Up in Honey's Room

Eleven

Walter came in the side door that led to the kitchen and went to the sink thinking of Otto, still thinking of Otto since trying to spot his homburg in the downtown crowd of people. Jurgen had been helping Darcy bring the three cows and a heifer out of the stock trailer and work them into the pen joined to the barn, the abattoir. Darcy spoke to Jurgen for a few minutes and left with his trailer. Jurgen would be in the barn now, he was no trouble. Otto was the problem.

They came home without him and Madi said in English, “Where is the Nazi?” To the old woman they were “Jurgen and the Nazi,” the Nazi demanding she and Rudi speak to him always in German and asked them one question after another, like an immigration official, to keep them talking. Rudi didn’t mind talking to him, the two sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey talking about the war, the Nazi telling Rudi of North Africa and Italian women.

She asked Walter, “Where is he, the Nazi?”

Walter saw hope in her eyes. He told Madi, reasonable with her since she was his aunt, they would have to wait and see if Otto could find his way here from downtown.

“He tell the police he’s lost,” Madi said, “they put him in jail? You should pin a note on his coat that say where he lives.”

This was earlier.

Peeled potatoes in a pan of water waited for Madi to light the burner. Walter could smell the pork roast in the oven. He drew a glass of water at the sink, stepped over to the oven to open the door, and threw the water over the roast. Madi came in from setting the table in the dining room and caught him. It wasn’t the first time. She would ask in English why he wet the roast. Walter would tell her it was burning. Madi would ask why he thought she wanted to burn a roast? More than half a century cooking every day of her life she had never burned a roast.

“You want me to cook for you good dinners? Stay out of my kitchen. Go see your visitors.”

Walter was drying his hands on a dish towel.

“What visitors?”

“The car drove up to the house while you throwing water on the roast.”

Walter left the kitchen, still holding the dish towel, moved around the dining table set for two, himself and Jurgen, to stand at one side of the dining room window. He moved the blinds apart and saw the Pontiac parked in the drive, no one in it.

The bell chimed.

Going into the living room Walter told himself this would be about Otto. They found him. They want to know if he lives here. Here? No, they inform him-this was better-they told Otto to stop but he kept running and they were forced to shoot him, and want you to identify the body. The FBI. They had already asked him if he knew Otto, and asked him again and again. They might try to trick him this time. All right, he would say as he always did, “Who?” and shake his head. “I never heard of this man.”

Walter unlocked the door thinking if they wanted him to identify Otto dead he still wouldn’t know him. He wouldn’t have to worry about him either, ever again.

He opened the door.

It wasn’t about Otto.

No, because he was looking at Honig standing not more than a few feet away, Honig smiling at him and saying, “Hi, Walter.” The man with her said his name and showed his identification in a leather case-not FBI-with a badge pinned inside, a star in a circle. The name, Carl something, meant nothing to Walter. My God, no, he was looking at Honig for the first time in more than five years.

Carl glanced at her. He said, “You’re right,” and looked at Walter again. “I’ve never seen two people look more alike. Mr. Schoen, you’re the spittin’ image of Heinrich Himmler.” Now he brought a folded copy of a Time magazine cover from his coat pocket. Carl opened it, looked at Himmler’s portrait and handed the page to Walter. “This was two months ago. He’s starting to look less like you. More like he’s dead. I don’t think they needed to put the crossed bones under his chin.”

Walter didn’t say a word. He looked at the illustration and folded the page in his hands.

“It’s amazing,” Carl said, aware of Walter’s hands folding the page again and folding it again into a small, tight square. “Honey told me you’re Himmler’s twin brother. I look at you, Mr. Schoen, and I have to believe it.”

Walter nodded, once. He said, “It’s true,” and looked at Honig again. “Heinrich and I were born in Munich in the same hospital on the same day and at exactly the same time and, for a reason I cannot explain, we were separated.”

“You had the same mother,” Carl said. “I mean if you’re twins.”

“Yes, Heinrich would have been born of my mother.”

“What about his mother?”

Walter said, “You mean a woman who poses as his mother. Heinrich once said if the Führer asked him to shoot his own mother, as an act of unconditional loyalty, he would do it. Why not? The woman isn’t his real mother.” He looked at Honig. “Remember we spoke of this, wondering about her?”

“A lot,” Honey said.

Carl said, “You tried to locate her?”

“I wrote to the hospital in Munich several times. I ask if they have a record of Heinrich Himmler’s birth. They have never answered me.”

Carl said, “Your mom didn’t bring both of you home from the hospital?”

“How would I know that?”

“You never asked her about it?”

“By the time I was older, and learned the accepted version of Heinrich’s birth, she had passed away.”

“You didn’t ask your dad?”

“Of course I did. He said, ‘Are you crazy?’”

“You don’t remember playing kick the can with Himmler when you were kids?”

