by Joseph Kanon
“Do you believe this place?” he said. “A friend on Stern told me about it. You can’t get food like this in Germany anymore.” He nodded to a passing platter of pigs’ knuckles and ham hocks and schnitzels Holstein. “They all used to come here. Eichmann once, they say. Mengele. They might even have met here. Imagine such an introduction. Would one know what the other looked like?”
“How’s the jet lag?”
Fritz waved his hand. “Eat lunch here, you either have a heart attack or sleep all afternoon. I’ll be fine. I met already with Goldfarb.”
Familiar name, but how? Aaron mimed, Who?
“A friend of Nathan’s. Also Max.”
“Nathan?”
“He came to see me in the hospital.”
“I didn’t know you knew him.”
“I didn’t. I think he was checking up on you. If it was true it was Schramm.”
“And?”
“He believes you. He said I was the proof. If it had just been someone who looked like Schramm, he wouldn’t have done this.” He touched his ribs. “So, no mistake.”
“I thought he wasn’t interested. No more Eichmanns.”
“Otto’s different.”
“How?”
“Because he’s supposed to be dead.” He caught Aaron’s expression. “Look, there are two stories here. Otto. Getting him. But then the other—how he lived here. Could fake his death. Think how many people must have helped. And think where—the police? The Intelligence Bureau? It would have to be. Even without Perón, the secret service protects him. Very embarrassing for the Argentines if that came out.”
“And Nathan wants it to?”
Fritz nodded. “They didn’t hide Eichmann. He hid himself. He came with a new name, passport. Works in Tucumán, then here, nothing special. An ordinary man, poor even. The Argentines can say they never knew. And then the Israelis come and kidnap him, take him out of the country. Outrage. Violating our sovereignty. How would you like it if they did it to you? Never mind what he did. You don’t snatch citizens off the streets. So, they’re humiliated—but they take the high ground. Lots of fists shaking at the Israelis. But this—now we have them protecting Otto. High up. Maybe even Perón himself. Get Otto and you can expose the Argentines, what they’ve been doing for years. Helping Nazis. And now Israel doesn’t look so bad. So, a good story for them. That’s why he helped me come.”
“He helped you?”
“A little. Part of the ticket.”
The waiter arrived with sauerkraut and a selection of wursts.
“I ordered. It’s big enough for two,” Fritz said. “It’s all right?”
Aaron nodded, looking away from the heaping plate.
“So who’s Goldfarb?”
“A businessman. Nobody. But he knows a lot of other nobodies. All the ministries.”
“And what’s he going to do for us?”
“So much paper in the world. But sometimes a trail. Who is Otto now? Helmut Braun died, so he must have traveled as someone else. And he was recognized. So now maybe he becomes someone else again. Another name. And that would mean new papers.”
“He was recognized in Germany. As far as he knows, we’re still there. Not chasing him here. Why get new papers?”
“Maybe. And maybe he’s very careful. So let Goldfarb see what he can find. If it’s since Hamburg, it’s recent. How many passport applications can there be?”
“Plenty. And he’s doing this without a current picture, anything to match.”
Fritz shrugged. “He has the time. His family was at Auschwitz. For him it’s worth a little trouble.” He speared a piece of boiled potato. “So, the daughter. Anything?”
“Not yet. No contact. And that’s not like him. To stay in hiding. Look at Hamburg. He couldn’t resist. So he has to come up for air sometime.”
“And you’ll be there.” He looked over. “You’re not hungry? The bauernwurst is excellent.”
“She said she’d talk to you, for the book.”
“Yes? What does she say about him?”
“It’s—complicated.”
“But she protects him. So that’s not complicated.”
“No.” Where he always ended, circling back.
“She says he’s dead?”
Aaron nodded. “Right on script. No mistakes. She said she was relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“I told you, it’s complicated. Isn’t it like that with the others?”
“Sometimes. The interesting ones. The others—you know in their hearts they don’t believe it. They can’t. They say people exaggerate. What happened.”
Aaron looked up. “That’s just what Schramm said—it was all an exaggeration.”
