting with her? It struck him that Klaus von Palmen, in Pforzheim, might be getting better results than he. That would be all he’d need, to be outdone by von Palmen.

He tried Frau Döring again, following Chief Inspector Haas’s neatly penned digits. The phone at the other end rang.

“Yes?” A woman; quick, annoyed.

“Is this Frau Klara Döring?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“My name is Yakov Liebermann. From Vienna.”

Silence. “Yakov Liebermann? The man who…finds the Nazis?”—surprised and puzzled, but not hostile.

“Looks for them,” Liebermann said, “only sometimes finds. I’m here in Gladbeck, Frau Döring, and I wonder if you’d be kind enough to let me have a little of your time, only half an hour or so. I’d like to talk with you about your late husband. I think he may have been involved—entirely innocently and without knowing about it—in the affairs of certain persons I’m interested in. May I come talk with you? Whenever it’s convenient for you?”

A clarinet piped faintly. Mozart? “Emil was involved…?”

“Maybe. Without his knowing it. I’m in your neighborhood now. May I come over? Or would you prefer to come out and meet me somewhere?”

“No. I can’t see you.”

“Frau Döring, please, it’s very important.”

“I can’t possibly. Not now. It’s the worst possible day.”

“Tomorrow, then? I’ve come to Gladbeck for the sole purpose of speaking to you.” The clarinet stopped, then piped again, repeating its last phrase, definitely Mozart. Played by the lover Springer? Which was why it was such a bad day to see him? “Frau Döring?”

“All right. I work until three. You can come over tomorrow at four.”

“That’s Frankenstrasse Twelve?”

“Yes. Apartment thirty-three.”

“Thank you. At four tomorrow. Thank you, Frau Döring.”

He freed himself from the phone booth and asked the bartender for directions to the building where Döring had died.

“It’s gone.”

“Which way was it, then?”

The bartender, bending, washing glasses, pointed a dripping finger. “Down there.”

Liebermann went down a narrow street and across a busy wider one. Gladbeck, or this part of it at least, was urban, gray, charmless. The smog didn’t help.

He stood looking at a rubbled lot flanked by masonry walls of old factory buildings. Three children piled broken stones, making an angled barrier. One of them wore a military knapsack.

He walked on. The next cross-street was Frankenstrasse; he followed it to Number 12, a soot-streaked buff apartment house, conventionally modern, behind a narrow well-kept lawn. From its rooftop a finger of black smoke rose up to join the smog-shroud.

He watched a woman struggle a baby carriage through the glass entrance door, and went on in the direction of his hotel, the Schultenhof.

In his clean stark German room he tried again to reach Döring’s sister. “God bless you whoever you are,” a woman greeted him. “We just this second stepped in. You’re our very first call.”

Fine. He could guess. “Is Frau Toppat there?”

“Oh poo. No, I’m sorry, she’s gone. She’s in California, or on the way. We bought the house from her the day before yesterday. It’s for Frau Toppat! She’s gone to live with her daughter. Do you want the address? I’ve got it here somewhere.”

“No, thanks,” Liebermann said. “Don’t bother.”

“Everything’s ours now: the furniture, the goldfish—we even have vegetables growing! Do you know the house?”

“No.”

“It’s awful, but it’s perfect for us. Well, the God-bless still goes. Are you sure you don’t want her address? I can find it.”

“Positive. Thank you. Good luck.”

“We’ve got it already, but thanks, we can always use a little more.”

He hung up, sighed, nodded. Me too, lady.

After he had washed up and taken his late-afternoon pills, he sat down at the much-too-small writing table, opened his briefcase, and got out the draft of an article he was writing about the extradition of Frieda Maloney.

The door opened to the extent of its short tight chain and a boy looked out, pushing dark hair aside from his forehead. He was thirteen or so, gaunt and sharp-nosed.

Liebermann, wondering if he had got the number wrong, said, “Is this Frau Döring’s apartment?”

“Are you Herr Liebermann?”

“Yes.”

The door closed partway; metal scraped.

The boy was a grandson, Liebermann supposed, or maybe—since Frau Döring was much younger than Döring had been—a son. Or maybe only a neighbor invited over so she wouldn’t be alone with an unknown male visitor.

