Boys from Brazil (16 page)

The snow had stopped, the sun shone. Massachusetts swung past—dazzlingly white hills and houses.

Mengele's obsession with twins. Every account of that subhuman scum mentioned it: the autopsies on slaughtered twins to find genetic reasons for their slight differences, the attempts to work changes on living twins…

Now listen, Liebermann, you're going a little bit overboard. More than two months ago you saw Erich Döring. For less than five minutes. So now you see a boy who's the same type—with a strong resemblance, granted—and in your head you're doing a little mixing and matching, and presto: identical twins, and Mengele at Auschwitz. The whole thing is that two men out of seventeen
happened
to have sons who look alike. So what's so astounding?

But what if it's more than two? What if it's three?

You see. Overboard. Why not imagine quadruplets while you're at it?

The widow in Trittau had given Klaus the eye, and offered him more. In her sixties? Maybe. But probably younger. Forty-one? Forty-two?

In Worcester he asked his hostess, a Mrs. Labowitz, if he could make an overseas call. “I'll pay you back, of course.”

“Mr. Liebermann, please! You're a guest in our home; it's
your telephone!
”

He didn't argue. The place was a mansion practically.

It was five-fifteen. Eleven-fifteen in Europe.

The operator reported no answer at Klaus's number. Liebermann asked her to try again in half an hour, hung up; thought for a moment, and got her back. Turning the pages of his address book, he gave her Gabriel Piwowar's number in Stockholm and Abe Goldschmidt's in Odense.

A call came for him just as he was sitting down to dinner with four Labowitzes and five guests. He apologized and took it in the library.

Goldschmidt. They spoke in German.

“What is it? More men for me to check?”

“No, it's the same two. Did they have sons about thirteen years old?”

“The one in Bramminge did. Horve. Okking in Copenhagen had two daughters in their thirties.”

“How old is Horve's widow?”

“Young. I was surprised. Let me see. A little bit younger than Natalie. Forty-two, say.”

“Did you see the boy?”

“He was at school. Should I have spoken to
him?
”

“No, I just wanted to know what he looks like.”

“A boy, skinny. She had his picture on the piano, playing a violin. I said something, and she said it was old, when he was nine. Now he's nearly fourteen.”

“Dark hair, blue eyes, sharp nose?”

“How can I remember? Dark hair, yes. The eyes I wouldn't know anyway; it wasn't colored. A skinny boy playing a violin, with dark hair. I thought you were satisfied.”

“So did I. Thank you, Abe. Good-by.”

He hung up; the phone rang in his hand.

Piwowar. They spoke in Yiddish.

“The two men you checked, did they have sons nearly fourteen years old?”

“Anders Runsten did. Not Persson.”

“Did you see him?”

“Runsten's son? He drew my picture while I waited for his mother. I kidded him about taking him into my shop.”

“What does he look like?”

“Pale, thin, dark-haired, a sharp nose.”

“Blue eyes?”

“Yes.”

“And the mother is in her early forties?”

“I told you?”

“No.”

“So how do you know?”

“I can't talk now. People are waiting for me. Good-by, Gabriel. Be well.”

The phone rang again; the operator reported that there was still no answer at Klaus's number. Liebermann told her he would place the call later.

He went into the dining room, feeling light-headed and hollow, as if his working parts were somewhere else (in Auschwitz?) and only his clothes and skin and hair there in Worcester sitting down with those whole all-there people.

He asked and answered the usual questions, told the usual stories; ate enough not to distress Dolly Labowitz.

They drove to the temple in two cars. He gave the lecture, answered the questions, signed the books.

When they got back to the house he put the call in to Klaus. “It's five
A.M.
there,” the operator reminded him.

“I know,” he said.

Klaus came on, groggy and confused. “What? Yes? Good evening! Where are you?”

“In Massachusetts in America. How old was the widow in Trittau?”

“What?”

“
How old was the widow in Trittau?
Frau Schreiber.”

“My God! I don't know, it was hard to tell; she had a lot of make-up on. Much younger than
he
was, though. Late thirties or early forties.”

