Up in Honey's Room

“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?’”