One Clear Call I

by Upton Sinclair

  “Hello, Kurt,” he said aloud.

  The other turned his head. “Oh, so it’s you.” His voice was cold and said very plainly, no nonsense here!

  Lanny set his bundle down, then spoke in German, very gently, “Kurt, an old friend wants to have a talk with you.”

  “You may talk as long as you please,” was the reply, with no change of tone. “I am your prisoner.”

  “One thing I ask, Kurt. Your word of honor that you will not attempt to escape or to commit suicide.”

  “I am not interested in what you have to say, and I don’t see why I should bother.”

  “Believe me, what I have to say is important to you, not to me. I am not going to ask you to betray anybody or to tell any secrets. I know you too well to expect it. I am trying to help you; take my word for that.”

  “All right,” said the Komponist grimly. “You give me your word and I give you mine.”

  “Richtig.” And then, speaking English, “Sergeant, you and this man may go downstairs and wait.”

  The sergeant looked troubled. “Are you sure, sir?” he asked.

  “Quite sure,” was the reply. “I have known this prisoner a long time.”

  The sergeant and the private with the tommy gun went out, and Lanny closed the door behind them. Then he went to his bundle, slipped the cord off, unwrapped it, and took out the uniform. He held it out, saying, “Put this on quickly.”

  The other could not conceal his surprise. “What is this for, Lanny?” It was the first time he had spoken the other’s name.

  “In the clothing you are wearing, you are a spy and would be shot in a few hours. In this clothing you will be a prisoner of war and will be sent back with the other officer prisoners.”

  “Who is doing this?”

  “I asked for your life, and my request was granted. This was one time when it was good to be the son of Budd-Erling.”

  “And what is the price of it?”

  “No price whatever, Kurt. I am paying an old debt of friendship. Be quick; I have reasons for haste.”

  Without another word the ex-Kapitän took off his civvies and dressed himself according to the rank he had held a quarter of a century ago. He had trouble with his bad arm, but Lanny didn’t offer help, knowing the sort of perverse pride the German had. There was a cap and a swordbelt, but, alas, no sword. Lanny rolled up the civilian suit and wrapped and tied it—OSS would have use for it whether it was German or French or English. He tucked the bundle under his arm and said, “You understand, Kurt, you are still under parole?” When the other assented, Lanny led the way downstairs and out to the street.

  To the sergeant he said, “Lend me your flashlight.” He took it and turned it down the street, away from the prisoner. Some of the men might notice the change of clothing, but they knew it was G-2, or perhaps OSS, whose doings were frequently beyond comprehension. Suppose that this captured man had been an American agent posing as a German; suppose that now he was to be dressed in a German uniform and put with the other officer prisoners—whose business was it to inquire, or even to guess?

  Lanny escorted his man to the car and put him into the back seat, with Lanny on one side and one of the officers on the other. Several more prisoners had been taken, and they were put, handcuffed, into the other cars. The cortege drove through the streets of this ancient town which had once been the capital of a Roman province. A great bulk towered up to the stars and Lanny guessed it was the cathedral. Presently they were out on the slippery roads again; as they couldn’t afford accidents, they drove more slowly and got back to headquarters very late.

  IV

  Lanny had asked the privilege of interrogating his special prisoner, so he took the prisoner up to his own room. He was sure that Kurt would not reveal any secrets and that he would take such a request as an insult; Lanny had promised not to request it and he didn’t. But he was curious as to his own affairs, and Kurt would know about some of them. How much had the Gestapo found out about the Führer’s one and only American friend? How had they found out, and how had the Führer taken it? Above all, would Kurt by any chance mention Marceline?

  “Well, Kurt,” began the P.A., “this is a strange way for you and me to meet.”

  “I see you have gone into the Army,” was the unpromising response.

  “Yes, Kurt. There is a limit to the amount of pressure a man can withstand.”

  “You were always a weakling,” remarked the other; and Lanny didn’t mind—he had known for thirty years that this German man of genius held that opinion of him. It had been useful of late years; and maybe it was true, who could be sure?

