Sara Paretsky - Total Recall

I got to the lobby at the same time as Don Strzepek. He was still miffed at me over my parting crack. At the reception desk, they said it was past visiting hours, but when I identified myself as Paul’s sister-just arrived from Kansas City-they told me I could go up to the fifth floor, to the postop ward. Don glared at me, bit back a hot denial, and said he was my husband.

“Very good,” I applauded as we got on the elevator. “She believed it because we’re clearly having a little marital tiff.”

He gave a reluctant smile. “How Morrell puts up with you-tell me about Hoffman’s journals.”

I pulled one of the photocopies from my case. He peered at it while we walked down the hall to Paul’s room. The door was shut; a nurse in the hallway said a doctor had just gone in to look at him, but as I was his sister, she guessed it was all right if we joined them.

When we pushed open the door, we heard Rhea. “Paul, you don’t need to talk to Dr. Herschel if you don’t feel like it. You need to stay calm and work on healing yourself. There will be plenty of time to talk later.”

She had placed herself protectively between his bed and the door, but Lotty had gone around to his right side, threading her way through all the different plastic bags hanging over him. Despite his greying curls, Paul looked like a child, his small frame barely showing under the covers. His rosy cheeks were pale, but he was smiling faintly, pleased to see Rhea. When Don went to stand next to her, his smile faded. Don noticed it, too, and moved slightly apart.

“Paul, I’m Dr. Herschel,” Lotty said, her fingers on his pulse. “I knew the Radbuka family many years ago, in Vienna and in London. I trained as a doctor in London, and I worked for a time for Anna Freud, whose work you so greatly admire.”

He turned his hazel eyes from Rhea to Lotty, a tinge of color coming into his face.

Whatever agitation she’d displayed to Carl and Max, Lotty was perfectly calm now. “I don’t want you to get excited in any way. So if your pulse starts to go too fast, we’re going to stop talking at once. Do you understand that?”

“You should stop talking right now,” Rhea said, not able to keep anger from disturbing her vestal tranquillity. Don, seeing Paul’s attention on Lotty, took Rhea’s hand in a reassuring clasp.

“No,” Paul whispered. “She knows my English savior. She knows my true family. She’ll make my cousin Max remember me. I promise you, I won’t get agitated.”

“I have Ulrich’s journals,” Lotty said. “I will keep them safe for you, until you are able to look after them again. But I’m wondering if you can answer a question for me about them. You wrote a note in them, next to S. Radbuka’s name, that Sofie Radbuka was your mother. I’m wondering how you know that.”

“I remembered it,” he said.

I moved next to Lotty and matched my tone to hers. “When you took Ulrich’s journals to Rhea, she helped you remember that Radbuka was your real name, didn’t she, Paul? There was a long list of names-Czestvo, Vostok, Radbuka, and many others. When she hypnotized you, you remembered that Radbuka was your real name. That must have been a very wonderful but very frightening moment.”

Across the bed from us, Don gasped and moved involuntarily away from Rhea, who said to him, “It wasn’t like that. This is why this conversation must stop now.”

Paul, intent on my question, didn’t hear her. “Yes, yes, it was. I could see-all the dead. All the people Einsatzgruppenführer Hoffman had murdered, falling into the lime pit, screaming-”

Lotty interrupted him. “You have to stay calm, Paul. Don’t dwell on those painful memories right now. You remembered that past, and then out of all that list of names, you chose-you remembered-Radbuka.”

Across the bed, Rhea looked murderous. She tried again to halt the interview, but Paul’s attention was focused on Lotty, not her.

“I knew, because I’d been in England as a small boy. It had to be.”

“Had to be?” Lotty asked.

He was very sensitive to people’s emotions; when he heard the unexpected harshness in her voice he flinched and looked away. Before he could get too upset I changed the subject.

“What led you to know Ulrich was an Einsatzgruppenführer?”

“He listed the dead in each family or shtetl that he was responsible for murdering,” he whispered. “Ulrich… always bragged about the dead. The way he bragged about torturing me. I survived all that killing. My mother threw me into the woods when she saw them starting to push people with their bayonets into the lime pit. Some person took me to Terezin, but of course… I didn’t know then… that was where we were going. Ulrich must have known… one person got away from him. He… found me in England… brought me here… to torture me over and over… for the crime of surviving.”

“You were very brave,” I said. “You stood up to him, you survived. He’s dead. Did you know about those books of his before he died?”

“They were… locked up… in his desk. Living room. He… beat me… when I looked… in those drawers… when I was small… When he died… I took… and kept… in my special place.”

“And someone came today to get those books?”

“Ilse.” He said, “Ilse Wölfin. I knew. She… came… to the door. First she was friendly. Learned from Mengele. Friends first… then torture. She said… she was from Vienna. Said Ulrich took these books to America… shouldn’t have… after the war. I didn’t understand at first… then… I tried to get… to my secret place… hide from her… pulled out her gun first.”

“What did she look like?” I asked, ignoring an impatient aside from Lotty to stop.

“Fierce. Big hat. Sunglasses. Horrible smile.”

“When he was selling insurance, here in Chicago, did Ulrich talk to you about these books?” I asked, trying to figure out a way to ask if he’d been at the Midway Agency lately, wondering if he’d been stalking Howard Fepple.

“The dead give us life, Ulrich used to say. Remember that… you will be rich. He wanted me… be… doctor… wanted me… make money from the dead… I didn’t want… to live among… dead. I didn’t want to stay in… closet… Tortured me… called me sissy, queer, always in German, always… in language of… slavery.” Tears started to seep down his face; his breath began coming in labored spurts.

Lotty said, “You need to rest, you need to sleep. We want you to recover. I’m going to leave you now, but before I go, who did you talk to in England? What helped you remember your name was Radbuka?”

His eyes were shut, his face drawn and grey. “His tally of the dead he’d killed himself… bragged in his books… listed their names. Searched each name… on the Internet… Found one… in England… Sofie… Radbuka… how I knew… which name mine… and that I was sent to Anna Freud in England… after the war… Had to be.”

Lotty kept her hand on his pulse while he fell asleep. The rest of us watched dumbly while Lotty checked the IV drips coming into his arms. When she left the room, Rhea and I followed. Hot spots of color burned in Rhea’s face; she tried to confront Lotty in the hall, but Lotty swept past her to the nurse’s station, where she asked for the charge nurse. She began an interrogation about the drugs Paul was getting.

Don had come out of Paul’s room more slowly than the rest of us. He started a low-voiced conversation with Rhea, his face troubled. Lotty finished with the charge nurse and sailed on down the hall to the elevator. I ran after her, but she looked at me sternly.

“You should have saved your questions, Victoria. There were specific things I was trying to learn, but your questions sidetracked him and finally got him too upset. I wanted to know how he latched on to Anna Freud as his savior, for instance.”