“Then just bring him in! Why all six?”
“That’s what Seibert said.”
“And?”
“This is where you’ll vomit. The whole thing has become too risky. That’s Rudel. It’s going to end up putting the Organization in the limelight, and so would Liebermann’s murder. Better to settle for the one or two successes or even more—which are enough, aren’t they?—and close everything down. Let Liebermann spend the rest of his life Hessen-hunting.”
“But he won’t. He’ll catch on eventually and concentrate on the boys.”
“Maybe and maybe not.”
“The truth is,” Mengele said, taking his glasses off, “they’re a bunch of tired old men who’ve lost their balls. They want only to die of old age in their villas by the sea. If their grandchildren become the last Aryans in a world of human shit, they couldn’t care less. I would line them up in front of a firing squad.”
“Come on now, they helped bring us this far.”
“What if my figures were wrong? What if the chance isn’t one out of ten but one out of twenty? Or thirty? Or ninety-four? Where are we then?”
“Look, if it were up to me I would kill Liebermann regardless of the consequences and go on with the others. I’m on your side. Seibert is too. I know you don’t believe it, but he put up one hell of a battle. It would have been settled in five minutes if not for him.”
“That’s very comforting,” Mengele said. “I have to go now. Good night.” He hung up.
He sat with his elbows on the desk, his chin on the thumbs of his finger-locked hands, his lips kissing his inmost knuckle. So it always is, he thought, when one depends on others. Was there ever a man of vision, of genius (yes, genius, damn it!), who was well served by the Rudels and Seiberts of this world?
Outside the closed door of the office, Rudi waited, and Hans Stroop and his lieutenants; and the banquet manager and general manager of the hotel; and, at a discreet distance, Miss Nazi, not listening to the young man in uniform talking to her.
When Mengele came out, Stroop went to him with open arms and an ingratiating smile. “That poor fellow’s gone off into the night,” he said. “Come, we’re holding the main course for you.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Mengele said. “I have to go.” He took Rudi by the arm and hurried toward the exit.
Klaus called and said he knew everything: how ninety-four boys could be as alike as twins and why Mengele would want their adoptive fathers killed on specific dates.
Liebermann, who had been up the night before with rheumatic aches and diarrhea, was spending the day in bed, and the first thing that struck him was the nice symmetry of it: a question put to him by one young man, by telephone while he was in bed, would be answered for him by another young man, by telephone while he was in bed. He was certain Klaus would be right. “Go ahead,” he said, gathering the pillows up behind him.
“Herr Liebermann”—Klaus sounded uncomfortable—“it’s not the sort of thing I can rattle off over the phone; it’s complicated, and I really don’t understand it thoroughly myself. I’ve only had it at second hand, from Lena, this girl I live with. It was her idea, and she spoke about it to a professor of hers. He’s the one who really knows. Could you come up here and I’ll arrange a meeting? I promise you it has to be the explanation.”
“I’m leaving for Washington on Tuesday morning.”
“Then fly up tomorrow. Or better yet, come Monday, stay over, and go on from here Tuesday. You must be going through Frankfurt anyway, yes? I’ll pick you up at the airport there and bring you back again. We can meet with the professor Monday night. You’ll stay here with Lena and me; you get the bed, we get the sleeping bags.”
Liebermann said, “Give me at least the gist of it now.”
“No. Really, it has to be explained by someone who knows what he’s talking about. Is this why you’re going to Washington?”
“Yes.”
“Then you certainly want as much information as possible, don’t you? I promise you, you won’t be wasting your time.”
“All right, I trust you. I’ll let you know what time I’ll be getting in. You’d better check with this professor and make sure he’s free.”
“I will, but I’m sure he will be. Lena says he’s anxious to meet you and help. So is she. She’s Swedish, so she has a vested interest. Because of the one in Göteborg.”
“What does he teach, her professor—political science?”
“Biology.”
“Biology?”
“That’s right. I have to go out now, but we’ll be in all day tomorrow.”
“I’ll call. Thank you, Klaus. Good-by.”
He hung up.
So much for nice symmetry.
A professor of biology?
Seibert was relieved not to have had to be the one to break the news to Mengele, but he also felt he had got off the hook perhaps too easily; his long association with Mengele, and his admiration of his truly remarkable talent, suggested that he offer some sort of expression of commiseration and good cheer, and in fairness to himself he also wanted to present a fuller description than Ostreicher claimed to have given of the heated battle he had fought against Rudel, Schwartzkopf, et al. He tried to raise Mengele on the radio during the weekend, and unable to do so, flew out to the compound early Monday afternoon, taking his six-year-old grandson Ferdi along for the flight and bringing with him new recordings of Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung.
