tie, heavy gold cufflinks. Ten in the morning on a Sunday, and Max was dressed for a board meeting.
It was funny how your perceptions were shaped by your history, Ben reflected. At times he could observe his father as he was now, old and fragile, yet at other moments he couldn't help seeing him through the eyes of an abashed child: powerful, intimidating.
The truth was, Ben and Peter had always been slightly afraid of their father, a little nervous around him. Max Hartman intimidated most people; why should his own sons be the exception? It took real effort to be Max's son, to love and understand him and feel tenderness toward him. It was like learning a complex foreign language, one that Peter couldn't, or wouldn't, learn.
Ben suddenly flashed on Peter's terrible, vindictive expression when he revealed what he'd discovered about Max. And then that image of Peter's face gave way to a flood of memories of his adored brother. He felt his throat constrict, his eyes fill with tears.
Don't think, he told himself. Don't think of Peter. Here, in this house where we played hide-and-seek and pummeled each other, conspired in whispers in the middle of the night, screamed and laughed and cried.
Peter's gone, and now you've got to hang in there for him too.
Ben had no idea how to begin, how to broach the subject. On the plane out of Basel he'd rehearsed how he was going to confront his father. Now he'd forgotten everything he'd planned to say. The one thing he'd resolved was not to tell him about Peter, about his reappearance, his murder. For what? Why torture the old man? As far as Max Hartman knew, Peter had been killed years ago. Why should he be told the truth now that Peter really was dead?
Anyway, confrontation wasn't Ben's style. He let his father talk business, ask about the accounts Ben was managing. Man, he thought, the old guy is still sharp. He tried to change the subject, but there really wasn't any easy or elegant way to say, By the way, Dad, were you a Nazi, if you don't mind my asking?
Finally, Ben took a stab at it: "I guess being in Switzerland made me realize how little I know about, about when you were in Germany..."
His father's eyes seemed to grow larger behind the magnifying lenses. He leaned forward. "Now, what inspires this sudden interest in family history?"
"Really, I think it was just being in Switzerland. It reminded me of Peter. This was the first time I'd been back there since his death."
His father looked down at his hands. "I don't dwell on the past, you know that. I never did. I only look ahead, not behind."
"But your time at Dachau we've never talked about that."
"There's really nothing to say. I was brought there, I was fortunate enough to survive, I was liberated on April 29, 1945. I will never forget the date, but it's a part of my life I prefer to forget."
Ben inhaled, then launched in. He was keenly aware that his relationship with his father was about to be altered forever, the fabric about to be torn. "Your name isn't on the list of prisoners liberated by the Allies."
It was a bluff. He watched his father's reaction.
Max stared at Ben for a long moment, and then to Ben's surprise he smiled. "You must always be wary of historical documents. Lists thrown together at a time of enormous chaos. Names spelled wrong, names omitted. If my name is missing from some list compiled by some U.S. Army sergeant, so what?"
"But you weren't at Dachau, were you?" Ben asked quietly.
His father slowly swiveled his chair around, turning his back to Ben. His voice, when it came, was reedy, somehow distant. "What a strange thing to say."
Ben felt his stomach flutter. "But true, right?"
Max swiveled back around. His face was expressionless, blank, but a blush had appeared on his papery cheeks. "There are people who make a profession out of denying that the Holocaust ever happened. So called historians, writers-they publish books and articles saying the whole thing was a fake, a conspiracy. That millions of Jews weren't murdered."
Ben found his heart thudding, his mouth dry. "You were a lieutenant in Hitler's SS. Your name is on a document-a document of incorporation listing members of a board of directors of a secret company. You were the treasurer."
When his father replied, it was in a terrible whisper. "I won't listen to this," he said.