Searching for Wallenberg (20 page)

“Oh, what noble bullshit! You know human nature is never so peaceful or accepting. Your Jews must be paying you very well, Wallenberg, and,” he leaned closer, “for that motive, I secretly respect you.”

Eichmann smiled slightly and took from his jacket pocket an envelope, and set it on the table. “You know, Mr. Wallenberg, I can have you killed later tonight, by Colonel Ferenczy, or tomorrow, by one of the Njilas boys, or right now, by me.” And here he took out a small revolver and set it on the table. “And nothing would change, with your Jews or with our countries. Oh, some complaints, some diplomatic troubles for a while, but then it will be forgotten as the larger troubles descend.”

Wallenberg took out a pencil and doodled on his napkin. “Yes, you may be right, Eichmann, but you may also be wrong. In which case you would be hanged soon enough.”

Eichmann looked startled for a moment, ceased all motion, broke into a small laugh. “You have a sense of humor, and you stay cool in the face of a threat. Also, your German is excellent. I see now how you got your reputation.”

“My reputation, Eichmann, is also of little importance to me.”

The Nazi scraped his lips with his tongue and drank his drink. “Wallenberg, let me get to the point, although I thought we would chat after our dinner. I believe, no I know, that you have a little black book that contains the names and bank accounts of many of the rich Jews, and if you are truly interested in saving some of the poor scum, right here in Budapest before the Njilas boys gets their hands on them, deliver me that account book and we shall make a negotiation.” He paused and looked at his Swedish rival. “Furthermore, my friend, I can also assure you that you shall receive your share of the funds, a percentage of one or two, say, on every account, which, in the long run, would make a tidy sum, and allow you after the war to retire very early and nicely.”

Wallenberg continued to scribble, sketching a skyline of Lake Erie by Detroit, as he recalled it, from his drawing project at Ann Arbor. Could he somehow get it to Professor Slusser?

“I am very glad you are taking this offer most seriously,” Eichmann remarked, sitting back, “and jotting notes to yourself. Please, go ahead, take your time in your figuring.”

Raoul shaded in the large lake, recalling his class in landscape architecture and that challenging Michigan professor. Looking up he said, “Oh, I have no such book, I’m afraid.”

Eichmann moved closer. “You are taking me lightly, Wallenberg, and that is very dangerous. Everyone knows that you are not in the business of saving Jews for the moral pleasure of sainthood. And as an American spy, which you may very well be, there are other projects of more importance. So stop toying with me.”

A noise from the doorway, and Berg asked, uncomfortably, “Will you be finished soon? … The cook, dinner … And another incident occurred at the New York Club …”

Eichmann continued, to Raoul, “You see, those Njilas boys can smell a Jew from a long way off. Just as I can smell a Jew-lover from up close. And believe me, Wallenberg, you are not such a dumbass. You are a practical Swede from what I can make out. From
a very practical family, as we Germans know.
And, therefore, you are hurting yourself when you help out the Yids. So give it up.”

“You know, Eichmann, those sorts of incidents will be remembered when the time comes, and the perpetrators punished. And that time is closing fast.”

Eichmann’s small face tightened, his mouth twisting. “Maybe you are not as practical as your family, or as I thought.”

“And I’ve told Wiesenmeyer that what the Arrow Cross does will also be the German responsibility.”

Eichmann grew visibly livid. “So you try to cover all your fronts! Well let me tell you something. Wiesenmeyer and all the polite diplomats will soon become obsolete, and then you will have to face the Gestapo without any protection. It will not be pretty.”

“Shall I pass that along to the ambassador?”

Eichmann took up his pearl handled revolver. “I can shoot you dead right now, declaring you have insulted the Führer, and no one will lift a hand.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” He gestured toward the other room. “My friends will not like that much. You may earn an equal reward. Besides, you have not let me make
my
offer.”

After a tense moment, and pause, Eichmann relaxed his hold, smiled narrowly. “Well, go ahead, make it.”

Wallenberg suspended his drawing and said, “Get rid of Krumey. We both know that beneath his apparent charm, he’s a vicious fellow. Get a written order on the Njilas thugs, so that the German commanders run things. And finally, you will let me have the approximate 7,500 Jewish children who are currently warehoused for eventual deportation to Auschwitz. In return, I shall get you the shipment of trucks and food that you are looking for.”

“How do you know this?” Eichmann stared, surprised. “How many trucks?”

“I can get you a dozen trucks immediately. For cargo and for armed personnel. And once the children and women are released to me personally, and given my safe passage out, I shall get you twelve more. Plus, five hundred barrels of petrol.”

Eichmann drew back, in awe and reflection. He adjusted his glasses and, drinking his beer, eyed this surprising adversary.

“You are practical, then, as I imagined. Good. Only one thing is missing. Cash. How much will you give me for the Jewish bodies? Ten thousand a body?”

Wallenberg turned over the doodled napkin, wrote down figures, and said, “I can probably get you $50,000, half up front and half upon delivery.”

“That’s not very much.” A half smile. “Aren’t those children worth more?”

“If you allow me to put the cash into a Swiss account, I can get you seventy-five.”

“One hundred, with suitable guarantees?”

Wallenberg leaned back. “All right, yes.”

Eichmann nodded. “I will take that. After this fucking war is over, I have my sights on a South American retirement home, and access to Swiss accounts from there should be easy enough. Deliver the account and the guarantees beforehand—”

“Half beforehand, Eichmann.”

He gave a little laugh. “All right, half before. But remember, any attempt to cheat me, and they will be shot immediately, right here in Budapest.”

