So there it was; and Lanny never blinked an eyelash, never changed color by the slightest shade. He spoke the words that he had drilled into his mind: “Herrgott! This is really a case of supernormal power!”
“I think we have to admit it. That old bastard has got something after all.”
“Well, that’s the way it goes, Herr Reichsminister—you meet with disappointments and you are bored night after night; and then, just as you are ready to quit, you run into something like this. I am deeply grateful to you for digging this story out for me.”
“Not at all—I am just as much interested as you. We’ll go back and try again sometime and see if we can get more details.”
“I’ll try with Madame, also. Truly, it’s a fascinating thing, and when you once get started, you are drawn in deeper and deeper. Imagine those two spirits going off hand in hand—and not wanting to tell their story in your presence! I wonder if they are still afraid of you.”
“It’s comforting to know they are where they can’t do any harm to our cause.” Lanny wondered, was this entirely true? Or was there something deep inside Hess that was afraid of what that couple might do to him from the spirit world? Or after he himself had entered that world!
XII
Lanny had time enough to walk to the Ministerial Residence, and he needed it to work off the grief and rage which possessed him. No forecast, no accumulated imagining, could equal the reality of knowing that Trudi was gone forever; that his efforts of the past six months had been futility, and his hope of seeing her again was vain. The scientific monster called Nazidom, the beast with the brains of an engineer, had got her in its clutches, and had treated her as it had treated so many thousands of other victims. Images of what they had done to her swept over him, but he struggled to put them aside—for that way lay madness. He must hate these Nazis, but it must be a cold and quiet hatred, rationalized and organized, scientific like their own.
He told himself that it was war; Trudi had been a prisoner of war, and they had treated her according to their code. They had waged war upon her in their dungeons, first in Paris and then in Dachau, trying to break her spirit, to force her to betray her party and her friends. In this they had failed, Lanny was sure; the fact that he was here, a free man in Berlin, and about to enter the home of the Nazi Number Two, was proof enough of that. With all their ingenuity, their knowledge of physiology and psychology applied to breaking the human will, they had not been able to break Trudi’s. She had won that war—or so she would feel, and Lanny must train himself to feel the same.
It was a question about which men would always argue, according to their temperaments and their creeds. The Führer of the Nazis had declared that the greatest spirit could not function when the body in which that spirit was housed was beaten to death with rubber truncheons. Thus the new religion of the sword; and all the soldiers of that religion were taking their prophet’s commandment and acting upon it. But Lanny had read Emerson in his youth, and had been assured that the heedless world had never lost one accent of the Holy Ghost. Which was the truth? Which was the word of God and which of Satan? Satan rebelling against God—that was not just a legend, a poet’s imagining; that was something that went on every hour in the heart of every man alive. Here, in this Satan’s world, with “truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne,” a man had to fight for his faith in God, and risk his happiness and even his life in the worship of the Holy Ghost.
This much was certain: the spirit of Trudi Schultz lived on in Lanny Budd, and the Nazis could never kill it there unless they killed him—or unless he let it die. It would live on in the hearts and minds of Trudi’s comrades both inside and outside of Naziland. It would live in the hearts of other people, if ever the time came that Lanny was free to tell Trudi’s story and spread her message. Such was the real and authentic magic of the spirit. Even the Nazis had discovered it, and had their roll of martyrs which they solemnly read, and their song about Horst Wessel, a rowdy whom they had made into a hero because he had been killed in street fighting with the Communists.
The Nazi religion was for one nation, one Herrenvolk, which aspired to rule all others. They called themselves a “race,” but that was just a piece of nonsense which their fraudulent scientists had invented to make themselves more important; there was no such thing as “Aryan”; there was only German, and even that was open to question. The correct word was Prussian, or more precisely East-Elbian—a little group of proud and bigoted aristocrats whose power was based upon the ownership of huge estates, in a part of Europe where the armies of Napoleon had not penetrated to break up land monopoly. These proud Junkers, nearly all of them high-ranking military men, were using Adi Schicklgruber the gutter-rat as their newest tool, their rabble-rouser and mob-deceiver, and when they were through with him they would send him to join his tens of thousands of victims.
National Socialism versus true Socialism, racism versus humanity—that was the struggle between Satan and God in the modern world. Trudi Schultz had been what her predecessor Heinrich Heine had called “a good soldier of humanity.” She had lived and died for her cause, and had passed on her sword to her husband, who must keep it sharp and clean, and use it with that skill and determination without which battles are not won. Lanny would keep the Trudi-ghost alive in his heart, and somehow, someday—perhaps with the help of Franklin D. Roosevelt—he would see that spirit of justice and brotherhood spreading over the world and conquering the forces of bigotry and despotism.
XIII
Right now it was Lanny’s job to clench his hands, set his teeth, compose his mind, and go into a granite palace and entertain a big fat lump of vanity, greed, and arrogance dressed up in a pale blue broadcloth uniform with white stripes down the pants. He might have telephoned and said that he had been taken suddenly ill, but that would have been the act of a weakling. Göring was an important man to a presidential agent; from him Lanny got not merely money for the cause, but information and prestige enabling him to get more whenever he wanted it. The Trudi-ghost inside him said “Go!”—so he put his best man-of-the-world smile upon his face, and went up the steps of the splendid building from which the Reichstag-fire criminals had operated. He was welcomed by his old friend Furtwaengler, who, he learned, had just been made into an Oberst—lower rank would not be proper in the exalted regions to which Hermann Wilhelm Göring had recently been raised.