“Did she believe him?”
“No.”
“But she still protects him.”
Aaron put down his fork, uneasy, and took out a cigarette.
“You like her,” Fritz said, leading him, a reporter.
Aaron shrugged this off, saying nothing.
“Maybe you should do the interview. She talks to you.”
“She lies to me.”
“Everybody lies. You learn that in this business. The trick is to keep them talking. Something comes out.”
“Maybe. She’s careful about him.”
“Any photographs? A photograph would be valuable.”
“You mean is there a family album? I doubt it. Considering.”
“No, in the apartment. Pictures from childhood, something like that. Maybe letters. Something in the desk.”
Aaron looked at him. “We just met for a drink.”
Fritz was staring back. “You haven’t—?”
“What? Broken in?” Thrown by this.
“Aaron,” Fritz said slowly. “We need to know. It’s serious, this. What we’re doing.”
“That’s illegal.”
“And Auschwitz was legal. So much for legal.” He paused. “Just don’t get caught.”
“We can’t—”
“They don’t teach you this? Your people?”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Sometimes, how else?” He slowed again. “We need to know.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring, beginning to flip through. “You know her movements? How long she’s likely—? Ah.” He stopped and slipped a key off the ring, then held it out to Aaron. “It doesn’t work with every lock. Maybe they’re different here. But usually, yes. Here.”
Aaron stared at the key, as if it were alive and if he touched it something would happen to him. Just a key, dull, not shiny. Don’t.
He reached over and took the key.
“So try it,” Fritz was saying. “It saves time. I thought they taught you how to do this.”
“No.” His stomach still queasy, but the key now in his pocket, some step taken.
“I have a friend, he can pick anything. It’s useful. Does she have a maid?”
“I suppose. I haven’t seen one. I’m usually following her.”
“And she doesn’t see you?” Fritz said, finding this amusing. “At least they teach you that.” He wiped his mouth, finally finished. “Watch before you go in, if there’s a maid. It’s hard to explain.”
“What? Going through her desk? Yes.”
“Through everything. But a light touch, yes? Everything as it was.”
* * *
He was under the ombu tree early, with a newspaper, but she didn’t appear until just before noon, dressed for a restaurant lunch, a suit with handbag and white gloves. Which gave him at least an hour or two. No maid today, unless she turned up later, unexpected, a door opening in a French farce. He waited until she was well past the Alvear.
There was a locked door in the vestibule, where visitors were buzzed in, and the passkey worked, which meant that it would probably work upstairs too. No excuse not to go through with it now. No one in the elevator, the building in a midday hush, people at work or out somewhere, the faint whine of a vacuum cleane
r overhead. In the quiet hall, mentally on tiptoe, he forced himself to walk normally. The key worked, just a minor jiggle while it found its groove. He stepped inside. From this point on, he was vulnerable, no explanations possible. Breaking and entering.
It was a modern apartment, international style, nubby off-white couches accented with pillows, bookshelves, swivel chairs with brass reading lamps, abstract paintings and pieces of sculpture. At first it seemed as impersonal as a hotel suite, but then the eye began to take in the details—magazines open on the glass coffee table, photographs in the bookshelves. Hanna as a child with Beate and presumably Doro. A group of schoolgirls at somebody’s birthday. A table at the Stork, filled with glasses, only Hanna and another woman full face, the men off camera. Nothing of Otto.
He crossed over to the desk, still listening for the sound of footsteps, the room quiet enough to hear himself breathe. An appointment diary to the right of the desk pad, the entries for the last few days exactly what he remembered—Dos Pescadores, Dr. Ortiz, the hairdresser where he thought he’d lost her, even him, a drink at the Alvear. No notes. For an odd second, looking at the book, he wanted to know how everything had seemed to her. How had she felt about him? Not what she’d expected. But there was nothing but a name and time, her feelings still her own. Lunch today downtown. The embassy party later, underlined. Markus waiting, his eye on the door.
