See How They Run (11 page)
From the dazzling white yacht, the unsettled Brazilian coast appeared to be lush, impossible jungle.
From the sun-splashed airplane, it was jungle, with a thin ribbon of virgin beach winding monotonously alongside the sea.
From the sports car, the crystal white sand, rather than the jungle, was the thing: the creamy beach itself was the only road to Las Flores and the exotic Hotel Mercedes Bleu.
By four that afternoon—teatime—the occupants of the sports car, the plane, and the yacht were seated on a palm-and-umbrella-shaded terrazzo at the spectacular resort hotel.
On the rattan table in front of them were spread several newspapers outlining the curious events of the past few days.
The New York Times
. The
Washington Post
. London’s
Daily Mail
and
Times. Le Monde. Suddeutsche Zeitung
, which came all the way from Munich. In the background, a big-band version of 1923’s “Yes, We Have No Bananas” played from stereo speakers hidden in the palm trees.
“Well, so what does anyone make of all this sudden madness?” asked Dr. Ludwig Hahn, former chief of the Warsaw Gestapo, now a retired banker in São Paulo. “Wealthy Jewish families terrorized in America. Adolf Hitler on American television.”
“I have no idea myself. Shall we contact any of the others?” The second speaker was Richard Glucks, former SS general of all German concentration camps, a respected financier in Rio since 1947.
“Perhaps a meeting of ‘the Spider’ is in order?”
“What about Martin Bormann? Back in America, I hear?” asked Hahn. “Or Mengele?”
“Bormann is sick. Bormann is going to die soon. Mengele is senile. He’s always been senile.”
“No. You’re wrong there. Mengele has made a career out of being a creative child; Mengele is no fool, though.”
Walter Rauff, number 2 man in the Fourth Reich’s Latin arm, La Arana, was speaking now. At Nuremberg, this same Rauff had been charged with the premeditated murder of 106,000 human beings.
“Bormann seems to get sick and die every three years or so.” Ludwig Hahn laughed into his glass of gin. “Every time Mossad or Michael Ben-Iban comes sniffing around.”
Gold teeth sparkled all around the table. Glasses of whiskey and Strega were tipped.
“Well, what do we think about this?” Rauff pointed at the pile of foreign newspapers. There were Storm Troop or neo-Nazi headlines on every one of them.
The number 1 man in La Arana, the yachtsman, calmly and thoughtfully answered the question posed by Walter Rauff.
“Personally, I propose that we drink a toast to them,” said Heinrich Muller, former chief of the Gestapo, the most wanted Nazi of all.
“Whoever they are!”
On her fourth afternoon at Cherrywoods, Alix Rothschild sat on a sun-drenched boulder half-submerged in softly rippling, silver-blue Lake Arrow.
She thought that the setting would be just right for a sappy Tricot perfume commercial. The lake was covered with stars and sun spirals. Her hair was gleaming.
Alix was thinking that her life had gotten much too confusing and out of control in the past several weeks. Out of control even beyond her nightmares.
For one thing, there were heavy, lingering thoughts about the terrible murders of Nick and Elena Strauss. Especially Elena, who had been a patient advisor to Alix since she’d been a little girl. Elena had understood the special problems of being a survivor better than anybody else.
For another thing, though—Alix had begun to fall in like with Dr. David Strauss.
Very strong like
, she had to admit to herself. More tenderness and concern than she had
ever
felt for David before.
And that wasn’t providential or even possible, she was thinking to herself.
She and David had made love one afternoon at the hotel. Then another afternoon and night. The lovemaking had been unexpected, an accident of time and place.
All right
, Alix thought to herself.
Fine. Fantastic, to be honest
. David had a very strong, healthy body. She was attracted to him in other ways as well. His mind was quick. He had a sense of humor. He was gentle, and that was rare.
But that wasn’t for right now. Not under all the circumstances twisting and turning around the two of them. Not when her mind was so perilously close to overloading.
Alix took her size 10s out of the rippling lake water. She shook them off, then tied on leather thongs from the Stitching Horse in Manhattan. Ninety-five-dollar thongs, Alix thought in passing.
