“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.