The Man with the Iron Heart (12 page)

Bokov gave him a dirty look. The truth could be far more irritating than any lie. “All right, I won’t knock him around for being an SS swine,” the NKVD man said. “I’ll knock him around because he may know something about what happened to Pietruszka. Does that make you happy?”

“Pietruszka was a solid man,” Leszczynski said, which could have meant anything.

Whatever it meant, Bokov could worry about it later. He turned back to Adrian Marwede. “So, SS man…” he said, and watched Marwede flinch. In a Russian’s mouth, that was all too likely a death sentence in and of itself. Bokov let him stew for a few seconds, then asked, “What do you know about Reinhard Heydrich, SS man?”

“He’s supposed to be a tough bastard.” Marwede sounded less impressed than he might have. He explained why as he went on, “How tough can you be when you hardly ever get near the front?”

Captain Bokov didn’t care whether Heydrich was personally brave. Things he’d heard made him think Heydrich was, but it didn’t matter one way or the other. The man was a goddamn nuisance—worse than a goddamn nuisance—and needed suppressing. “What do you know about what Heydrich’s up to, SS man?”

“What? You think the
Reichsprotektor
talks to the likes of me?” Marwede raised an eyebrow.

Without changing expression, Bokov slapped him across the face, forehand and backhand. That was good technique; not only did it hurt, it humiliated. The German staggered. “Don’t screw around with me,” Bokov said evenly. “Tell me what I want to know, and don’t give me any shit. You answer another question with a question and what happens next’ll make that look like a love tap. Get me?”

Marwede spat—spat red, in fact. He nodded gingerly. “Yes, I get you.”

He got that his life lay in an NKVD officer’s cupped palm. Well, what else did he need to get? If Bokov decided to squeeze…“What do you know about what Heydrich’s up to?”

“Not much.” Hastily, Marwede went on, “Nobody up at the front ever found out much of what he was up to. All we knew was, there were times we couldn’t get the guns or the ammo we needed. When that happened, people would swear at Heydrich. He was squirreling the stuff away, or guys said he was.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Captain Leszczynski remarked.

“So have I,” Bokov said. He knew why, too: it was true. He also knew why Heydrich was squirreling that stuff away—to do just what he and his merry thugs were doing now. The Russian eyed Marwede. “What else do you know? What else have you heard?”

“Well…nothing I can prove,” Marwede said. Bokov gestured impatiently. The German continued, “Sometimes guys’d go back with light wounds, things that wouldn’t keep them out of action more than two, three weeks, tops. Only they wouldn’t come to the front again when they should’ve healed up. That’d drive our officers crazy.”

“What happened to them?” Bokov asked. “And don’t tell me you don’t know, either. You Fritzes have paperwork coming out your assholes. I’ve never seen people for paperwork like Germans. If you wanted to find out where these troops were, you could.”

Marwede held up his right hand with index and middle fingers raised together: the gesture Germans used when they were swearing an oath. “Honest to God, I don’t know. Our officers
couldn’t
track those guys. It was like they fell off the face of the earth. They just disappeared. Nobody knew where. Nobody could find out where. People said Heydrich had ’em. I don’t know if he did, but people said so.”

“I’ve heard that before, too,” Leszczynski said.

“Me, too,” Bokov agreed. He glowered at the SS man. “When did this start happening?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Marwede set himself for another blow. When it didn’t come, he continued, “First couple of people I can remember disappearing like that were right after Kursk, I think.”

“Fuck your mother!” Bokov exclaimed in Russian. Marwede scowled; he must have learned what that meant. The NKVD man didn’t care. If the Germans had started collecting holdouts as early as the summer of 1943…they’d have a devil of a lot of them, and the bastards could raise all kinds of hell. Which, when you got right down to it, was nothing he didn’t know already.

“That I hadn’t heard,” Captain Leszczynski said with calm either commendable or excessive, depending on how you looked at things.

“Neither had I. As far as I know, nobody’s heard that before,” Bokov said. He wanted to slap the SS man around for no better reason than giving him bad news. The look he gave Marwede should have knocked him over by itself. “Listen, cuntface, if you’re lying to me just to make me trip over my own dick, I’ll hunt you down and cut your balls off and stuff ’em down your throat.”

