quite fat The man who had purported to be Todd’s grandfather had been whip-thin.
Before leaving, Ed told him: ‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention any of this to
Mr or Mrs Bowden. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it… and
even if there isn’t, it’s all in the past.’
‘Sometimes,’ Bowden said, holding his glass of wine up to the sun and admiring its
rich dark colour, ‘the past don’t rest so easy. Why else do people study history?’
Ed smiled uneasily and said nothing.
‘But don’t you worry. I never meddle in Richard’s affairs. And Todd is a good boy.
Salutatorian of his class … he must be a good boy. Am I right?’
‘As rain,’ Ed French said heartily, and then asked for another glass of wine.
23
Dussander’s sleep was uneasy; he lay in a trench of bad dreams.
They were breaking down the fence. Thousands, perhaps millions of them. They ran
out of the Jungle and threw themselves against the electrified barbed wire and now it was
beginning to lean ominously inward. Some of the strands had given way and now coiled
uneasily on the packed earth of the parade ground, squirting blue sparks. And still there
was no end to them, no end. The Fuehrer was as mad as Rommel had claimed If he
thought now –jf he had ever thought -there could be a final solution to this problem.
There were billions of them; they filled the universe; and they were all qfter him.
‘Old man. Wake up, old man. Dussander. Wake up, old man, wake up.’
At first he thought this was the voice of the dream.
Spoken in German; it had to be part of the dream. That was why the voice was so
terrifying, of course. If he awoke he would escape it, so he swam upwards …
The man was sitting by his bed on a chair that had been turned around backwards ~ a
real man. ‘Wake up, old man,’ this visitor was saying. He was young — no more than
thirty. His eyes were dark and studious behind plain steel-framed glasses. His brown hair
was longish, collar-length, and for a confused moment Dussander thought it was the boy
in a disguise. But this was not the boy, wearing a rather old-fashioned blue suit much too
hot for the California climate. There was a small silver pin on one lapel of the suit.
Silver, the metal you used to kill vampires and werewolves. It was a Jewish star.
‘Are you speaking to me?’ Dussander asked in German.
‘Who else? Your roommate is gone.’
‘Heisel? Yes. He went home yesterday.’
‘Are you awake now?’
‘Of course. But you’ve apparently mistaken me for someone else. My name is Arthur
Denker. Perhaps you have the wrong room.’
‘My name is Weiskopf. And yours is Kurt Dussander.’
Dussander wanted to lick his lips but didn’t Just possibly this was still all part of the
dream – a new phase, no more. Bring me a wino and a steak-knife, Mr Jewish Star in the
Lapel, and I’ll blow you away like smoke,
‘I know no Dussander,’ he told the young man. ‘I don’t understand you. Shall I ring for
the nurse?’
‘You understand,’ Weiskopf said. He shifted position slightly and brushed a lock of
hair from his forehead. The prosiness of this gesture dispelled Dussander’s last hope.
‘Heisel,’ Weiskopf said, and pointed at the empty bed.
‘Heisel, Dussander, Weiskopf … none of these names mean anything to me.’
‘Heisei fell off a ladder while he was nailing a new gutter onto the side of his house,’
Weiskopf said. ‘He broke his back. He may never walk again. Unfortunate. But that was
not the only tragedy of his life. He was an inmate of Patin, where he lost his wife and
daughters. Patin, which you commanded.’
‘I think you are insane,’ Dussander said. ‘My name is Arthur Denker. I came to this
country when my wife died. Before that I was —’
‘Spare me your tale,’ Weiskopf said, raising a hand. ‘He has not forgotten your face.
This face.’
Weiskopf flicked a photograph into Dussander’s face like a magician doing a trick. It
was one of the two the boy had shown him years ago. A young Dussander in a jauntily
cocked SS cap, swagger stick held firmly under one arm.
Dussander spoke slowly, in English now, enunciating carefully.
‘During the war I was a factory machinist My job was to oversee the manufacture of
drive-columns and power-trains for armoured cars and trucks. Later I helped to build
Tiger tanks. My reserve unit was called up during the battle of Berlin and I fought
honourably, if briefly. After the war I worked in the Essen Motor Works until -‘
‘- until it became necessary for you to run away to South America. With your gold that
had been melted down from Jewish teeth and your silver melted down from Jewish
jewellery and your numbered Swiss bank account. Mr Heisel went home a happy man,
you know. Oh, he had had a bad moment when he woke up in the dark and realized with
whom he was sharing a room. But he feels better now. He feels that God allowed him the sublime privilege of breaking his back so that he could be instrumental in the capture of
one of the greatest butchers of human beings to ever live.’
Dussander spoke slowly, enunciating carefully.
‘During the war I was a factory machinist -‘
‘Oh, why not drop it? Your papers will not stand up to a serious examination. I know
it and you know it. You are found out’
‘My job was to oversee the manufacture of-‘
‘Of corpses! One way or another, you will be in Tel Aviv before Christmas. The
authorities are cooperating with us this time, Dussander. The Americans want to make us
happy, and you are one of the things that will make us happy.’
‘- the manufacture of drive-columns and power-trains for armoured cars and trucks.
Later I helped to build Tiger tanks.’
‘Why be tiresome? Why drag it out?’
‘My reserve unit was called up -‘
‘Very well then. You’ll see me again. Soon.’
Weiskopf rose. He left the room. For a moment his shadow bobbed on the wall and
then that was gone, too. Dussander closed his eyes. He wondered if Weiskopf could be
telling the truth about American cooperation. Three years ago, when oil was tight in
America, he would have believed it. But the stupid Iranian militants had hardened
American support for Israel. It was possible. And what did it matter?
One way or the other, legal or illegal, Weiskopf and his colleagues would have him.
On the subject of Nazis they were intransigent, and on the subject of the camps they were
lunatics.
He was trembling all over. But he knew what he must do now.
24
The school records for the pupils who had passed through Santa Donate Junior High
were kept in an old, rambling warehouse on the north side. It was not far from the
abandoned trainyards. It was dark and echoing and it smelled of wax and polish and 999
Industrial Cleaner – it was also the school department’s custodial warehouse.
Ed French got there around four in the afternoon with Norma in tow. A janitor let
them in, told Ed what he wanted was on the fourth floor, and showed them to a creeping,
clanking warehouse that frightened Norma into a uncharacteristic silence.
She regained herself on the fourth floor, prancing and capering up and down the dim
aisles of stacked boxes and files while Ed searched for and eventually found the files
containing report-cards from 1975. He pulled the second box and began to leaf through
the Bs. BORK. BOSTWICK. BOSWELL. BOWDEN, TODD. He pulled the card, shook his
head impatiently over it in the dim light, and took it across to one of the high, dusty
windows.
‘Don’t run around in here, honey,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Why, daddy?’
‘Because the trolls will get you,’ he said, and held Todd’s card up to the light.
He saw it at once. This report card, in those flies for four years now, had been
carefully, almost professionally, doctored.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Ed French muttered.
Trolls, trolls, trolls!’ Norma sang gleefully, as she continued to dance up and down the aisles.
25
Dussander walked carefully down the hospital corridor. He was still a bit unsteady on
his legs. He was wearing his blue bathrobe over his white hospital johnny. It was night
now, just after eight o’clock, and the nurses were changing shifts. The next half hour
would be confused — he had observed that all the shift changes were confused. It was a
time for exchanging notes, gossip, and drinking coffee at the nurses’ station, which was
just around the corner from the drinking fountain.
What he wanted was just across from the drinking fountain.
He was not noticed in the wide hallway, which at this hour reminded him of a long