Dance on a Sinking Ship

by Kilian, Michael;

  She would have to be much more circumspect at sea with the royal party. She was suffering enough from the scandal still attached to her estranged daughter, Nancy.

  Lady Emerald rose and fretted more. She detested being alone like this, confined to a hotel suite without even the benefit of a servant. But with the rioting down in the streets there wasn’t much choice. She’d tried the lobby for a few minutes, but had found it irritatingly crowded and oppressive. Since then, she had twice almost telephoned her daughter, losing the courage to complete the act both times. It was just as well. If Nancy were still in Paris, she’d likely be at the barricades with all the other Bolsheviks.

  Lighting a cigarette, Emerald went to make herself something to drink. She loathed whiskey as something utterly common but compelled herself to drink it because Wallis did. It had been Emerald’s resolve to make Wallis as comfortable and accepted as possible. And after all, His Royal Highness had taken up bourbon himself.

  A happy thought intruded upon Lady Cunard’s nervous loneliness, returning her to the telephone. Joe, as his English friends referred to German Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop, would be fascinated by her news. He delighted in learning everything there was to know about the Prince of Wales.

  She started to give the hotel operator the number of the German embassy in London but realized that, at that hour, the chancery would be closed. Instead, she had the woman try von Ribbentrop’s private number at his residence, though she was fearful Frau von Ribbentrop might come to the phone before he could. It would take a long time to get the call through, what with all the trouble, but it would be worth it. She would use the word liebchen.

  It was the only German word Lady Cunard ever used, and she used it only with Ribbentrop. People complained she was part of the infamous “Cliveden Set” of anti-Semites led by Nancy Astor. That was rot. Joe von Ribbentrop was simply a very charming man with a very charming dimple. And Emerald loathed Nancy Astor—certainly as much as Nancy Astor loathed her.

  “Joe,” she said, cooing into the telephone when the connection was completed twenty minutes later. “Liebchen, you’d simply never guess. We’re all off to America!”

  Huddled in the backseat, the high collar of her dark-green coat pulled up close to her cheeks, the very beautiful woman in the speeding, lurching taxi was feeling very much alone and frightened as her ill-kempt driver sought to avoid the areas of rioting and yet get to her destination, the Place Vendôme and the Hotel Ritz. Finally, abandoning anything resembling a direct route, he drove along the left bank of the Seine, crossing over again at the Île de la Cité and passing the grim walls of what he pointed out as la Conciergerie.

  “Marie Antoinette est mort là,” the driver said, with an evil laugh. “Aussi Danton et Robespierre. Madame la Guillotine.”

  A light rain had begun to fall, glistening the streets. Nora shivered despite the warmth, cursing a small man named Ira Stein, her manager, agent, publicist, and—or so she had thought until the rioting began—her friend. He had begged her to leave with him, but when she would not, he had fled for the train station and London. “I don’t need this kind of trouble,” he had said. “If you were Jewish, you’d understand.”

  She hadn’t understood. Though Nora Gwynne had starred in six films and had now been cast in a leading role in a play bound for Broadway, this was her first trip to Paris and she wasn’t going to be cheated out of it by some mob, whatever its politics. She would remain for the entire holiday as arranged and take the new Dutch liner back as scheduled. She would do everything she intended, just as she had in achieving the transformation of Nora Reilly into Nora Gwynne, as she had in making Nora Gwynne such a brilliant success.

  Still, Paris hadn’t been much fun rattling around on her own. The mobs were scary, and being Jewish or not had nothing to do with it. She had seen cars and a building burning over by the Champs-Elysees. She’d heard gunshots. Nora shivered again. The taxi driver, who also scared her, was singing. Her French was meager, but she knew enough to realize the lyrics were quite filthy. He kept watching her in the rearview mirror and looked too pleased with what he saw. He was supposed to be pleased, of course. Nora had the face of a French Impressionist’s model, with dark brows, softly burnished copper hair, and flashing eyes the dark-green color of her coat. Her studio managers thought her more striking than Constance Bennett, and had invested considerable money in that belief.

