Presidential Agent (The Lanny Budd Novels)

by Upton Sinclair

  II

  Lanny listened to this address on his radio while motoring to Calais. It made him rather blue, and his feelings were not improved by a stormy Channel crossing; he was seasick one of the few times in his life, and went to the nearest hotel to spend the night and recuperate. There in the morning papers he read that Anthony Eden, chief object of the Führer’s attack, had resigned from the British Cabinet. That would be taken in Germany as an act of submission; in Britain it was taken as a protest against the Prime Minister’s course—a very decorous and reserved protest, in the British manner. The Prime Minister received it “with profound regret,” and tried to make it appear as a protest against Italy’s continued breaches of the Non-Intervention Agreement in Spain.

  Lanny motored to Wickthorpe Castle and was welcomed as usual. He played with his little daughter, and in between times read in the newspapers of the hot debate going on in Parliament over the government’s course. Secure in his Tory majority of more than two to one, Chamberlain stood firm in his policy of “appeasement”; and over the week-end the politicians and public men gathered at Irma’s house-party to discuss what had been said and what was going to be done.

  There was a general hush-hush atmosphere, for few Englishmen liked what they were doing. You took things for granted and didn’t put them into words, except to a few of the innermost insiders. Germany was hell-bent upon taking back those eastern borderlands which she had lost after the last war; many Britons hadn’t approved of taking them from her, and now, to keep them from her would mean a war that Britain wasn’t ready for and didn’t want. France, which had heavy investments there, would just have to write them off. There had been some sort of understanding with the Nazis—perhaps not in writing, just a gentlemen’s agreement with men who rejected that classification. There were hints of it in Hitler’s speech; he had said that Germany’s colonial claims would be “voiced from year to year with increasing vigor”—which of course was “double talk” for the statement that they weren’t being pressed at present. That was the thing which the British ruling class would never stand for—having Hitler become strong overseas, and establish airplane and submarine bases. On land they might have to let him have his way, provided he didn’t go too far—but how far would he go? Who could say?

  Right at this juncture came Lanny Budd, fresh from a sojourn in the home of this statesman of whims and frenzies, this genius-madman, this uncertain ogre. Incredible, but true; there could be no doubt that he had been there, for he described the pictures on the walls, the decoration of the bedrooms, the size and color and contents of the vegetable plates which the ogre ate. “Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, that he is grown so great?” These grave English gentlemen and political ladies thronged about an American art expert and plied him with questions, and some of the most exclusive asked if he would come to their homes and tell another select company what he had seen and heard.

  Irma was quite taken aback by her ex-husband’s social success. What had come over him? Could it be that he had really changed his mind and dropped his crazy radical notions? Or was this a super-subtlety that he had acquired? From the point of view of a week-end hostess it didn’t make much difference, so long as he gave the facts and was so discreet, never intruding his own opinions, but leaving it for his hearers to draw their own conclusions.

  Inside this venerable castle was every comfort, and complete protection against the winter’s cold; but one heard the fierce gales blowing about the chimneys and rattling the windows. One knew also that political storms were rising, and no amount of English courtesy and reserve could keep out awareness of the people’s discontent. There were mass meetings in Albert Hall, and huge crowds in Trafalgar Square in spite of unsuitable weather. Mobs shouted against the murder of the Spanish people’s government, and British freedom of speech and press was used to print and circulate leaflets, pamphlets, and books denouncing the Fascists and warning of the wars they were preparing. The small ruling group which controlled public policy was being denounced under the name of the “Cliveden set,” after the very elegant country home of the Astors. Of course these people vigorously denied that they exercised any such power, and even that there was any such set; Rick in one of his caustic articles had written: “They deny there is a Cliveden set, but will they deny there is a Cliveden sort?”

  Irma mentioned this controversy more than once in her ex-husband’s presence, and Lanny wondered: Was she a little peeved because Nancy was getting more than her share of public attention? He did not forget that Irma had had several years in café society, both before and after their marriage; and would she have been secretly pleased if the Red and Pink press had taken to denouncing the “Wickthorpe set”? Nancy had the advantage that her husband was a press lord, and she herself a member of Parliament, whereas Irma’s husband was a career man in the Foreign Office, and had to preserve an atmosphere of aloofness and impartiality in his home. So that had become Irma’s tone, and when she spoke of her rival it was in a gently patronizing vein.

  III

  Lanny motored to The Reaches, and then what a blowing off of steam there was! All the accumulated pressure of some of the most eventful weeks in the history of both the world and Lanny Budd. He could tell here how Adi had bellowed at Schuschnigg, and even give an imitation of the sounds—which sent Rick and Nina into gales of laughter, for it doesn’t take much exaggeration to make German sound funny to English ears. He could tell about the new Mohammed, and what Islam had done to infidels and would still do if it had been able. He could even tell of the dreadful confession of Magda Goebbels, and the degenerate practices of which he had knowledge among the Nazis.

  Also he could pour out his heart about Trudi. He hadn’t succeeded in getting the information he sought, but he was close to getting it, he believed. “I’ll be much surprised if Professor Pröfenik doesn’t make use of every tip I gave him,” he declared.

