Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin Read Free Book Online Page B

shambling toward him, in a brown hat and an open black raincoat.
    During the preceding week or so, Beynon had received word several times that Liebermann had called and wanted him to call back. He hadn’t yet done so, though a punctilious call-returner; and confronted now with his clear though unintended avoidance of the man, he felt doubly guilty: once because Liebermann in his peak years, the time of the Eichmann and Stangl captures, had been the source of some of his best and most rewarding copy; and once because the Nazihunter made everyone feel guilty, always. Someone had said of him—was it Stevie Dickens?—“He carries the whole damned concentration-camp scene pinned to his coattails. All those Jews wail at you from the grave every time Liebermann steps in the room.” It was sad but true.
    And perhaps Liebermann was aware of it, for he always presented himself as he did now to Beynon, at a step beyond the ordinary social distance, with a slight air of apology; rather, Beynon thought, like a considerate bear with something contagious. “Hello, Sydney,” Liebermann-bear said, touching his hat-brim. “Please. Don’t get up.”
    Beynon’s guilt was more bothersome than his lapful of sandwich, so he made the effort anyway, half rising. “Hello, Yakov! It’s good to see you.” He put out his hand and Liebermann leaned and reached forward and wrapped it pressurelessly in the warmth of his bigger one. “Sorry I haven’t called you yet,” Beynon apologized; “I was in and out of Linz all last week.” He sat back down and sketched introductions with his cup-hand: “Freya Neustadt, Paul Higbee, Dermot Brody. This is Yakov Liebermann.”
    â€œOh my.” Freya wiped a bony hand along her skirt and extended it, smiling vivaciously. “How are you? What a great pleasure.” She looked guilty.
    Watching Liebermann nodding and shaking hands down the line, Beynon was dismayed to see how much the man had aged and diminished since their last meeting some two years before. He was still a presence, but no longer as massive or implicit with bearish strength as he had been then; the broad shoulders seemed pulled down now by the raincoat’s scant weight, and the then-powerful face was lined and gray-jowled, the eyes weary under drooping lids. The nose at least was unchanged—that thrusting Semitic hook—but the mustache was streaked with gray and wanted trimming. The poor chap had lost his wife and a kidney or such, and the funds of his War Crimes Information Center; the losses were recorded all over him—the crushed and finger-marked old hat, the darkened tie knot—and Beynon, reading the record, realized why his inner self had blocked that return call. His guilt swelled, but he quashed it, telling himself that to avoid losers was a natural and healthy instinct, even—or perhaps especially—to avoid losers who had once been winners.
    Though one wanted to be kind, of course. “Sit down, Yakov,” he invited heartily, gesturing at the bench-end beside him and drawing the wine bottle closer.
    â€œI don’t want to disturb your lunch,” Liebermann said in his heavily accented English. “If we could talk later?”
    â€œSit down,” Beynon said. “I get enough of these chaps at the office.” He put his back toward Freya and pushed a bit; she ceded a few inches and turned the other way. Beynon gave the added space to the bench-end, and smiling at Liebermann, gestured at it.
    Liebermann sat down and sighed. Holding his knees with big hands, he scowled down between them, rocking his feet. “New shoes,” he said. “Killing me.”
    â€œHow are you otherwise?” Beynon asked. “And how’s your daughter?”
    â€œI’m all right. She’s fine. She has three children now, two girls and a boy.”
    â€œOh, that’s nice.” Beynon touched the neck of the