  The studio managers made her nervous. This taxi driver gave her the feeling of having cold worms crawl over her naked flesh. She would fire Ira Stein at the first opportunity, assuming she somehow survived all this. It was her fault for having become so completely dependent on Ira, but that realization made her no less angry at him for chugging off in his train and leaving her in this violent city helpless and alone. She edged closer to the door, preparing to fling herself out of the cab should that become necessary, though she wasn’t sure what that would gain her. She hadn’t seen many other taxis, and was only vaguely aware of where she was in relation to her hotel. Through the rain-streaked window, she could see what looked to be a railroad station. Then it was gone.

  In the sudden light of a street lamp, so near to the street Nora could see her face perfectly, was a girl, a tall, poorly dressed young woman with long dark hair, a wide pretty face, and piercing eyes. She had a large suitcase at her feet and had lifted her arm to hail the cab. Nora started to tell the driver to stop, then hesitated. There was something desperate, even dangerous, in the girl’s look. Nora needed no more trouble. Clenching her fingers around the door handle, she let the driver proceed.

  “Plus vite,” she said.

  He took both hands off the wheel in a rude gesture. “Plus vite,” he said. “Toujours plus vite.”

  But he increased their speed as she asked. She guessed that they were nearing her hotel. Ahead was a rosy glow—the fires set by the mob. But a moment later, the glow little nearer, they swerved into the Place Vendôme and rattled to a stop before the hotel. The doorman flung open the door before she had quite let go of the handle, half pulling her out of the cab. He launched into a stream of apologies. She handed him a franc note for the taxi driver without looking at the denomination and fled inside without waiting for the change.

  A bellman standing by the lobby door all but jumped to attention, as did the head porter. A number of others turned to stare. Her celebrity meant something here at least.

  She started for the lifts, then halted, the prospect of her empty suite suddenly uninviting. She was not much of a drinker, but she felt in need of people around her.

  The tables in the cocktail lounge were all taken, so she went to the bar and seated herself as decorously as possible on a stool, as she had never been permitted to do in the neighborhood tavern her father had run in Toledo, Ohio, so many thousands of miles and years distant. She ordered a mineral water and glanced at those around her. On one side, a British couple were speaking softly to each other. On the other, a thoroughly drunken if handsome American man was talking to himself, reciting poetry and muttering something about a woman. His appearance was startling and appalling. He was well dressed, but the right side of his face and the shoulder of his jacket were covered with blood.

  “Lucky Lindy,” he said suddenly with a madman’s grin. He raised his glass. “Here’s to the Lone Eagle. Still flyin’.”

  There was no other place to sit. When her drink came, Nora gulped some of it down quickly and left. The drunken man paid her absolutely no attention.

  Olga Maretzka trudged on numbly through the rain, abandoning all hope of a taxi and letting her large, heavy suitcase drag along the pavement. She had memorized her directions well and knew she could reach her destination via the Paris Métro. If well traveled, at least in terms of Eastern Europe, she was not a person much used to taxis. She could certainly bear the inconvenience of the subway. But she was so terribly tired. Her fatigue was a burden as heavy as her suitcase. She would have paid almost any sum for a restful ride in the dark backseat of a t
axi, hidden from view and safe with her murderous thoughts.

  Her Métro stop would be Porte d’ltalie—the “Italian Gate” of the old city. A bus, if they were still running at that hour, would take her on into the suburb beyond, Villejuif, and to the address that would provide sanctuary and her next instructions.

  “Villejuif.” Mein Gott, what a name. It meant “Jew Town.”

  Perhaps there would be a taxi at Porte d’Italie. There couldn’t be rioting everywhere.

  She set down her suitcase and shifted her heavy shoulder bag from one side to the other. It contained books and, among some very personal items, another weighty object—a large, long-barreled revolver, a very accurate kind good for shooting from some distance. If the unfortunate Fanny Kaplan had used such a weapon in 1918, Lenin would have been killed instead of wounded.

