Boys from Brazil (17 page)

“So where would a couple like that
get
a baby?”

“Not from Rush-Gaddis. There
are
agencies a bit more flexible. And of course there's the gray market. Their lawyer or doctor might know of a pregnant teen-ager who doesn't want to abort. Or who can be paid not to.”

“But if they came to
you
, you turned them down.”

“Yes. We've never placed with anyone over forty-five. There are thousands of more suitable couples, waiting and praying.”

“And the applications that were turned down,” Liebermann said, “they were filed maybe by Frieda Maloney?”

“By her or one of the other clerks,” Mrs. Teague said. “We keep all applications and correspondence for three years. It was five then, but now we've cut it down; we're short of space.”

“Thank you.” Liebermann stood up with his briefcase. “You helped me very much. I'm grateful to you.”

At a telephone mini-booth across the street from the Guggenheim Museum, with his suitcase and briefcase on the sidewalk beside him, he called Mr. Goldwasser at the lecture bureau.

“I have some very bad news. I have to go to Germany.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“You can't! You're at Boston University tonight! Where are you?”

“In New York. And tonight I have to be on a plane.”

“You
can't
be! You accepted the booking! They've sold the tickets! And tomorrow—”

“I know, I know! You think I enjoy canceling out like this? You think I don't know it's a headache for you, and for them, and you could even sue me? It's—”

“Nobody's talking about—”

“It's life or death, Mr. Goldwasser. Life or death. Maybe even more.”

“God
damn
it. When will you be back?”

“I don't know. I may have to stay there awhile. And then go someplace else.”

“You mean
you're canceling the whole rest of the tour?
”

“Believe me, if I didn't have to—”

“This has only happened to me once in eighteen years, and then it was a singer, not a responsible person like you! Look, Yakov, I admire you and I wish you well; I'm speaking not just as your representative now but as a fellow human, a fellow Jew. I ask you to think very carefully: if you cancel a whole tour this way, on a moment's notice—how can we possibly go on representing you? No one will represent you. No group will contract for you. You're finishing yourself as a speaker in the United States of America. I
beg
you,
please think
.”

“I thought while you was talking,” he said. “I have to go. I wish I didn't.”

He took a taxi out to Kennedy Airport and exchanged his return ticket to Vienna for one to Düsseldorf via Frankfurt: the earliest flight out, leaving at six o'clock.

He bought a copy of Farago's book on Bormann and spent the afternoon sitting by a window reading.

AN INDICTMENT CHARGING

Frieda Altschul Maloney and eight other persons with mass murder at the Ravensbrück concentration camp was expected to be handed down at any moment; so when, on Friday, January 17th, Yakov Liebermann presented himself at the offices of Frau Maloney's attorneys, Zweibel & Fassler of Düsseldorf, he wasn't accorded a warm or even room-temperature welcome. But Joachim Fassler was lawyer enough to know that Liebermann hadn't come there to gloat or kill time; there was something he wanted, and therefore something he would offer or could be asked for in exchange. So, after switching on his recorder, Fassler received Liebermann in his office.

He was right. The Jew wanted to meet with Frieda and question her about certain matters in no way related to her wartime activities and having no bearing whatsoever on the approaching trial—American matters involving the period from 1960 to 1963. What American matters? Adoptions that she or someone else had arranged on the basis of information she had got from the files of the Rush-Gaddis Agency.

“I know of no such adoptions,” Fassler said.

Liebermann said, “Frau Maloney does.”

If she saw him and answered his questions fully and candidly, he would tell Fassler about some of the testimony that was going to be presented against her by witnesses he had located.

“Which ones?”

“Not their names, only some of their testimony.”

“Come now, Herr Liebermann, you know I'm not going to buy that kind of pig in a poke.”

“The price is cheap enough, isn't it? An hour or so of her time? She can't be very busy, sitting in her cell.”

“She may not want to talk about these alleged adoptions.”

“Why not ask her? There are three witnesses whose testimony I know about. You can either hear it cold in the courtroom or have a preview tomorrow.”

“I'm truly and honestly not that concerned.”

“Then I guess we can't do business.”

It took four days to work it all out. Frau Maloney would speak to Liebermann for half an hour about the matters that interested him, provided that A) Fassler was present; B) no fourth party was present; C) nothing was written down; and D) Liebermann permitted Fassler to search him for a recording device immediately prior to the interview. In return Liebermann would tell Fassler all he knew about the probable testimony of the three witnesses and give each one's age, sex, occupation, and present mental and physical condition, with particular regard to any scars, deformities, or disabilities resulting from experiences at Ravensbrück. The testimony and description of one witness would be supplied prior to the interview; those of the other two subsequent to it. Agreed and agreed.

On Wednesday morning, the 22nd, Liebermann and Fassler drove together in Fassler's silver-gray sports car to the federal prison in Düsseldorf where Frieda Maloney had been confined since her extradition from the United States in 1973. Fassler, a stout and well-groomed man in his mid-fifties, was almost as pink-cheeked as usual but—when they identified themselves and signed in—hadn't yet regained his customary swaggering assurance. Liebermann had told him about the most damaging witness first, hoping that the fear of worse to come would make him, and through him Frieda Maloney, anxious not to give short weight in the interview.

