Up In Honey's Room Part 13

Vera closed her eyes and opened them. "I can't imagine kissing him."

"But if it gets you what you need-be brave, it won't hurt you. Take off your dress and ask if he'll make out a check payable to something German, Dachau? They need funds too, you know, repair the gas chambers, do a little redecorating."

"In what amount?"

"One hundred thousand simoleons. Life will be bliss for at least ten years."

"This is too spur of the moment."

"Vera, take off your undies and get out the invisible ink. The bedroom's dark. He writes in whatever amount the cheap f.u.c.k wants in invisible ink and we write over it what we we want." Bo said, "Listen, why don't you seduce him tonight?" want." Bo said, "Listen, why don't you seduce him tonight?"

"Please-"

"He's here. He goes home, how do you get to Griffin, Georgia? Ask him to stay. You want to talk to him about going into some business, wigs, expensive wigs made of human hair. I see the little Oriental girl crying as they cut off her beautiful hair. Tell Mr. Aubrey I'll drive him to Walter's after, 'after' being whenever you've finished with him. He won't stay the night, knowing Walter would give him the silent treatment, not offering a word, but willing to give his left nut to know what happened. So when you're through f.u.c.king Mr. Aubrey, let me know."

"Please, I don't like you to use that word."

"I love it when you're a prude. You can't say the word but go wild doing it."

Jurgen stood with his drink waiting for Walter to arrive and deliver his statement, his plan, whatever it was, to a gathering of ersatz spies, Vera the only genuine one, a paid-at least at one time-espionage agent of the Abwehr, but never with her heart in it. She'd said to him last night, "There is nothing I can do for your people, it's too late." She said, "To tell you the truth I would have been more comfortable working for the British a few years ago, in 1938, '39, when Germany began taking whatever it wanted. I've had to rationalize like mad to send information to Hamburg, trying to help the cause of your Fuhrer." Vera said, "I've given up. Still, I don't want you to be caught. You're here because Walter can't be responsible for you and work on his plan. That's the reason he gave me."

"It's enough," Jurgen said. "But once I meet your a.s.sociates I can't risk staying. I don't know these people."

She told him about Dr. Michael George Taylor, an obstetrician who saw quite a number of German women in his practice. "He tells them, goes to their ladies' groups and tells them about the tremendous leap forward the n.a.z.is have made in the history of man. He doesn't say what they've done for women, if anything. He loves Germany because he hates Jews. Don't ask him why, he'll recite his speech on the international Jewish conspiracy. I think what he tells anyone who will listen is seditious rather than treasonable, though he did give me information, at least a year ago, about a nitrate plant in Sandusky, where he's from originally, in Ohio. In the late thirties the doctor lectured on Mein Kampf Mein Kampf for ladies' clubs. Imagine the glazed expressions on the faces of the women." Jurgen smiled and Vera said, "Yes, but Dr. Taylor doesn't try to be funny. He's serious, he's afraid, he worries. If he's arrested I'm quite sure he'll give us up." She said, "Did you ever read for ladies' clubs. Imagine the glazed expressions on the faces of the women." Jurgen smiled and Vera said, "Yes, but Dr. Taylor doesn't try to be funny. He's serious, he's afraid, he worries. If he's arrested I'm quite sure he'll give us up." She said, "Did you ever read Mein Kampf Mein Kampf ?" ?"

"I've never felt it necessary."

"Last summer in my backyard the doctor p.i.s.sed on the American flag. No, he set fire to it and then p.i.s.sed on it."

"To extinguish the flame."

"The fire was out," Vera said. "I think he simply had to p.i.s.s."

He liked Vera and liked being with her; she was warm to him. He knew if he stayed she would take him to bed before long. Unless Bohdan was providing the love, the going-to-bed love. At this time he liked Bo and admired his skirt and sweater, like a baby step into pure decadence, if that's what he wanted to do. Jurgen hadn't yet made up his mind about Bo. What all his duties were. What he might be up to. It didn't matter to Jurgen; he wasn't going to wait around to find out.

