Making history

test and on such a sultry August day, a large beer, maybe with a shot of raspberry, would be welcome.

'Ruth, a moment,' he said, beckoning his assistant. 'Would you perhaps be so kind as to telephone my wife and tell her that I will be late home again this evening?'

Ruth nodded and moved stiffly to the telephone. She did not take kindly to being treated as a secretary.

Bauer returned to his part of the bench and began to sort idly and hopelessly through his papers. Kremer looked up from the microscope, snapping his fingers.

'Well? Where is it?' he said.

'The map? Good God, Johann, give them a chance. You only asked me a minute ago.'

'What? Really? Yes, I'm sorry.' Kremer smiled across at him like a rueful schoolboy. 'Still, I do wish they would hurry up.'

'Have you seen something?'

Kremer pinched the bridge of his nose wearily, his eyes closed. 'No. Nothing.'

'You were examining the zinc and sodium levels?'

'Yes, but it's nothing. Higher than average, but lower than our own supply here. We should be looking for something bigger, something much bigger.'

'What about those traces of methyl orange?'

'It's contamination, it must be. That original doctor, I assume. What was his name?'

'Schenck. Horst Schenck.'

'Yes, him. The whole thing is insane, Dietrich. If I hadn't seen it work on our mice I would believe it was all a hoax.'

Kremer turned back to his microscope with a sigh. 'Doctor Bauer?' Ruth held out the telephone towards him as if it were contaminated with anthrax. 'Your wife asks that you come and say goodnight to your son.'

Bauer took the telephone and listened for a while in affectionate amusement to the quick breathing of his child.

'Axi?' he said at last.

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'Papa?'

'Have you been a good boy today?' 'Papa!'

'I shall see you tomorrow.' 'Milk.'

'Did you say "milk"? You want some milk?' 'Milk;

'Mutti will give you milk. I can't give you milk over the telephone, you know. Ask Mutti for some milk.'

There followed more quick breathing and then a longer silence.

'Axel? Are you there?' 'Fox.'

'Fox?'

'Fox. Fox, fox, fox.' 'Well, that's nice.'

Bauer heard a clatter as the telephone was dropped. After another silence Marthe's voice echoed in his ear. 'Hello, darling. We saw a fox today. In the garden. It's his favourite animal now.'

'Ah. That explains it.'

'I think he's got ear-ache again. He says "naughty ear" and bangs the side of his head with the palm of his hand.'

'I'm sure it's nothing serious. I'll take a look tomorrow morning.'

'How late are you going to be? That Jew student of yours wouldn't tell me.'

'I'm sorry, darling. But what I'm working on. It's very important. Top priority.'

'I understand. I do. But you will try and eat tonight, ':you?

'Of course. We're very well looked after here, you know.' 'I know. The Fiihrer's favourites.'

'Goodbye, darling.'

Bauer replaced the receiver. Ruth was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, looking busily at a clipboard to show that she hadn't been listening.

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'I think you might as well go home, Fraulem Goldmann. Professor Kremer and I can manage without you for the rest of the day.'

'I am very happy to stay, sir.' 'No, no. Please. No need.'

On her way out, Ruth almost collided with a breathless messenger from retrievals. A glance at his watch told Bauer that he would have to buy his own beer again this evening.

'Nothing,' said Kremer disgustedly. 'Absolutely nothing. The most topographically boring, geologically undistinguished and minerally commonplace terrain in the whole wide world.'

'Not even especially pretty,' agreed Bauer. 'For Austria, that is.'

'Then what is going on? What in deepest hell is going on?' Kremer hammered his pipe-stem onto the map. 'It simply makes no sense. No sense at all.'

'Maybe ..." said Bauer hesitantly. 'Maybe we have missed something obvious. You always taught me that every centimetre one moves from an erroneous first principle takes one a kilometre further from the truth. Maybe we are going in entirely the wrong direction.'

Kremer looked up from the map. 'Explain.'

'We are searching desperately for the cause of an effect that we do not understand. Perhaps it is the effect itself we should be examining.'

Kremer looked at him steadily. 'Perhaps,' he said slowly, drawing out the word with reluctance. 'But, Dietrich, we are down to thirty centilitres. The stakes are so high, the pressure from Berlin so intense. We cannot afford the luxury of a blind alley.'

'That is the point I'm making, Johann. A blind alley is where we are. Let us go back. Let us go back to the beginning.'

Bauer stretched out a hand to the shelf above the bench and pulled out the file marked 'Brunau'.

American History

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The Gettysburg Address

'So, tell me, Mike. What do you know about Brunau?'

The voice was warm, interested and impressed, as if the speaker were asking me to do a trick to impress a friend. I wondered what had happened to Steve. The speed and assurance of the two men - they had given their names as Hubbard and Brown - had left no time for questions or complaints. Would we follow them to their car please? It was right outside. There were some questions that I could help them with. It would be so useful. No need to bring anything and of course no need to worry.