“With a son almost fourteen?”

“Around that age. Unfriendly to me, but you can't blame him; she sent him off to her sister's so we could ‘talk in private.'”

“Describe him.”

A moment passed. “Thin, about as high as my chin, blue eyes, dark-brown hair, a sharp nose. Pale. What's going on?”

Liebermann fingered the phone's square push buttons. Round ones would look better, he thought. Square didn't make sense.

“Herr Liebermann?”

“It's not wild geese,” he said. “I found the link.”

“My God! What
is
it?”

He took a breath, let it blow out. “They have the same son.”

“The same what?”

“
Son!
The
same son!
The exact same boy! I saw him here and in Gladbeck; you saw him there. And he's in Göteborg, Sweden; and Bramminge, Denmark! The exact same boy! He plays a musical instrument, or else he draws. And his mother is always forty-one, forty-two. Five different mothers, five different sons; but the son is the same, in different places.”

“I…don't understand.”

“Neither do I! The link was supposed to give us the reason, yes? And instead it's crazier than what we started out with! Five boys exactly the same!”

“Herr Liebermann—I think it may be six. Frau Rausenberger in Freiburg is forty-one or -two. With a young son. I didn't see him or ask his age—I didn't imagine it was in any way relevant—but she said maybe
he
would go to Heidelberg too; not to study law, to study writing.”

“Six,” Liebermann said.

Silence stretched between them; stretched longer.

“Ninety-four?”

“Six is already impossible,” Liebermann said, “so why not? But even if it
were
possible, and it isn't, why would they be killing the fathers? I honestly think I'll go to sleep tonight and wake up in Vienna the night this all started. Do you know what Mengele's main interest was at Auschwitz?
Twins
. He killed thousands of them, ‘studying,' to learn how to breed perfect Aryans. Would you do me a favor?”

“Of course!”

“Go to Freiburg again and get a look at the boy there; see if he's the same as the one in Trittau. Then tell me whether I'm crazy or not.”

“I'll go today. Where can I reach you?”

“I'll call
you
. Good night, Klaus.”

“Good morning. But good night.”

Liebermann put the phone down.

“Mr. Liebermann?” Dolly Labowitz smiled at him from the doorway. “Would you like to watch the news with us? And have a little nosh? Some cake or fruit?”

 

Hannah's breasts were dry and Dena was crying, so naturally Hannah was upset. That was understandable. But was it any reason for changing Dena's name? Hannah insisted on it. “Don't argue with me,” she said. “From now on we're calling her Frieda. It's the perfect name for a baby, and then I'll have milk again.”

“It doesn't make
sense
, Hannah,” he said patiently, trudging along beside her through the snow. “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”

“Her name is Frieda,” Hannah said. “We're changing it legally.” The snow opened in a deep canyon before her and she slid down into it, Dena wailing in her arms. Oh God! He looked at the snow, unbroken now, and lay on his back in darkness, in a bed in a room. Worcester. Labowitz. Six boys. Dena grown up, Hannah dead.

What a dream. Where had he pulled
that
from? Frieda yet! And Hannah and Dena sliding into that canyon!

He lay still for a minute, blinking away the terrible sight, and then he got up—pale light scalloped the window shades' bottoms—and went into the bathroom.

He hadn't been up once during the night; a really good sleep. Except for that dream.

He went back into the bedroom, brought his watch over to one of the windows, squinted at it. Twenty to seven.

He got back into the warm bed, pulled the blankets up around him, and lay and thought, morning fresh.

Six identical boys—no, six very similar boys, maybe identical—lived in six different places, with six different mothers all the same age, and six different dead-by-violence fathers, all the same age, similar occupations. It wasn't impossible; it was real, a fact. So it had to be dealt with, unraveled, understood.

Lying still and at ease, he let his mind float free. Boys. Mothers. Hannah's breasts. Milk.

The perfect name for a baby…

Dear God, of course. It
had
to be.

He let it all come together…

Part of it, anyway.