A guard took them up in an elevator and led them along a carpeted corridor where a few guards and matrons sat silently on benches between walnut doors marked with chrome letters. The guard opened a door marked
G
and showed Fassler and Liebermann into a square beige-walled room with a round conference table and several chairs. Two mesh-curtained windows gave daylight through adjacent walls, one window barred and the other not, which struck Liebermann as odd.

The guard switched on an overhead light, making scarcely a difference in the already light room. He withdrew, closing the door.

They put their hats and briefcases on the shelf of a corner coatrack, and took their coats off and hung them on hangers. Liebermann stood with his arms outstretched and Fassler searched him, looking pugnacious and determined. He felt the pockets of Liebermann's hanging coat and asked him to open his briefcase. Liebermann sighed but unstrapped it and opened it; showed papers and the Farago book, closed and restrapped it.

He satisfied himself about the windows—the unbarred one gave on a high-walled yard far below; the barred one had black rooftop close beneath—and then he sat down at the table with his back toward the unbarred window; but immediately got up again so he wouldn't have to rise or not rise when Frieda Maloney came in.

Fassler opened the barred window a bit and stood looking out through it, holding aside the beige mesh curtain.

Liebermann folded his arms and looked at a carafe and paper-wrapped glasses on a tray on the table.

He had reported Frieda Altschul's record and whereabouts to the German and American authorities in 1967. The record had been in the Center's files, distilled from conversations and correspondence with dozens of Ravensbrück survivors (the three soon-to-be witnesses among them); the whereabouts had been given him by two more survivors, sisters, who had spotted their former guard at a New York racetrack and followed her to her home. He himself had never met the woman. He didn't look forward to sitting at the same table with her. Aside from everything else, his middle sister Ida had died at Ravensbrück; it was entirely possible that Frieda Altschul Maloney had had a hand in her death.

He put Ida from his mind; put everything from it except the Rush-Gaddis Agency, and six or more boys who looked alike. A former file clerk at Rush-Gaddis is coming in, he told himself. We'll sit at this table and talk awhile, and maybe I'll find out what the hell is going on.

Fassler turned from the window, pushed his cuff back, frowned at his watch.

The door opened and Frieda Maloney came in, in a light-blue uniform dress, her hands in her pockets. A matron smiled over her shoulder and said, “Good morning, Herr Fassler.”

“Good morning,” Fassler said, going forward. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks,” the matron said. She gave her smile to Liebermann, and covered it with closing door.

Fassler held Frieda Maloney's shoulder, kissed her cheek, and backed her into the corner, speaking softly. She was gone behind his bigness.

Liebermann cleared his throat and sat down, drew the chair in to the table.

He had seen what photographs had shown: an ordinary-looking middle-aged woman. On the small side, graying hair combed up at the sides, curls on top. Gray-white unhealthy skin, a wide jaw, a disappointed mouth. Eyes that were tired but resolute, a lighter blue than the prison dress. She might have been an overworked chambermaid or waitress. Some day, he thought, I would like to meet a monster who
looks
like a monster.

He held the table's thick wood edge and tried to hear what Fassler was saying.

They were coming to the table.

He looked at Frieda Maloney, and she—as Fassler drew back the chair opposite—looked at him, the blue eyes measuring, the thin-lipped mouth down-drawn. She nodded, sitting.

He nodded back.

She flicked a thanking smile toward Fassler, and with her elbows on the chair arms, tapped with the flats of her fingers at the table edge, one hand's fingers and then the other's, fairly quickly; then stopped and let them rest there, looking at them.

Liebermann looked at them too.

“It's now exactly”—Fassler, seated at Liebermann's right, studied the watch on his raised wrist—“twenty-five of twelve.” He looked at Liebermann.

Liebermann looked at Frieda Maloney.

She looked at him. Her thin eyebrows arched.

He found he couldn't speak. No breath was in him; only hatred. His heart pounded.

Frieda Maloney sucked at her lower lip, glanced toward Fassler, looked at Liebermann again; said, “I don't mind talking about the baby business. I made a lot of people very happy. It's nothing I'm ashamed of.” She had a soft South German accent; easier to listen to than Fassler's Düsseldorf rasping. “And as far as the Comrades Organization is concerned,” she said contemptuously, “they're no comrades of mine any more. If they were, I wouldn't be here, would I? I'd be down in
Sowze Amayrica
”—her eyes widened—“living zee good life.” She put a hand above her head and snapped her fingers, swaying her torso in mock-Latin rhythm.

“The best thing, I think,” Fassler said to her, “would be for you to tell everything as you told it to me.” He looked at Liebermann. “And then you can ask whatever questions you want. As time allows. You agree?”

Breath came back. “Yes,” Liebermann said. “Provided time
does
allow for questions.”

“You aren't really going to count minutes, are you?” Frieda Maloney asked Fassler.