He wasn’t lying. Adrian Marwede had the sense to realize as much. “Not me,” he said, using that oath-taking gesture again. “I’ve done plenty of stupid things, but I’m not dumb enough to screw around with the NKVD.”

So he recognized the collar tabs and cap, did he? That was interesting. “You were dumb enough to join the SS,” Bokov growled. “You’re dumb enough for anything.” 1943?
Summer
1943?
Bozhemoi!

The Indiana state Capitol was one impressive building. Diana McGraw had never seen it before, not in person, even though Anderson was only about twenty miles outside of Indianapolis. A housewife in a suburban town didn’t need to hobnob with state legislators. But, since she’d already seen her Congressman, the idea of coming here intimidated her less than it would have before.

Now that she’d seen the U.S. Capitol, this one also seemed a little less splendid than it would have. It was built in the same neo-Roman style, but the dome was smaller and narrower, the proportions altogether less grand. Well, so what? Indiana wasn’t Washington, and most of the time that was a good thing.

Dressed in black, she got out of the family Pontiac. Ed sat stolidly behind the wheel, lighting a Chesterfield. This wasn’t his show—it was hers. He mourned their son by himself, within himself. Diana was the one with the fiery conviction that what had happened to Pat shouldn’t happen to any other mother’s son. She was the one who was damn well going to do something about it, too.

She glanced at her watch. It was still a quarter to ten. Of course she’d made sure she got here early. Things wouldn’t start for another forty-five minutes. And when they did…She wasn’t sure what would happen then. You couldn’t be sure till you went and did something.

A man across the street whistled and waved. It wasn’t a wolf whistle—he was trying to get her attention. When she looked up, he called, “Mrs. McGraw?”

“That’s me.” She nodded automatically.

He loped across the street toward her, dodging cars like a half-back. He wore a snap-brim fedora and a sharp suit that didn’t hang well on his pudgy frame. Behind him came a bareheaded guy in his shirtsleeves who carried a big camera. “I’m E. A. Stuart, from the
Times,
” the man in the lead said. “S-T-U-A-R-T. No W. We talked on the phone. This sounds interesting. Jack here’ll take photos.”

“Hi,” Jack said around the stub of a smelly cigar.

“Pleased to meet you both,” Diana said. “What does the ‘E.A.’ stand for?”

Jack grunted laughter. E. A. Stuart sighed. “You really want to know? Ebenezer Amminadab,” he answered resignedly. “My ma read the Bible too darn much, you want to know what I think. But that’s how come I use E.A.”

“Amminadab,” Diana echoed in wonder, hoping she was pronouncing it right. “Well, now that you mention it, yes. About your mother, I mean.”

“He was the only kid in kindergarten who went by his initials,” Jack said.

“Oh, shut up,” E. A. Stuart told him, and Diana was sure the reporter had heard the joke way too many times before. Stuart turned back to her. “How many people you expect here?”

“Hundreds,” she said, more confidently than she felt. Where were they? She’d made phone calls. She’d sent wires. She’d got answers. No, more: she’d got promises. Satan surely fried people who said they’d do something and then didn’t come through. That wouldn’t do her any good, though. If this fizzles…I’ll try something else, that’s all, she told herself. Quitting never entered her mind.

Another woman wearing mourning got out of a car. The old De Soto drove off. The woman, who shouldered a sign as if it were an M-1, came over to Diana.

So did another reporter. He introduced himself as Chuck Christman, from the
Indianapolis News.
The photographer he had in tow might have been Jack’s younger brother. The way the newspapermen razzed one another showed they’d been covering the same stories for a long time.

The other woman was Louise Rodgers, from Bloomington. She was about Diana’s age—no big surprise there—and she’d lost a boy to a roadside bomb two weeks after the German surrender. “The papers and the news on the radio just whitewash everything,” she told E. A. Stuart and Chuck Christman.

“We’re here now,” Christman pointed out.

