Circles of Time

by Phillip Rock

  “I feel I owe you an apology, Martin.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “First of all, I should have told you about Carin and me before you flew down to discover it for yourself. And secondly, it was wrong to expose you to political friends of whom you most obviously do not approve.”

  “Look, Werner, there was no reason for you to tell me about Carin. If I’d lacked a reporter’s eye and ear, I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong between the two of you. And as for your politics … well, that’s your business, not mine. I just don’t like what Herr Hitler is selling. There’s enough hatred in this country. It crackles through the air like electricity. Why add to it?”

  Werner’s smile was cryptic. “There’s an old saying in the Tyrol: ‘Only a storm can clear the air.’” He made a point of scowling at his wristwatch. “I’m late for an appointment in Lichtenberg, but I’ll be glad to drop you off at the Bristol.”

  “No … no, go ahead. I’ll take a taxi.”

  “Thank you, Martin, you are most thoughtful.” He glanced toward his Benz, which was bumping across the field toward them. “You really should go back to England. This is not a land you will ever understand.”

  That was not quite true, Martin was thinking as the rattletrap taxi carried him toward the center of the city. He felt, in some ways, that he understood Germany better than Werner did. He had the advantage of objectivity, of standing off from a distance and observing dispassionately the varied elements in flux. The revolutionary struggle … brown shirts and red shirts … monarchists—Socialists—Communists—republican democracy. Weimar to Munich to Berlin. The struggle to meld a nation out of millions of fragments. He watched some women hurrying across Zimmerstrasse against the traffic, bulging shopping bags in their hands. Bags stuffed not with food but with marks to buy food. Tens of thousands of marks to perhaps buy some turnips and a little bread.

  Messages had piled up since he’d been gone. He took the bundle from the desk clerk and sorted through them as he walked to the elevator. There was a note from Uncle Paul: Martin, Cabled Kingsford in NY before I left. Told him you’d take the “Kingsford shilling” again, but only as roving correspondent at double what he was paying before. Leave things to your uncle.

  The cablegram had had its effect, because there was a cable from Scott Kingsford: Dear Martin. Stop. Delighted by news from Paul Rilke. Stop. Roving correspondent it is. Stop. Salary will negotiate. Stop. Martin smiled and shoved the message into his pocket.

  There was a slim envelope of expensive cream-colored paper. He slit it open with a fingernail. The note it contained was heavily embossed with an address on the Charlottenburger. My dear Martin Rilke. I regret the missed opportunity of talking with you at any length. I have returned to the city from Weimar and trust you will call on me at your earliest convenience. The note was signed Erich Lieventhal.

  Most of the other slips of paper were telephone messages from stringers hoping to sell their stories, or their hot tips for stories, to the great Herr Rilke. But one message caught his eye and made him grin with pleasure: A Herr Golden telephoned. He is staying at the Adlon Hotel.

  Seeing Jacob was a tonic. He flopped onto a sofa in Jacob’s luxurious suite and lit a cigar.

  “What in God’s name brought you to Berlin?”

  Jacob, looking pale and desolated, managed a wan smile. “Comfort, I suppose. You’re the only chap I can talk to. I’ve had the most ghastly couple of weeks, so I just decided to chuck it all in and fly over for a rest.”

  “What happened? Circulation of the Post fall off to zero?”

  “I rather wish it had, old boy. The fact is our little campaign for military unity had such a dramatic impact on readers and government that old Fenton was whisked from the burning sands practically by order of Parliament. In a nutshell, he’s home, and my rather foredoomed affair with Winnie has come to a total and irrevocable end. I thought I could handle it with grace, maturity, and sophistication. After all, having love affairs has become somewhat of an international sport these days, hasn’t it? Breaking one off shouldn’t upset a man of the world like me, should it? An amusing dalliance, no more than that. Something to do on rainy afternoons.