  “I hope you do get it!” exclaimed Nina. “It is such a cruel thing to be kept in a state of uncertainty.”

  “It is what Trudi herself endured for four years or more. Thousands of others are still enduring it, and will for the rest of their lives.”

  “I know,” said the woman; “but it makes a difference when you know the persons.” Womanlike, she was interested in what was going on in the hearts of men, and added: “Tell me how you stand it, Lanny.”

  “Well, you learn to stand what you have to. It’s not so bad in my case, because I’m doing Trudi’s work, and I have the feeling that she’s always with me. I know exactly what she’d say to everything that comes up, and when I give some money for the cause I feel her satisfaction.”

  It couldn’t be the same, Nina knew; but she forebore to say so, for that would be like probing into a wound that he was managing to heal. Just as the body walls off a foreign substance which has got under the skin, so the mental body walls off suffering. So this gentle woman thought, and Lanny, an old friend, knew the meaning of her silence.

  “Our case is hard to understand,” he told her. “Few lovers were ever so impersonal. Trudi was so completely absorbed in her cause that really it seemed as if she had no life outside it. I would see her sitting silent, and would never have to offer a penny for her thoughts; I knew that her mind was on the comrades in the concentration camps, or those who were risking their lives circulating our literature. I would try to beguile her, and now and then succeed, but not often—for the pressure was always on her, there was always some new thing coming up that brought the whole tragedy back to life in her heart.”

  “It’s inhuman to be like that, Lanny!”

  “Of course it’s inhuman; but so are the Nazis, and we who fight them have to be the same.”

  “What’s that going to mean to the future?”

  “I leave the problems of the future for the future to solve. The fact is now that we’re at war, and have to feel the emotions of war and make the sacrifices of war. The Nazis are not going to be overcome except by men who are as stern as
they, and as determined to prevail. There’ll have to be a lot of anti-Nazi fanatics, and some of them will be women who think more about saving their comrades than they do about making their husbands happy. Isn’t it so, Rick?”

  “Right you are!”

  “I haven’t made up my mind whether I believe in immortality,” said Lanny, “but I know that Trudi’s spirit lives on in me. I think about her all the time; I suppose it’s what the religious people call ‘communing.’ When I get in a stroke against the Nazis, I hear her saying: ‘Good for you!’—and always: ‘What next?’ The Nazi terror goes on, and our resistance cannot slacken. I suppose I’m becoming one of the fanatics, too.”

  Nina wanted to exclaim: “Oh, don’t!” but she was afraid it wouldn’t be polite. Instead she asked: “Suppose you learn that they’ve killed her. Will you go on mourning for her, or will you find another love?”

  “A fine chance I’d have to make a woman happy—or to discover one who would live my life!” Lanny smiled—he seldom talked long without finding some occasion to smile. “Did you ever read Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Outlaw’s Song’?” He quoted:

  Maiden! a nameless life I lead,

  A nameless death I’ll die!

  The fiend, whose lantern lights the mead,

  Were better mate than I!

  IV

  Lanny telegraphed Rudolf Hess, asking if a meeting with Pröfenik would now be agreeable, and the reply came promptly that an appointment had been made for two days from that date. So the agent motored to the Channel and had another stormy crossing at the beginning of March. He reached Calais—a town whose name had been written on his heart by the tragedy of the Robin family. An unseasonable snowstorm was making it dangerous to drive, so he put his car in storage and took the train so as not to miss his date.

  He was invited to be the guest of the Deputy, but thought it the part of tact to put up at the Adlon and not be in the way. He knew from the newspapers that both Adi and his most loyal supporter were absorbed in what was for all practical purposes a war with Austria, being carried on inside that unhappy country through the agency of Seyss-Inquart and another Nazi who had been forced into the Cabinet. It might have been taken as a comedy war if it hadn’t had such grim meaning for the future. The Austrian Minister of the Interior and Public Security granted to the Nazis of Styria the right to wear swastikas and to shout “Heil Hitler!”—and then the Cabinet of which he was a member canceled the order. He went to Graz and reviewed fifteen thousand Nazis, many of them in uniform and all giving the Nazi salute in what was an illegal parade. Nobody who knew the Hitler movement could doubt what this meant.

  Lanny found the newspapers of Berlin full of clamor concerning the mistreatment of Germans in Austria. Those hateful Nazi newspapers, filled full of lies and abuse! Such a thing as factual reporting was entirely unknown in Hitlerland; it was all the poison propaganda of the crooked dwarf “Juppchen,” whom Lanny had come to think of as the vilest human being he had ever shaken by the hand. One glance at any front page in Berlin and you knew what new move the Nazi machine was preparing and who were to be the next victims: Jews, Austrians, Czechs, Poles, Bolsheviks—and now and then a turn at domestic enemies, speculators, black-market operators, refusers of Winterhilfe, doubters of the Führer’s wisdom—and then pacifists, Catholics, Protestants, Free Masons, and of course Jews and Reds everywhere and all over again.

