Ira Levin - Boys from Brazil

The two shook hands enthusiastically, and the captain, laughing, embraced Farnbach and clapped him on the back; then jammed his hat back on and grasped Farnbach’s shoulders with both hands and grinned at him. “What joy to see one of the old faces again!” he exclaimed. “I’m liable to cry, God damn it!”

“But…how can this be?” Farnbach asked, thoroughly confused now. “I’m…astounded!”

The captain laughed. “You can be Busch,” he said; “why can’t I be Löfquist? My God, I’ve got an accent! Listen to me; I’m really a fucking Swede now!”

“And you are a detective?”

“That I am.”

“Christ, you threw a scare into me, sir.”

The captain nodded regretfully, patting Farnbach’s shoulder. “Yes, we still worry that the ax might fall, eh, Farnstein? Even after all these years. That’s why I keep an eye out for foreigners. I still dream once in a while that I’m hauled up on trial!”

“I can’t believe it’s you!” Farnbach said, not yet composed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so surprised!”

They walked on up the path.

“I never forget a face, I never forget a name.” The captain laid an arm over Farnbach’s shoulders. “I spotted you standing by your car, at the gas station on Krondikesvägen. ‘That’s Corporal Farnstein in that elegant coat,’ I said; ‘I’ll bet a hundred kronor.’”

“It’s Farn bach , sir, not ‘stein.’”

“Oh? Well, ‘stein’ is close enough, isn’t it, after thirty years? With all the men I commanded? Of course, I had to be absolutely certain before I could speak. It was your voice that clinched it; it hasn’t changed at all. And drop the ‘sir,’ will you? Though I have to admit it’s nice hearing it again.”

“How in the world did you wind up here?” Farnbach asked. “And a detective, of all things!”

“It’s no great story,” the captain said, taking his arm from Farnbach’s shoulders. “I had a sister who was married to a Swede, on a farm down in Skåne. After I was captured I escaped from the internment camp and got over by ship—Lübeck to Trelleborg; that was the sailing I mentioned—and hid out with them. He wasn’t too keen on it. Lars Löfquist. A real s.o.b.; he mistreated poor Eri something awful. After a year or so he and I had a big row and I accidentally finished him. Well, I simply buried him good and deep and took his place! We were the same type physically, so his papers suited me, and Eri was glad to be rid of him. When someone who knew him came by I bandaged my face and she told them a lamp had exploded and I couldn’t talk too much. After a couple of months we sold the farm and came up north here. To Sundsvall first, where we worked in a cannery, which was awful; and three years later, here to Storlien, where there were openings on the force and jobs for Eri in shops. And that’s it. I liked police work, and what better way to get wind if anyone was looking for me? That roaring you hear is the fall; it’s just around the bend. Now what about you, Farnstein? Farn bach! How did you become Herr Busch the affluent salesman? That coat must have cost you more than I make in a year!”

“I’m not ‘Herr Busch,’” Farnbach said sourly. “I’m ‘Senhor Paz’ of Pôrto Alegre, Brazil. Busch is a cover. I’m up here on a job for the Comrades Organization, and a damned crazy job it is too.”

Now it was the captain’s turn to stop and stare, astonished. “You mean…it’s real? The Organization exists? It’s not just…newspaper stories?”

“It’s real, all right,” Farnbach said. “They helped me get settled there, found me a good job…”

“And they’re here now? In Sweden?”

“ I’m here now; they’re still down there, working with Dr. Mengele to ‘fulfill the Aryan destiny.’ At least that’s what they tell me.”

“But…this is marvelous, Farnstein! My God, it’s the most exciting news I’ve—We aren’t done! We won’t be beaten! What’s going on? Can you tell me? Would it violate orders to tell an SS officer?”

“ Fuck orders, I’m sick of orders,” Farnbach said. He looked for a moment at the startled captain, then said, “I’m here in Storlien to kill a schoolteacher. An old man who’s not our enemy and who can’t possibly affect the course of history by so much as a hair. But killing him, and a lot of others, is a ‘holy operation’ that’s going to bring us back to power somehow. So says Dr. Mengele.” He turned and strode away up the path.

The captain, confused, watched him go, then hurried angrily after him. “Damn it, what’s the idea?” he demanded. “If you can’t tell me, say so! Don’t give me—Was it all shit? That’s a lousy trick to pull on me, Farn BACH! ”

Farnbach, breathing hard through his nostrils, came out onto a small balcony of jutting rock, and grasping its iron railing with both hands, gazed bitterly at a broad sheet of shining water that sheared down torrentially at his left. He followed the gleaming water-sheet down and down into its thundering foaming basin, and spat at it.

The captain yanked him around. “That’s a lousy trick to pull,” he cried, close and loud against the fall’s thunder. “I really believed you!”

“It wasn’t a trick,” Farnbach insisted. “It’s the truth, every word of it! I killed a man in Göteborg two weeks ago—a teacher too, Anders Runsten. Did you ever hear of him? Neither did I. Neither did anyone. A complete nonentity, retired, sixty-five. A beer-bottle collector, for God’s sake! Bragged to me about his eight hundred and thirty beer bottles! I…shot him in the head and emptied his wallet.”

“Göteborg,” the captain said. “Yes, I remember the report!”

Farnbach turned to the railing, held it, and stared at rock wall across the thundering twilit chasm. “And Saturday, I’m to do another one,” he said. “It’s senseless! Insane! How could it possibly…accomplish anything?”

“There’s a definite date?”

“Everything is extremely precise!”

The captain stepped close to Farnbach’s side. “And your orders were given to you by a ranking officer?”

“By Mengele, with the Organization’s endorsement. Colonel Seibert shook our hands the morning we left Brazil.”

“It’s not only you?”

“There are other men, in other countries.”

Grasping Farnbach’s arm, the captain said angrily, “Then don’t let me hear you say again ‘Fuck orders’! You’re a corporal who’s been assigned a duty , and if your superiors have chosen not to tell you the reason for it, then they have a reason for that too. Good Christ, you’re an SS man; behave like one! ‘My Honor Is Loyalty.’ Those words were supposed to be engraved on your soul!”

Turning, facing the captain, Farnbach said, “The war is over , sir.”

“No!” the captain cried. “Not if the Organization is real and working! Don’t you think your colonel knows what he’s doing? My God, man, if there’s a chance in a hundred of the Reich being restored, how can you not do everything in your power to help make it happen? Think of it, Farnbach! The Reich restored! We could go home again! As heroes! To a Germany of order and discipline in this fucked-up undisciplined world!”

“But how can the killing of harmless old men—”

“Who is this teacher? I’ll bet he’s not as harmless as you think! Who is he? Lundberg? Olafsson? Who?”

“Lundberg.”

The captain was silent for a moment. “Well, I’ll admit he seems harmless,” he said, “but how do we know what he’s really up to, eh? And how do we know what your colonel knows? And the doctor! Come on, man; stiffen your spine and do your duty! ‘An order is an order.’”