I had been placed between Hubbard and Brown in the back seat of the first of two long, black sedans parked outside the doorway of Henry Hall and it was only as we moved off that it had occurred to me that Steve was nowhere to be seen. I shifted round to give myself a view through the rear-window to see if he was in the second car, but Brown, like an Edwardian schoolmaster, twisted my head gently but firmly back round to face the front.

We had travelled no more than twenty minutes before we turned off the road and into the driveway of a

large house. As we got out of the car I could make out the clapboard of the gables, clinker-built like the background of that painting, American Cothic. The air was soft and fragrant with the smell of pine trees.

Inside, I was led through to a dining room and shown a seat in the middle of a large, shining maplewood table. Hubbard sat opposite me and Brown stood at one end, fiddling with a coffee-pot whose lid appeared to be stuck. 'Consarned thing,' he said, exasperatedly thumping the side of the lid with the side of his fist.

'Charles Winninger!' I exclaimed excitedly, then instantly wished that I had held my tongue.

Hubbard leaned forward with interest. 'Excuse me?' 'It's nothing,' I said. 'I was just thinking aloud.'

'No, no. Please ..." Hubbard spread his hands invitingly.

'I was just thinking of Destry Rides Again. Charles Winninger plays a character called Wash Dimsdale and

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he's always saying "consarned" this and "consarned" that. I never heard anyone else use the word before. That's all.' Hubbard looked up at Brown, who shrugged and shook his head.

'It's a movie,' I explained. 'At least it was once. But you've probably never heard of it.'

I saw that Hubbard had written down in a notebook the words 'Destry' and 'Wininger' followed by two large question-marks. I suppressed a desire to correct the spelling and stared down at the table which glowed as if new. There was a quality to it however, which suggested to me that it was not new, just very, very underused.

'But you didn't answer my original question, did you Mike? Brunau. Tell me what you know about Brunau.' 'What makes you think I know anything at all about it?' 'You don't?'

'Never heard of the place,' I said.

'Well now, that's a start, Mikey. You know it's a place. You know it isn't a person or a shade of pink. That's a good start.'

Pants! Fell into that one, didn't I?

'I suppose I must have heard of it somewhere. In a geography lesson at school maybe ...' I tried, fum-blingly, to correct the sentence into something more American. 'I mean, I guess I heard it in geography class, you know? In school some time. I.guess so, anyways.' I winced inwardly at that last word. Overdoing it a tad.

Hubbard didn't seem to notice anything wrong, just continued with his gentle probing. 'That right? So you remember where it is, this Brunau?'

'Germany?'

'Good. You're doing good, Mike.'

'Hey! You want your coffee black or with cream?' ¦ 'Cream please,' I said, looking up from the table for the first time. Brown had unstuck the lid of the coffeepot somehow and was now delicately pouring thick black coffee into tiny little cups.

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There was an awkward pause as the social embarrassment of the handing round of sugar and teaspoons was completed.

'Where's Steve?' I asked, looking around the room. 'Is he here?'

'He's around,' said Hubbard, taking an exploratory sip of coffee.

'Can I see him?' 'Great coffee, Don.'

Brown nodded contentedly, as if he was used to receiving compliments on the quality of his brew.

'I'd rather not talk any more until I've seen him. Found out what this is all about.'

'This is about you, me and Mr Brown here having a little pow-wow, Mike. That's all. Nothing to worry about. You were telling us that you thought maybe Brunau was in Germany?'

'Well it sounds like a German name, doesn't it?'

'Let's try you on the name Hitler, shall we? That mean anything to you? Hitler?'

Maybe my pupils dilated, maybe they shrank. Maybe I caught my breath a fraction. Maybe my colour changed. I know that I tried to sound casual and I know that the attempt failed.

'Hitler?' I said, swallowing. 'Where's that?'

Hubbard looked up again at Brown who nodded and took a small chromium box from his breast pocket. Placing the box carefully on the table between me and Hubbard, Brown returned to his standing position at the end of the table, placing his hands behind his back like an acolyte who has just performed a ceremonial ritual of great importance.

I stared at the box as* if expecting it to speak. Which was smart of me as a matter of fact, because, after Hubbard had pressed a switch on its side, that was exactly what it did do.

There was background noise, the rustling of cellophane, the clink of glasses, the splutter of a match, the distant

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rush of traffic and other extraneous alfresco sounds, but essentially the box spoke. This is what it said, in two

wouldn't understand if I told you. Steve: Try me. Me: I'm happy because when I asked you earlier, you told me that you'd never heard of Adolf Hitler. Steve: That made you happy? Me: You can have no idea what that means. You've never heard

the names Hitler or Schickelgruber or Polzl. You've never heard of Brunau, you've never... Steve: Brunau? Me: Brunau-am~Inn, Upper Austria. It's not even a name to you and that makes me the happiest man alive. Steve:

heard of the Nazi Party. You've never heard of ...

Hubbard flicked the switch once more.

'So now we're getting somewhere. Brunau is not in Germany, it's in a region of Germany. It's in Austria, Upper Austria even. That kinda narrows it down a little, don't you think?'

'If you knew all the time that I knew where Brunau was,' I said, 'why did you string me along?'

