Ira Levin - Boys from Brazil

He looked at Farnbach’s wife. “Shut up,” he said. He looked around. “Does anyone have a pair of tweezers?”

In the banquet manager’s office he picked slivers of glass out of the back of Farnbach’s head with tweezers and a magnifying glass, while Rudi held a lamp close beside. “Just a few more,” he said, dropping the largest sliver into an ashtray.

Farnbach, sitting bent over, said nothing.

Mengele dabbed the cuts with disinfectant and taped a gauze square over them. “I’m very sorry,” he said.

Farnbach stood up, straightened his damp jacket. “And when,” he asked, “do we find out why we were sent?”

Mengele looked at him for a moment and said, “I thought you stopped asking questions.”

Farnbach turned on his heel and went out.

Mengele gave the tweezers to Rudi and sent him out too. “Find Tin-tin,” he said. “We’ll be leaving soon. Send him ahead to warn Erico. And close the door.”

He put things back in the first-aid kit, sat down at the slovenly desk, took his glasses off, palmed his forehead dry. He got out his cigarette case; lit a cigarette and drew on it, dropped the match on the slivers of glass. He put his glasses back on and got out his address book.

He called Seibert’s private number. A Brazilian maid with the giggles told him that the senhor and senhora were out, she didn’t know where.

He tried headquarters, expecting no answer; got none.

Ostreicher’s son Siegfried gave him another number, where Ostreicher himself answered the phone.

“This is Mengele. I’m in Florianópolis. I just saw Farnbach.”

Silence, and then: “ Damn it. The colonel was going to tell you in the morning; he’s been putting it off. He’s very unhappy about it. He fought like hell.”

“I can imagine,” Mengele said. “What happened?”

“It’s that son of a bitch Liebermann. He saw Frieda Maloney sometime last week.”

“He’s in America!” Mengele cried.

“Not unless they moved it to Düsseldorf. She must have told him the whole story of her end of things. Her lawyer asked some of our friends there how come we were black-marketing babies in the 1960’s. He convinced them it was true, and they asked us . Rudel flew in last Sunday, there was a three-hour meeting—Seibert very much wanted you to be there; Rudel and some of the others didn’t—and that was it. The men came in on Tuesday and Wednesday.”

Mengele pushed his glasses up and groaned, holding his eyes. “ Why couldn’t they simply have killed Liebermann? ” he asked. “Are they lunatics, or Jews themselves, or what? Mundt would have leaped at the chance. He wanted to do it on his own, at the very beginning. He, alone, is smarter than all your colonels put together.”

“Would you like to hear their reasoning?”

“Go ahead. If I vomit while you’re speaking, please excuse me.”

“Seventeen of the men are dead. This means, according to your figures , that we can be sure of one or even two successes. And maybe one or two more among the others, since some of the men will die naturally at sixty-five. Liebermann still doesn’t know everything, because Maloney doesn’t. But she may have remembered names , and if she did, his next logical step is to try to trap Hessen.”

“Then just bring him in! Why all six?”

“That’s what Seibert said.”

“And?”

“This is where you’ll vomit. The whole thing has become too risky. That’s Rudel. It’s going to end up putting the Organization in the limelight, and so would Liebermann’s murder. Better to settle for the one or two successes or even more—which are enough, aren’t they?—and close everything down. Let Liebermann spend the rest of his life Hessen-hunting.”

“But he won’t . He’ll catch on eventually and concentrate on the boys.”

“Maybe and maybe not.”

“The truth is,” Mengele said, taking his glasses off, “they’re a bunch of tired old men who’ve lost their balls. They want only to die of old age in their villas by the sea. If their grandchildren become the last Aryans in a world of human shit, they couldn’t care less. I would line them up in front of a firing squad.”

“Come on now, they helped bring us this far.”

“What if my figures were wrong? What if the chance isn’t one out of ten but one out of twenty? Or thirty? Or ninety-four? Where are we then?”

“Look, if it were up to me I would kill Liebermann regardless of the consequences and go on with the others. I’m on your side. Seibert is too. I know you don’t believe it, but he put up one hell of a battle. It would have been settled in five minutes if not for him.”

“That’s very comforting,” Mengele said. “I have to go now. Good night.” He hung up.

He sat with his elbows on the desk, his chin on the thumbs of his finger-locked hands, his lips kissing his inmost knuckle. So it always is, he thought, when one depends on others. Was there ever a man of vision, of genius (yes, genius , damn it!), who was well served by the Rudels and Seiberts of this world?

Outside the closed door of the office, Rudi waited, and Hans Stroop and his lieutenants; and the banquet manager and general manager of the hotel; and, at a discreet distance, Miss Nazi, not listening to the young man in uniform talking to her.

When Mengele came out, Stroop went to him with open arms and an ingratiating smile. “That poor fellow’s gone off into the night,” he said. “Come, we’re holding the main course for you.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Mengele said. “I have to go.” He took Rudi by the arm and hurried toward the exit.

Klaus called and said he knew everything: how ninety-four boys could be as alike as twins and why Mengele would want their adoptive fathers killed on specific dates.

Liebermann, who had been up the night before with rheumatic aches and diarrhea, was spending the day in bed, and the first thing that struck him was the nice symmetry of it: a question put to him by one young man, by telephone while he was in bed, would be answered for him by another young man, by telephone while he was in bed. He was certain Klaus would be right. “Go ahead,” he said, gathering the pillows up behind him.

“Herr Liebermann”—Klaus sounded uncomfortable—“it’s not the sort of thing I can rattle off over the phone; it’s complicated, and I really don’t understand it thoroughly myself. I’ve only had it at second hand, from Lena, this girl I live with. It was her idea, and she spoke about it to a professor of hers. He’s the one who really knows. Could you come up here and I’ll arrange a meeting? I promise you it has to be the explanation.”

“I’m leaving for Washington on Tuesday morning.”

“Then fly up tomorrow. Or better yet, come Monday, stay over, and go on from here Tuesday. You must be going through Frankfurt anyway, yes? I’ll pick you up at the airport there and bring you back again. We can meet with the professor Monday night. You’ll stay here with Lena and me; you get the bed, we get the sleeping bags.”

Liebermann said, “Give me at least the gist of it now.”

“No. Really, it has to be explained by someone who knows what he’s talking about. Is this why you’re going to Washington?”

“Yes.”

“Then you certainly want as much information as possible, don’t you? I promise you, you won’t be wasting your time.”

“All right, I trust you. I’ll let you know what time I’ll be getting in. You’d better check with this professor and make sure he’s free.”

“I will, but I’m sure he will be. Lena says he’s anxious to meet you and help. So is she. She’s Swedish, so she has a vested interest. Because of the one in Göteborg.”