The landing strip was empty. Seibert doubted that Mengele had stayed on in Florianópolis, but it was possible that he was in Asunción or Curitiba for the day. Or he might only have sent his pilot into Asunción for supplies.
They walked along the pathway toward the house, Seibert and prancing Ferdi, with the co-pilot, who wanted to use the bathroom, walking behind them.
No one was about—no guards, no servants. The barracks, whose door the co-pilot tried, was locked, and the servants’ house was closed and shuttered. Seibert grew uneasy.
The main house’s back door was locked, and its front door too. Seibert pounded and waited. A small toy tank lay on the floorboards; Ferdi bent to it, but Seibert said sharply, “Don’t touch!”—as if infection might lurk.
The co-pilot kicked in one of the windows, elbowed away the remaining peaks of glass, and carefully put himself through. A moment later he unlocked and opened the door.
The house was deserted but in good order, with no signs of a hasty departure.
In the study, the glass-topped desk was as Seibert had seen it last, the painting things lined up on a towel at a corner. He turned to the chart.
It was raped with red. Slashes like blood tore down through the boxes in the third and second columns. The first column’s boxes held neat red checks halfway down, then larger and wilder checks, stabbing beyond the boxes.
Ferdi, looking worried, said, “He went outside the lines.”
Seibert gazed at the ravaged chart. “Yes,” he said. “Outside the lines. Yes.” He nodded.
“What is it?” Ferdi asked.
“A list of names.” Seibert turned and put the package of records on the desk. A bracelet of animal claws lay at its center. “Hecht!” he called; and louder, “Hecht!”
The co-pilot’s answering “sir?” came faintly.
“Finish what you’re doing and go back to the plane!” Seibert picked up the bracelet. “Bring me a can of gas!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Bring Schumann back with you!”
“Yes, sir!”
Seibert examined the bracelet and tossed it back onto the desk. He sighed.
“What are you going to do?” Ferdi asked him.
He nodded toward the chart. “Burn that.”
“Why?”
“So no one ever sees it.”
“Will the house catch on fire?”
“Yes, but the man who owns it isn’t coming back.”
“How do you know? He’ll be angry if he does.”
“Go play with that little toy outside.”
“I want to watch.”
“Do as I say!”
“Yes, sir.” Ferdi hurried from the room.
“Stay on the porch!” Seibert called after him.
He pushed the long table with its stacks of magazines close against the wall. Then he went to the file drawers under the laboratory window, crouched and opened one, and took out a thick handful of folders and another thick handful. He brought them to the table and fitted them between magazine stacks. He looked ruefully at the red-slashed chart, shook his head.
He brought several loads of folders to the table, and when there was room for no more, opened the remaining drawers. He unlocked and opened the windows behind the desk.
He stood looking at the Hitler memorabilia above the sofa, took three or four items from the wall, looked speculatively at the large central portrait.
The co-pilot came in with a red fuel can; the pilot stood in the doorway.
Seibert put the things he had taken on the package of records. “Take out the portrait,” he told the co-pilot. He sent the pilot off to make sure no one was in the house and to open all the windows.
“May I stand on the sofa?” the co-pilot asked.
Seibert said, “My God, why on earth not?”
He poured gasoline over the folders and magazines, standing well back, and tossed a few splashes up onto the chart itself. Names gleamed wetly: Hesketh, Eisenbud, Arlen, Looft.
The co-pilot carried the portrait out.
Seibert put the can outside the door and went to the open file drawers. He took from one a few sheets of paper and twisted them into a white branch as he moved to the desk. He picked up the lighter there, a cylindrical black one, and pressed flame from it a few times.
The pilot reported no one in the house and the windows open. Seibert had him take out the records and mementos and the fuel can. “Make sure my grandson’s there,” he told him.
He waited a moment, lighter in one hand, white paper branch in the other. “Is he with you, Schumann?” he called.
“Yes, sir!”
He lit the tip of the branch and put the lighter back behind him; dipped the branch to strengthen the flame, and stepping forward, threw it onto the flame-bursting folders and magazines. Flame sheared up the wall.
Seibert stepped back and watched the red-slashed center column of the chart blister and go brown. Names, dates, and lines, sheeted with flame, died away as blackness grew around them.
He hurried out.
Behind the house they stopped and watched awhile, well back from the wavering heat and the crackling: Seibert holding Ferdi’s hand, the co-pilot resting a forearm on the frame of Hitler’s portrait, the pilot with his arms full and the red can by his feet.