“Halt!” Van Cortlandt and Richard stopped; they looked belligerently at the men. Frances came to the rescue.
“Something’s wrong—a murder or something—down there.”
The brown-shirted men exchanged looks.
“We advise you to take a walk,” the older one said.
“But something is wrong,” the American protested.
The trooper who was doing the speaking said, “We advise you to take a walk. It is only a Jews’ Alley.”
So that was it. Frances thought for one moment that van Cortlandt was going to jab his large, clenched fist right in the middle of that mock-pleasant smile. There was a minute’s silence, only broken by a faint moaning. Frances turned abruptly and walked quickly away. The others followed, and they heard the Germans laugh at something one of them said. They were silent until they were almost at the hotel, and then van Cortlandt spoke.
“That’s it,” he said savagely. “Just as you are enjoying yourself and are thinking that life isn’t so bad after all, you meet that. Blast them to hell!”
“It’s our last night here, thank heavens,” Frances said.
“I’ve got to stay for two or three days more, and then I’ll get the hell out of here. Austria’s next. I’m working towards Vienna. I have enough material as it is, already, but I can’t print half of it. The nice kind people in the other world would think I was a liar or another sensationalist; and my boss would say I was sent out to report and not to do propaganda which would harm his organisation.”
“Is that considered at this date?” asked Frances.
“From the strictly business point of view, yes.” Frances began to understand why newspapermen were cynics.
They were silent again. All the charm of the night had been broken. Hans Sachs had given way to the Iron Maiden. As they said goodbye in the hotel lounge, van Cortlandt gave them his card, and wrote his New York business address on the back of it.
“That will always be able to tell you where I am supposed to be, anyway,” he added, with the attractive smile which had quite won Frances yesterday. Yesterday, or was it weeks ago? They gave him their address in Oxford, and watched him write it down in his diary. Oxford, thought Frances, where the only scream in the dark came from the little Athenian screech owls. Firm handclasps—they were something friendly and honest.
“Tomorrow,” Richard said firmly, as they went upstairs to their room, “tomorrow we leave.”
10
FRAU KÖPPLER RECOMMENDS
Early next morning they left for Munich. It was a town they had both known well in the old days. Richard expected that they might be still under some kind of supervision, although their uniformed bodyguard had been left behind the walls of Nürnberg. So he chose the simplest things to do. In the afternoon they walked through the central streets, and for once he had no objections to window-shopping. In the evening they visited the Hofbräuhaus.
Frances was pathetically eager to watch the people, the same people she had seen each day when she had been an art student here in 1932. She seemed as if she were trying to read a riddle. Eventually, she gave it up.
She shook her head sadly. “I don’t understand it, quite truthfully. There is something in the German soul or mind which baffles other races; there must be. On the surface, all they have got out of it is a new grandiose building here or there where they can listen to more speeches, and I can’t think of anything more boring. And they have also got a lot of uniforms, and high signs, and a firm military tread. But to all appearances the shops aren’t any better, the restaurants aren’t any better, the food is worse, so are the theatres and the books. The clothes of the people do not look any more prosperous; and the trains always ran on time here, anyway.”
“They have also got Austria and Czechoslovakia and lots of promises,” suggested Richard.
“And concentration camps, and universities which are travesties, not to mention the hatred of three-quarters of the world at least.”
Richard began to wish it had not been necessary to enter Germany. He thought of the pleasant holiday they might have been having in Switzerland or in the French Alps, or in Ragusa. Somewhere where the things you saw didn’t immediately start grim speculations…anywhere except this doomed country. That was what had depressed Frances so much, this feeling of doom which was apparent to the outside observer when he saw how blindly these people accepted their grand illusion. Richard felt as if he were watching passengers in a train whose engine crew were increasing speed, disregarding brakes, while the tracks in front were steep and twisting. Either the train would make the journey in record time, or they would end in horrible disaster. The strange thing, the terrifying thing, was to see the passengers accept the ominous swaying of the train along with the conductor’s glib assurances; to watch them disregard the fate of the passengers who did raise some objections, even although they had once praised the intelligence of those they now abandoned so heartlessly—and the strangest thing about it all was the fact that all of these passengers—except the children, who were encouraged to stand at the window and cheer violently—all of them had been in a previous train wreck. No wonder Frances was depressed. She had always believed that men were intelligent animals.
If only the methods of hate and force had been resisted at the very beginning: not by other countries for that would have been called the unwarranted interference of those who wanted to keep Germany weak), but by the people of Germany themselves! But, of course, it had been more comfortable to concentrate on their own private lives instead of dying on barricades, if in the last extreme they had had to pit force against force. It was easier to turn a deaf ear to the cries from the concentration camps, to harden their hearts to the despair of the exiles, to soothe their conscience with praise of the Fatherland. And now it had come to, the stage where other peoples would have to do the dying, on barricades of shattered cities, to stop what should have been stopped seven years ago.
Frances spoke again. “I wonder where it will all end…”
“In the hall of the Gibichungs,” Richard said bitterly, and with that he discarded the problem of the German mind.