  Fanny Kaplan had been a fanatical member of the Social Revolutionaries. She and Olga’s mother had been good friends. Olga had no use for the Social Revolutionaries, and had in fact informed on her mother to the OGPU for continuing to aid their hopeless cause. Olga was proudly a member of the All Union Communists. If no fanatic, she had always done what was necessary, what was asked of her.

  She moved on, keeping close to the curbside, away from the shadows, though it meant getting splashed by the occasional automobile. There were no friends in the shadows. There never were.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Count Martin Frederich George Fabian Hammond von Bourke und Kresse was already awake and half dressed when the telephone rang, though it was not yet dawn. He was planning to take the first flight from Berlin back to his home near Ortelsburg in East Prussia, and his morning preparations took time, even with the help of a servant. Fortunately, this flat he kept just off Kurfurstendamm was not far from Tempelhof airfield.

  Awake or not, he did not appreciate telephone calls at this hour. Nowadays, they could mean anything—certainly nothing good. He turned, wincing, and limped to his bedside table. His leg muscles worked badly just after rising.

  “Yes?” He spoke as curtly as possible.

  “Count von Kresse?”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “This is the Air Ministry.”

  “Ist halb secbs!” the count said, looking again to his clock.

  “Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund. Wer Vershlaft sich geht zu Grund.”

  It was a proverb about oversleeping. Von Kresse was not amused. “What do you want?”

  “The Reichscommissioner requests that you join him for breakfast this morning. Hier. Um acht Uhr.”

  “Unmöglich. Ich habe einen Direktflug nach Tannenburg um funf nach sieben.”

  “There are later flights, Colonel. The Reichscommissioner is requesting you attend him.”

  The use of the count’s military rank rendered this a very direct order.

  “Sehr gut,” he grumbled. “Auf wiedersehen.”

  “Heil Hitler.”

  “Wiedersehen.”

  The count slammed down the telephone receiver and summoned his servant, Zimmermann, to continue with his dressing. The man hastened to hold his military tunic for him. Normally von Kresse wore civilian clothes, but when traveling he preferred to be in uniform. It made for fewer complications—in the new Germany.

  The count wore the uniform and insignia of a colonel in the Wehrmacht, with a red stripe on the pants legs indicating he had served on the elite German general staff. He customarily wore regulation marching boots because the tight fit of the black leather helped ease the pain in his leg, though it was a special misery removing the left boot at night.

  He had been a young captain at the beginning of the war, even accepting a reduction to leutnant when he had transferred to the air service so he would not outrank his commanding officer. Richthofen had been compelled to do the same thing, and had in fact first commanded his fighter Jagdegeschwader as a second lieutenant with lieutenants and captains serving under him. Richthofen had had rank enough simply by signing his orders “Baron von Richthofen.” When it came time for von Kresse to command a flying unit, his signing “Markgraf von Kresse” sufficed as well.

  In the last crushing months of 1918, when von Kresse had gone mad and abandoned the sanctified combat in the air to fight in the daily horror of the trenches, he had done so as a common private.

  In the postwar years, he had taken absolutely no interest in military matters but had accepted the family colonelcy because he was his late father’s only son. It was a responsibility that went with his title. He was not an ordinary count. A markgraf was a count of the marches. In addition to his proprietorship of the family estate near Ortelsburg, he was a master of the Polish marches, a hereditary defender of perhaps the most strategic and warworn land approach to Prussia and Berlin from the east. A regiment went with the position. It had been one of Uhlans—anachronistic lancers—before the war. Modernization had eliminated the need for cavalry so now he was simply a colonel of infantry. This was a trade much preferable to that of many colonels in Germany now.

  Pushing his arm through the sleeve brought pain, as usual. He hated and rebelled against his infirmities, struggling daily to minimize them. He was not old, barely over forty. Though his hair was now nearly the same shade of gray as his cold, arctic eyes, he still resembled the handsome youth depicted in his wartime newspaper photographs.