  “I should like you to know,” said he gently, “that I have never done any fighting, against Germans or anyone else. I am here as an art expert to see that cultural treasures are properly cared for.”

  “And to ship them to America, I suppose?”

  “You suppose wrongly. They will all be returned to their original owners.”

  “Even if they are German?”

  “If they belong to German museums, they will be returned without question. If they belonged to private parties, it will depend upon who those parties are.”

  There was a pause. “Well,” said Kurt, “what do you want to question me about?”

  “The Army wanted to question you, Kurt, but I convinced them that you would never tell them anything that would do harm to your cause.”

  “Thank you,” replied the Kapitän, but his tone was one of sarcasm, and there were no thanks in his soul. “Would you mind telling me how you came to be mixed up in my affairs?”

  “A pure bit of luck, Kurt. A friend mentioned that you were in danger of arrest. I went to one of the higher officers and persuaded him that you belonged to a special category, and he gave permission for you to be changed into a prisoner of war. You will be treated according to your rank and, I presume, will be shipped to America. The officer prisoners who give parole are spending their time in comfortable summer hotels and have a money allowance. You will have no trouble in getting music paper and will be in a position to write that piece of music which the Führer commissioned.”

  This was a bait, but Kurt didn’t take it. He sat in silence. Lanny could be sure he was recalling the scene in the air-raid shelter in the garden of the New Chancellery. Adi had promised to provide the funds for a new Götterdämmerung; and what a piece of irony if the funds were to be provided, not by the Führer of the Germans, but by his despised foes, the materialistic, the Judeo-pluto-democratic Americans! Bitter bread indeed for a German Komponist to eat while he did his work! He could taste it in his imagination, and he set his lips together tightly, refusing it.

  V

  The humble American made an effort to change the conversation. He said, “I want you to know the reason I left Germany, not to return. I learned that jealous persons in the Führer’s entourage had lied to him about me, telling him things that cast doubt upon my good faith.”

  “And so you came and put on the uniform of his enemies!” This was a sneer, and the tone was bitter as gall.

  “I did the best I could, Kurt. I could no longer help the German government, but I am helping German art and culture.”

  There was silence; the two men looked at each other, a duel of eyes. When the Kapitän spoke, it was with quiet contempt. “If there are questions which your duty requires you to ask me, do so. Otherwise I prefer to end the conversation.”

  “All right, Kurt. There is nothing else. Someday, perhaps, we can meet under happier circumstances.” He rose, and Kurt rose. Lanny held out his hand, saying, “Viel Glück!”—which means, “Good luck to you.”

  Kurt’s two hands stayed by his side. Facing his old-time friend, and standing close to him, he spat full into his face.

  And so Lanny had the information he wanted. He stepped back a pace or two, took out his handkerchief, and carefully wiped his face. Then he took the Budd automatic from its holster and held it in his hand. He said, in the same cold tone the other man ha
d employed, “Precede me downstairs.”

  Kurt said nothing but obeyed; and when they were down, Lanny said to the waiting sergeant, “Take charge of this man. Guard him carefully, because his parole is at an end. Have you other men with you?”

  “Yes, sir, there are two outside.”

  “All right. If you handcuff him, be careful, because one of his arms is lame.”

  “OK, sir,” said the sergeant.

  Lanny went upstairs to his room and shut the door; he sat on the bed, and tears ran down his cheeks, and he did not wipe them away. Strange as it might seem, he had loved Kurt even while he was deceiving him. The deception had been for Kurt’s own good, but Kurt had not appreciated it.

  Lanny had his information now; he knew that Kurt knew that Lanny had been a false friend and a spy all through the years that he had been visiting Hitler. Lanny knew more than that—many things: what the Nazis were going to be after the war was over; how they were going to feel about Americans and how they would behave when they were let out of prison camps! He knew that the Nazis were Germans, the old, old Germans, the Drang-nach-Osten Germans of Wilhelm II, the Blut und Eisen Germans of Bismarck, the Pomeranian-grenadier Germans of Frederick, called the Great; yes, even those Germans who had poured out of the dark forests wearing bearskins, and helmets with cattle horns on them, and had burned and sacked the cities of ancient Rome!