He wished he could help Vera. Think of something she could do with her life, use her personality in some way, when the war was over. If she didn't go to prison. Bo swore, kissing his Black Madonna holy medal, he had not told the G-men anything they could use against Vera. But Jurgen thought he must, from time to time, tell them things that happened. Good liars spoke in half-truths.

Walter came in with Joe Aubrey, they approached Jurgen and Joe Aubrey gave him a salute that was stiff, military, and told Jurgen meeting him was a special honor, something he couldn't wait to tell his grandkids.

Jurgen said, "Oh, you have grandchildren."

Joe Aubrey said, "My first wife was barren, my second wife frigid, and my third wife's gonna get traded in she don't have a duck in the oven by this time next year."

"You could see a doctor," Jurgen said, "find out it isn't your fault your wife can't conceive."

"All I have to see," Joe Aubrey said, "is a good-lookin' high yella, high-a.s.sed Georgia-Hawaiian in Griffin with a light-skinned boy looking dead-on like yours truly when I was a tad."

Jurgen paused to make sure he understood.

"You're his father."

"Don't say it too loud now."

"You support him?"

"Twenty dollars every month. I told his mama, 'You see he behaves. He's going to that n.i.g.g.e.r college in Atlanta, Morehouse, when he's of age.'"

Joe Aubrey looked off and then turned to watch Bo talking to Dr. Taylor.

"My goodness, will you get a load of Bo-Bo, finally showing he's a girl at heart. Look, he even stands like a girl, one that's kinda lazy."

Now he was walking across the Oriental carpet in the middle of the sitting room to join Bo and Dr. Taylor, Aubrey saying, "Hey, Bo-Bo, you had knockers you wouldn't be a bad-lookin' broad, you know it?"

Now the doctor was telling Aubrey to leave him alone. "Why do you have to be so cra.s.s? Bohdan isn't bothering you, is he?"

Joe Aubrey turns on the doctor, Jurgen thought and watched him do it, Aubrey saying, "What're you, Doc, on the fence? Tired of looking up the old hair pie all day, so what's the alternative? How 'bout a boy dresses like a woman, looks like a woman, acts like one . . . Doc, I know you have a wife name of Rosemary. How's it work, you go either way?"

Dr. Taylor was saying something about his wife Jurgen couldn't hear. He felt someone come up next to him. Vera.

"Why can't he behave himself ?"

"He holds Negroes in disdain," Jurgen said, "but fathers a child by a Negro woman."

"What don't you understand?"

"He called the woman high yellow. If 'yella' means yellow."

"You know what a mulatta is, or a quadroon?"

"Ah, I see."

Vera started to move away and he touched her arm.

"Are you afraid Joe Aubrey will give you up?"

"Joe talks without hearing what he's saying. He could give me up without realizing it. And Dr. Taylor . . . Dr. Taylor the drug addict."

Jurgen listened, but now was distracted. He said, "Let me speak to your guests," and walked across the room to join Vera's spies: Bohdan with the palm of his hand to his mouth; Walter frowning with all his heart. Frowning when he told Jurgen he was being moved to Vera's so Walter could concentrate on what he planned to do for the Fuhrer. Still frowning as he admitted yes, Carl Webster had come to see him and lied, saying Jurgen and Otto had been caught and put back in the prison camp. Why? Why? Jurgen said, "To confuse you. Get you to say no, we're still free." Jurgen could feel Carl coming closer in his cowboy boots, with each stride. He remembered Carl saying, "I like to hear myself walk." Hardly ever saying what Jurgen expected. He missed talking to Carl, missed his company, this federal lawman from Oklahoma who believed Will Rogers was the greatest American who ever lived because there wasn't ever anyone as American as Will Rogers. He was funny and dead-on accurate when he took shots at the government, and he was always a cowboy. Carl said, "You could tell he was the real thing by the hundred-foot reata he carried around, could do tricks with, throwing his loop over whatever you pointed to and never had to untangle it. Jurgen was thinking that if he ever saw Carl Webster again, even if Carl had him handcuffed, he'd ask him how one became a cowboy. Jurgen said, "To confuse you. Get you to say no, we're still free." Jurgen could feel Carl coming closer in his cowboy boots, with each stride. He remembered Carl saying, "I like to hear myself walk." Hardly ever saying what Jurgen expected. He missed talking to Carl, missed his company, this federal lawman from Oklahoma who believed Will Rogers was the greatest American who ever lived because there wasn't ever anyone as American as Will Rogers. He was funny and dead-on accurate when he took shots at the government, and he was always a cowboy. Carl said, "You could tell he was the real thing by the hundred-foot reata he carried around, could do tricks with, throwing his loop over whatever you pointed to and never had to untangle it. Jurgen was thinking that if he ever saw Carl Webster again, even if Carl had him handcuffed, he'd ask him how one became a cowboy.