He flipped through her address book, lists of names he didn’t know, any one of which might be the new Otto, but somehow he doubted it. Not something you wrote down. There was Bildener. Under L, a list of lawyers, in New York and here. More names. What exactly was he looking for? So quiet he could hear the clock.
He went through the drawers. Folders of bills, some letters from Germany, Beate keeping in touch, her own passport, nothing of Otto’s. Another drawer with documents, the apartment lease, her divorce papers, all carefully in order, as if she were making it easy for him. See? I have nothing to hide.
He got up and went over to the bedroom, each step feeling like a violation, something he’d been told not to do and was doing anyway. Closets and closets full of clothes, everything personal now, the hotel feeling left behind in the living room. Racks of shoes, shelves with handbags. Everything hers, smelling of her. Sweaters. Blouses. In the top drawer, silk underwear. The sort of place where a passport or visa might be slipped under the panties, the intimacy of them somehow protective, where people wouldn’t go. But he was there, the panties in his hand, and suddenly he felt his face grow warm, embarrassed by the odd pleasure of it, what a fetishist must feel, touching her by touching her things. He took his hands away. Another drawer, bras and nylons. Another, lingerie. He felt a silk nightgown, peach with a border of lace, imagining it on, the shoulder straps falling, her stepping out of it, then stopped, the pleasure mixed with shame now. Something a boy would do, making a woman in his head just by feeling silk, smelling it.
He went over to the bathroom. More nightgowns behind the door, a terry wrap. A makeup table, lights around the mirror, drawers of nail polish and powders and creams. A full medicine chest, the usual Band-Aids and iodine and cuticle trimmers. Rows of pill bottles, prescription, some from Dr. Ortiz, how she slept. He looked at the dates. Something she’d been doing for a while, putting herself to sleep. To dream what? A diaphragm case. Tampax. He closed the mirrored door, feeling embarrassed again, prurient.
There was a dress hanging from one of the closet doors. A cocktail dress, maybe what she was planning to wear tonight. Next to it on the bureau, a bag and gloves and jewelry already laid out, as if she didn’t want to decide at the last minute. A gold charm bracelet, not girlish, real jewelry, something to dangle and flash on a glove. He picked it up, curious if any of the charms were personal mementos, bits of her life. But they seemed standard pieces—a dog, a little house, a shoe, a key, the key smaller than the others. He looked more carefully. Too small to be real, a toy. He put down the bracelet. What was he doing? Otto wasn’t hiding behind her dresses.
He went back into the living room, checking behind picture frames for wall safes. The desk again, with the folder of official papers. If there was anything it would be here. In Spanish. What looked like a will. Her name only, clearly the sole heir. A Buenos Aires bank statement with a healthy balance, but not suspiciously large. The real money, Tommy’s settlement, presumably still in New York in dollars, what rich Latin Americans did, handled by some lawyer or broker in the address book. He stopped, uneasy again. Money was private, a different kind of lingerie. He looked at his fingers on the paper, clumsy, intrusive.
A muffled sound outside, a door closing. He froze. Maybe the elevator, Hanna coming back, the maid arriving late. And he was sitting at her desk with her bank statement in his hands. What are you doing? What could he possibly say? He listened for footsteps, waiting to hear a key in the lock. But nothing happened. He breathed out. He glanced up at the desk photos again. The little girl in Germany. The glamour girl at the Stork. Now being followed, someone secretly rummaging through her life.
He put the folder back, then felt it blocked by something in the back of the drawer. He reached in, his hand stopping as he felt the cold metal. A gun. A box next to it. He pulled it out slowly, as if a sudden movement would set it off. A gun. Lots of people had guns. A single woman, a big city. Something you had for protection, nothing unusual. Except it sat there in his hand turning everything upside down. There was never anything innocent about a gun. He felt he was touching another part of her. Had she ever used it? Did she even know how? But here it was, blunt and heavy and cool in his hand, something he hadn’t known about her before.
