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“Levinson,” Cohen ordered, “you will stay here and protect Mr. Cronley’s airplane. And when we get to the castle, you, Davis, will procure three jerry cans of gas and get it out here.”
Two of the men said, “Yes, sir,” in chorus.
Cohen motioned for them to get in one of the staff cars. He got in the front passenger seat, and Cronley and Serov got in the back. They started off, and the second car followed.
“Colonel, are we going to have time to see the Hermannsdenkmal?” Serov asked.
“The what?” Cronley asked.
“Ivan, I thought we were on a first-name basis,” Cohen said.
“And so we are, Mortimer.”
“‘Morty,’ please,” Cohen said. “No, I don’t think we’ll have time today. Sorry, Ivan, I have to get back to Nuremberg before 2100.”
“So it did survive the war?” Serov asked.
“Oh, yes,” Cohen said. “Maybe if you talk nice to Cronley . . .”
“I always talk nice to James.”
“He’ll fly you up here one day and you can have a look at it.”
“At what?” Cronley asked.
“It’s an enormous statue of Arminius, a.k.a. Hermann der Cheruskerfürst. The Germans put it up around the turn of the century. It’s near Detmold in the Teutoburg Forest.”
“The guy who won the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest?”
“One and the same. He became the poster boy for German nationalism. Many Germans are named after him, including Hermann Göring. There’s even a statue of him in New York City, called the Hermann Heights Monument.”
“And there’s a statue of him in New York City? Come on, Colonel!” Cronley said incredulously.
“To use your indelicate phrase, Jim, I shit you not. It was erected in 1897 by the Sons of Hermann, a fraternal organization of German Americans in New York. That fraternal organization evolved into the German-American Bund, which you may recall used to hold meetings, complete with swastikas and enthusiastic singing of ‘Deutschland über Alles’ in Madison Square Garden. And on the Missouri River there is a town, Hermann, also named for the winner of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Probably. But it’s never too late to repent. Isn’t that true, Ivan?”
“So I have been taught,” Serov replied. “Saint Luke tells us ‘joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety and nine just persons.’”
What’s with this sonofabitch?
First, he goes way out of his way to get those guys Claudette shot full Russian Orthodox funerals, including the right tombstones, and now he’s quoting Scripture.
His mouth went on automatic.
“That doesn’t say anything about being too late to repent, Ivan.”
“No, but it allows me to think there was joy in heaven when this sinner repented, hopefully before it was too late.”
Christ, he said that with a straight face!
Is he serious about being a Christian?
That’s hard to believe about a senior NKGB officer.
“Diverting this theological discussion to something more appropriate to our visit to Castle Wewelsburg,” Cohen said, “may I point out the Germans seem to have a deep affection for their heroic noble forebears, often attributing to them something very close to divinity?”
