“How about.”
I made very strong coffee and squeezed grapefruit for juice- no doubt Mahlon Burden had a gadget that did it faster and cleaner- and, so fortified, turned on the eight o’clock news.
I tuned in midway through a film-clip retrospective of Massengil’s career. Terms like “aggressive campaigner” and “veteran lawmaker” predominated. Sheryl Jackson remained unnamed. Dr. Lance Dobbs was described as a “prominent psychologist, management consultant, and adviser to the assemblyman.” The Lesser Corpse. For all the public knew, he and Massengil had been playing poker.
The police were offering no theories as to the identity of the assassin(s) but were investigating “several leads.” That from the police chief himself. A reporter’s question about the sniping at Hale prompted a quick “At this time we see no connection, but as I said, gentlemen, all aspects of this tragedy are being looked into.” Frisk stood in back of the chief, projecting the faithful-servant solemnity of a Vice Presidential candidate.
Cut to Massengil’s tearful widow, a stout grandmotherly woman with wounded eyes under a bubble of white hair, sitting on a velvet divan being comforted by two of the assemblyman’s four grown sons. The other two were flying in from Colorado and Florida. On the wall behind the divan were framed pictures. The camera closed in on one of them: Massengil throwing a grandchild up in the air. The baby looked terrified and delighted at the same time. Massengil’s smile was ferocious. I turned off the set.
Postponing my next history lesson, I did chores and paperwork for a couple of hours, netted leaves out of the pond, and showered. But by eleven I was at the dining room table, facing Ike’s books. Turning pages, searching for more marginal notes- to what end?
At the very least you’ll have your consciousness raised, pal.
A week ago I would have claimed a sterling consciousness, in no need of raising. I was no stranger to suffering- I’d spent half my life as a receptacle for the misery of others. Walking the terminal wards, dispensing words, nods, empathic looks, strategic silences- the meager kindnesses endowed by my training. Ending too many bleak nights mired in the unanswerable why is life so cruel ruminations that come with that territory. The kind of questions with which you stop torturing yourself only when you realize there are no answers.
But the horror of these books was different, the cruelty so… calculated. Institutionalized and efficient.
Homicide in service of the state.
Psychopathy elevated to patriotic duty.
Children shoved into boxcars under the approving eyes of soldiers not much older than children themselves. Assembly-line tattooing.
The processing of humans as ore.
I’d intended to skim, but found myself reading. Found the time slipping away, until it was noon, then past.
At two-thirty, I began a book on the Eichmann trial. A chapter toward the end presented trial documents proving a deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews. Nazi records chronicling a conference at German Interpol Headquarters in Berlin, convened by one Reinhard Heydrich on January 20, 1942, in accordance with a letter from Hermann Goering charging Heydrich with arranging a final solution. A secret conference attended by learned men: Dr. Meyer. Dr. Leibrandt. Dr. Nenmann. Dr. Freisler…
The plan had been well thought-out, making use of data already collected by the previous mass murder operations of Aktion squads. Detailed statistics on the demographics of eleven million Jews.
The first stage would be mass evacuation under the guise of Arbeitseinsatz- the “labor effort.” Those evacuees not liquidated by “natural causes” would be “treated suitably.” The whole thing had the arrogant detachment of an academic conference, the participants conducting scholarly, high-minded discussions of optimal killing techniques…
A secret conference, revealed to posterity only because Herr Eichmann, compulsive clerk that he was, had taken copious notes.
A conference held in the Berlin district known as Wannsee.
Wannsee.
Wanna see.
Wanna see? Wanna see too? Two?
My breath grew short and the ache in my jaw reminded me I’d been clenching my teeth.
I returned my gaze to the book. The pages before me were well thumbed, foxed to fuzz at the corners.
In the right margin the words had been penciled, in the neat, measured printing I’d come to know as Ike Novato’s:
“Wannsee II? Possible?”
Several inches below that: “Crevolin again? Maybe.”
Then a phone number with a 931 prefix.
The Fairfax district.
Wannsee II.
Crevolin. It sounded like a hair-replacement tonic. Or something made from petrochemicals.
Some kind of code? Or maybe a name.
I dialed the Fairfax number. A receptionist recited the call letters of one of the TV networks. Surprise slowed my response and before I could answer she repeated the triad of consonants and said, “May I help you?”
“Yes. I’d like to speak with Mr. Crevolin.” Fifty percent chance of getting the gender right.
She said, “One moment.”
Click.
“Terry Crevolin’s office.”
“Mr. Crevolin, please.”
“He’s out of the office.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“Who is this, please?”
Not knowing how to answer that, I said, “A friend. I’ll call back later,” and hung up.
I dialed the Holocaust Center and asked for Judy Baumgartner. She came to the phone sounding cheerful.
“Yes, Alex, what can I do for you?”
“Milo asked me to look through Ike Novato’s books. I just came across something Ike wrote in one of the margins and thought you might be able to explain it to me.”
“What is it?”
“Wannsee Two. He wrote it in the margin of a chapter on the original Wannsee conference.”
“Wannsee Two,” she said, pronouncing it Vahn-say. “He never mentioned that to me. Strange that he should even know about that.”
“Whys that?”
“Wannsee Two’s pretty esoteric. Just a rumor, really, that circulated years ago- back in the seventies. Supposedly, there was a secret meeting between elements of the radical right and those of the radical left- white leftists who’d broken with the black militants and turned heavily racist. The alleged goal was to set up a national socialist confederation- plant the roots of a neo-Nazi party in this country.”
“Sounds like the Bund, reborn.”
“More like the Hitler-Stalin pact,” she said. “The extremes crushing the middle. We checked it out, never found any evidence it had happened. The prevailing wisdom is that it’s apocryphal- one of those urban folk myths, like alligators in the sewer system. But chances are this particular myth got a little special help. The rumor began circulating just around the time of Cointelpro- the counterintelligence program the Nixon administration set up to sabotage radical movements.”
“Where was this conference supposed to have taken place?”
“I’ve heard different versions, ranging from Germany to right here in the U.S. I’ve even heard claims that it took place on a military base- the confederation was supposed to have lots of members in the armed forces and in various police forces around the country. How’s that for something to feed your paranoia?” Pause. “Wannsee Two. This is the first I’ve heard of it in a very long time. I wonder how Ike knew about it.”
“His landlady was an old radical with an interest in the Holocaust,” I said. “The two of them used to talk politics. She may have told him about Wannsee Two and he may have decided to research it.”
“Well, given that, I can see why he’d pursue it. Blacks were a prime target of Wannsee Two. The way the story goes, one of the intentions of the confederation was to foment hatred between the minorities, Pit the blacks against the Jews- have the blacks kill the Jews, which would be easy because the Jews were passive wimps, ready to march into the ovens again. Once the blacks had served their purpose, they would be annihilated. Also a snap, because they were so gullible and stupid. And of course, when the cowardly Hispanics and Asians saw what was going on, they’d leave the country of their own accord- go back where they came from- and the borders of White America would be hermetically sealed.”