On Sunday, the ninth of July, they arrived in Mittenwald. If Richard had been alone, he would have risked going straight on to Innsbruck, but with Frances beside him it was quite another matter. It was probably just as well that there was Frances, to keep him from taking chances which might lead to disaster. Some days in Mittenwald would help to smooth out any complications which might have begun in Nürnberg—and Frances needed the mountains. That was important to remember, with Innsbruck and whatever else lay ahead of them.
At first Richard would take her only for a short ten-mile walk. “Your legs are out of training, and your feet need hardening,” he insisted. The following day they did fifteen miles. On the next they included some climbing. By Thursday Frances could manage the Karwendel Peak without any trouble. It was on that day that Richard had begun to feel at ease again. The sense of being shadowed had gone, and Frances seemed as if she had successfully reached her past-worrying stage.
They had climbed steadily since eight o’clock, resting almost on top of the mountain to eat the sandwiches the hotel had provided that morning. They sat on the path, their legs hanging down over its edge as it dropped steeply away. Richard watched Frances open the thick hunks of bread, and extract the little grains of caraway from the slabs of soaplike cheese. She dropped them gravely one by one over the cliff, on whose edge she swung her tanned bare legs. They looked like a schoolgirl’s, thought Richard, above the heavy-wool socks and the flat-heeled shoes, with that attractive mixture of slenderness and strength. The light breeze ruffled her hair, which had curled round her brow with perspiration, and flapped her loose silk shirt. She had tied her cardigan round her neck by its sleeves. Her excavations for caraway over, she slapped the sandwich together, and took a lusty bite. Richard found himself smiling. There was something touchingly intent in her face as she looked at the Isar rolling rapidly far belo
w them.
“It is lovely,” she said quietly, “quite lovely. Look!” She pointed a leg up the valley with its green fields and winding, ice-blue river. “‘God made the country, man made the town.’
Pity man couldn’t learn better.”
“He is a messy imitator. He thinks complexity is a proof of progress.”
They were silent, each with their own reactions to the simplicity of the scene.
At last when they had finished their lunch, Richard rose.
“Time to move,” he said, and helped Frances to stand up on the narrow path. “Fifteen minutes to the top and then we shall see Austria.”
“We have plenty of time,” Frances said, looking at the sun. “It won’t take long to come down.”
Richard shook his head reproachfully. That was one thing he couldn’t teach Frances; she couldn’t resist coming down a mountain quickly. She would never make a real mountain climber. She was plucky enough, though. She was following him up the last difficult stretch to the top with no outward trouble, although inwardly she was probably cursing in despair. She hated going up a mountain just as much as she loved coming down.
As they regained their breath on the top of the peak, they faced the Austrian Alps, rising in rugged waves of grey stone, snow-streaked.
Richard pointed. “Over there lies Innsbruck. We’ll go there tomorrow. We have been recommended by one of your school friends—Mary What-d’you-call-her to stay at the Gasthof Bozen in Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse.”
Frances nodded. “Mary Easton will do. She’s now married to a man in Central Africa.”
“That’s remote enough,” said Richard, and then changed the subject. Frances took her cue from him, and they began the descent in high spirits which lasted until they came into the little hotel in Mittenwald.
They had put up at the hotel where Richard had once stayed as an undergraduate on a reading party. In those peaceful days, there had been crowds of foreigners, mostly American or English. Tonight, as they sat in the half-empty restaurant, it was all so very different. The owner of the hotel, Frau Köppler, still sat in earnest conversation over a little table with her special friends. She still wore the long-skirted black day dress which seemed to be part of her. On Richard’s first visit there that table had always been the subject of jokes by the people of Mittenwald who came in for their beer, or their game of skat, or to dance and sing if there were an accordion or fiddle to accompany them. Richard looked towards the part of the restaurant which had been partitioned off for the local people. He remembered how shocked Frau Köppler had been when the undergraduates had preferred to drink their beer there, instead of in the room she had arranged for her guests. Then one of the jokes had been that she was pro-Nazi, and that she was plotting with her special friends at her exclusive table. The joke was increased for the laughing Bavarians because Frau Köppler was a Northerner and they said she was going to Prussianise them; and the word verpreussen had also come to have a coarser meaning in the South. Now it seemed as if the joke had become fact.
Richard wondered as he watched Frances arrange the pieces on the chessboard whether Frau Köppler was as happy as she thought she would be. The hotel certainly was less flourishing: the only other foreigners in the room were an Italian family who talked volubly and excitedly and tightened Frau Köppler’s disapproving mouth. The prices for German guests were much lower, and those tourists who arrived in the middle of the day brought their own food with them. It was an extraordinary sight to watch them open their parcels of bread and sausages at the restaurant tables, ordering one glass of beer, clean plates and knives. Frances was particularly shocked when she found that not even a tip was left for the overworked waitresses.