“Months late and how many lives short?” Louise Rodgers said. “Till I heard from Diana, I didn’t think I could do anything about David—that’s my son; no,
was
my son—except sit around the house and cry all day. But if we can keep other mothers from crying, that’s better.”

“You said it,” Diana agreed. The reporters scribbled.

More women drifted in. Some of them had lost sons after the Nazis allegedly gave up, too. Others hadn’t, but still hated the idea of so many soldiers dying after the war was supposed to be over and victory won. Some men joined them, too—not many, but some. Two were veterans who’d been wounded in France or Germany. Another, older, was like Ed; he’d caught a packet in 1918.

“They called the last one the war to end war. This time, the stupid war can’t even end itself,” he said. The reporters liked that. They both wrote it down.

Diana went back and opened the Pontiac’s rear door. She took her own picket sign off the backseat.
BRING OUR BOYS HOME FROM GERMANY NOW
! it said. “Come on,” she told the other demonstrators.

Heart thuttering, she led them to the sidewalk in front of the capitol. She’d never done anything like this before. Till Pat got killed, she’d never imagined doing anything like this. Nothing like a kick in the teeth to boot you out of your old routine.

HOW MANY DEAD
? one sign asked.
TOO MANY DEAD
! another answered.
WHY ARE THEY STILL THERE?
another demanded.
ISN’T THE WAR OVER YET?
a sign inquired rhetorically.
STOP THE WAR DEPARTMENT’S LIES!
another said. 1000+
DEAD SINCE SURRENDER!
another sign declared. Anybody who carried one without either a question mark or an exclamation point seemed out of place.

Another contingent of picketers came up the street.
ILLINOIS MOTHERS SUPPORT BRINGING TROOPS HOME!
announced the sign their leader carried.
GERMAN OCCUPATION WASTES AMERICAN LIVES!
another one said. A decorated veteran carried that sign.

“Good to see you!” Diana called to the Illinoisans. She could hear how relieved she sounded. Well, she’d earned the right, by God. They’d said they would come down. It was an easy train trip from Chicago. But promises were worth their weight in gold. She remembered what she’d thought a little earlier about the Devil and people who didn’t come through.

Now, where were the people from Ohio? They’d promised, too. Which meant…She’d have to see what it meant, or whether it meant anything.

A man driving a battered Model A Ford stopped right in the middle of Capitol Street. The bakery truck behind him almost rearended him, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He leaned out the window and shouted, “Communists! You’re all nothin’ but a bunch of lousy Reds!”

“We’re Americans, that’s what we are!” Diana shouted back. The demonstrators near her cheered.
We have to carry flags next time,
she thought, and wished she could write that down so she wouldn’t lose it.

“Communists!” the man in the Model A yelled again. He shook his fist at the people on the sidewalk.

The bakery-truck driver leaned on his horn. So did somebody stuck in back of him. The man in the Model A shook his fist once more, maybe at them, maybe at the picketers, maybe at the world. He put the decrepit old car in gear. It wheezed on down the road.

“Well, people are noticing us,” said the woman at the head of the Illinois group. Her name was Edna Somebody—right this minute, Diana couldn’t remember what.

She nodded. “That’s the idea. Now where are those folks from Columbus and Cincinnati? They said they’d be here.”

“Isn’t that them?” Edna Somebody pointed up the street. Lopatynski, that was her name.
No wonder I couldn’t come up with it for a second,
Diana told herself.

Sure enough, here they came, like the cavalry riding up over a hill in the last reel of a Western serial.
OHIO SAYS TOO MANY HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING!
their leader’s sign said.
THE WAR DEPT. STILL WANTS WAR!
declared another. And a haggard woman’s sign poignantly asked,
WHAT DID MY ONLY SON DIE FOR?

Another car stopped on Capitol, this one with a screech of brakes. “Traitors!” yelled the man inside. His face was beet red; he all but frothed at the mouth. “They oughta string up the lot of you!”

Diana worked hard to stay calm. She’d feared—no, she’d known—people would shout things like that. She’d done her homework, too. “The Constitution says we can peaceably assemble and petition for a redress of grievances. My son got blown up months after the surrender. Isn’t that a grievance?”

