Up in Honey's Room Read online

  He came to a table laden with green and gold copies of a book, Forever Amber, some of them upright, the woman on the cover of the novel looking at him, showing Otto bare shoulders but not much in the way of breasts. Now he was aware of a woman on the other side of the table watching him as he looked at the woman on the cover who must be Amber, though the blond ringlets made her look so innocent.

  Amber St. Claire, the woman across the table from him said and then recited, uses her wits, beauty and courage to . . . well, become the favorite mistress of the merry monarch, Charles II.

  Otto raised his eyes to this one in a black suit with trousers, a young woman, much more interesting than the one on the book cover, this one up to something.

  Otto said, Is it a good story?

  His accent didn't make her hesitate.

  It was banned in Boston, and you haven't read it?

  Otto said, No, and smiled at her. He felt good and couldn't help smiling.

  She wore round glasses in thin black frames, red lip rouge, no jewelry, no blouse beneath the slim, the very slim black suit he knew was expensive. She was tall, still a girl without being girlish, clean dark hair to her shoulders. He liked the easy refinement about this one he believed was up to something.

  She said, Are you a Vicki Baum fan? She's just out with Once in Vienna. . . .

  I don't think I've ever read a book, Otto said, written by someone named Vicki.

  He watched her stroke her hair from her face with the tips of her fingers lacquered bright red, then toss her hair and he liked the way she did it, though it was only a gesture. He watched her turn to pick up a book from the table behind her and come around to him saying, Werner Richter's Re-educating Germany. You know Richter?

  He was Weimar, pre-Nazi, Otto said, from olden times. He said, Tell me your name.

  She said, I'm Aviva Friedman.

  Really? Otto said. You're a Jewess?

  And you're a Kraut, a Nazi?

  I'm an officer in the SS, Otto said, wanting to smile. Aviva said, Oh dear.

  And now he did, he smiled because he felt good knowing he could talk to this woman, this girl who was up to something.

  Otto said, You remind me of a woman I knew in Benghazi. She was Italian. He smiled again and removed his homburg and laid it across two copies of Forever Amber. I was in love with her.

  That's right, they're on your side, Aviva said, the Italians. For whatever good they do us.

  She said, You look much younger without the hat.

  I am young, and free, Otto said, looking at his watch, for the next one and a half hours. Then I'm taken back and told not to leave the premises.

  She kept staring at him.

  You're a German prisoner of war.

  And if you tell anyone, Otto said, I'll put the Gestapo on you. I told you I'm in the SS.

  Did you ever send people to death camps?

  I was in North Africa with Rommel, commanding tanks. The Italian girl you think I resemble, she was there?

  Yes, in Libya. She was a nurse at the hospital. She placed a dressing on my chest, where it was burned, and I fell in love with her.

  You're like what's his name, in A Farewell to Arms.

  Frederic Henry, Otto said. Are you sure you aren't Italian? You know the nurse in real life, Aviva said, wasn't an En- glish girl, like the one in the book.

  No, I believe she was Polish, Otto said.

  I know what I bet you'd like, Aviva said, Leave Her to Heaven. But right away said, No, turned to the table behind her, came around with a book saying, The Prisoner, by Ernst Lothar. She turned the book over to read from the back cover, 'From the Normandy beachhead to an American prison camp in Colorado, the story of the unmaking of a Nazi.' What do you think?

  Otto said, Tell me what you're up to.

  She said in an offhand way, I'm curious to know what you read.

  For what reason?

  I knew you were German. I should say I knew you weren't American and I guessed you were a Kraut.

  I don't care to be called that.

  Aviva said, I don't care to be called a Jewess. What are you, Lutheran?

  At one time, yes.

  What do you call women who are Lutheran, Lutheranesses?

  Otto said, You have a point. But what do you care what I read?

  First tell me your name.

  Otto Penzler.

  Otto, I was making conversation, that's all. You're an interesting-looking guy. Then I hear your accent, I find out yes, you're German, and I thought oh, wow, I should get to know this guy.

  Why don't you think I look American?

  I don't know, the way you carry yourself. You don't act like an American.

  But why do you want to know me?

  She seemed to have to think about her answer.

  I don't live here, Aviva said. But when I come to Detroit I always stop at Hudson's. I love this store, and the book department, the tables and tables of books. I came to Detroit this time to buy the typescript of a play by Bertolt Brecht.

  Which play?

  You know Brecht?

  The Communist playwright.

  He digs Marx, Aviva said, but he's never been a card-carrying Communist. You know his work?

  Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder. I saw the one he did with Kurt Weill before they burned his books and threw him out of Germany, Die Dreigroschenoper. You see it, it's the Threepenny Opera. What is he doing now?

  He's in Hollywood working on movies, Aviva said, Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die with Brian Donlevy. It's about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's alter ego. Brecht wrote the story, not the screenplay. When you write a screenplay there's always someone telling you what to write, and he's not good at writing to order. But the main thing Brecht's doing, he's getting ready to show his new play. She stopped and came around to the end of the Forever Amber display to be closer to Otto. She said, Can I trust you?