It explained the grapefruit juice, and the way she'd rushed him out. The way she'd rushed the boy out too. Quick thinking, pretending his bare feet and no bathrobe were what worried her.

He lay there, hoping the rest of it would come. The main part, the Mengele part. But it didn't.

Still, one step at a time…

He got up and showered and shaved, trimmed his mustache, combed his hair; took his pills, brushed his teeth, put in his bridge. Dressed and packed.

At twenty after seven he went into the kitchen. The maid Frances was there, and Bert Labowitz in shirt-sleeves, eating and reading. After the good-mornings he sat down across the table from Labowitz and said, “I have to go to Boston earlier than I thought. Can I go with you?”

“Sure,” Labowitz said. “I leave at five of.”

“That's perfect. I have to make one phone call. Just to Lenox.”

“I'll bet someone warned you about Dolly, the way she drives.”

“No, something came up.”

“You'll enjoy the ride more with me.”

At a quarter of eight, in the library, he called Mrs. Curry.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, it's Yakov Liebermann again. I hope I didn't wake you.”

Silence. “I was up.”

“How is your son this morning?”

“I don't know, he's still sleeping.”

“That's good. That's the best thing, a lot of sleep. He doesn't know he's adopted, does he. That's why you got nervous when I told him he has a twin.”

Silence.

“Don't get nervous
now
, Mrs. Curry. I won't tell him. As long as you want it a secret, I won't say a word. Just tell me one thing, please. It's very important. Did you get him from a woman named Frieda Maloney?”

Silence.

“You did,
ja?
”

“No! Just a minute.” The thump of the phone being put down, footsteps going away. Silence. Footsteps coming back. Softly: “Hello?”

“Yes?”

“We got him through an agency. In New York. It was a
perfectly legal adoption
.”

“The Rush-Gaddis Agency?”

“Yes!”

“She worked there from 1960 to 1963. Frieda Maloney.”

“I never heard the name before! Why are you butting in this way? What difference does it make if he
does
have a twin?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Then don't bother me again! And don't come near Jack!” The phone clicked. Silence.

Bert Labowitz drove him to Logan Airport and he caught the nine-o'clock shuttle to New York.

At ten-forty he was in the office of the assistant executive director of the Rush-Gaddis Adoption Agency, a lean and handsome gray-haired woman, Mrs. Teague. “None at all,” she told him.

“None?”

“None. She wasn't a caseworker; she wasn't qualified for that. She was a file clerk. Of course, her lawyer, when she was fighting extradition, wanted to present her in the most favorable light, so he implied that she played a more important role here than she actually did; but she was simply a file clerk. We notified the government lawyers—we were very anxious, naturally, to have our association with her put in its true perspective—and our head of personnel was subpoenaed as a witness. She was never called on to testify, though. We considered issuing some sort of statement or press release afterwards, but we decided that at that point it was better simply to let the matter fade away.”

“So she
didn't
find homes for babies.” Liebermann pulled at his ear.

“Not a one,” Mrs. Teague said. She smiled at him. “And you have the shoe on the wrong foot: it's a question of finding babies for homes; the demand far exceeds the supply. Especially since the change in the abortion laws. We're able to help only a small fraction of the people who apply to us.”

“Then too? In 1960 to '63?”

“Then and always, but it's at its worst right now.”

“A lot of applications?”

“Over thirty thousand last year. From every part of the country. Of the continent, in fact.”

“Let me ask you
this
,” Liebermann said. “A couple comes to you, or writes to you, in that period, 1961, '62. Good people, fairly well-off. He's a civil servant, steady job. She's—now let me think a second—
she
…is about twenty-eight or twenty-nine, and he's fifty-two. What chance is there for them to get a baby from you?”

“None whatsoever,” Mrs. Teague said. “We don't place where the husband's that old. Forty-five is our cut-off, and we'll only go
that
high if there are special factors involved. We place mostly with couples in their early thirties—old enough to be stable in their marriage and young enough to assure the child of continuing parental presence. Or the likelihood of it, I should say.”