Lanny was escorted to the Nummer Zwei’s private office, and went to him with hand extended, crying: “Heil, Herr Feldmarschall!” and then: “Darf ich seine Eminenz noch Hermann nennen?” In reply the great man put his arm over the visitor’s shoulder and led him to the flat-topped desk where the jeweled mace of office reposed. He gave an American a chance to see how it felt, and Lanny wielded it with spirit, pointing it in front of him and commanding: “Vorwärts, Kameraden! In die Zukunft!”—into the future. He knew where the Nazi future lay, and looking at Der Dicke he added, with a grin: “Nach Wien!”
They always enjoyed each other’s company, because Hermann had a sense of humor, and Lanny the easy-going informality which is supposed to be American. While he ate his broiled salmon and then his breast of chicken with wine sauce, he told his adventures in Austria and at the Berghof. It was easy enough to make fun of Schuschnigg and Stahremberg; and when Lanny came to narrate how the Führer had dressed the former down, and how everybody in the house had stood all day with his ear in a crack of the door, Der Dicke roared with laughter so that he came near to choking. Lanny even ventured to imitate the Führer’s forte fortissimo tones—something which no German would have dared, but which was good clean fun from the land of unlimited possibilities.
Later on they talked seriously, of course. The new Feldmarschall wanted to know all about how England felt and how France felt regarding the Austrian situation. “England,” of course, meant the group at Wickthorpe Castle, and “France” meant that at Baron Schneider’s stag dinner. Lanny told about both in detail, hereby adding greatly to his socia
l stature. So much so that before they parted Der Dicke said, paternally: “Hör mal, Lanny! It is absurd for a man like you to be wasting his time selling paintings. Why don’t you let me pay you some real money and do some real work for me?”
“Na, na, Hermann!” replied the younger man, in filial spirit. “We have had such a pleasant visit, and you want to spoil it! Don’t you know that you would feel differently about me if you hired me? Then you would start demanding things, and would think I was lazy and a flâneur. But when I come in once in a while like this and enjoy your company, you have a friend and not just one more agent. You learn a lot more from me, because I have been visiting other people in the same spirit—and telling them all about you.”
“Nothing bad, I hope,” said the fat man, with mock concern.
“What do I know that is bad?” grinned Lanny. “You enjoy my jokes, you have a beautiful wife who is going to present Germany with an heir—and you own the Hermann Göring Stahlwerke!”
BOOK SIX
A Full Hot Horse
23
Les Beaux Yeux de Ma Casette
I
If Lanny had been a newspaper correspondent or a sight-seeing tourist, he would have headed for Vienna again, for it was obvious that the “big story” was going to break soon. Schuschnigg, casting about in desperation, had hit upon the idea of a plebiscite; the people of his country would be invited to say whether or not they wanted Anschluss with Hitler Germany. Nothing could have been calculated to bring matters more quickly to a head, for Adi knew that the people of Austria would vote three to one against him, therefore he took the proposal as a defiance. Schuschnigg must have expected this, for he allowed only four days between his announcement and the proposed vote. The newspapers of Berlin burst forth with stories of Communists in possession of Vienna, mobs attacking Germans on the streets, and Czechoslovakia sending artillery to support the Red uprising.
Lanny knew that this meant immediate action, but it wasn’t his job to witness it. Experienced newspapermen would be flying there, and the story of whatever happened would be laid upon F.D.R.’s breakfast tray each morning. It was Lanny’s job to find out what was coming next, and he thought he knew. He was seized by a desire to report once more to Washington, and try to persuade his Number One to take some step to stop the new World War before it had spread any further. It was still not too late; if America would show the way, and get England and France together, the smaller states would join, to say nothing of the Soviet Union. The dictators might be halted—and who could guess how many millions of lives might be saved?
Lanny had a picture to get from Furtwaengler, and while he was waiting for this the telephone rang and a man’s voice said: “Herr Budd, have you received a cablegram from Herr Host in New York?” When Lanny replied that he had, the voice inquired: “Would you be so kind as to meet me this evening? I will be in the Hotel Eden lobby at eight.” Lanny, experienced in conspiracy, replied: “I will be there.”
He had not recognized the voice, but assumed that the stranger would know him. He dined alone, looked over the evening papers, and then went for a walk, making certain that no one was trailing him. At five minutes before the hour he strolled into the spacious lobby of the Eden and took a seat. Promptly on the stroke of eight there came a man whom he knew well, though he had not seen him for years—Aaron Schönhaus, elder brother of Rahel Robin, Freddi’s widow. Lanny waited until he had passed on, then got up and followed him outside and around the corner. They walked for a block or so, until Lanny was satisfied that no one was following; then he walked faster and caught up.
“Well, Aaron,” he said, “glad to see you. How are the old folks?”
