“Get you out of me picture?” Wilson asked.
“Certainly. After all, I promised — or threatened, if you will — to keep Mr. Hans Busch under very close surveillance. You can scarcely expect them to lead him by the hand up to the head man if they think I may be about three feet behind with a minicamera.” He smiled. “No; besides courting our friend Ari here, they are going to have to face the problem of what to do about Da Silva, nosy scourge of evildoers.
The combination of problems may well confuse the little men, and we shall try to be there to pick up the pieces.” He paused and took out a cigarette, but instead of lighting it he studied it absently, his mind elsewhere.
“Just one thing puzzles me.” He turned to the small figure hunched on the couch. “Tell me something,” he said gently, his eyes warm with compassion. “How did a person like you ever get involved in a cloak-and-dagger deal like this?”
Ari stared at his clasped hands, as if the answer lay imprisoned between the veined trembling fingers. “How?” He looked up at the gaunt form above him. “I am a Jew,” he said simply. “I am also German; I have the language. I am also completely alone and unknown. I am old now, and fat, and comical, maybe; but in 1931 I was already on my way to becoming one of the leading criminal lawyers of Germany, only thirty-one years old. I had a great career, they said.” He tried to find the memory amusing, but his eyes were flat as he looked at the other two. “I was not always old, you know. Or comical-looking. Or fat. Especially I was not always fat...” The dull eyes turned inward, dark and unfathomable.
“What should I do, stay home and play with my grandchildren?” He looked at them without seeing them. “That was in 1931. We were a large family, a happy family. I had my wife, two sons, my father, two uncles on his side — his brothers, you know. I had an aunt and an uncle on my mother’s side, plus I don’t know how many cousins. How many is that? I don’t know... Anyway; three dead in the streets...” He was staring at the past, alone. “No. I was not always fat. For years I couldn’t eat enough. I ate everything; everything... But I could work, I was strong. I was little but I was strong; I could work. Six years. Six years in the Zwangsarbeitslager! But I was strong, or I’d have gone up the chimney long ago...” His eyes slowly cleared, returning to the room from the haze of the past; he looked at Da Silva almost blindly. “You think you know my dossier? Someday I will tell you...”
He fought the bitterness and won, sighing and rubbing his face. “Well, anyway, I am involved. We spent the last three years and a good deal of money developing this Mr. Hans Busch. He is quite real to many people, at least by name. Only his face is unknown; that was necessary. Maybe it is all for nothing, I don’t know. But we did... This Mr. Busch is a Nazi through and through, and if he had not escaped to Brazil when he did, he might very well have been deported to Germany for his sins...”
He paused and stared grimly at the other two. “And you?” he asked, directing his question to Da Silva. “How did you ever get involved in a cloak-and-dagger affair like this? You are not a Jew.”
Da Silva stared down at the hunched, bitter man on the couch. “I could answer as you answered,” he said quietly. “I could simply say, ‘I am a Brazilian.’ But it wouldn’t make sense to anyone except another Brazilian. My dear friend Ari, you don’t know Brazil, but when you do you win know why I am involved.” He became aware of the unlit cigarette in his hand and flung it into the wastebasket, seating himself at Ari’s side in almost the same motion.
“Let me tell you something about Brazilians,” he said. “We have never been in concentration camps, and we have never put others in them. And with God’s help, we never will.” He paused, selecting his words with care. “We Brazilians are foolish, playful, happy, improvident, reckless, gay; what you will. But we are not intolerant.” He turned his head to me silent listening man beside him, suddenly feeling strongly the need to be understood. “You see, most of us can’t afford to be. My family has been here in Brazil for over two hundred years. My first ancestor who came here, came from Portugal, and went into the interior. Our family started there. It was a long time until these first settlers began bringing their women with them from home. So how much Indian blood do I have? How much Negro, or Dutch? I may be part Jewish for all I know. I haven’t the faintest idea!
“Today my family is a known family in Brazil; if you will pardon my lack of modesty, we are a very well-known family, a great family. But can those of us who have the honor to belong to this great family be anti-Indian, for example? Or anti-Negro? Or anti-Dutch?” He laughed shortly. “We Brazilians are in no position to be anti-anyone! We might very well be cutting our own throats! Do you understand what I am trying to say?”
Ari looked up at him wonderingly. “I think I understand.”
“You will understand better when you have been here longer.” Da Silva rose, smiling down on the other in compassion. A twinkle appeared in his eyes. “Though I confess,” he added slowly, “that my sister would die before she admitted anything but the purest of Portuguese blood in her veins. But even she would never be able to understand discrimination against anyone for race, or color, or religion.” He sighed deeply, and changed the subject with that rapidity that never ceased to confuse even his most intimate colleagues. “Well,” he said, “that’s that! Now let us see where we stand. An, you return to your hotel. It should not be too long before they begin falling over your feet. And I shall be Big Brother, but not to such a degree as to frighten the little men away. We shall see what we shall see!”
“And how will we be able to contact one another?”
Da Silva frowned. “No confidential phone calls from the Mirabelle, my friend Ari! You were put there because an unusual number of their guests seem to come from either Santa Catarina or Rio Grande do Sul. And because if you ask for whiskey in German, you always seem to get the legitimate stuff.” He smiled broadly. “I suppose, in the best tradition of cloak-and-dagger, we should have a password.
Something dramatic and unintelligible, like the name Wilson.”
Ari got to his feet, smiling, getting into the mood of the game. “Why not the name Murray?”
Da Silva grinned. “Wonderful! It would be the perfect example that they also serve who only sit and do nothing. However, much as I should like to give Mr. Murray two opportunities in his life to be useful, I’m afraid I shall have to let this one slide.” He frowned in sudden seriousness. “I think the best idea would be for me to bring you in for questioning every now and then. I won’t be able to do it very often, but I hope that we won’t have to.”
He walked Ari to the door, his hand on the shorter man’s shoulder in a gesture of intimacy. “Well,” he said, “that’s that, then. Good luck.”
Ari paused, his hand on the knob. “And my passport?”
Da Silva laughed. He took the document from his pocket and passed it over with a slight bow. “All in perfect order, Mr. Busch. Goodbye and good luck.”
“Thank you,” Ari said, his fingers tightening on the knob, reluctant to leave the warm friendliness of the room. He turned to the silent nondescript man seated at the enormous desk. “Goodbye, Mr. Wilson.”
“Before you leave, Mr. Schoenberg,” said the quiet man, twisting a pencil in his fingers, “I wonder if I might ask you a few questions.” He raised a hand hurriedly. “Nothing official. Simply out of curiosity.”
“Certainly,” Ari said, puzzled. He stepped back from the door.
The nondescript man played with the pencil in his hand as he spoke. “Exactly what was the reason for that briefcase chained to your wrist, Mr. Schoenberg? You Blight have known it was bound to arouse suspicion.”