  Aviva, Otto said, and had to smile at her. Can you trust me you can do anything you want with me. Don't call the police and I won't send the Gestapo after you.

  Tell me, Aviva said, they let you out for the day, the afternoon. Don't tell me you escaped, okay? If I can trust you, Otto, I've got a job for you. Translating Brecht's play into English.

  What does he call it?

  The Caucasian Chalk Circle .

  Otto said, Der kaukasische Kreidekreis , mumbling the words. What is it about?

  I have no idea. It's sort of based on a Chinese play five or six hundred years old, The Chalk Circle.

  Brecht is a friend of yours?

  No, the guy I've been doing business with, he's in the army, in Hollywood fooling around and met Brecht. I think he sold him something. They're having drinks at Brecht's house, some kind of party going on. A copy of the play is sitting on the coffee table the whole while. Brecht got sloshed and went to bed.

  Otto said, Yes? starting to smile.

  Pete had his eye on the script the whole time. He left with the script under his jacket and called me from his hotel. Asked if I'd be interested in buying the play.

  Why did he think you might want it?

  We've got something going. Pete's in army transportation, he's a Detroit mob guy who somehow got drafted. For the past year he's been selling me paintings and art objects he and his guys smuggled out of France. All the stuff the Nazis stole, Pete took a lot of it off their hands.

  Important works of art?

  Some, but it's all marketable.

  This is what you do, you fence stolen goods?

  I find art collectors who look at my catalog and get a hard-on. I sell paintings that hung in the Louvre to people living in New York and Palm Beach, at a discount. I still make a pile of money and the collectors give me a big hug.

  How do you get into this business?

  My dad got it going. He was a captain in the merchant marine, retired now, he's almost seventy. I called him to see if we should buy a play by Brecht, one that's still unknown to the world. Dad said he'd check
with book collectors, see how much any of them were interested. I could tell he liked the idea. He said, 'Offer Pete five hundred, but don't go over a grand.'

  Otto said, You got it for . . . ?

  Two-fifty. I told Pete we'd be happy to give him a percentage if we get any interest in it. You play it straight with this guy.

  If you're going to sell it, Otto said, why do you want a translation?

  I'd like to know what it's about.

  You could go to prison.

  Everything I sell comes out of Europe. Good luck trying to trace it back. Pete's guys bring it into the country. I don't do any of that.

  And now you go home?

  What I'm thinking, Aviva said, you ought to come with me. You could start doing the translation on the boat.

  Otto said, The boat? He loved this girl already.

  A forty-foot Chris-Craft. It's tied up at the yacht club on Belle Isle.

  You have a crew?

  I'm the skipper, Aviva said. I have a gook excuse me a Filipino boy who handles the lines and serves drinks in a white jacket. We head down the Detroit River past Ford Rouge and the steel mills to Lake Erie and we're almost home. Aviva said to Otto grinning at her, Have you ever been to Cleveland?

  The first thing Walter said to Jurgen getting in the front seat, Where is Otto? Walter anxious, looking for Otto in his homburg in the crowd waiting for the light to change. Now cars behind them were blowing horns. Walter didn't move. He looked at the rearview mirror and said, Be quiet! But now he did put the Ford in gear and began to crawl past the block-long front of Hudson's.

  We were separated, Jurgen said.

  How could that happen? You were careful?

  He got on an elevator without me, Jurgen said.

  You were arguing?

  The door closed before I could get on. There's nothing to worry about, Walter. He'll be along. Circle the block, I'm sure we'll see him.

  I knew something like this would happen, Walter said. Why I was against you going out in public, your pictures in every post office in the country.

  Jurgen said, Yes, but do we look like those lost souls? I hope not.

  It took Walter ten minutes to drive several blocks past signs that refused to allow him to turn, finally coming roundabout past the corner again, Walter straining to find Otto in the crowd.

  Do you see him? No, because he isn't there. You let him out of your sight and now he's gone. We'll read about him in the newspaper, escaped prisoner of war arrested by the police.

  If he's caught he won't tell on you. We know you're up to something with the lovely Vera and Dr. Taylor who doesn't speak. Why won't you tell us about it?

  I can tell you, Walter said, but not with Otto present. I worry he's going crazy.

  He's always been crazy, Jurgen said. It got him an Iron Cross in North Africa. I think he could get by here, with a little luck. Jurgen believed he could tell Walter almost anything. Otto can be charming, if he has a good enough reason. I'm not going to worry about him.

  Not with Carl Webster here.

  Relentless Carl, not only knowing Jurgen would be in Detroit, but also having lunch where he and Otto were going to dine. Not the Georgian or the Early American restaurant, or the cafeteria in the basement the girl operating the elevator told him about, no, in the Pine Room.

  Carl coming closer and closer.

  How did he do that?

  It was funny, because Jurgen wasn't surprised to see him sitting there. Startled, yes, for a moment but not actually that surprised. He knew that Carl, sooner or later, would be on his trail.