  Lanny had seen such Germans as a boy but had refused to believe in them. He had seen them in elegant expensive uniforms, strutting on railroad platforms, clanking their swords and twirling their upturned mustaches. He had seen them drilling on immense parade grounds, galloping on horseback or rolling in huge machines, raising dust that floated across the country for miles. Worse yet, he had collided with the spirit behind this drilling; in Kurt’s home he had come upon it in a little song book prepared for children. “Now, brave sword, show honored your worth! Break, bare steel, our woe with flaming lightning! Crush to earth those who dishonor our horde! May the blood of the brute besprinkle our threshold!” So it went—iron and steel, saber, sword, and spear, flags and banners, trumpets and drums, defiance and hate, blood and death!

  VI

  Lanny made up his mind that he would not tell anyone about that painful episode. He would never let himself hate Kurt, no matter how much Kurt hated him. He told the officers that the prisoner had refused to say anything of significance; he did not suggest that they should put the civilian’s suit back on him, but turned that suit over to the OSS, to be worn by some American spy. He told Emil that Kurt had been bitter, but he did not say how much so. It had been agreed that Lanny would give the younger brother no hint that he had met the older.

  The P.A. forbade himself to brood over the episode. It was a small part of a war which was an infinite tragedy. Curious that Kurt himself had been a spy, yet he despised Lanny for being one! No doubt Kurt would say that Lanny had been spying on friends; but maybe Kurt had made some French friends in Toul; very certainly he had made some in Paris years ago. The real difference was that Kurt had been spying for Nazi-Fascism, while Lanny had been spying against it; also, perhaps, that Kurt had failed in his spying, whereas Lanny had succeeded. Let this be an omen for the fate of the two systems!

  The son of Budd-Erling reported to his superiors, and they wanted him to stay with Lucky. It was the beginning of November, and the Army was about to jump off for the Moselle crossing. Then it would be view halloo to the Rhine; a good show for everybody, but best of all for the Patton mob. Lanny said that was all right with him, but he had promised to rejoin his old friend Jerry Pendleton with Sixth Group. The reply was that if Jerry was as good as Lanny said, he really belonged with Third, and they would try to find a way to wangle him, or maybe to kidnap him.

  But before this plot had been worked out there came a message from OSS in Paris: Lanning Prescott Budd was to report at once for a return to Washington. Lanny knew that meant F.D.R., but he didn’t say so. He was glad, because he was tired of rain and mud and of having a running nose. He packed up his few belongings, and said good-by to his new friends, and promised to see them again if it could be arranged. He got a seat in a fast plane and was set down in a Paris airport an hour later.

  Laurel was still at the WAC hotel. He had been exchanging letters with her and had persuaded her not to return to London. The new rocket bombs were sudden death out of the sky, and there was no defense against them; why should a woman expose herself when she could write just as well in Paris? Now he said, “Why don’t you go down to Cannes and get warm? There’s a story there: the taking of the Riviera, and how it was under the Germans, and how it is now under the Americans; Monte Carlo in wartime, and the international refugees there, and the British and Americans who were interned and now presumably are liberated. People at home will want to know about those matters.”

  The writing lady said, “Fine!” And Lanny told her to go and stay at the pension with Cerise Pendleton, and gave her a letter to the authorities, both Army and civilian at Juan-les-Pins, authorizing her to take charge of the Bienvenu estate. Since the Vichy Armed Forces had had it, presumably the American Army would have it now; they would expect to pay rent, and could pay it to Laurel, who would forward it to Beauty. Laurel would send Beauty a report on the condition of the place. Incidentally she would find out about Charlot; and she might also get in touch with Raoul and have him come over from Toulon and tell his adventures. Wonderful to realize that France was free once more and that people could travel where they pleased—provided they had the price and could squeeze themselves into a train.