He heard Joe Aubrey telling the doctor, "The reason you don't talk much 'less it's about Jew boys, you know you sound like a woman. You use words like lovely lovely and and precious precious you never hear men saying. Or you come off creepy having all those drugs in your medicine cabinet." you never hear men saying. Or you come off creepy having all those drugs in your medicine cabinet."

Jurgen reached them.

He said, "Gentlemen, Walter Schoen is ready to give his address. He's going to tell you about all the women he's been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g for the past five years or so and give you their names. Vera will introduce Walter in a moment. Dr. Taylor, have a seat, please. Bohdan, if you'll turn these chairs around . . . And, Mr. Aubrey, come with me, please. I want to see how you make your mint julep."

"With rye? Are you kiddin'," Joe Aubrey said, "and no mint? I swear, Vera's the cheapest rich broad I ever met."

Vera began with a quote from her predecessor a.s.signed to Abwehr's Detroit station, Grace Buchanan-Dineen.

"You will recall that when the Justice Department threatened Grahs with acts of treason, and she allowed them to plant a recording device in her apartment, Grahs said, 'I was technically involved in the spy ring, yes, but I never considered myself morally guilty.'"

The statement made no sense to Vera. If turning in her spy ring wasn't an immoral act, what was? It was a cheap out, getting the woman twelve years instead of a rope around her neck. Still, Vera used the quote. She made herself say to the group seated in her living room, there was no reason for any of us to feel moral guilt, fighting the good fight, working for the cause of National Socialism. But, she said, as the end of the war draws near, our efforts have proved to be, well, insufficient, despite the Fuhrer's inspiration, Vera said, wanting to bite her tongue. Even our brave saboteurs, two months from the time U-boats put them ash.o.r.e, were tried by a military court and convicted. Six of our fellow agents were hanged, the remaining two, the informers, languish in prison. Vera had to pause and think before telling them the indictment against the thirty defendants last year for sedition ended with prison terms. We are told we have a right to free speech, but when we stand up for the truth, say that Communists control the American government, that Franklin Roosevelt, the cripple, gets down to kiss the a.s.s of the midget Josef Stalin, we are imprisoned.

"I recall one of the defendants in that trial," Joe Aubrey said, "invented what he named a 'Kike Killer,' a short round club that came in two sizes, one for ladies."

Maybe she could get him to write the check and not have to kiss him or do anything else.

"This evening," Vera said, "could be our last meeting. There are no recording devices in my house, or any one of us likely to inform on the others, despite the ruthless efforts of the Justice Department. Let's refill our gla.s.ses, toast our future"-looking at Walter now-"and hear what our Detroit version of Heinrich Himmler is so anxious to tell us. Walter?"

They had turned off Woodward and were creeping along Boston Boulevard, the street divided by a tree-lined median and big, comfortable homes on both sides.

Honey said, "I can't read the house numbers."

"The one with two cars parked in front," Carl said. "The Ford belongs to Walter," the cars shining in the streetlight, "and a Buick."

"That's all?" Honey said. "What about the one we're coming to?" Another Ford, three houses from Vera's on the same side of the street.

"That's FBI surveillance."

"How do you know?" "It's where you'd park to watch the house." They crept past the car, Honey sitting taller to have a look at the black four-door sedan. "There's no one in it." "I'll bet you five bucks the house is under surveillance." "Okay, turn around, and we'll go back." Now she was telling him what to do. At the Paradiso, the restau rant, she kept telling him what to order, like the collards. In charge now since he'd chickened out. Would not jump on her when she showed him her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Jesus, using them like a buck lure, and they'd gone out to eat instead of falling in bed. She didn't act p.i.s.sy or disappointed, she was making fun of him by giving him orders. Carl turned at the next opening in the median and started back toward the house. Now she told him, "Park behind Walter's car."