He put it back carefully. Everything as it was. But what if he had missed something, some little detail that would give him away? A silk slip visibly disturbed, the fold no longer smooth, something. Or just the scent of him, the way you could feel another presence, even after it was gone. He checked the top of the desk one more time, the way it had been, then went over to the door, listening for any sound in the hall. Nothing. The click of the door behind him. The quiet elevator sounded like a roar. No neighbors. And then he was under the ombu tree, feeling relieved and foolish at the same time. She’d never know. But a risk he should never have taken. People didn’t hide secrets in lingerie drawers. They trusted to memory or forgot them in files. Max, maybe Goldfarb, knew how to look at files. But memory had to be volunteered. Memory needed to trust you.
8
THE BRAZILIAN EMBASSY HAD once been a grand house, another dream of Paris, but not grand enough to have had a ballroom, so the party was spread over several ground-floor reception rooms, people moving between them like schools of fish, darting around the passing trays of champagne glasses. Aaron had expected a name check at the door, but no one had asked. Instead they were steered to an informal reception line where a silver-haired man was playing exuberant host, his voice switching from Portuguese to Spanish with an easy warmth, as lilting and relaxed as the music in the background.
“João, how nice to see you,” Jamie said. “May I introduce Aaron Wiley. New with us. Aaron, Ambassador da Silva.”
“Mucho gusto,” da Silva said, an automatic response, then in English, “Another new one. Every week it seems. How busy you must be. But you are very welcome. It’s your first time in Buenos Aires?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you have an excellent guide. Jamie knows everything that goes on in Buenos Aires.”
“Not quite,” Jamie said. “Just the best parties.” This with a complimentary nod. “And you have guests waiting. I hope we’ll have a minute later.”
“Oh, a minute. That sounds like business. Me, I prefer gossip. You can’t gossip in a minute. Ernesto. But where is Gloria? Not ill, I hope.”
And somehow, a kind of social swallowing up, they were moved along into the crowd.
“That’s it?” Aaron said.
“It’s a party. What were you expecting?” He turned as he picked up a glass of champagne, facing the door again. “Oh, right. O
f course.”
Aaron followed his look past the receiving line. She had come with a good-looking man somewhere in his forties. Tanned face, trim, a suit that might have been made for him. She was wearing the dress that had been hanging on her closet door, looking the way he had imagined her in it, and he felt, oddly, that he had chosen it for her, laid it out with the gloves and charm bracelet, knowing she’d look like this.
“I hope someday you’ll tell me exactly what’s going on. Not now,” Jamie said, raising his hand, a tease, “that would ruin the story. But at the end. The way detectives do in books, when they explain everything.” He took a sip. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Don’t get into any trouble. I don’t want to have to explain you.”
“Trouble?”
“Right here in River City,” Jamie said, pleased with himself.
“Walk with me for a minute. I don’t want her to see me yet.”
“Hard to get? I wouldn’t bother. It looks like she’s already got.” He nodded toward the door, her escort, then looked up at Aaron. “What are you up to?”
“I’ll tell you at the end,” Aaron said, moving them farther into the party.
In a minute Jamie was stopped by someone, an Argentine, and Aaron drifted away before he needed to be introduced. It was an easy party to get lost in, crowded, everyone talking, the several rooms making it hard to keep someone in sight. The late afternoon light was pouring through the open French windows, then reflecting off the tall mirrors, and as Aaron looked around, it seemed impossible to imagine any kind of trouble. The women were beautiful, or at least beautifully put together, made up and dressed for display like pampered mistresses. He stood by a pillar near a drinks table taking in the room. Genial da Silva, the polished diplomats, rich businessmen and their watchful wives. The kind of party she’d been to a hundred times, what she knew. But then someone near da Silva moved aside and she was suddenly in his line of vision and she didn’t seem to be at the party at all but off somewhere by herself, the way she’d been that first night at the Alvear bar. Her dress was simpler than the others, everything about her simpler, as if none of that really mattered, just her youth, the bright shine of her. He stared past the others, unable to look away, seeing her as he’d seen her in the hotel room, clothes dropping around her feet. Then he was in her bedroom, touching her things, the silk becoming skin, the same feeling. He looked away.