  VII

  OSS asked Lanny how he preferred to travel, and he chose the southern route; he would get warm for at least a few hours. Also, he would like time to have a chat with his mother; they routed him via Marseille and Marrakech, and from there direct to New York. He kissed his wife good-by, promising to write her often, and to see the baby as soon as possible. She didn’t go to see him off at the airport, because it was a miserable rainy day, and anyhow it frightened her to see a plane rushing down a runway and perhaps not rising into the air.

  But it rose; and Lanny was set down in the greatest of Mediterranean ports, where he would have liked to stroll and see the damage that had been done in the small civil war, and ask about how the new government of the Free French was making out. But he saw only the airport, and the harbor crowded with shipping; within an hour he was off again, across that blue sea which had been the center of his life—for swimming, for sailing, for fishing, for traveling in everything from pleasure yachts to armed motorboats. The rain had been left behind, and the wrinkled sea looked like a sheet of the fabric called seersucker, spread out below him as far as his eye could reach in every direction. Here and there a vessel cut a temporary path across it; the biggest looked small, and the small looked like tiny specks, motionless, with two little stripes sticking out, resembling the antennae of insects.

  They skirted the coast of Spain, just far enough away to give Franco’s guns no chance to practice on them. Then it was Africa: first a shore, and then plains, mostly barren, here and there flocks of sheep, and white spots which Lanny knew were marabouts, little round shrines. There were tumbled ranges of mountains on the left, and behind them the tall Atlas range, at this season mostly white with snow. Now and then a town came into sight, or an oasis with palm trees and herds of cattle mixed with camels. At last there was Marrakech, a great city, at least geographically speaking, spread out with gardens and orchards, and here and there tall pink mosques with gleaming domes, and the white villas of wealthy foreigners, and a great hotel famous for luxury. Two years had passed since the American forces had come here, and now the airport was one of the biggest and busiest in this war-busy world.

  VIII

  Cablegrams were slow and planes were fast, so Lanny dropped down unexpectedly out of the blue and surprised his mother and stepfather. How glad they were to see him, and what cries of delight and what bearhugs they gave! He had a night to stay, and spent most
of it answering their questions. Kurt Meissner had been Beauty Budd’s lover for a matter of eight years, and there was no secret about it; the story of what had happened to him was one that Lanny could tell, all but the climax, which would have caused Beauty too much pain. “Oh!” cried the mother. “Are you sure they won’t shoot him?” Lanny could say that he was quite sure.

  He told about Laurel, what she had been doing and what she was planning to do. Beauty hadn’t been able to get any word about her home and of course was anxious. “Lanny, I suppose you’ve got just the sort of wife you wanted,” she said, not for the first time, and Lanny assured her there could be no doubt about it. There would always be a little humiliation in this for a mother who had tried so many times to find her son the sort of wife that he really and truly ought to want. Irma Barnes had been the best of all possible guesses, and the fact that the marriage had fizzled was a wound in Beauty’s soul that would never entirely heal.

  But Laurel Creston was a fact too, and had to be accepted; so was her little son, whom Beauty knew only by snapshots. She had to be told all about him, and about Robbie and the fortunes he was making-colossal, only he had to pay an income tax of eighty-two per cent, and to pay it before he made it. This almost broke his heart every fifteenth of March—“Caesar, beware the Ides of March!” It almost broke Beauty’s heart to hear about it at the beginning of November, and Lanny had to remind her that the money had been spent to take Bienvenu from the Germans and restore it to its lawful owner. That was something, of course.

  Beauty had had no word from Marceline, and neither had Beauty’s son. The Army was going in there soon, and they would find her. Lanny had to tell about his visit to Patton’s Army; Georgie was the sort of man that Beauty Budd adored, and she had met him at a party in Marrakech; she had done her best to charm him and thought she had succeeded. Poor soul, she fought so bitterly against old age, and couldn’t bring herself to face the idea that she was launched into her sixties. She was taking part in the social life of this community of millionaires in pleasant exile, and was full of chatter about who was who and who was whose.