The two of them were eating Big Macs that Todd had brought in his bike basket, pedalling fast so they wouldn’t get cold. Todd was sipping a Coke through a plastic straw. Dussander had a glass of bourbon.
His old man’s voice rose and fell, papery, hesitant, sometimes nearly inaudible. His faded blue eyes, threaded with the usual snaps of red, were never still. An observer might have thought them grandfather and grandson, the latter perhaps attending some rite of passage, a handing down.
‘And that’s all I remember,’ Dussander finished presently, and took a large bite of his sandwich. McDonald’s Secret Sauce dribbled down his chin.
‘You can do better than that,’ Todd said softly.
Dussander took a large swallow from his glass. “The uniforms were made of paper,’ he said finally, almost snarling. ‘When one inmate died, the uniform was passed on if it could still be worn. Sometimes one paper uniform could . dress as many as forty inmates. I received high marks for my frugality.’
‘From Glucks?’
‘From Himmler.’
‘But there was a clothing factory in Patin. You told me that just last week. Why didn’t you have the uniforms made there? The inmates themselves could have made them.’
“The job of the factory in Patin was to make uniforms for German soldiers. And as for us…’ Dussander’s voice faltered for a moment, and then he forced himself to go on. ‘We were not in the business of rehabilitation,’ he finished.
Todd smiled his broad smile.
‘Enough for today? Please? My throat is sore.’
‘You shouldn’t smoke so much, then,’ Todd said, continuing to smile. ‘Tell me some more about the uniforms.’
‘Which? Inmate or SS?’ Dussander’s voice was resigned.
Smiling, Todd said: ‘Both.’
3
September, 1974.
Todd was in the kitchen of his house, making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You got to the kitchen by going up half a dozen redwood steps to a raised area that gleamed with chrome and Formica. His mother’s electric typewriter had been going steadily ever since Todd had gotten home from school. She was typing a master’s thesis for a grad student. The grad student had short hair, wore thick glasses, and looked like a creature from outer space, in Todd’s humble opinion. The thesis was on the effect of fruitflies in the Salinas Valley after World War II, or some good shit like that. Now her typewriter stopped and she came out of her office.
Todd-baby,’ she greeted him.
‘Monica-baby,’ he hailed back, amiably enough.
His mother wasn’t a bad-looking chick for thirty-six, Todd thought; blonde hair that was streaked ash in a couple of places, tall, shapely, now dressed in dark red shorts and a sheer blouse of a warm whiskey colour — the blouse was casually knotted below her breasts, putting her flat, unlined midriff on show. A typewriter eraser was tucked into her hair, which had been pinned carelessly back with a turquoise clip.
‘So how’s school?’ she asked him, coming up the steps into the kitchen. She brushed his lips casually with hers and then slid onto one of the stools in front of the breakfast counter.
‘School’s cool.’
‘Going to be on the honour roll again?’
‘Sure.’ Actually, he thought his grades might slip a notch this first quarter. He had been spending a lot of time with Dussander, and when he wasn’t actually with the old Kraut, he was thinking about the things Dussander had told him. Once or twice he had dreamed about the things Dussander had told him. But it was nothing he couldn’t handle.
‘Apt pupil,’ she said, ruffling his shaggy blond hair. ‘How’s that sandwich?’
‘Good,’ he said.
‘Would you make me one and bring it into my office?”
‘Can’t,’ he said, getting up. ‘I promised Mr Denker I’d come over and read to him for an hour or so.’
‘Are you still on Robinson Crusoe?’
‘Nope.’ He showed her the spine of a thick book he had bought in a junk shop for twenty cents. ‘Tom Jones.’
‘Ye gods and little fishes! It’ll take you the whole school-year to get through that, Todd-baby. Couldn’t you at least find an abridged edition, like with Crusoe?’
‘Probably, but he wanted to hear all of this one. He said so.’