The Boys from Brazil by Levin Ira

Author:Levin, Ira [Levin, Ira]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Astounding, such a sameness. Peas in a pod.

And even more astounding when, on top of the sameness of their gaunt faces and skeptical attitudes, you put the sameness of sixty-five-year-old fathers who were civil servants, dead by violence within a month of each other. And the sameness of their mothers’ age, forty-one or -two. How could so much sameness be?

The wheel pulled toward the right; he straightened it, peering through the wiper’s fast flickings. Concentrate on the driving!

It couldn’t be only coincidence, it was too much. But what else could it be? Was it possible that Mrs. Curry of Lenox (who praised her dead husband’s forgiveness) and Frau Döring of Gladbeck (no model of faithfulness, it seemed) had both had affairs with the same gaunt sharp-nosed man nine months before their sons were born? Even in that unlikely event (a Lufthansa pilot commuting between Essen and Boston!), the boys wouldn’t be twins. And that’s what they were, absolutely identical.

Twins…

Mengele’s main interest. The subject of his Auschwitz experiments.

So?

The white-haired professor at Heidelberg: “Not one of the suggestions made so far has recognized Dr. Mengele’s presence in the problem.”

Yes, but these boys weren’t twins; they only looked like twins.

He wrestled with it in the bus to Worcester.

It had to be a coincidence. Everyone had a double, as Mrs. Curry had said so unconcernedly; and though he doubted the statement’s truth, he had to admit he’d seen plenty of look-alikes in his lifetime: a Bormann, two Eichmanns, half a dozen others. (But look-alikes, not look-the-sames; and why had she poured the grapefruit juice so carefully? Had she been very concerned, and afraid a shaking hand might betray her? And then the quick kicking-him-out, suddenly busy. Dear God, could the wives be involved? But how? Why?)

The snow had stopped, the sun shone. Massachusetts swung past—dazzlingly white hills and houses.

Mengele’s obsession with twins. Every account of that subhuman scum mentioned it: the autopsies on slaughtered twins to find genetic reasons for their slight differences, the attempts to work changes on living twins…

Now listen, Liebermann, you’re going a little bit overboard. More than two months ago you saw Erich Döring. For less than five minutes. So now you see a boy who’s the same type—with a strong resemblance, granted—and in your head you’re doing a little mixing and matching, and presto: identical twins, and Mengele at Auschwitz. The whole thing is that two men out of seventeen happened to have sons who look alike. So what’s so astounding?

But what if it’s more than two? What if it’s three?

You see. Overboard. Why not imagine quadruplets while you’re at it?

The widow in Trittau had given Klaus the eye, and offered him more. In her sixties? Maybe. But probably younger. Forty-one? Forty-two?

In Worcester he asked his hostess, a Mrs. Labowitz, if he could make an overseas call. “I’ll pay you back, of course.”

“Mr. Liebermann, please! You’re a guest in our home; it’s your telephone!”

He didn’t argue. The place was a mansion practically.

It was five-fifteen. Eleven-fifteen in Europe.

The operator reported no answer at Klaus’s number.

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