  “I wish to God I was that sort of chap. When I kissed Winnie for the last time—except perhaps for a kiss on the cheek one day—I thought the ground had dropped away and I was falling into a bottomless pit.” He parted the white lace curtains and stared numbly at the ornate facade of the British Embassy on Wilhelmstrasse. “Talk about the proverbial someone being torn in different directions. I can’t even explain how I felt when Fenton shook my hand. We had to have a cocktail party for him, you see—meeting the press. He’s the Daily Post’s colonel now. He thanked me for being such a good friend—and he was so bloody sincere when he said it. No sardonic Fenton smile. Just the handshake and those quiet words. His friend!”

  Martin studied the ash on his cigar. “You are his friend, Jacob. You didn’t seduce Winifred. You just fell in love with her. You knew it would have to end, and now it has. I don’t know what to say or what to suggest.”

  “You might suggest we go out on the town and permit me to get disgustingly drunk. I expect you to remain halfway sober. And my treat, needless to say.”

  “Fine,” Martin said. “I’ve heard of a club in the Potsdamerplatz where naked women cavort on a round bed.”

  Jacob eyed him sourly. “I would prefer, considering my present state of mind, to get drunk in a monastery.”

  MARTIN COULDN’T BE sure when or where the envelope had been slipped into his pocket. It could have been anywhere during the night—at the Adlon Bar, the Excelsior, the cabaret Luna—a haze of places packed with people and blue smoke. He discovered it in the morning after the valet came to get his tuxedo and had dutifully gone through the pockets, leaving change, crushed cigar, lighter, pocket handkerchief, and the envelope on top of the dresser.

  Martin eyed it blearily. A thin, narrow envelope of cheap gray paper. The note inside had been written in pencil on equally cheap paper. He walked over to the window and stood in a patch of sunlight to read it. It was written in English …

  Herr Rilke:

  I am willing, for the modest enough sum of 50 English pounds, to provide you with information regarding a matter of some great importance and international significance. I am, sir, a man who served honorably in the war, but am now a pacifist. I have read your pacifist book—the French edition—and was most moved by its contents. For blessed are the peacemakers on earth—as the good King Lear states in your fine Shakespeare. If you, too, are willing, board the number 42 omnibus in front of the Hotel Excelsior in Kreuzberg at precisely noon tomorrow. Go to the top deck—alone—and I will contact you if I think it is safe.

  P.S. This matter is in regard to Minister Lieventhal.

  Martin stood in the shaft of light and reread the note, then placed it on a table and wove his way into the bathroom, taking off robe and pajamas as he went.

  JACOB SHOWED NO effects of the night before. He sat across from Martin in a restaurant facing Leipzigerplatz devouring lamb chops and fresh peas. The note was propped against a bottle of wine in front of him.

  “Well?” Martin asked, toying with a cup of black coffee. “What do you make of it?”

  “The quote is from Henry VI, by the way. I wonder if he really did read your book in French.”

  “The contents,” Martin said irritably. “Genuine?”

  Jacob chewed a slice of lamb and gazed for a moment at the chestnut trees seen through the windows. “Difficult to say. All it takes to find out is fifty pounds and a bus ticket. If you were a reporter working for me, I would say take the gamble. Fifty pounds—not such a modest sum when converted to marks. One pound sterling at this morning’s rate, about one million, five hundred thousand marks—times fifty—no, not a modest sum at all. Lieventhal. At least he’s specific about his information. Have you met Lieventhal, by the way?”

  “Once in London, and once here, briefly.�
�

  “Charming fellow. A good friend of my father’s. I spent two weeks one summer with him and his daughter—Amelia—sailing the Baltic on Father’s yacht. That would have been, oh, nineteen twelve I imagine. Haven’t seen him since.”

  “Or Amelia?”

  “No. Horrid little brat.”

  Martin choked down a swig of black coffee, treating it as medicine for his splitting skull.

  “She’s changed—somewhat.”

  HE HAD ALWAYS shunned informers in the past, never having found the information worth the price. It smacked of the police beat, the money doled out on a regular basis to shoeshine boys, hackies, station-house sergeants, and ladies of the night. It paid off in crime stories, but rarely, if ever, in politics—at least not for fifty pounds, inflation or no inflation.