Whoever he was, the boy held the door open all the way, and Liebermann went in—to a mirror-walled alcove busy with two or three himselves coming in, surprisingly seedy (“Get a haircut!” Hannah called. “Trim your mustache! Stand straight!”), and several boys in white shirts and dark trousers closing doors and hooking in chain-latches. Standing straight, Liebermann turned to the real boy. “Is Frau Döring in?”

“She’s on the phone.” The boy held a hand out for his hat.

Giving it to him, Liebermann smiled and asked, “Are you her grandson?”

“Her son.” The boy’s voice scorned the foolish question. He opened a mirror-doored closet.

Liebermann put his briefcase down and took his coat off, looking into a living room full of orange and chrome and glass, everything matching, store-like, unhuman.

He gave his coat to the boy, smiling, and the boy fitted a hanger into its sleeve, looking bored and dutiful. He was the height of Liebermann’s chest. A few coats hung in the closet, one of leopard skin. A bird, a stuffed raven or some such, peered out from behind hats and boxes on the shelf. “Is that a bird back there?” Liebermann asked.

“Yes,” the boy said. “It was my father’s.” He closed the door and stood looking at Liebermann with deep blue eyes.

Liebermann picked up his briefcase.

“Do you kill the Nazis when you catch them?” the boy asked.

“No,” Liebermann said.

“Why not?”

“It’s against the law. Besides, it’s better to put them on trial. That way more people learn about them.”

“Learn what?” The boy looked skeptical.

“Who they were, what they did.”

The boy turned toward the living room.

A woman stood there, small and blond, in a black skirt and jacket and pale-blue turtleneck sweater; a pretty woman in her early forties. She cocked her head and smiled, her hands clasped tensely before her.

“Frau Döring?” Liebermann went to her. She held a hand out and he shook its small coldness. “Thank you for seeing me,” he said. Her complexion was cosmetically smooth, with a few fine wrinkles at the outsides of her blue-green eyes. A pleasant perfume came from her.

“Please,” she said with embarrassment, “could I ask you to show me some identification?”

“Of course,” Liebermann said. “It’s smart of you to ask.” He shifted his briefcase to his other hand and reached into his inside jacket pocket.

“I’m sure you’re… who you say you are,” Frau Döring said, “but I…”

“His initials are in his hat,” the boy said behind Liebermann. “Y.S.L.”

Liebermann smiled at Frau Döring, handing his passport to her. “Your son’s a detective,” he said; and turning to the boy, “That’s very good! I didn’t even notice you looking.”

The boy, brushing aside his dark forelock, smiled complacently.

Frau Döring returned the passport. “Yes, he’s clever,” she said with a smile at the boy. “Only a little bit lazy. Right now, for instance, he’s supposed to be doing his practicing.”

“I can’t answer the door and be in my room at the same time,” the boy grumbled, stalking across the living room.

Frau Döring smoothed his unruly hair as he passed her. “I know, darling; I was only teasing.”

The boy stalked into a hallway.

Frau Döring smiled brightly at Liebermann, rubbing her hands as if to warm them. “Come sit down, Herr Liebermann,” she said, and backed toward the windowed end of the room. A door slammed. “Would you like some coffee?”

Liebermann said, “No, thank you, I just had a cup of tea across the street.”

“At the Bittner? That’s where I work. I’m the hostess there from eight to three.”

“That’s nice and convenient for you.”

“Yes, and I’m home when Erich gets here. I started Monday and so far it’s perfect. I enjoy it.”

Liebermann sat on an unyielding sofa, and Frau Döring sat on a chair adjacent to it. She sat erectly, her hands folded on her black skirt, her head tilted attentively.

“First of all,” Liebermann said, “I’d like to express my sympathy to you. Things must be very difficult for you right now.”

Looking at her folded hands, Frau Döring said, “Thank you.” A clarinet darted upscale and down, readying itself to play; Liebermann looked toward the hallway, from which the woody notes flowed, and back at Frau Döring. She smiled at him. “He’s very good,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “I heard him on the phone yesterday. I thought it was an adult. Is he your only child?”

“Yes,” she said, and proudly: “He plans to make his career in music.”

