Ira Levin: Boys from Brazil

“Away,” Mengele said, softly and warily. His eye moved from the Doberman before him to the Doberman at his underjaw, the Doberman at his cheek. “Off. No more gun. No gun. Away. Off. Good dogs.”

The blue-black Dobermans snarled, not moving.

“Nice dogs,” Mengele said. “Samson? Good Samson. Off. Go away.” He turned his head slowly against the settee arm; the Dobermans withdrew their heads a little, snarling. Mengele made a shaky smile at them. “Major?” he asked. “Are you Major? Good Major, good Samson. Good dogs. Friend. No more gun.” His hand, red-wristed, caught the front of the settee arm; his other hand held the frame of the settee’s back. He began turning himself up slowly from his side. “Good dogs. Off. Away.”

The Doberman in the middle of the room lay motionless, its black ribs still. The urine puddle around it had fragmented into a scatter of small puddles glinting on wide floorboards.

“Good dogs, nice dogs…”

Lying on his back, Mengele began pulling himself up slowly into the corner of the settee. The Dobermans snarled but stayed where they were, finding new paw-holds as he moved himself higher, away from their teeth. “Away,” he said. “I’m your friend . Do I hurt you now? No, no, I like you.”

Liebermann closed his eyes, breathed shallowly. He was sitting in blood that leaked down behind him.

“Good Samson, good Major. Beppo? Zarko? Good dogs. Away. Away.”

Dena and Gary were having some kind of trouble between them. He had kept his mouth shut when he was there in November, but maybe he shouldn’t have; maybe he—

“Are you alive, Jew-bastard?”

He opened his eyes.

Mengele sat looking at him, erect in the corner of the settee, one leg up, one foot on the floor. Holding the settee’s arm and back; scornful, in command. Except for the three Dobermans leaning at him, softly snarling.

“Too bad,” Mengele said. “But you won’t be for long. I can see it from here. You’re gray as ashes. These dogs will lose interest in me if I sit calmly and talk nicely to them. They’ll want to go pee or get a drink of water.” To the Dobermans he said in English, “Water? Drink? Don’t you want water? Good dogs. Go get a drink of water.”

The Dobermans snarled, not moving.

“Sons of bitches,” Mengele said pleasantly in German. And to Liebermann: “So you’ve accomplished nothing, Jew-bastard, except to die slowly instead of quickly, and to scratch my wrist a little. In fifteen minutes I’ll walk out of here. Every man on the list will die at his time. The Fourth Reich is coming: not just a German Reich but a pan-Aryan one. I’ll live to see it, and to stand beside its leaders. Can you imagine the awe they’ll inspire? The mystical authority they’ll wield? The trembling of the Russians and Chinese? Not to mention the Jews.” The phone rang.

Liebermann tried to move from the wall—to crawl if he could to the wire hanging down from the table by the doorway—but the pain in his hip spiked him and held him, impossible to move against. He settled back into the stickiness of his blood. Closed his eyes, gasping.

“Good. Die a minute sooner. And think while you die of your grandchildren going into ovens.”

The phone kept ringing.

Greenspan and Stern, maybe. Calling to see what was happening, why he hadn’t called. Getting no answer, wouldn’t they worry and come, get directions in the town? If only the Dobermans would hold Mengele…

He opened his eyes.

Mengele sat smiling at the Dobermans—a relaxed, steady, friendly smile. They weren’t snarling now.

He let his eyes close.

Tried not to think of ovens and armies, of heiling masses. Wondered if Max and Lili and Esther would manage to keep the Center going. Contributions might come in. Memorials.

Barking, snarling. He opened his eyes.

“No, no!” Mengele said, sitting back down on the settee, clutching the arm and back of it while the Dobermans pushed and snarled at him. “No, no! Good dogs! Good dogs! No, no, I’m not going! No, no. See how still I sit? Good dogs. Good dogs.”

Liebermann smiled, closed his eyes.

Good dogs.

Greenspan? Stern? Come on…

“Jew-bastard?”

The handkerchief would stick to the wound by itself, so he kept his eyes closed, not breathing—let him think —and then he got his right hand up and gave the middle finger.

Faraway barking. The dogs out in back.

He opened his eyes.

Mengele glared at him. The same hatred that had come at him over the telephone that night so long ago.

“Whatever happens,” Mengele said, “I win. Wheelock was the eighteenth one to die. Eighteen of them have lost their fathers when he lost his, and at least one of the eighteen will grow to manhood as he grew, become who he became. You won’t leave this room alive to stop him. I may not leave it either, but you won’t; I swear it.”

Footsteps on the porch.

The Dobermans snarled, leaning at Mengele.

Liebermann and Mengele stared across the room at each other.

The front door opened.

Closed.

They looked at the doorway.

A weight dropped in the hallway. Metal clinked.

Footsteps.

The boy came and stood in the doorway—gaunt and sharp-nosed, dark-haired, a wide red stripe across the chest of his blue zipper jacket.

He looked at Liebermann.

Looked at Mengele and the Dobermans.

Looked at the dead Doberman.

Looked back and forth, deep blue eyes wide.

Pushed his dark forelock aside with a blue plastic mitten.

“Sh eee sh!” he said.

“ Mein —dear boy,” Mengele said, looking adoringly at him, “my dear, dear, dear, dear boy, you can not possibly imagine how happy I am, how joyous I am, to see you standing there so fine and strong and handsome! Will you call off these dogs? These most loyal and admirable dogs? They’ve kept me motionless here for hours , under the mistaken impression that I , not that vicious Jew over there, am the one who came here to do you harm. Will you call them off, please? I’ll explain everything.” He smiled lovingly, sitting among the snarling Dobermans.

The boy stared at him, and turned his head slowly toward Liebermann.

Liebermann shook his head.

“Don’t be deceived by him,” Mengele warned. “He’s a criminal, a killer, a terrible man who came here to hurt you and your family. Call off these dogs, Bobby. You see, I know your name. I know all about you—that you visited Cape Cod last summer, that you have a movie camera, that you have two pretty girl cousins named…I’m an old friend of your parents. In fact I’m the doctor who delivered you, just back from abroad! Dr. Breitenbach. Have they mentioned me? I left long ago.”

The boy looked uncertainly at him. “Where’s my father?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Mengele said. “I suspect, since that person had a gun that I succeeded in taking away from him—and the dogs saw us fighting and reached their wrong conclusion—I suspect that he may have”—he nodded gravely—“done away with your father. I came to call, having just come back from abroad, as I said, and he let me in, pretending to be a friend. When he drew his gun I was able to overpower him and get it, but then he opened that door and let the dogs out. Call them off and we’ll look for your father. Perhaps he’s only tied up. Poor Henry! Let’s hope for the best. It’s a good thing your mother wasn’t here. Does she still teach school in Lancaster?”

The boy looked at the dead Doberman.

Liebermann wagged his finger, trying to catch the boy’s eye.

The boy looked at Mengele. “Ketchup,” he said; the Dobermans turned and came jumping and hurrying to him. They ranked themselves two at one side of him, one at the other. His mittens touched their blue-black heads.