Anyway. So what exactly was going on now? What was her heart’s point of view on this matter? Alix jumped ship to shore from her rock. She ducked down and disappeared into low-hanging pine and spruce branches.
She had come to Cherrywoods for three reasons: one, she had badly needed to get away—both from theater people and from herself; two, she’d been in California during Elena’s funeral and she wanted to pay her personal condolences to the family; and three, she’d simply wanted,
needed
, to be with David for a while during the Nazi terror—her old friend for more than thirty years, and a
survivor
now himself.
Instead of leaving Cherrywoods after a day or two, she’d stayed on with David, though. Unfortunate mistake number one. Just for a few more days, right? Just until they both could think straight? Until she could come to grips with the neo-Nazi trauma and danger.
She’d subjected herself to the Peeping Tom-ish media—who were choreographing the Fourth Reich story with a flair for melodrama not seen in America since the kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., and who were already composing those wonderfully familiar tabloid headlines: DR. STRAUSS AND ALIX TOGETHER; ALIX A SURVIVOR; $$$[MS PAGE NO 188]$$$NAZIS IN STRAUSS AND ROTHSCHILD PAST.
Well, she didn’t see how she could stay on with David, Alix decided for the third or fourth time that afternoon.
It was too complicated, too messy, and emotionally loaded. It was difficult to see how it could possibly work out for the best.
Maybe it’s because I’ve stopped working that I’ve become so vulnerable to my emotions. That must be it! An idle mind. …
On her way back from the lake, she did pick some Queen Anne’s lace for David. …
Damnit all! How could this be happening now? “Out of my way, little gray squirrel! Out of my way, tree branches. Ouch.
Shee-oot
.”
That afternoon Alix felt that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better. There were things she wanted to say to David, but she didn’t know if she knew how. She wasn’t sure if she could
ever
tell David all of her secrets.
She purposely dropped the little bunch of Queen Anne’s lace at the edge of the woods.
A minute later she came back and snatched it up again.
Shee-oot.
That evening, Alix and David had a light supper served on the porch of Alix’s suite.
After the meal they talked. They talked in a way that they hadn’t since they’d been back together again.
The two of them sat over the scant evidence of their dinner. Outside the screened porch, an orchestra of crickets and cicadas was tuning up. Inside Alix’s bedroom, the
Eroica
played softly on WQXR.
“When I was out on the lake this afternoon, I was thinking about everything that’s happened,” Alix said. “The very strange, very awful, last few months.”
“I went for a walk up in back with Callaghan.” David’s fingers were drumming the lip of his coffee cup as he spoke. “I was doing pretty much the same thing that you were. Reviewing everything. I’m not sure exactly what I figured out … But I like Harry Callaghan a lot. A nice, quiet gentleman.”
As they listened to the mountain noises and Beethoven, David and Alix held hands lightly and each waited for the other to speak.
Alix dropped her eyes. “I’ve been having … these awful dreams, David. … I mean, I’ve had them since I was a little girl. I see these very horrible scenes from the death camps. Very, very vivid scenes.”
Alix looked up to make sure David wanted to listen. She didn’t usually talk about her nightmares. People never seemed to understand, which Alix supposed was natural.
How could anyone but a survivor comprehend a death-camp nightmare?
“When I used to ride the New York Central into the city, when we were kids, I always pretended that the train was going to Dachau. …” Alix stopped. She looked away from David. “I’m sorry, David. I don’t usually talk about it. I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately.”
“This friend of mine from New York,” David said in a soft voice. “He’s a surgeon over at Flower Fifth Avenue. His family was lost at Buchenwald. He says that he’s always had this terrifying fantasy. … In his fantasy, he’s dying of some incurable disease. So he goes back to Germany. He kills as many Germans as he can in the streets. This is the straightest, meekest man. Terrific doctor. Good friend. He’s partially ashamed of the fantasy, but he has no control over it. It’s a fact of his life as a survivor. Every time he walks up in Yorkville, it comes down on him like the Furies. Lately, I’m beginning to understand the feeling myself.