'Well now, I guess I could put that question another

way, Mikey. If you knew where Brunau was all the time, why did you string us along?'

'Then that's stalemate, isn't it?' I said.

Hubbard looked into my eyes. I looked back into his and in the restful chocolate brown of them I tried to see what motive and what intent might be lying there.

'And Hitler,' he said. 'You know that Hitler isn't a place. You know that it's a man's name. "Adolf Hitler", you said. Who might Adolf Hitler be?'

I shook my head.

'And how about Auschwitz? What's that? A place, a person, a brand of beer?' .

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I shrugged. 'You tell me.'

The look of sadness in Hubbard's eyes intensified.

'That's not a good answer, Mikey,' he said. 'That's a terrible answer. We want you to help us. We want you to tell us what you know. That's what this is about. It's not about you trying to be smart.'

'And what we want to know,' Brown's harsher voice added from the end of the table, 'is just who in tarnation you really are.'

My heart had started to hammer heavily in my chest. 'But you know who I am. I'm Michael Young. You know that.' 'Do we know that, Mikey?' Hubbard's voice was speculative, like that of an academic reflecting on the meaning of meaning. 'Do we really? We know that you look like Michael Young, but we know that you sure as shooting don't sound like him. We know that you sure as shooting don't behave like him. So can we know, you know? Really know)'

'Why don't you take my fingerprints? That should satisfy you.'

'We did that already,' said Hubbard. 'And?'

'You must know the answer to that,' Hubbard said gently, 'or you wouldn't have raised the issue in the first place, now would you?'

'So, what then? You think I've had a skin graft? You think I'm some sort of clone? What?'

Hubbard gave no answer, but opened a small notebook and went carefully through the pages.

'How d'you make out with Professor Taylor?' he asked. 'Make out with him? I don't know what you mean. Like you, he asked me a lot of questions. He told me not to worry. He told me I should have some tests.'

'Why do you think Professor Taylor is over here?' 'I'm sorry?'

'An Englishman in America, that's a strange thing. What do you figure he's doing here?'

I thought about this for a while.

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'He's a defector?' I suggested. 'A European dissident, something like that?'

'A defector.' Hubbard tried the word out. 'And how about you? You a European defector too?'

'I'm not European.'

'You talk like a European, Mikey. Your parents are European.'

I lowered my head in exasperation. 'What are you suggesting? That I'm a spy?'

'You tell us.'

I looked at them both in astonishment. 'Are you

serious? I mean, what kind of spy would go to all the trouble of disguising himself perfectly as an all-Ameri-can student, right down to the fingerprints and then go around the place talking loudly in an English accent?'

'Maybe the kind of spy who doesn't know he's a spy,' said Brown.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'It doesn't mean anything,' said Hubbard, frowning slightly at Brown.

'Look,' I said. 'If you've spoken to Steve and you've spoken to Professor Taylor and to Doctor Ballinger and to anyone else, you'll know that I banged my head on a wall last night and that I haven't been the same since. That's all there is to it. Bit of memory loss, speech gone funny. It's weird but that's all it is. Weird.'

'Then how come, Mikey,' said Hubbard. 'How come these names Hitler and Auschwitz and Polzl and BrunauamTnn?'

'I must have heard them somewhere. In my subconscious. And for some reason the bang on the head brought them to the surface of my mind. I mean, what's so bloody important about them? They don't mean anything do they? They aren't of any significance. No one else seems to have heard of them.'

'That's right, Mikey. Outside of this room, I shouldn't think there's more than twelve people in the whole United States of America who ever heard those names in all their

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lives. I had never heard them myself until you mentioned them to Steve in the courtyard of that cosy little bar off Witherspoon Street this afternoon. But you know, when we played the recording back to some friends of ours in Washington they damn near

pooped their pants. Can you believe that? Damn near pooped their hundred-dollar pants.'

'But why?' I ran my fingers through my hair in bewilderment. 'I don't understand why the names should mean anything at all.'

Hubbard pricked his ears up at the sound of a car in the driveway. 'Excuse me, Mike. I'll be right back,' he said, rising. He left the room with a nod to Brown, closing the door behind him, and a few moments later I heard the front door open and the low murmur of voices in the hallway.

Alone with Brown, who seemed disinclined to talk, I tried to work out what was going on.

Professor Taylor. It must have something to do with him. If Europe and the United States were in a state of Cold War as from everything I had learned that night they appeared to be, then Taylor might well be some kind of pro-American dissident. A sort of Solzhenitsyn or Gordievsky equivalent who had at some time managed to defect to the United States. Maybe from time to time he fed tid-bits to the CIA or whichever organisation it was that Hubbard and Brown worked for. Maybe Taylor had heard about this strange undergraduate student who had suddenly started talking like an Englishman and maybe he felt suspicious enough, after interviewing him personally, to recommend to his masters in Washington that this Michael Young be monitored and followed up.

Yet how was it possible that they should be interested in the name Hitler? I placed my hands on my head and pushed downwards as if to force my brain to work. It made no sense at all.

'Headache?' said Brown sympathetically.

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