“Look,” Walter said. “There are questions I can’t answer. The proof of our being twins is our identical appearance and the fact of our being born on the same day at the same hour-”

“But you don’t remember him.”

“I never saw him.”

Carl said, “Walter, it’s okay with me if you’re Himmler’s twin brother. No, what I’ve been wondering, looking at your spread, if you planned to fatten up that heifer in the stock pen. She goes about eight-fifty now? Give her twelve pounds of corn a day mixed with seven pounds of ground alfalfa hay, you can put another two hundred pounds on her by the end of summer. I know some families in Oklahoma operate home-kills and do all right.”

Carl shifted his weight from one foot to the other and bent over enough to squeeze his left thigh.

“Walter, you mind if we sit down someplace? I’ll tell you about a cow outfit I worked when I was a boy. Damn, but I have a war wound bothers me when I’m on my feet too long. I got shot twice but managed to nail the bugger.”

Walter was squinting at him now, looking confused.

Carl liked the way it was going.

He said, “Put your mind at ease, Wally, it wasn’t a Kraut I shot. Was a Nip taking a killer aim at me.”

Honey didn’t get into it until they were seated in the living room in old red-velvet-covered furniture Honey thought was depressing. Walter hadn’t stopped looking at her. She said, “Why don’t you turn on some lamps, Walter, so we can see each other. Or open the blinds.”

Walter said, “Of course,” turned on one lamp and then another, both with twenty-five-watt bulbs, the kind Honey remembered the cheapskate always used. She felt good being with Carl. She loved show-offs who were funny-Carl saying the Nip was taking a killer aim at him. They sat together on a settee opposite Walter in his armchair with an extra cushion to let him sit higher, the filigreed back of the chair towering over him. Walter’s seat of judgment. Much bigger than his chair in their old place, Walter sitting hunched over the radio. This is what he’d be like if she’d stayed with him: wearing the same gray wool sweater buttoned up, the same Nazi haircut she called a nutsy cut; the same-no, his rimless glasses didn’t pinch on-and if she let him get close she knew he’d have the same bad breath. But not the same heel-clicker she met in front of church.

Honey said, “How’s your sister, she still a nun?”

“Sister Ludmilla,” Walter said. “She’s a Cistercian of the Strict Observance now. They never speak.”

“I thought she was an IHM sister. Doesn’t she teach school in Detroit?”

“She’s still here but left that order for a much different life, as a Cistercian. I congratulated her having the will to live a life of prayer and silence.”

“She seemed normal,” Honey said, “the times I met her. You get her to join, Walter, so you wouldn’t have to talk to her anymore? I remember her telling you Jesus is more important in your life than Hitler.”

Carl said, “Ask him about your brother.”

She was still looking at Walter. He heard Carl but Walter’s expression didn’t change. Honey said, “We saw Darcy driving out of your property with a stock trailer.”

“Yes, of course,” Walter said, “Darcy Deal is your brother. He came to the market and introduced himself, offered to supply beef for my slaughtering business. Your brother’s an outspoken fellow, isn’t he?”

“He’s an ex-convict,” Honey said. “He tell you that?”

“Yes, of course. He asked me, would I give him the opportunity to engage in a legitimate business.”

Carl said, “Where’s he get the steers?”

Walter shrugged. “At stockyards, where else? He always shows me the bill of sale.”

“I imagine,” Carl said, “the government inspectors drive you nuts dropping in the way they do.”

Walter shrugged again. “Yes, but the meat has to be graded. It’s the law, so you put up with it.”

Honey took his shrugs to mean he wasn’t concerned; they could ask him anything they wanted.

Carl was saying, “This one fella I knew in home-kill, he’d process a few head in between the inspectors coming by. Get the meat out in a hurry to hotels in Tulsa.”

Walter said, “I believe you are an officer of the law?”

“Deputy U.S. marshal, Wally. I’m not FBI.”

“But you could arrest this person if you wanted?”

“I don’t work in that area.”

“But you came here to question me, didn’t you? See if I’m selling meat on the black market?”

“No sir, I’m investigating the numbers racket in war plants. Ford Highland Park, Dodge Main in Hamtramck, Briggs Body. Organized crime, they send their guys in the plants to take bets and sell dream books. I remembered Honey lived here so I called her up.”

Honey took his arm and squeezed it with both hands, smiling at Walter. “We met on a train one time.”

Carl said, “Honey told me her brother was working for you . . . I wondered if you wouldn’t mind my taking a look at your operation. I’ve worked beef in my time. My dad has a thousand acres of pecan trees.”

“You’re not investigating me?” Walter said.

“All I’m interested in,” Carl said, “I’d like to see how you process a cow up here. I don’t mean right now. It must be close to your suppertime, but when you can spare me an hour.”

Walter kept staring at him.