“I certainly am,” he said. “An agreement is an agreement.” And to Liebermann, “There'll be enough time, don't worry.” He looked at Frieda Maloney and nodded.

She folded her hands on the table, looked at Liebermann. “A man from the Organization got in touch with me,” she said. “In 1960, in the spring. An uncle of mine in Argentina told them about me. He's dead now. They wanted me to get a job with an adoption agency. Alois—the man, that is—had a list of three or four of them. Any one would be all right as long as it was a job where I could look at the files. ‘Alois' was the only name he ever gave me, no last name. Over seventy, white-haired; an old-soldier-type with very straight posture.” Her eyes questioned Liebermann.

He gave no response, and she sat back in her chair and examined her fingernails. “I went to all the places,” she said. “There were no openings. But after the summer Rush-Gaddis called me in, and they hired me. As a file clerk.” She smiled musingly. “My husband thought I was crazy, taking a job in Manhattan. I was working then at a high school only eleven blocks from home. I told him that they promised me at Rush-Gaddis that in a—”

“Just the essentials, yes?” Fassler said.

Frieda Maloney frowned, nodded. “So. Rush-Gaddis.” She looked at Liebermann. “What I did there was go through the mail and the files looking for applications where the husband was born between 1908 and 1912 and the wife between 1931 and 1935. The husband had to have a job in the civil service, and both of them had to be white Christians with a Nordic background. This was what Alois told me. Whenever I found one, and that was only once or twice a month, I copied it on the machine there along with all the letters between the couple and Rush-Gaddis. These were only people who hadn't been
given
babies, of course. Two sets I made, one for Alois and one for me. The ones for him I mailed to a box-number he gave me.”

“Where?” Liebermann asked.

“Right there in Manhattan. The Planetarium Station, on the West Side. I kept doing that, looking for the right kind of applications and mailing them, the whole time I was there. After a year or so it got even harder to find them, because I'd been through the files by then and only had the new applications to look at. The civil-service part was changed then; as long as the job was
like
civil service it was all right. Something where the man was with a big organization and had some authority; an insurance company claim adjuster, for instance. So I had to go through the files
again
. Altogether I must have mailed off forty or forty-five applications in the three years. Copies of applications.”

She leaned forward and took one of the paper-wrapped glasses from the tray, turned it in her hands. “Between…oh, Christmas 1960 and the end of summer 1963, which is when it ended and I left, this is what would happen. Alois or another man, Willi, would call me. Usually Willi. He'd say, ‘See if…“the Smiths” in California want one in March.' Or whatever month, usually two months away. ‘Ask “the Browns” in New Jersey too.' Maybe he'd give me three names.” She looked at Liebermann, explained: “People whose applications I mailed before.”

He nodded.

“So. I would call the Smiths and the Browns.” She picked the wrapper-top out of the mouth of the glass. “A former neighbor of theirs told me they wanted a baby, I would say. Were they still interested? Almost always they were.” She looked challengingly at Liebermann. “Not just interested. Overjoyed. The women especially.” She gathered the wrapper into her hand, pushing the glass out bit by bit. “I told them I could get them one, a healthy white infant a few weeks old, in March or whenever. With New York State adoption papers. But first they had to send me as soon as possible complete medical reports—I gave them Alois's box-number—and they'd also have to agree never to tell the child it was adopted. The mother insisted on that, I said. And of course they'd have to pay me something when they came and got the baby,
if
they got it. A thousand usually, sometimes more if they could afford it. I could tell from the application. Enough so it would seem like an ordinary black-market arrangement.”

She put the crushed wrapper on the tray and lifted the stopper from the carafe. “A few weeks later I'd get another call. ‘Smith is no good. Brown can have it on March fifteenth.' Or maybe—” She tipped the carafe over the glass, tipped it farther; nothing came out. “Typical,” she said, turning the black carafe upside down. “Typical of the way this whole damn place is run! Wrapped glasses but no water in the damn bottle! God!” She slammed the carafe down onto the tray; wrapped glasses jumped.

Fassler stood up. “I'll get some,” he said, taking the carafe. “You go on.” He went away toward the door.

Frieda Maloney said to Liebermann, “I could tell you things about the gross ineptness here…God! So. Yes. He tells me who gets the baby and when. Or maybe both couples are good, so he tells me to call the second and tell them it's too late for this one but I know another girl who's expecting in June.” She rolled the glass between her palms, her lips pursed. “On the night a baby was given,” she said, “everything was worked out very carefully in advance. By Alois or Willi and me, and by me and the couple. I would be in a room at the Howard Johnson Motel at the airport, Kennedy now—it was Idlewild then—using the name Elizabeth Gregory. The baby was brought to me, by a young couple or a woman alone or sometimes a stewardess. Some of them brought more than one—at different times, I mean—but usually it was someone new each time. They brought the papers too. Exactly like real ones, with the couple's names filled in. An hour or two later the couple would come and get the baby. Joyously. Grateful to me.” She looked at Liebermann. “Nice people who would be good parents. They would pay me, and promise—I made them swear on the Bible there—never to tell the boy he was adopted. They were always boys. Darlings. And they would take them and go.”