“You will have it. By the end of the week, Friday afternoon. If we can get wires through to Zurich and back by then …”

“You are a man of business, after all, as I thought. I don’t like you, Wallenberg, but business doesn’t require friendship, does it?” He put out his hand.

Wallenberg nodded, stood up, started to walk out,—

“Besides,” said Eichmann, standing too, following, “all of this will be forgotten in generations to come, or denied, or so twisted, that what has really happened here will be subject to debate, and historians will have a field day revising and—hey, Wallenberg don’t you believe me?”

But Wallenberg didn’t turn around and walked out of the room into the dining room.

“So, you are still walking?” put in Berg, “You had a successful meeting?”

Raoul smiled wearily. “Sorry to have kept you from your dinner …”

“Is he yet another Nazi psychopath?” queried Göte Carlsson.

Raoul took out his napkin and unfolded it neatly. “Oh, I believe he combines what you might call an entrepreneurial urge along with his other ‘urges.’ Money for his personal retirement plans seems as important as deporting Jewish bodies. Not much difference to him. A different sort of Nazi specimen, let us say.” He checked his notes on the napkin and turned it over to the other side.

“Have you been drawing again?” put in Elizabeth Nako, a late arrival. “One day we may publish these drawings?”

Raoul smiled weakly. “One day I’ll collect them and send them on to Professor Slusser, my architecture professor, and ask him to revisit my old project grade.” He turned to Langfelder, the mini-giant chauffeur who was standing aside, arms folded. “Come, Vilmos, we should get going now.”

“What?! What about our dinner?” implored Lars Berg. “The chef has managed to find your favorite fowl!”

“Oh, another time,” offered Raoul. “In some other company perhaps.”

Vilmos held out his overcoat and Raoul got into it, and he bid farewell to his Swedish friends, just as Eichmann returned into the room, with his aides.

“Wallenberg, where are you going?”

“Oh, we have much work to do, Colonel, more tasks to perform than when we first came tonight. We will meet again, I am sure.”

Berg and Elizabeth and Carlsson looked at each other, shook their heads in disbelief, as the prominent guest left the dinner party before it had actually begun.

What could Manny say, or think, about such a scene? Had he shaped the material too generously toward RW, gone too easy on him? Was the scene altogether too sensational? (Or not sensational enough?) Again, there was no hard evidence that the meeting ever took place, outside of Berg’s claims. But many curious things happen that have no hard evidence, and they count for a lot. Not everything that goes on in life gets recorded, and leaks sometimes take decades … But if Eichmann didn’t meet Raoul, he certainly wished to; that much is clear from the history. So call Manny the historical facilitator of that hoped-for meeting, a scene-maker of tacit desires …

He settled back in his little room, poured a shot of cognac from his leather flask, and checked out the few old black and white photographs on the wall. Old Stockholm. Not too much different from today’s city. Then, he opened his e-mail. Three from the college, one from family, another from the lady in Budapest, and a curious unknown one, which, when he opened it, turned out to be from the banker at Enskilda:

Was this a written exclamation point on their meeting in the coffee house? Was the fellow a friend of the truth, offering Manny a STOP sign of caution? Was he a freak of some sort, or a paid servant of the current Wallenbergs? How to react? Manny had to figure out a next move, a plan of attack, or a retreat …

He went over his notes on the actual history.

What was America up to in 1945, when they learned that RW had been grabbed by the Soviets in Hungary and transferred to Lybianka Prison, never to get out? Did they try hard to get him out? Well, actually, the evidence of the diplomatic notes suggests strongly yes, starting with the American ambassador in Stockholm, Minister Johnson, who cabled the State Department (April 4) urging them to alert his counterpart in Moscow, Averell Harriman, to help the Swedish legation there in any way, since “we had a special interest in Wallenberg’s mission to Hungary.” And on April 9, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius cabled Harriman to “give all possible support to the Swedes.” And even the secretary of the Treasury, Robert Morganthau Jr., having received a copy of the April 4 cable from Johnson via the War Refugee Board and its new director, Brigadier General William O’Dwyer, scribbled on the bottom, “Let Stettinius know that I am personally interested in this man.” So everyone was on line, wanting to help the Swedes recover their famous diplomat. Moreoever, by then, even the Swedish population was alerted to the heroics of RW via a front-page story in March in their daily newspaper
Dagens Nyheter
, which carried an interview with a Hungarian Jew who gave an account of RW’s heroic rescue operations.

But hold on: the Swedish ambassador in Moscow, Staffan Söderblom, rebuffed the American offer of help, and was quite satisfied to accept the Soviet explanation, that they knew nothing of this Wallenberg. This curious decision and feeble judgment was discovered only some twenty years later; also later discovered was that his telegrams on the issue were censored for the public by other diplomats in Stockholm. Furthermore, that mistake and cover-up was compounded by an act of direct cowardice, when Ambassador Söderblum was granted a surprising audience with Marshal Stalin, on June 15, 1946. In awe of Stalin, Söderblom brought up the name of Wallenberg only at the end of the meeting, and Stalin said that he never heard of the man; he wrote his name down and promised to look into the matter. Stalin reminded the ambassador that all Swedish citizens and diplomats in Budapest at the time were under the “protection” of the Soviet army. “Yes,” Söderblom replied, “and I am personally convinced that Wallenberg fell victim either to a road accident or bandits.”

“Have you not had any definite information on the matter from our side?” asked the dictator politely.

“No,” said Söderblom, “but I assume that the Soviet military authorities do not have any further reliable information about what happened after that.”

After that astonishing exchange, Söderblom went on to ask for an official statement from the Soviets, asserting that all possible action had been taken to find Wallenberg, though without success, and offering assurance that if they were to find out anything, it would be passed on.