“You’re none of my business as a marshal,” Carl said. “Hell, seventy percent of the people, housewives, buy a lot of their meat without stamps and pay whatever the butcher says is the price. Hell with those OPA-fixed prices. Walter”-Carl taking his time-“I’d fatten up my herd for a year, cut out a bunch and take ’em to Tulsa in my stock trailer. Stop on the way back for an ice-cream cone. My dad’s property wasn’t too far from a camp holding guys from the Afrika Korps. They said the only reason they surrendered they ran out of gas.” Carl took time to grin. “But they seemed to be doing all right in captivity. The government hired them out to do farmwork if they wanted. The government let my dad took a bunch of ’em to gather pecans, hit the branches with bamboo fishing poles to shake ’em loose. They’d bring their lunch from the camp, sit under the trees eating their sausage and pickles, cold bratwurst sandwiches. Once in a while I’d come by and get in a conversation. I’d say, ‘What’s stopping you guys from walking out of here? Wait for the guards to fall asleep. But even when you do bust out you’re back by dinnertime the next day.’ I’d say, ‘Man, all the Germans living in the U.S., you don’t have any relatives would hide you if you got away?’”

Walter said, “You tempt them to try to escape, so you can shoot them?”

“Come on, Walter, I’m fooling with them, trying to understand what they think about being locked up. You see them in the chow hall three times a day eating like wolves, you understand how important food is. It’s the reason when they do escape, get a few miles down the road from the camp, they turn around and come back.”

“There must be some,” Walter said-sounding to Honey like he was being careful, picking his words-“who escape with the intention of returning home to Germany, if they see the possibility of it.”

“I know there was a German flier back in ’42,” Carl said, “almost got to Mexico. He’s the only one comes to mind.”

Walter said, “I read in the newspaper about two officers who escaped from a camp.” Walter still careful. “I believe it was four or five months ago?”

“Last October,” Carl said. “Yeah, they were picked up.”

Honey saw Walter stopped cold.

He said, “Are you sure?”

“They broke out of Deep Fork, near my dad’s place.”

“This is in Oklahoma?”

“Yeah, the camp’s called Deep Fork, named for a creek that runs through there. The one officer had a girlfriend lived nearby. He’d slip out and visit her every once in a while-you know, to get laid-and was counting on the girlfriend hiding them. She did for a couple of days, but must’ve got nervous and blew the whistle, turned them in.”

“I must be thinking of two others who escaped,” Walter said. “The newspaper reported a nationwide search was on for these two.”

“That’ll sell papers,” Carl said, “but they’re the ones I’m talking about. They made half-ass civilian suits from uniforms and drove out of the camp in a truck delivers movies.”

Walter said, “Well,” sounding to Honey like he was giving up. But then he said in an offhand way, “Do you happen to know their names?”

“It was a while ago,” Carl said. “The girlfriend had a weird name I’d never heard before, but I can’t remember hers either.”

Walter said, “Why didn’t I read the two officers were captured?”

Not giving up if he could help it. Honey waited for Carl to explain, if he could.

“I think there was a question of whether they should prosecute the girlfriend,” Carl said, “for giving comfort to the enemy, if you know what I mean. But since she did turn them in, the U.S. attorney decided not to prosecute, keep her neighbors from throwing eggs at her and cutting off her hair. No more news about the escape was good news for the girlfriend. Pretty soon the papers stopped asking about the two guys.”

“The ones you say were captured,” Walter said. “Where are they now?”

“Back in camp. The one guy’s Waffen-SS. I think they’re the SSers in the military. The regular SS are the guys who run the extermination camps, shove live people into gas chambers. Am I right about that, Wally?”

“Do you have to call me that?”

“What? Wally?”

“My name is Walter.”

“You ever go by Walt?”

“It’s Walter.”

“I tried calling him Walt,” Honey said, “he had a fit.”

“How about a nickname?” Carl said. “What’d your mom call you when you were a kid?”

Honey knew but waited for Walter. He shook his head and Honey said, “His mom called him Buzz.”

“Where’d that come from?”

“He was his sister’s little buzzer,” Honey said, “the one that quit talking. She was learning English and had trouble saying brother. He told me his dad never called him anything but Valter.”

“I was wondering,” Carl said, “you asked if I knew their names, the guys that escaped?”

Walter hesitated. “Yes . . . ?”

“What’re the names of the guys you were thinking of?”

Honey squeezed his arm as he was raising it, slipping his hand into a coat pocket.

She thought Walter would stall, blow his nose or start coughing, at least clear his throat.

He didn’t, he said, “I hesitate because it’s been so long since I read about them in the newspaper. I thought if you said their names it would refresh my memory. But you offer me no help.”

Honey watched him shrug, then look up as Carl stepped toward him, a marshal’s card in his hand.

“This is my Oklahoma card, but I put the Detroit FBI office phone number on it. In case you remember the names of those boys. You understand I live down there. I knew ’em pretty well.”