“This evening,” Vera said, “could be our last meeting. There are no recording devices in my house, or any one of us likely to inform on the others, despite the ruthless efforts of the Justice Department. Let’s refill our glasses, toast our future”-looking at Walter now-“and hear what our Detroit version of Heinrich Himmler is so anxious to tell us. Walter?”
They had turned off Woodward and were creeping along Boston Boulevard, the street divided by a tree-lined median and big, comfortable homes on both sides.
Honey said, “I can’t read the house numbers.”
“The one with two cars parked in front,” Carl said. “The Ford belongs to Walter,” the cars shining in the streetlight, “and a Buick.”
“That’s all?” Honey said. “What about the one we’re coming to?” Another Ford, three houses from Vera’s on the same side of the street.
“That’s FBI surveillance.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s where you’d park to watch the house.”
They crept past the car, Honey sitting taller to have a look at the black four-door sedan.
“There’s no one in it.”
“I’ll bet you five bucks the house is under surveillance.”
“Okay, turn around, and we’ll go back.”
Now she was telling him what to do. At the Paradiso, the restaurant, she kept telling him what to order, like the collards. In charge now since he’d chickened out. Would not jump on her when she showed him her bare breasts, Jesus, using them like a buck lure, and they’d gone out to eat instead of falling in bed. She didn’t act pissy or disappointed, she was making fun of him by giving him orders. Carl turned at the next opening in the median and started back toward the house. Now she told him, “Park behind Walter’s car.”
“What’re we doing?”
“I thought we’d drop in on the meeting.”
Carl pulled to the curb and stopped.
“You believe they’ll invite us in?”
“Don’t you want to see Jurgen?”
“When they tell me I can pick him up.”
“What if he’s gone by then?” She said, “You know what? I’ll say my ex-husband asked me to stop by and I brought a friend. We’d never met any spies before.”
Carl said, “You’re having fun, aren’t you?”
“Or, I’ll go in and you can wait here.”
“How about this,” Carl said. “You get out of the car you’re on your own.”
Honey got out and stood holding the door open.
She said, “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.” Closed the door and waved her fingers at him in the window.
Eighteen
Jurgen was seated with Vera on the sofa, more than half the living room from where Walter was standing in the opening to the dining room, a row of candles on the polished table lighting him from behind. He had placed a few newspaper and magazine pages on the table and now was ready to begin.
“All of you know of the enigma that shrouds the birth of Heinrich Himmler and myself.” He paused.
Vera groaned. She said, “Please, God, shut him up.”
“I think he memorized his opening,” Jurgen said, “and forgot what comes next.”
“Their date of birth,” Vera said.
“I was delivered into the world,” Walter said, “the seventh day of October in the year 1900.”
“On the same day,” Vera said.
“On the same day,” Walter said, “as Heinrich Himmler, the future
“In the same hospital,” Vera said, her eyes closed.
“But not in the same place,” Walter said.
Jurgen turned his head to Vera. She was again watching Walter, saying, “What’s he doing?”
“Heinrich was born at home,” Walter said. “Two Hildegardstrasse in an upstairs flat. I also was born at home. However I was taken to hospital with my mother the same day where we were both cared for. My mother had suffered complications giving birth to me.”
Vera turned to Jurgen. “He wasn’t born in the hospital.”
“I have never lied to you,” Walter said. “I believed I was born in that hospital and came to believe Heinrich was also, as my twin, because so many people said to me from the time I was a lad, ‘Aren’t you Heini Himmler? Did you not move to Landshut?’ Or, someone says to me, ‘I saw you this morning in Landshut.’ It’s north of Munich fifty miles. ‘What are you doing here? Isn’t your father headmaster at the school?’ Now I’m living here, and by the thirties I see photos of Heinrich in German newspapers. Heinrich reviewing SS troops with the Führer. I look at the pictures of him and I think, my God, Heinrich and I are identical. I began to consider other similarities. Both of us born in Munich on the same day. Could we look so much alike and not be twins, born of the same mother? Why were we separated, kept apart? I began to believe Heini and I were put on this earth with destinies to fulfill.”
“Not unlike the Virgin Mary,” Vera said.
“In April 1939 I was asked by several of my Detroit friends, did I see myself on the cover of
“Dedicated to what,” Vera said, “cutting meat?”
“He suffers from an upset stomach,” Walter said. “At times so do I.”
“Gas,” Vera said. “Quiet, but telling.”
“At one time he was a devout Catholic,” Walter said. “So was I. He believed that allowing oneself to be sexually aroused by women, who by their nature could not control themselves, was to be avoided before marriage. So did I.”
Jurgen said, “I can’t see Heinrich with a woman.”
As Walter was saying, “Heini’s wife, seven years his senior, gave him a child, a daughter. I’m told he first noticed Marga-who referred to the Führer’s exterminator as ‘my naughty darling’- because of her beautiful blond hair. The woman I married was much younger than I and, unfortunately, quite immature. Honig also had blond hair. My one regret is that she did not provide me with a son before she walked out of my house.” Walter paused. “I saw Honig the other night, the first time in five and a half years.” He said, “She looked the same as I remembered her. Perhaps her hair was more blond.” He stopped and stared into the room at his audience: Jurgen and Vera, Bohdan and Dr. Taylor, Joe Aubrey in an armchair by himself. Walter continued, saying, “Heini believed in unconditional devotion to duty. So do I.” He paused and was thoughtful as he said, “Why did I believe for so long we were identical in every way, one of us an imprint of the other?”
“Because you wanted to believe it,” Jurgen said.
“Because I wanted to believe I have a destiny as meaningful as Heini’s, who has set out to eliminate a race of people from the world by means of