  But he was sufficiently curious to wait at the bus station next to the ponderous, columned bulk of the Hotel Excelsior at noon. A number 42 bus arrived, trailing long plumes of smoke. He purchased a ticket and mounted the outside stairs to the top. It was nearly empty—a bus ticket was not a minor purchase in these times. He scrutinized his fellow passengers and took a seat in the back. People came on or got off at various stops, but no one approached him. As the bus crawled along Kochstrasse, Berlin’s Fleet Street, a young man in a threadbare but neat suit swung onto the bus and climbed to the top deck. Unfolding the newspaper in his hand, he sat next to Martin. Neither spoke for several blocks, and then the young man lowered his paper.

  “May I have the money, please?” he said in English.

  Martin shook his head. “I pay on delivery. You’ll have to trust me.”

  “But of course, Herr Rilke. I will not introduce myself by name, but I work on Auntie Voss—the Vossische Zeitung—as a clerk for one of the editors.”

  “That’s a good paper.”

  “Yes, Herr Rilke, it is. During the war I was in the flying service—an observer. On my first flight over the lines in nineteen seventeen my pilot got lost, ran out of fuel, and came down on the wrong side of the trench line. I was a prisoner for the rest of the war. I studied both English and French to pass the time—also shorthand writing. I tell you this so you will know you are not talking to an unintelligent man.”

  Martin took a good look at him. He was in his middle twenties with the pale Nordic complexion and blue eyes of the north German, Mecklenburg or Schleswig-Holstein. His features were thin and pinched and there was a fragility about him, as though he were on the verge of malnutrition—which he probably was.

  “You can come to the point now,” Martin said.

  “Yes.” He took an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and held it tightly in his hand. “I have written down in greater detail what it is I shall now tell you. It is so. There is a secret society composed only of those men who were fliers or observers in the air service during the war. It is not a large group, and almost all of them were officers. They meet from time to time, not on a regular basis, at any of several bars and cafés in the city. Six members of this society—the Black Knights of the Sky—are plotting to assassinate Erich Lieventhal. Plans are now set. Only the exact time of the murder has not been finalized.”

  “Does your paper know about this?”

  “Yes, Herr Rilke. So do the police. But you must understand that there have been at least twenty known plots to assassinate the minister in the past eight months alone. Freikorps bands openly boast of planning to kill him and the police do nothing—except place bodyguards at the minister’s disposal. My own editor does not take the Black Knights of the Sky seriously.”

  “What makes you think I will?”

  “Because,” he said in a low, intense voice, “I know it to be true.”

  “Do you belong to the society?”

  “No, Herr Rilke. I do not join völkisch organizations.”

  “Are they linked with the National Socialists?”

  The man frowned. “The Nationalsozialisten in Bavaria? No. Lumpenpack, that group. These men are idealists—patriots—or so they believe. I know two or three of them—not the conspirators. That is a secret it would be impossible for me to penetrate—and live.”

  “I understand.” Martin slipped a folded wad of ten-pound notes into the man’s pocket and took the envelope. The man rose without a word, strolled casually down the stairs and off the bus into the flowing crowd.

  MARTIN FIXED HIMSELF a scotch and soda and drank it while Jacob read and reread the tightly jammed pages of handwriting before him.

  “Extraordinary,” Jacob finally said. “So Teutonic. Black Knights of the Sky! Blood oaths … suicide pacts … brotherhood to the death. Do you believe this?”

  “I have no reason not to believe it.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “See Lieventhal first of all. Let him read it. Then—well, I’m not sure. I doubt if a Berlin paper would touch it. The mood is too shaky at the moment. I could send it out over the wires and let the British and American papers break the story. That might embarrass Weimar enough to make them act positively for a change and really crack down on these groups.”

  Jacob snorted. “Crack down on them with what? Half the regular army is in league with the Freikorps troops, and the police merely stand around wringing their hands.”

  “I’m open to suggestion.”