“I hope his father left him well provided for.” Liebermann smiled. “Did he?” he asked. “Did your husband leave his money to Erich and you?”

Surprised, Frau Döring nodded. “And to a sister of his. A third each. Erich’s is in trust. Why do you ask that?”

“I’m looking,” Liebermann said, “for a reason why Nazis in South America might have wanted to kill him.”

“To kill Emil?”

He nodded, watching Frau Döring. “And the others too.”

She frowned at him. “What others?”

“The group he belonged to. In different countries.”

Her frown grew more puzzled. “Emil didn’t belong to any group. What are you saying, that he was a Communist? You couldn’t be more wrong, Herr Liebermann.”

“He didn’t get mail or phone calls from outside Germany?”

“Never. Not here, anyway. Ask at his office; maybe they know about a group; I certainly don’t.”

“I asked there this morning; they don’t know either.”

“Once,” Frau Döring said, “three or four years ago, maybe even more, his sister called him from America, where she was visiting. That’s the only foreign phone call I remember. Oh, and once, even longer ago, his first wife’s brother called from somewhere in Italy, to try to get him to invest in—I don’t remember, something to do with silver. Or platinum.”

“Did he do it?”

“No. He was very careful with his money.”

The clarinet caught Liebermann’s ear, weaving the Mozart of the day before. The menuetto from the “Clarinet Quintet,” being played very nicely. He thought of himself at the boy’s age, putting in two and three hours a day at the old Pleyel. His mother, may she rest in peace, had also said, “He plans to make his career in music,” just as proudly. Who had known what was coming? And when had he last touched a piano?

“I don’t understand this,” Frau Döring said. “Emil wasn’t murdered.”

“He might have been,” Liebermann said. “A salesman got friendly with him the night before. They might have made an arrangement, to meet at the building if the salesman didn’t show up at the bar by ten o’clock. That would have brought him there just at the right time.”

Frau Döring shook her head. “He wouldn’t have met someone at a building like that one,” she said. “Not even someone he knew well. He was too suspicious of people. And why on earth would Nazis be interested in him?”

“Why was he carrying a gun that night?”

“He always did.”

“Always?”

“Always, as long as I’ve known him. He showed it to me on our first date. Can you imagine, bringing a gun on a date? And showing it? And what’s even worse, I was impressed!” She shook her head and sighed wonderingly.

“Who was he afraid of?” Liebermann asked.

“Everyone! People at the office, people who simply looked at him…” Frau Döring leaned forward confidingly. “He was a little bit—well, not crazy, but not normal either. I tried once to get him to see someone; you know, a doctor. There was a program on television about people like him, people who think they’re being…plotted against, and after it was over I suggested in a very roundabout way—Well! I was plotting, right? To get him declared insane? He almost shot me that night!” She sat back and drew a breath, shuddered; and frowned speculatively at Liebermann. “What did he do, write to you that Nazis were after him?”

“No, no.”

“Then what makes you think they were?”

“A rumor I heard.”

“It was wrong. Believe me, Nazis would have liked Emil. He was anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, anti-freedom, anti-everything-and-everyone except Emil Döring himself.”

“Was he a Nazi?”

“He may have been. He said he wasn’t, but I didn’t meet him till 1952, so I couldn’t swear. Probably he wasn’t; he never joined anything if he could help it.”

“What did he do in the war?”

“He was in the Army; a corporal, I think. He bragged about the easy jobs he managed to wangle. The main one was in a supply depot or something like that. Someplace safe.”

“He was never in combat?”

“He was ‘too smart.’ The ‘dumb ones’ went.”

“Where was he born?”

“In Laupendahl, on the other side of Essen.”

“And lived in the area all his life?”

“Yes.”

“Was he ever in Günzburg, as far as you know?”

“Where?”

“Günzburg. Near Ulm.”

“I never heard him mention it.”

“The name Mengele? Did he ever mention that?”

She looked at him, eyebrows up, and shook her head.

“Just a few questions more,” he said. “You’re being very kind. I’m afraid I’m on a wild-goose chase.”

“I’m sure you are,” she said, and smiled.

“Was he related to anyone of importance? In the government, say?”

She thought for a moment. “No.”

“Friendly with anyone of importance?”