  He could see himself sitting down with Carl, talking, getting along. A bar would be a good place, the Brass Rail they passed on the way to Hudson's. Or a nightclub he saw advertised in the paper, Frank Barbaro's Bowery. It offered entertainment, a romantic baritone, dinners from a dollar and a half up. What else? The room was air-cooled for your comfort.

  Sometime after the war.

  He would have to be on his toes now, wondering where he would see Carl next.

  Chapter Ten.

  Carl liked the way she offered him a drink when he came to pick her up, Honey saying he could have anything he wanted as long as it was rye. He liked her in the black sweater and skirt and the way the slit in the skirt opened as she walked to the kitchen. She returned with drinks and offered him a Lucky, telling him in a semiserious tone, I'm sorry, but I seem to be out of Beech-Nut scrap. Carl smiled, appreciating her effort, her memory even more. She paid attention to what he said.

  Now they were at opposite ends of the cushy sofa with their highballs and cigarettes, both sitting back with their legs crossed: Carl showing a cowboy boot, old but polished, Honey a plain black pump hanging from her toes, showing Carl the delicate arch of her foot. She asked him if he always wore cowboy boots.

  About all my life, Carl said.

  Because you live in Oklahoma?

  They're my shoes, Carl said. He asked if she was nervous, about to see Walter again.

  I'm looking forward to it, Honey said. I can't wait to see how you handle him.

  Was he ever mean to you, lose his temper?

  He never hit me, if that's what you're wondering.

  Does he own a gun?

  He had a shotgun he'd take to Georgia, and go bird shooting. You never went along?

  He'd meet his friend Joe Aubrey.

  The one with the chain of restaurants, Carl said. I read the sheet the Bureau has on him. He has a plane?

  A Cessna. He'd fly up here from Georgia, Honey said, take Walter for rides and show him how to work the controls. That was in '39. I don't know if he's been up here since.

  He comes to see Walter a couple of times a year, Carl said. Or Walter takes a bus to Griffin, south of Atlanta. Saves wear on his tires. You met Joe?

  I stayed out of his way, Honey said. I considered Joe Aubrey as big a lout as Fritz Kuhn. I've always felt Joe would love to shoot somebody.

  Why's that?

  He hates colored people. I'd be surprised if he hasn't taken part in lynchings.

  He's never been arrested.

  He hates Jews and what he calls Commonists.

  How about Vera Mezwa?

  She came after my time with Walter. Vera and Dr. Michael George Taylor. I don't know either of them.

  You think they're German agents?

  Kevin does and he knows more about them than I do. I think they're serious about working for the Nazis. They like the idea of sieg heiling each other and having secret meetings. But where do they get information about war production?

  Carl said, From newspapers?

  That's what I think. They send information written in invisible ink and that makes them spies. I think the FBI keeps waiting for them to actually do something subversive, wishing they'd hurry up and make a move before the war ends.

  Kevin told you about the Afrika Korps guys.

  The ones you're positive are here, Honey said. You don't want to come right out and ask Walter about them directly. You said you want to edge around the two guys, try and surprise Walter into giving them up.

  He liked her remembering what he'd said at lunch, about edging around. Will you stare at him?

  Blow smoke at him. You can torture him, Honey said, it's okay with me. I'll help you.

  Carl said, Pull out his fingernails?

  I don't know he bites them down so close, gnaws on them like a squirrel. It'd be hard to get a purchase. You have a gun, don't you? Stick the barrel in his mouth and ask him what you want to know. Walter's the most serious person you'll ever meet in your life. Tell him something outrageous with a straight face, he'll buy it.

  Kevin said you told him a couple of pretty funny jokes that sailed right by him.

  Walter analyzes jokes. But he has no imagination, so he doesn't think they're funny. He won't accept the grasshopper that goes in a bar and orders a drink. Or a guy being in love with a sheep. But there was one I did tell him I might not've mentioned to Kevin and Walter surprised me, he sorta
laughed.

  Carl glanced toward the window as Honey said, About a guy who tells his friend he's got an excruciating pain in his bum.

  Tell it in the car, Carl said. I want to see Walter's place while it's still light.

  They were on Ten Mile now, a narrow road that needed patches of blacktop, open fields on both sides, the Pontiac heading into the sun. Carl said, The guy tells his friend he's got an awful pain in his butt.

  And the friend, Honey said, tells him he has piles and what kind of cream to use for it. The guy tries the cream but still has the awful pain. He runs into another friend and tells him about it. This one says no, creams don't work. He tells the guy to have a cup of tea, then take the tea leaves and pack them up his behind like a poultice. The guy does it, has a cup of tea every day for a week and stuffs the leaves up his heinie. The guy's still in terrible pain, so finally he goes to see a doctor. The doctor tells him to drop his pants and bend over. He looks up the guy's keester and says, 'Yes, I see you have piles. And I see you're going to go on a long journey.'