"What're we doing?" "I thought we'd drop in on the meeting." Carl pulled to the curb and stopped. "You believe they'll invite us in?" "Don't you want to see Jurgen?" "When they tell me I can pick him up." "What if he's gone by then?" She said, "You know what? I'll say my ex-husband asked me to stop by and I brought a friend. We'd never met any spies before." Carl said, "You're having fun, aren't you?" "Or, I'll go in and you can wait here." "How about this," Carl said. "You get out of the car you're on your own." Honey got out and stood holding the door open. She said, "I'll tell you about it tomorrow." Closed the door and waved her fingers at him in the window.

E ighte e n [image]urgen was seated with Vera on the sofa, more than half the living room from where Walter was standing in the opening to the dining room, a row of candles on the polished table lighting him from behind. He had placed a few newspaper and magazine pages on the table and now was ready to begin.

"All of you know of the enigma that shrouds the birth of Heinrich Himmler and myself." He paused.

Vera groaned. She said, "Please, G.o.d, shut him up."

"I think he memorized his opening," Jurgen said, "and forgot what comes next."

"Their date of birth," Vera said.

"I was delivered into the world," Walter said, "the seventh day of October in the year 1900."

"On the same day," Vera said.

"On the same day," Walter said, "as Heinrich Himmler, the future Reichfuhrer Reichfuhrer of the SS." of the SS."

"In the same hospital," Vera said, her eyes closed.

"But not in the same place," Walter said.

Jurgen turned his head to Vera. She was again watching Walter, saying, "What's he doing?"

"Heinrich was born at home," Walter said. "Two Hildegardstra.s.se in an upstairs flat. I also was born at home. However I was taken to hospital with my mother the same day where we were both cared for. My mother had suffered complications giving birth to me."

Vera turned to Jurgen. "He wasn't born in the hospital."

"I have never lied to you," Walter said. "I believed I was born in that hospital and came to believe Heinrich was also, as my twin, because so many people said to me from the time I was a lad, 'Aren't you Heini Himmler? Did you not move to Landshut?' Or, someone says to me, 'I saw you this morning in Landshut.' It's north of Munich fifty miles. 'What are you doing here? Isn't your father headmaster at the school?' Now I'm living here, and by the thirties I see photos of Heinrich in German newspapers. Heinrich reviewing SS troops with the Fuhrer. I look at the pictures of him and I think, my G.o.d, Heinrich and I are identical. I began to consider other similarities. Both of us born in Munich on the same day. Could we look so much alike and not be twins, born of the same mother? Why were we separated, kept apart? I began to believe Heini and I were put on this earth with destinies to fulfill."

"Not unlike the Virgin Mary," Vera said.

"In April 1939 I was asked by several of my Detroit friends, did I see myself on the cover of Time , Time , the magazine. I was already reading about this rising star of the n.a.z.i Party who must be my twin. Now he was gaining international attention. Heini was dedicated, conscientious. So was I." the magazine. I was already reading about this rising star of the n.a.z.i Party who must be my twin. Now he was gaining international attention. Heini was dedicated, conscientious. So was I."

"Dedicated to what," Vera said, "cutting meat?"

"He suffers from an upset stomach," Walter said. "At times so do I."

"Gas," Vera said. "Quiet, but telling."

"At one time he was a devout Catholic," Walter said. "So was I. He believed that allowing oneself to be s.e.xually aroused by women, who by their nature could not control themselves, was to be avoided before marriage. So did I."

Jurgen said, "I can't see Heinrich with a woman."