She shrugged. “A few Essen officials, if that’s your idea of importance. He shook hands with Krupp once; that was his big moment.”

“How long were you married to him?”

“Twenty-two years. Since the fourth of August, 1952.”

“And in all those years you never saw or heard anything about an international group he belonged to, of men his own age in similar positions?”

Shaking her head, she said, “Never, not a word.”

“No anti-Nazi activity of any kind?”

“None at all. He was pro-Nazi more than anti-. He voted National Democrat, but he didn’t join them either. He wasn’t a joiner.”

Liebermann sat back on the hard sofa and rubbed the back of his neck.

Frau Döring said, “Would you like me to tell you who really killed him?”

He looked at her.

She leaned forward and said, “God. To set free a stupid little farm girl after twenty-two years of unhappiness. And to give Erich a father who’ll help him and love him, instead of one who called him names—that’s right, called him fairy and imbecile—for wanting to be a musician and not a safe fat civil servant! Do Nazis answer prayers, Herr Liebermann?” She shook her head. “No, that’s God’s business, and I’ve thanked Him every night since He pushed that wall down on Emil. He could have done it sooner, but I thank Him anyway. ‘Better late than never.’” She sat back and crossed her legs—nice legs—and smiled prettily. “Well!” she said. “Doesn’t he play beautifully? Remember the name: Erich Döring. Some day you’ll see it on posters outside concert halls!”

When Liebermann left Frankenstrasse 12, dusk was beginning to gather. Cars and trolleys filled the street; hurrying walkers crowded the pavement. He walked among them slowly, his briefcase at his side.

Döring had been a nobody: vain, conniving, important to no one but himself. There was no conceivable reason why he should have been a target of Nazi plotters half the world away—not even in his own suspicious imaginings. The salesman in the bar? Simply a lonely salesman. The hurried exit on the night of the accident? There were a dozen reasons why a man might hurry from a bar.

Which meant that the October 16th victim had been either Chambon in France or Persson in Sweden.

Or someone else, whom Reuters had missed.

Or very possibly no one at all.

Ei, Barry, Barry! What did you have to call me for?

He walked a little faster, along the south side of crowded Frankenstrasse.

On the north side Mundt walked faster too, an unlighted cigar in his mouth, a folded newspaper under his arm.

Though the night was dry and clear, reception was poor, and what Mengele heard was, “Liebermann was crackle-crackle-squeal where Döring, our first man, lived. Liebercrackle-crackle about him, and he showed pictures of soldiers to crackle-crackle-SQUEAL-crackle Solingen, doing the same thing in connection with a crackle-crackle died in an explosion a few weeks ago. Over.”

Swallowing back the sourness that was churning up into his throat, Mengele pressed the mike button and said, “Would you repeat, please, Colonel? I didn’t get all that. Over.”

Eventually he got it.

“I won’t pretend I’m not concerned,” he said, mopping his icy forehead with his handkerchief, “but if he’s gone on to check on someone we had nothing to do with, then obviously he’s still in the dark. Over.”

“Crackle Döring’s apartment, and it wasn’t dark there. It was four in the afternoon and he was there for close to an hour. Over.”

“Oh God,” Mengele said, and pressed the button. “Then we’d better take care of him right away, just to be safe. You agree, don’t you? Over.”

“We’re crackle the possibility, very carefully. I’ll let you know as soon as there’s a decision. I have a little good news too. Mundt crackle-cracklecond customer, on the exact date. Ditto Hessen. And Farnbach called in, not with questions, thank God, just with some surprising inforcrackle-squeal seems that his second customer was his former commander, a captain who got himself a Swedish identity after the war. A funny twist, isn’t it? Farnbach wasn’t sure whether we knew or not. Over.”

“He didn’t let it stop him, did he? Over.”

“Oh no, he crackle-crackle days ahead of schedule. So that’s three more checks you can put on your chart. Over.”

“I think it’s imperative that we take care of Liebermann immediately,” Mengele said. “What if he doesn’t stop with this man in Solingen? If Mundt does it right, I’m sure it won’t cause any trouble, at least not any more than we’ve got already. Over.”

“If it’s done while he’s in Germany, I disagree. They’ll crackle-squeal-crackle country to show they’re being conscientious; they’ll have to. Over.”