Richard saw Frau Köppler look over to their table. He pretended to be absorbed in the game of chess. They were no longer shadowed, he felt, but it was noticeable that Frau Köppler had taken quite a lot of interest in their movements. It could very well be possible that such a strong Nazi as herself might be asked to mark anything suspicious about them. It was the kind of little job which she might enjoy doing; it would add to her feeling of authority. As he waited for Frances to attack with her knight, he wondered whether that look predicted anything, protected his bishop with a pawn, and waited. The music from the wireless set ceased. It was a pity, thought Richard, that the sounds of frying could not be eliminated instead of music with foreign or non-Aryan influences. A man’s voice began to speak, peremptory as on a parade ground. As Frances ignored the pawn and daringly took his bishop Frau Köppler rose to her feet, and walked over to them.
Richard had risen to his feet too, taking the opportunity to warn Frances with his eyes as he offered Frau Köppler a chair. And then the unseen voice ended its exhortations and the music of a very full band filled the room. Even as the preliminary cymbals clashed they all knew what was coming. Frances remained as she had been, and lit a cigarette. Frau Köppler stood rigid beside the chair, looking straight ahead of her into the wall of the room. Poor old Richard, thought Frances, and watched him redden slightly. He couldn’t sit down as long as Frau Pushface was standing, and she knew he wouldn’t stand for that song. A song in glorification of a well-known pimp, he had called it. Frances smoked unconcernedly and watched the chessman fall from Richard’s hand. It rolled under another table, and by the time he had retrieved it, the chorus of the Horst Wessel song had ended and the Munich time-signal tune was being played. Frau Köppler sat down, bowing as she did so. Richard sat down too, looking very polite and innocent.
“I hope I am not interrupting you,” Frau Köppler began. “Are you enjoying your holiday?”
They said yes, they were, Mittenwald was a most delightful place. Frances let Richard handle the greater part of the conversation. She wasn’t quite sure, to begin with, why they were being honoured with a visit. It wasn’t very much like Frau Köppler to unbend to any of her guests, particularly foreigners. She was a tall woman, but she held herself so erectly that she seemed taller than she was. Once she must have had, some beauty. Her features were still good, but the yellow hair and blue eyes had faded, not in the soft and kindly way which gives a certain charm to age, but bleakly. Perhaps Frau Köppler would have thought such charm only a sign of weakness; she probably preferred the appearance of strength even to the point of hardness. She was, thought Frances, a grim-looking creature. She had the foundation for beauty, but the spirit was lacking. Even as she talked she did not relax. She gave a funny twist to the phrase “Behave naturally.” Because Frau Pushface was behaving naturally, although she could never be natural.
She turned to Frances. “I am glad you are enjoying yourself. It is good for people to travel in the new Germany. There are many things we want to show them.” Frances looked quickly at Richard, and then back at Frau Köppler. She couldn’t think of an answer that wasn’t impolite. She smiled, which was always a solution, even if a weak one.
Frau Köppler hadn’t expected an answer, for she went on, “You speak German very well, very well indeed. No doubt you have visited our country before? Did you come to Mittenwald by chance, or were you recommended to come here? I am always interested in what brings people here.”
The question was out. What a bore it must have been for her to bother to make conversation in the hope of disguising her curiosity, thought Frances. It was a pity, after all her trouble, that she did not know Richard, and so couldn’t interpret his smile. He always looked like that when the game was being played his way. He was ready with his answer.
“The mountains,” he said. “I enjoyed them so much when I stayed here some years ago that I wanted my wife to see them.”
“You stayed here before?”
“Yes; at this hotel. It must have been almost eight years ago. It was in the off-season, at the very end of September. We stayed until we returned to England to our University.”
“Ah, yes. I remember now. There were nine students and two very young professors.” She must have known all the time and verified his name from
the visitors’ record. It would have been better if she hadn’t mentioned it at all. It only angered Richard. He had given her the benefit of the doubt and had thought she was a simple-minded woman doing what she thought was her duty. Now she was a simple-minded woman who enjoyed setting traps and catching people in them. It shed a new light on her position as uncrowned queen of the village. She would wield her political power in rather a mean way.
“Yes,” he said. “It was what we call a reading party.”
Frau Köppler’s voice was just slightly less assured.
“Well,” she said, her tone on the defensive, “you see for yourselves that we are just the same, only so much happier.” Her voice was polite; it would have been friendly if the smile on the lips had been less fixed. Richard looked straight into the faded blue eyes which didn’t smile at all. He said nothing. She looked at the large picture of the unhappy-looking man with the ridiculous moustache which hung prominently on the wall.
She tried again. “Thanks be to our Leader. Do you not admire all he has done for us?”
There was a difficult moment. “The military roads are the best I’ve seen, and the buildings for speeches and political gatherings are very handsome,” said Frances quietly.
Frau Köppler turned to her with some annoyance. “And a hundred other things. Look at our unemployment. We haven’t any. Look at yours in England. It is so large.”
“Yes, unfortunately it is,” broke in Richard. He was damned if he was going to let this pass. “But we are very frank about our unemployment figures.”
“What do you mean?”
“We count people as unemployed if they are being trained under Government schemes for new trades, or if they are casual or seasonal workers and just don’t happen to be working on the day when the census is taken. So when you talk about England you ought to remember that.”
“But that’s madness… People trained by the Government unemployed?”
Above Suspicion Page 10