“Remember I told you about meeting with Benjamin Rabinowitz,” David continued. “I don’t know everything there is to know—far from it—but my grandmother was a contributor to a secretive Jewish group. Benjamin Rabinowitz was one of the group’s leaders. They were heavily involved in the search for Nazi criminals after the war. Elena was always a little vague with me about it. The group’s methods weren’t exactly orthodox or legal. That much I know about.”
David stood up and stretched out his arms. He was feeling terribly uncomfortable. He was saying everything
but
what he actually wanted to say. The words that were right on the tip of his tongue. Had been for about ten minutes.
They were both feeling uncomfortable now.
“My grandmother was also very close to a man named Michael Ben-Iban. Ben-Iban is in the secret Jewish group. He’s one of the Nazi-hunters still working inside Germany.”
Alix nodded. She was listening—intently listening to every word.
“Right now, Ben-Iban is apparently trying to stop whatever it is the Nazis are up to. Ben-Iban is in England at the moment. In London, his people told me.”
Finally, David felt he had to blurt the rest out. Get it over with. Say what had to be said.
“Now that Elena is dead, I think I’d like to help the Jewish group if I can.” David self-consciously lit up a cigarette. “Of course, I don’t know how much help I can be. Maybe it’s just money.” He clicked his lighter shut.
“There’s also a little unsolved mystery attached to my brother Nick’s film. Nick made about half of
The Fourth Commandment
in Europe. Germany, England, Paris. I’ve been reading through some of his production notes. He’d made contact with some of the old Nazis. Some wealthy men and women. Respectable European business people. It all sounds a little like Alfred Hitchcock right now, but—” David stopped in the middle of the sentence and smiled.
“I’m babbling. Why do you let me babble like this?”
“You’re trying to tell me something,” Alix whispered. “So tell me. What are you trying to say, David?”
David nodded. “All right.
I have to go to Europe
.” He finally said it. “I’d like to do … to be honest, I don’t know exactly what. I just have to go. I have to see Michael Ben-Iban. Talk to him in London. Hear what he thinks. For Nick, Elena, Heather. For myself, I guess. I have to try to find out more about the Nazis. I
have
to try and help.”
Alix swayed gently in one of the antique porch rockers. Horowitz was playing a Chopin sonata inside now. Alix’s heart was beating faster than the great pianist’s fingers.
She didn’t have time to stop and logically figure everything out. What made sense; what didn’t. Alix let her emotional side make the decision.
“David, if you’re going to ask me to stay with you, to go with you, I will,” she finally said.
“If you’re not asking me, then I’d like to ask you. Please?”
Alix Rothschild stood up. She walked over to David. For a moment they were both very quiet.
“I’m asking you to go with me,” David finally said.
They were holding hands again.
This time a little more tightly.
Alix was thinking that her own problems could wait. They could wait until she was certain David was ready to understand her nightmares, if such a time would ever come.
The following evening they were in London.
Nazi-hunting.
Nice. The French Riviera.
The Storm Troop began to march again during the final days of June.
In the most curious manner, and in some of the strangest locations.
The Soldier knifed his way through the snobby, tacky, zany crowd-mobbing Cote d’Azur Airport in the glittery, the still very fashionable French Riviera.
This particular day, the military man looked like a gangly Mediterranean playboy. He wore aviator sunglasses, Cardin accessories, a white silk shirt open down to his trim waist.
Not on each arm, but close enough to look like it, were two bosomy women in their late twenties. They were the Nurse and the Legal Secretary, both of them important weapons experts in the burgeoning plan for Dachau Two.
From the crowded little airport they went by “Acapulco Jeep” to a pink stucco villa a few kilometers up the Riviera coast at Menton.
The appointed house was about a mile from the nearest neighbor, a two-star, four-crossed knife-and-fork restaurant. The pink villa belonged to the restaurant owner, a wealthy businessman from Paris. The
Banker
.
The pretty house was visible only for an instant as Renaults and Citroens, headed for Italy, made a long sweeping turn around the spectacular Moyenne Corniche.
The
Engineer
, the
Accountant
, the
Newspaperman
, and the
Lawyer
were already unpacked and waiting inside the villa when Colonel Essmann and the two women arrived.