“Then as soon as he’s out of Germany. Over.”

“We’ll certainly take your feelings into account, Josef. Without you, nothing; we know how crackle-crackle-squeal-crackle off now. Over and out.”

Mengele looked at the microphone, and put it down. He took the earphones off, put them down, and switched the radio off.

He went from the study into the bathroom, threw up his entire half-digested dinner, washed, and swished some Vademecum around in his mouth.

Then he went out onto the veranda, smiled and said “Sorry,” and sat down and played bridge with General Fariña and Franz and Margot Schiff.

When they left, he took a flashlight and walked down to the river to think. He said a few words to the man on duty and walked a ways downriver, where he sat on the side of a rusty oil drum—to hell with his trousers—and lit a cigarette. He thought of Yakov Liebermann going into the men’s homes; and of Seibert and the rest of the Organization brass facing a necessity and calling it a possibility; and of his decades-long devotion to the noblest ideals—the pursuit of knowledge and the elevation of the best of the human race—that might be robbed of its ultimate fruition by that one nosy Jew and that handful of weaseling Aryans. Who were worse than the Jew, because Liebermann, if one was fair about it, was doing his duty according to his lights, while they were betraying theirs. Or thinking of betraying it.

He tossed his second cigarette into the river’s glistening blackness, and with a “Stay awake” to the guard, walked back toward the house.

On an impulse he turned aside and pushed his way into the overgrown path to the “factory,” that path down which he and the others—young Reiter, von Sweringen, Tina Zygorny; all of them dead now, alas—had trooped so cheerfully on those long-ago mornings. Bending over the probing flashlight, he warded off broad-leafed branches, stumbled over arching roots.

And there it was, the long low building, the trees nibbling at it. The paint had scaled from its frame walls, every window was broken (the servants’ children, damn them), and a whole section of corrugated roof had fallen or been pulled from the dormitory end.

The front door gaped open, hanging away by its lower hinge. Tina Zygorny laughed her masculine laugh; von Sweringen thundered, “Rise and shine! You’ve had your beauty sleep!”

Only silence. Insects twanging, chittering.

Shining the light before him, Mengele went up the step and through the doorway. Five years at least, since he’d last set foot…

Beautiful Bavaria. The poster clung to the wall, dusty and rippled: sky, mountain, flowered foreground.

He smiled at it, and moved the light beam.

Finding gouged wallboard where shelves and cabinets had been ripped out. Stems of plumbing standing at attention. The wall with the brown spots that Reiter had burned into it, starting a swastika with his microscope. Could have burned the place down, the idiot.

He walked carefully around broken glass. A rotting melonrind, ants feasting.

He looked into barren rooms, and remembered life and activity, gleaming equipment. The sterilizer keened, pipettes clinked. Over ten years ago.

Everything had been taken out, junked or perhaps given to a clinic somewhere, so that in case the Jew-gangs got in—they were strong in those days, “Commando Isaac” and the others—they’d have no clues, no inkling.

He walked down the central corridor. Native attendants spoke soothing words in primitive dialects, trying to make themselves understood.

He came into the dormitory, fresh-smelling and cool thanks to its open roof. The grass mats were still there, lying in disarray.

Make what you will of a few dozen grass mats, Jew-boys.

He walked among them, remembering, smiling.

Something sparked white against the wall.

He went to it, looked down at it lying there in the flashlight’s beam; picked it up, blew at it, examined it on his hand. Animal claws, a circle of them; one of the women’s bracelets. For good luck? The power of the animals transferred to the wearer’s arm?

Odd that the children hadn’t found it; surely they played in here, rolled on these mats, had disarranged them.

Yes, good luck that this bracelet had lain here all these years so that he might find it on this night of fear and uncertainty, of possible betrayal. He clustered his fingers into it, shook it down around them, pushed at it with the wrist of his flashlight-hand; the claw-circle dropped down around his gold watchband. He shook his fist; the claws danced.

He looked about at the dormitory, and up through its broken roof at treetops, and stars that came and went among them. And—maybe, maybe not—at his Führer watching him.

I won’t fail you, he promised.

He looked about—at the place where so much, so gloriously much, had already been accomplished—and glaring, said aloud, “I won’t.”