  V

  Lanny reported his presence in town and confirmed the appointment; Hess would call for him that evening. Also he called Göring’s office, and reported to Hauptmann Furtwaengler that he had orders for two paintings which the Feldmarschall had commissioned him to dispose of. That was always pleasant news; Der Dicke had become the richest man in Germany—“But nobody ever has enough money,” observed Lanny, and the SS officer chuckled appreciatively. He, no doubt, had had opportunity to observe.

  Deputy Führer Hess had not provided himself with a six-wheeled chariot enameled in baby-blue. He rode in a black limousine with a red standard in front and a gold swastika on the doors. A staff sergeant drove, with another SS man beside him for protection. Perhaps the windows were of bulletproof glass—Lanny had no objection to this being the case for the night. As they rode he discussed the Austrian imbroglio, of course blaming Schuschnigg—for what was the sense of appointing a Minister of Public Security and then doing everything to make him insecure? It simply meant that you didn’t mean what you said, and the Führer was sick of dealing with people who kept no bargains. The Austrian Cabinet was going to get another shaking up, and this time the double-dealers would be shaken out on their heads.

  They talked about Pröfenik, and Hess said the old fellow had had plenty of time to prepare and no doubt would put on a good show for them. It was so hard to find honest and competent mediums—and why did they have to be Poles and low-class people like that? Lanny said he didn’t know, but it appeared to be a fact that many of them did come from those Central European lands. The most careful and dependable researchers appeared to be Germans; Lanny named Driesch and Schrenck-Notzing and Tischner. Hess made note of these names, and Lanny wondered if they would receive decorations and be put in charge of a Forschungs Anstalt für Parapsychologie.

  Before they went into the building Lanny said: “I want you to know, I have not communicated with Pröfenik, or told him anything about you.”

  The Deputy Führer replied: “He knows plenty about me, and can find out more. But, by God, if he tries any monkey tricks on me, I’ll have him skinned alive!”

  VI

  In that house of mystery nothing had been changed. The black-clad servant took their hats and coats, and the elderly Chinese-appearing gentleman received them with bland courtesy and escorted them into the dimly lighted room. He asked after their health and the Führer’s, and said: “We are witnessing great events. I have cast the Führer’s horoscope again, and this is the month for him.” Hess answered, rather dryly: “He thinks so.”

  Lanny, watching the wizard closely, noted that his eyes moved warily from one to the other of his guests. “Gentlemen,” he said, abruptly, “you have come for advice, and the auguries are favorable. Let us proceed to work, before anything is said that might influence the supermundane forces.”

  That suited the pair, so without another word the old man entered the cabinet and drew the curtains. They waited, and presently heard a moaning and sort of faint snoring; then all of a sudden the deep bass voice of the “control” who called himself King Ottokar I. Speaking German, he declared: “There is an elderly gentleman here. He has white sidewhiskers but his chin is shaven; he wears a uniform of cream-colored broadcloth with a large gold star on his bosom. He claims to be a great ruler, and gives the name of Franz Josef. Do you know any such person?”

  “I have heard of him,” replied Hess, not too cordially.

  “He is unhappy; he says that terrible things are coming to his beautiful city. The Prussians are marching once more against Austria. He says: ‘I don’t mind if you kill some of the people—there were always too many of them; but spare my palaces, for they were’ built to last for a long time.’”

  “Tell him that nobody wants to hurt his palaces.”

  There was a pause, presumably while the old Emperor talked; then the voice said: “He says that if it had been intended that men should fly they would have had wings on their shoulders.”

  “Tell him,” said the Deputy, “that if it had been intended for men to live in palaces, they would have had them growing on their backs, like snails.”

  Again a pause, and then: “He declares that is no way to talk to Majestät, and you will have to be respectful if you desire the honor of his communications.”

  “I apologize,” said the Nazi, for Lanny had impressed upon him that spirits have to be humored. “Ask Seine Majestät if he can tell us what is coming to his country.”

  “He says many sorrows before any joys; but in the end the name felix Austria will be justified.”

  “That is rathe
r vague. Ask him, please: Will the Viennese resist?”

  “He says: ‘The Viennese resist everything.’ He says, again: ‘They have their own peculiar way, which others might not recognize.’”

  “What we want to know is, will they resist with guns?”

  “He says they will resist with arrows of ridicule; and that it is always better to persuade your opponents.”

  “Is that all he has to tell me?”

  “He says that he really loved the city of his dreams,—‘die Stadt meiner Träume.’ He says: ‘I did the best I could, but the world changes too fast for the mind of any man.’”

  “Tell him that his place in history is secure,” said the Deputy Führer of the NSDAP—and nothing could have been handsomer. “Ask him if he has any suggestions on his mind.”

  “He wishes you to know that his grandnephew Otto would make an excellent successor to the throne.”

  “We have heard of the young man, but he has been exiled from his Fatherland—and not by us. Anything else?”

  “Seine Majestät thinks that the American gentleman might be interested to know there is a very fine portrait of his Imperial Majesty in the possession of the family of a painter named Husak, in Vienna.”