As Walter was saying, "Heini's wife, seven years his senior, gave him a child, a daughter. I'm told he first noticed Marga-who referred to the Fuhrer's exterminator as 'my naughty darling'- because of her beautiful blond hair. The woman I married was much younger than I and, unfortunately, quite immature. Honig also had blond hair. My one regret is that she did not provide me with a son before she walked out of my house." Walter paused. "I saw Honig the other night, the first time in five and a half years." He said, "She looked the same as I remembered her. Perhaps her hair was more blond." He stopped and stared into the room at his audience: Jurgen and Vera, Bohdan and Dr. Taylor, Joe Aubrey in an armchair by himself. Walter continued, saying, "Heini believed in unconditional devotion to duty. So do I." He paused and was thoughtful as he said, "Why did I believe for so long we were identical in every way, one of us an imprint of the other?"

"Because you wanted to believe it," Jurgen said.

"Because I wanted to believe I have a destiny as meaningful as Heini's, who has set out to eliminate a race of people from the world by means of Sonderbehandlung, Sonderbehandlung, a special treatment, murder in the gas chamber. First in Europe, then comes here and turns his a special treatment, murder in the gas chamber. First in Europe, then comes here and turns his Einsatzgruppen Einsatzgruppen on America, his death squads. They say, now that Heini is head of the SS and the Gestapo, Reich Minister of the Interior, Reich Minister of Home Defense, head of military intelligence, Germany's chief of police, he must follow the Fuhrer as the next master of the Third Reich. But think about it. Would the Fuhrer in his wisdom choose the most hated man in the world to succeed him? A man so detested he would be rejected even by the n.a.z.i Party? Heini has said people may hate us, but we don't ask for their love, only that they fear us. He tells his SS, we must discuss the plan for extermination, but never speak of it in public. He said they can look at a thousand corpses in one place, mounds of dead bodies the result of their work, and know they remain good fellows. Heini is responsible for the murder of Jews, Romas, priests, h.o.m.os.e.xuals, Communists, ordinary people, in numbers estimated to exceed, easily, ten million." on America, his death squads. They say, now that Heini is head of the SS and the Gestapo, Reich Minister of the Interior, Reich Minister of Home Defense, head of military intelligence, Germany's chief of police, he must follow the Fuhrer as the next master of the Third Reich. But think about it. Would the Fuhrer in his wisdom choose the most hated man in the world to succeed him? A man so detested he would be rejected even by the n.a.z.i Party? Heini has said people may hate us, but we don't ask for their love, only that they fear us. He tells his SS, we must discuss the plan for extermination, but never speak of it in public. He said they can look at a thousand corpses in one place, mounds of dead bodies the result of their work, and know they remain good fellows. Heini is responsible for the murder of Jews, Romas, priests, h.o.m.os.e.xuals, Communists, ordinary people, in numbers estimated to exceed, easily, ten million."

Vera and Jurgen watched him, not saying a word.

"I cannot," Walter said, "compare my destiny to Heini's. I have in mind the extermination of only one man."

He turned to the dining table and began looking through pages from magazines and sheets of notepaper.

"Himmler," Vera said.

"You're joking."

"Walter is Himmler's ghost double, his doppelganger. When someone's doppelganger appears it means the someone he looks like is going to die. It happened with my husband, Fadey. The day I learned he went down with his ship, Bo was trying on one of Fadey's suits, very loose on him. He put on Fadey's hat the way Fadey wore it and was impersonating him, the gruff way he spoke."

"And Fadey walked in."

"Not this time. Fadey never saw Bo mimic him, but I think Bo was still his doppelganger."

Jurgen nodded toward the dining room and Vera turned her head to see Walter in his black suit and pince-nez ready to continue.

"I have photographs and my notes here, and a map you can look at later if you want. What I intend to do is a.s.sa.s.sinate the president of the United States-"

"Frank D. Rosenfeld," Joe Aubrey said and started laughing, putting it on. He said, "Walter, how you gonna do it, sneak in the White House?"

"The Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia," Walter said. "I have learned Roosevelt has been there since March thirtieth, resting, restoring his energy. I was counting on him remaining in Warm Springs through the twentieth of this month, Adolf Hitler's birthday, but I'm going to move the date of the a.s.sa.s.sination to the thirteenth. Once I'm successful, the name Walter Schoen will have a place in American history to rival that of John Wilkes Booth."