The red-faced man’s arm shot up and out in a salute the Germans had made odious all over the world.
“Heil
Hitler!” he said. “You fools want the Nazis back again.” He drove off before horns blared behind him.

Edna Lopatynski’s laugh was shaky, but it was a laugh. “Well, Diana, are we Communists or are we Nazis?”

“No,” Diana answered firmly. “We’re Americans. If the government is doing something stupid, we’ve got the right to say so. We’ve got the right to make it stop. And that’s what we’re doing.” She looked around. Chuck Christman and E. A. Stuart were both close enough to hear what she’d said.

Yes, she’d expected to get called a traitor and a Communist. That anybody could think she was trying to help the Nazis after Heydrich’s lunatics murdered Pat…Her free hand folded into a fist. She wanted to clock that guy. The nerve!

Several cops stood around watching the picketers go back and forth. One of them ambled over to Diana and fell into step beside her. “You running this whole shebang?” he inquired.

“I organized it, anyhow,” she said. “I don’t know that anybody’s in charge.”

“Yeah, well, if it goes wrong you’re the one we’ll jug,” the policeman said. “Keep doing like you’re doing. Stay spaced out. Let people through. Stuff like that. Long as you play by the rules, we won’t give you no trouble. I think you’re full of hops myself, but that’s got nothin’ to do with what’s legal.”

“My son got killed for no reason,” Diana said tightly. “President Truman never has said why we still need to be in Germany. I don’t think he knows, either.”

“He’s the President of the United States.” The cop sounded shocked.

“He was a Kansas City machine politician till FDR dumped Henry Wallace,” Diana retorted. “He’s only President ’cause Roosevelt died. He’s not infallible or anything.”

“Huh.” Shaking his head, the policeman went away.

Several men who looked like state legislators—they were mostly portly, they had gray hair, and they wore expensive suits—came out onto the Capitol steps to watch the demonstration. Some of them shook their heads, too.
They must figure we’re a bunch of crackpots,
Diana thought.
Well, we’ll show ’em!

One of the legislators got into an argument with his colleagues. Another man ostentatiously turned his back on him. Diana wondered if the first guy was on her side. She could hope so, anyhow.

A car horn blared. The driver stuck his left hand out of the window, middle finger raised. He didn’t bother slowing down.

Lobbyists and lawyers with briefcases passed through the picket line on the way to doing business in the Capitol. “You should be ashamed,” one of them said, but he took it no further than that. More ordinary people went through, too—men in work clothes, women in dresses they’d got from the Sears catalogue or made themselves.

A couple of them said unkind things, too. But one fellow who looked like a mechanic said, “Give ’em hell, folks!” and flashed a thumbs-up. Diana wanted to kiss him. Not everybody hated them! She’d hoped that was true, but she hadn’t been sure.

A fat, middle-aged man stood on the sidewalk watching the demonstrators. Every time Diana turned around and got another look at him, he got hotter and hotter. Edna Lopatynski also saw it. “That fellow’s going to make trouble,” she said quietly.

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Diana answered. “But what can we do about it?”

They went back and forth twice more before the fat man blew a fuse. “Commies!” he yelled. “Nazis!” He didn’t know which brush to tar them with, so he used both. Then he charged into them, fists flailing.

A woman squalled when he hit her. Another woman stuck out a foot and tripped him as he rampaged past her. A man sat on him and kept him from doing anything worse than he’d already done.

The Capitol police came over in a hurry this time, and came over in force. The fat man yelled obscenities. “I dink he boke by dose,” said the woman he’d hit. Her nose was sure bleeding: red spotted the front of her white blouse. Jack and the photographer from the
News
both took pictures of her.

“You can’t haul off and belt a lady like that, buddy,” one of the policemen said. “You’re under arrest.”

“Lady?” The fat man found several other things to call her, none of them endearments. Then he said, “You oughta haul her off to jail for doing crap like this. You oughta haul every goddamn one o’ these yahoos off to jail, and you oughta lose the key once you do.”

“They may be jerks, but they aren’t breaking any laws,” the flatfoot answered. “Assault and battery, now…” He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “You should be ashamed of yourself. She ain’t even half your size.”