“Not too well,” was the reply. “Excuse me for meeting you this way. There are reasons which I will explain. I have a car, and it will be safer if we drive.”
He stopped in front of a parked car and unlocked it, slipped into the driver’s seat, and Lanny took the seat beside him. Lanny was destined to have a lot to do with that car, but he didn’t know it and paid no special attention, merely noting that it was a medium-priced sedan of German make and apparently little used. There was a robe and he drew it over his knees while his in-law-once-removed—if there is such a relationship—started the car and drove at a moderate pace on a wide boulevard.
II
Lanny had met the Schönhaus family soon after Freddi’s marriage a decade ago, but he had seen little of them, for they had no special interest in their daughter’s Socialist ideas and no aspiration to move in the exalted circles which Lanny frequented. The father of the family was a lawyer on a small scale, and being a Jew, had been forbidden to practice after the coming of the Nazis. He had lived on the bounty of his son, who had some sort of commission business about which Lanny was vague in his mind. Lanny knew that Aaron had a family, and recently had heard that his wife had died; that was all.
The man was several years younger than Lanny, but looked older, for the years had heaped burdens upon him. He was smallish, with a smooth-shaven face and sallow complexion, and wore a black overcoat of no fashionable cut and a hat which showed traces of wear; but that was no proof of his financial condition, for most Jews kept themselves obscure in these dangerous times. He knew English, but not too well, and spoke German to Lanny. He told the status of the family. Mama had developed a cancer, and would not have many years to live; she was not able to be moved to America, and Papa would not leave her, but devoted all his time and thought to taking care of her. They had both been frantically begging Aaron to take his children and emigrate to America; he had money put away, and at any time the Nazis might seize him and torture him to make him give it up. At last he had yielded, and Johannes had managed to get the passport visas. Aaron had paid the necessary bribes here in Berlin and had his exit permits.
He asked Lanny about his sister, who was married again, to a man employed in Johannes’s office in New York. She had another baby besides Freddi’s son, little Johannes. Lanny reported that they lived with the old folks and got along well; he always saw them when he visited Connecticut. Little Johannes, just eight years old, was the image of his father, and a most lovable child. The Schönhaus family knew what Lanny had done in his efforts to save Freddi from the Nazis—no doubt that was Aaron’s reason for coming to him now.
It wasn’t a great favor the man wanted; simply to get a little of his money out of Naziland. Said he: “I have always been an independent man; and maybe I think too much about money, but it goes against my nature to land in New York a pauper. I can borrow from Johannes, of course; but he’s a dictatorial man—without realizing it, I think—and I prefer to be on my own. You understand, I have made my own way in the world, and earned what I have by hard work. I don’t see why I should turn it over to my racial persecutors if I can help it.”
“Certainly not,” declared Lanny, venturing that far out of his ivory tower.
“Under the Nazi law I’m allowed to take out only fifty marks, and that wouldn’t get me and three children very far toward New York. But here is this car, which represents a good chunk of money. I’m guessing that you didn’t drive into Germany this time.”
“How did you guess it?”
“I read of your arrival in the Mittag, so I judged you had arrived in the morning, and I hardly thought you’d have been driving overnight in a storm.”
“A good guess. I’m not driving, and I have a couple of paintings to take out.”
“That fits right in. This car costs about five thousand marks when it’s new, and it ought to bring at least half that in Belgium or Holland. That would be enough to take me and my children to New York and keep us there until I get to work. Nominally the car doesn’t belong to me; I have a gentile friend who is so kind as to keep it in his name. He would sell it to you—that is, you wouldn’t have to pay any money, but take his receipt for twenty-five hundred marks and the car would be yours. You would drive it to any place you say outside Germany, and I’d meet you there and pick it up.”
So there was Lanny being tempted again! Out of the kindness of his heart he would undertake to help some oppressed person—and forget for the nonce that he carried the destinies of his native land and perhaps of the world in his keeping!—Or would he? Doubts assailed him, and he said: “I don’t know the law, Aaron. Is a foreigner permitted to buy a car in Germany and take it out?”
“Why not? It’s simply export, and the Germans are working like the devil to promote foreign trade. They’d figure they’d be getting good American Valuta, with which to buy copper and oil and rubber and cotton and other materials of war.”
“But isn’t there some sort of permit needed? And mightn’t there be a tax?”
“If there’s a tax I’ll give you the money to pay it with. It wouldn’t do for me to be making inquiries, but I’ll have my friend, the nominal owner of the car, do it. Or since you have influential friends, you might ask and assure yourself.”
III
That was the way they left the matter. In the morning, as chance would have it, Lanny received a cablegram about another of those paintings which Göring had confiscated from Johannes Robin’s palace and which didn’t happen to conform to the great man’s artistic taste. Lanny called up Furtwaengler to make the deal, and at the end of the conversation remarked: “By the way, Herr Oberst, I came in by train this time, and I have several paintings to take home. I have a chance to buy a German-made car at a reasonable price, and I wonder what the regulations are on that subject.”
“I don’t happen to know,” replied the SS officer. “But you don’t have to bother about regulations in any case. We’ll be glad to fix it up for you.”
Presidential Agent Page 61