  “My advice, Martin, is to show this to Lieventhal and then follow his suggestion. I don’t think sending it out over the wire would be a good idea. This is totally unsubstantiated material at the moment. Leave us not forget our little codes of journalistic integrity. I sack reporters who send in a story beginning, ‘Rumor has it....’”

  THE LIEVENTHAL MANSION on the edge of the Tiergarten had been built for Professor Sigmund Lieventhal as a gift from the nation. Kaiser Wilhelm had helped design it, and the great Thomas A. Edison had come to Germany for the dedication ceremonies. The three-story pile of marble and stone looked more like a temple or a public library than a house where people actually ate and slept, but the interior was surprisingly warm and comfortable. The minister received Martin and Jacob in his library on the second floor, a long room of polished mahogany, crammed bookshelves, soft leather chairs, and vibrant Oriental carpeting.

  “It was good of you to come, Martin. And you also, Jacob.” He gave Jacob a friendly pat on the cheek. “Your father’s death distressed me greatly, but I could understand his reason. Such a strong, vital man. Like a Viking when he sailed his beautiful yachts. He sought out death with great dignity.”

  “He had no fear of it—only of wasting away.”

  Martin cleared his throat and removed the letter from his pocket. “Your Excellency, we have come on a matter of grave importance. I was given this document this afternoon. Please read it.”

  The elderly man took the papers and walked over to a desk to read them. When he was done, he removed his pince-nez, polished them with a handkerchief, and chuckled softly. “Given to you, you say? And what did you give in return? Some money?”

  “A little money, yes,” Martin said.

  “I’m afraid, my dear Rilke, that you are the victim of a confidence trick.”

  Martin exchanged a quick glance with Jacob. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, sir.”

  The minister tossed the pages idly aside. “Assassination plots against me are so common, the newspapers no longer take the trouble to mention them. I receive a dozen letters a week signed by this secret organization or that society threatening me with death because—of any number of reasons. You are a well-known journalist, and an American—therefore considered gullible. A story is hatched—not a plot, a story—and offered for sale. An exclusive scoop. Is that the correct word, Martin? Scoop?

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you pay good money for a fabrication. Thus the confidence trick.”

  In the sudden silence Martin could hear the twittering of birds in the garden below the windows.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “that this is genuine.”

&n
bsp; Lieventhal glanced back at the scattered pages. “Black Knights of the Sky! The mumbo jumbo of oaths and fraternity to the death! The type of nonsense undergraduates at a university fencing club might come up with.”

  He sighed and got to his feet. “The real death threats are the ones I get every day as I drive to the chancellery. Some ex-soldier who blames all of the Republican ministers for stabbing the Reichswehr in the back. These poor fellows will never believe they were defeated on the western front by force of arms. Never. The Republican politicians are to blame … the Jews are to blame … the Communists are to blame. Everyone is to blame except tanks and guns and aeroplanes and a million American doughboys coming into battle at the eleventh hour. And I am a politician, and a Republican—and, ostensibly, a Jew. It hardly matters that I am not by birth a Jew. They know that. ‘Jew’ is simply a term, a label stamped onto anyone who favored an end to the war and an end to the Kaiser. And so I drive to my office in the morning, and I drive home in the evening, and the ex-soldiers shout at me—or simply raise a sign that I can see. And the words are always the same—‘Kill the Jewish hog Lieventhal.’”

  He reached down to his desk and crumpled the sheets of paper in his hand. “Do you think this nonsense frightens me? It is just one more absurdity—and a minor absurdity to boot.”

  Martin gave him a helpless look. “Please, sir, I still feel that—”

  Lieventhal clapped his hands, pronouncing an end to the matter. “I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I am quite used to this sort of thing. Now, let’s indulge in more pleasant conversation in the drawing room over good, strong cups of English tea.”

  She was seated in the drawing room when they entered. No painter, Martin thought, could have posed her more carefully. She sat on a small divan of yellow silk, large windows behind her, the pale afternoon sun falling softly across her.

  “Amelia,” Lieventhal said, “you met Herr Rilke at Werner’s party—and I’m sure you remember Jacob Golden.”