  Except for the scars. One ran in a jagged line just above his right brow. Another slashed across his left cheek. His back was an agony of scars, some inflicted by shell fragments and others by surgeons bent on removing them. The muscles of his left leg had been violently torn and wrenched apart by a shell explosion, imposing a limp for life and continuing pain. “Bones we can mend,” a doctor had told him, “but with muscles we are helpless.” Von Kresse carried a bullet in his right shoulder and burn scars on his right arm and hand that never tanned with the rest of him.

  Still, women often professed to love him and to enjoy making love to him. The German passion for mythic heroes, he supposed, though few women would think him quite heroic if they knew his secret.

  His sister Dagne was waiting for him in the sitting room, wearing a pale-blue nightdress and robe and smoking a cigarette. He had no idea whether she had risen early to see him off or had simply been awakened by the ring of the telephone and was curious about its meaning. In the old days, she might be coming in from all sorts of bedraggling revels at this hour, but since she had taken up politics a few years back, her sleeping habits had become very conventional.

  She smiled. She was still pretty and girlish at thirty-six if not viewed too closely, and her smile enhanced the effect. She used it frequently. She was more German than he, and had hair and eyes as blond and blue as any of the archetypical Aryan maidens in the racial fantasies of Dr. Goebbel’s propaganda ministry. The irony was that these characteristics derived from the Polish side of their father’s family. The Prussian line was a dark one, visible in their late father’s nearly black hair. He liked to tease Dagne that their strain of the Order of Teutonic Knights descended from the Huns and Mongols who had for centuries streamed across these lands from the distant east, that many an ancestral grandmother had been dragged from a burning hut and violated. Sometimes he invented a tale of related gypsies. She was never amused.

  Dagne was his half sister. Their common father, like many Prussian aristocrats, had been half Polish. Martin’s mother, the late count’s first wife, had been an American of German and English stock. When she died, the old count had married Dagne’s mother, a baroness from Silesia. Dagne was thus three-quarters German, to Martin’s half. She never let him forget it.

  “You look so nice in uniform, Martin. You should go on active duty.”

  “That may become inevitable with so many lunatics in charge of our foreign policy.”

  She grimaced but was bent on being pleasant. “Who was on the telephone?”

  “No one for you.”

  “Who was it, Martin?”

  “The Air Ministry.”

  “Your o
ld flying comrade?”

  “He was a comrade. Now he is Reichscommissioner. There is a difference.”

  “What did he want?” She had crossed her legs and was swinging her foot. As she was wearing high-heeled slippers with furry pompons on them, this was distracting.

  “Me. For breakfast.”

  “You are honored.”

  “I’m not going. I’m taking the plane to Tannenburg, as scheduled, and driving to Ortelsburg. I have an engagement this evening.”

  “But he is Reichscommissioner! You’ll be disobeying a direct order.”

  “I hold no command in the Luftwaffe.”

  “You’re joking about this.”

  “Certainly not.”

  Zimmerman was in the hall with Martin’s bags. Von Kresse started toward him.

  “Martin,” Dagne said. “It would be a serious affront. Goering will be angry.”

  “He’ll be angry here in Berlin and I will be happy there in East Prussia, where I won’t have to listen to him.”

  “If you don’t care what trouble you get into, think of the difficulties you could cause for me.”

  “I told you, liebchen, when you joined the party, don’t intrude your political affairs on my life.”

  She made a face at him, then rose and reached on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

  “When are you coming home?” he asked.

  “I am home.”

  “I mean to the country.”

  “In a few weeks. We are very busy here.”

  “Unfortunately. Wiedersehen.”

  “Wiedersehen, Martin. Don’t be foolish about Goering. He will end up on top in all this.”

  “Vielleicht.” He bowed but did not click his heels. His bad leg made that difficult.