Elmore Leonard: Up in Honey's Room

“I must confess to you,” Walter said, “for weeks now, every Sunday I spend the entire Mass staring at your golden hair.” Walter serious, nodding his head, and she wanted to say, “My hair?” But now he was telling her you don’t see blond hair so much, “Naturally blond hair except in Nordic countries and of course Germany.” Honey touched the pillbox sitting on top of her head, still there covering her blond hair’s dark roots, Walter telling her, “I knew a family by the name of Diehl in Munich.”

“D–I–E–H–L?” Honey said. “That’s how my granddaddy spelled our name, but the Immigration people on Ellis Island changed it to D - E - A - L and we’re stuck with it.”

“That’s too bad,” Walter said. “But it remains German because you are. I was a lad of fourteen when my father brought us here on the eve of the Great War. He opened a meat market and made me learn the business.” He turned to Woodward Avenue and looked south toward downtown Detroit, four miles in the distance. “The market I still have is only a few blocks from here.”

“So you’re a butcher,” Honey said. He sure didn’t look like one. She thought he was cute in kind of a mysterious foreign way, like a professor with his accent and little round glasses. “How much is your ground beef?”

“We have a special on chuck this week, three pounds for a dollar. While I still operate the market,” Walter said, “I am looking to buy a meatpacking plant in the vicinity of the Eastern Market, where farmers bring their goods to sell.” He told Honey his mother and father were both buried in Holy Sepulchre and his older sister was an IHM nun, Sister Ludmilla, who taught fourth grade at Blessed Sacrament, the school on Belmont behind the cathedral.

“She is my only relative now in America,” Walter said, and began asking about Honey’s family, the Deals. “Your ancestors are all German?”

“Oh, yes, definitely,” Honey said, leaving out her dad’s grandmother from somewhere in Hungary, the woman a Gypsy who had stored money away and left her dad enough to buy a coal mine and go broke. Honey said, you bet, her people were all of pure German stock, because it was what Walter wanted to hear, and because it didn’t matter to Honey if Walter was a butcher. So was her brother Darcy, in prison. She liked Walter’s air of mystery, a lot different from how the good ole boys in Harlan County acted. Detroit had a lot of hotdog southern boys, too, working in plants. If Walter was fourteen on the eve of the Great War, he would have been thirty-eight the day they met.

He said when his father brought the family here, only months before the beginning of the World War, he was furious. In only three years he would have been a grenadier in the German Army.

Honey said, “You were anxious to fight Americans?”

“I didn’t think of who was the enemy, I wanted to serve the Fatherland.”

“You wanted to wear a uniform,” Honey said, “with a spike on top the helmet. But you might’ve been one of the twenty million killed or wounded in that war.”

He paused but kept looking at her. “How do you know that?”

“I read,” Honey said. “I read Life and all kinds of magazines. I read novels, some of ’em about war like Over the Top by Arthur Guy Empey, and my dad told me what it was like over there. He was gassed on the Western Front when it wasn’t all quiet. My dad talked funny, real hoarse. He was funny anyway.” She said after a moment, “The shaft he was working flooded and my dad drowned.”

Walter said, “Did you know another twenty million died the year following the war?”

“From the Spanish flu,” Honey said. “It took both my sisters and my baby brother. My older brother’s still home. He’s worked mines, but prefers other pursuits.” She didn’t mention Darcy was in prison.

“So there are good ways to die,” Walter said, “and far less desirable ways. Die as a hero or suffocate in a hospital bed.”

Honey looked past him toward the cathedral, cleared of churchgoers now. Walter asked if he could drive her home. Honey said she lived only a few blocks north, in Highland Park, and liked to walk. She could tell he wanted to keep talking to her, saying what an advantage it was to be born in the year 1900.

“You know exactly how old you were when important historical events took place. I know I was twenty-three when Adolf Hitler first came into prominence. You say you read, you must know about the famous Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. I was twenty-five when Mein Kampf was published and I read it, a little later, from cover to cover.”

Honey said, “Did you like it?”

It stopped him. “Did I like it...?”

“All these important historical events you remember happened in Germany?”

“I was thirty-two when Roosevelt was first elected your president.”

“Isn’t he your president too?”

Honey believed she could have fun with Walter. She liked to argue, especially with people who were serious about weird ideas they swore were true. Like the ones who read Social Justice, written by a priest she’d heard on the radio, Father Charles Coughlin, with a voice like syrup, but talked about a conspiracy of Jews being international bankers or atheistic Communists, either way out to get us.

“Yes, unfortunately he is the president,” Walter said, sounding like he was about to start in on Roosevelt, Honey’s choice in the ’36 election to beat that boring Republican Alf Landon. She looked at her watch.

“I’m sorry, Walter, but I have to scoot. I’m going downtown to the show with a friend of mine.” Her favorite place to get into discussions was in a bar over a rye and ginger and smoking cigarettes, not standing in front of a church.

Walter said, “Wait, please,” putting his hand on her bare arm. “I have to ask you, is there someone who comes to mind you think I resemble?”

Like the guy was reading her mind.

“The way you look at me,” Walter said, “I wonder if you’re trying to remember his name.”

“I was, as a matter of fact,” Honey said. “He’s a high-up Nazi officer, I think one of the main guys under Hitler. I saw a picture of him in Life magazine during the past couple of weeks.”

Walter said, “Yes...?”

“In his uniform and boots, all-black. Wearing glasses just like yours pinched on his nose. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a pair this close. Do they hurt?”

“Certainly not,” Walter said.

“He was inspecting a bunch of guys lined up standing at attention, wearing what looked like swimming trunks.”

Walter nodded, starting to put on a smile. He must’ve seen the picture she was talking about.

“The guys are sucking in their stomachs,” Honey said, “trying to look like they’re in shape.”

“They are in top shape, the peak of fitness.” Walter’s voice cold now. “Do you know his name or not?”

Yes, she knew it, but couldn’t come up with the name, Walter staring at her, very serious about this. She thought, Heinrich-

And said, “Himmler.”

Walter’s expression eased.

“If I may agree with you, yes,” Walter said, “he is the one to whom I hold a striking resemblance, Heinrich Himmler, Reichs-führer, the highest rank in the SS.”

He did, he looked an awful lot like Himmler, the wispy mustache, the same straight nose and the tiny glasses pinched to the bridge. Honey said, “Walter, I swear you look enough like Himmler to be his twin brother.”

“You flatter me,” Walter said.

He seemed to smile-no, something was going on in his head. Honey watched his eyes shift away and come back to linger on her, his voice hushed to keep what he said between them.