does, I guess, or at least they’re not telling. But an Israeli agent spotted you in Cuba,
working as the concierge in a big hotel just before Castro took over. They lost you
when the rebels came into Havana. You popped up in West Berlin in 1965. They almost
got you.’ He pronounced the last two words as one: gotcha. At the same time he
squeezed all of his fingers together into one large, wriggling fist. Dussander’s eyes
dropped to those well-made and well-nourished American hands, hands that were made
for building soapbox racers and Aurora models. Todd had done both. In fact, the year
before, he and his dad had built a model of the Titanic. It had taken almost four months, and Todd’s father kept it in his office.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ Dussander said.
Without his false teeth, his words had a mushy sound Todd didn’t like. It didn’t
sound … well, authentic. Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes sounded more like a Nazi
than Dussander did. But in his time he must have been a real whiz. In an article on
the death-camps in Men’s Action, the writer had called him The Blood-Fiend of Patin.
‘Get out of here, boy. Before I call the police.’
‘Gee, I guess you better call them, Mr Dussander. Or Heir Dussander, if you like that
better.’ He continued to smile, showing perfect teeth that had been fluoridated since the
beginning of his life and bathed thrice a day in Crest toothpaste for almost as long. ‘After
1965, no one saw you again … until I did, two months ago, on the downtown bus.’ ‘You’re
insane.’
‘So if you want to call the police,’ Todd said, smiling, ‘you go right ahead. I’ll wait on
the stoop. But if you don’t want to call them right away, why don’t I come in? We’ll talk.’
There was a long moment while the old man looked at the smiling boy. Birds twitted
in the trees. On the next block a power mower was running, and far off, on busier streets,
horns honked out their own rhythm of life and commerce.
In spite of everything, Todd felt the onset of doubt He couldn’t be wrong, could he?
Was there some mistake on his part? He didn’t think so, but this was no schoolroom
exercise. It was real life. So he felt a surge of relief (mild relief, he assured himself later) when Dussander said: ‘You may come in for a moment, if you like. But only because I do
not wish to make trouble for you, you understand?’
‘Sure, Mr Dussander,’ Todd said. He opened the screen and came into the hall.
Dussander closed the door behind them, shutting off the morning.
The house smelted stale and slightly malty. It smelted the way Todd’s own house
smelted sometimes the morning after his folks had thrown a party and before his mother
had had a chance to air it out. But this smell was worse. It was lived-in and ground-in. It
was liquor, fried food, sweat, old clothes, and some stinky medicinal smell like Vicks or
Mentholatum. It was dark in the hallway, and Dussander was standing too close, his head
hunched into the collar of his robe like the head of a vulture waiting for some hurt animal
to give up the ghost. In that instant, despite the stubble and the loosely hanging flesh,
Todd could see the man who had stood inside the black SS uniform more clearly than he
had ever seen him on the street. And he felt a sudden lancet of fear slide into his belly.
Mild fear, he amended later.
‘I should tell you “that if anything happens to me -‘ he began, and then Dussander
shuffled past him and into the living room, his slippers wish-wishing on the floor. He
flapped a contemptuous hand at Todd, and Todd felt a flush of hot blood mount into his
throat and cheeks.
Todd followed him, his smile wavering for the first time. He had not pictured it
happening quite like this. But it would work out. Things would come into focus. Of
course they would. Things always did. He began to smile again as he stepped into the
living room.
It was another disappointment – and how! – but one he supposed he should have been
prepared for. There was of course no oil portrait of Hitler with his forelock dangling and
eyes that followed you. No medals in cases, no ceremonial sword mounted on the wall,
no Luger or PPK Walther on the mantle (there was, in fact, no mantle). Of course, Todd
told himself, the guy would have to be crazy to put any of those things out where people
could see them. Still, it was hard to put everything you saw in the movies or on TV out of
your head. It looked like the living room of any old man living alone on a slightly frayed
pension. The fake fireplace was faced with fake bricks. A Westclox hung over it. There
was a black and white Motorola TV on a stand; the tips of the rabbit ears had been
wrapped in aluminium foil to improve reception. The floor was covered with a grey rug;
its nap was balding. The magazine rack by the sofa held copies of National Geographic,
Reader’s Digest, and the LA Times. Instead of Hitler or a ceremonial sword hung on the wall, there was a framed certificate of citizenship and a picture of a woman in a funny
hat. Dussander later told him that sort of hat was called a cloche, and they had been
popular in the twenties and thirties.
‘My wife,’ Dussander said sentimentally. ‘She died in 1955 of a lung disease. At that
time I was a draughtsman at the Menschler Motor Works in Essen. I was heartbroken.’
Todd continued to smile. He crossed the room as if to get a better look at the woman
in the picture. Instead of looking at the picture, he fingered the shade on a small table-
lamp.
‘Stop that? Dussander barked harshly. Todd jumped back a little.
That was good,’ he said sincerely. ‘Really commanding. It was Use Koch who had the
lampshades made out of human skin, wasn’t it? And she was the one who had the trick
with the little glass tubes.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Dussander said. There was a package of
Kools, the kind with no filter, on top of the TV. He offered them to Todd. ‘Cigarette?’ he
asked, and grinned. His grin was hideous.
‘No. They give you lung cancer. My dad used to smoke, but he gave it up. He went to
SmokeEnders.’
‘Did he?’ Dussander produced a wooden match from the pocket of his robe and
scratched it indifferently on the plastic case of the Motorola. Puffing, he said: ‘Can you
give me one reason why I shouldn’t call the police and tell them of the monstrous
accusations you’ve just made? One reason? Speak quickly, boy. The telephone is just
down the hall. Your father would spank you, I think. You would sit for dinner on a
cushion for a week or so, eh?’
‘My parents don’t believe in spanking. Corporal punishment causes more problems
than it cures.’ Todd’s eyes suddenly gleamed. ‘Did you spank any of them? The women?
Did you take off their clothes and -‘
With a muffled exclamation, Dussander started for the phone.
Todd said coldly: ‘You better not do that.’
Dussander turned. In measured tones that were spoiled only slightly by the fact that his
false teeth were not in, he said: ‘I tell you this once, boy, and once only. My name is
Arthur Denker. It has never been anything else; it has not even been Americanized. I was
in fact named Arthur by my father, who greatly admired the stories of Arthur Conan
Doyle, It has never been Doo-Zander, nor Himmler, nor Father Christmas. I was a reserve
lieutenant in the war. I never joined the Nazi party. In the battle of Berlin I fought for
three years. I will admit that in the late thirties, when I was first married, I supported
Hitler. He ended the depression and returned some of the pride we had lost in the
aftermath of the sickening and unfair Treaty of Versailles. I suppose I supported him
mostly because I got a job and there was tobacco again, and I didn’t need to hunt through
the gutters when I needed to smoke. I thought, in the late thirties, that he was a great man.
In his own way, perhaps he was. But at the end he was mad, directing phantom armies at
the whim of an astrologer. He even gave Blondi, his dog, a death-capsule. The act of a
madman; by the end they were all madmen, singing the Horst Wessel Song as they fed
poison to their children. On 2 May 1945, my regiment gave up to the Americans. I