Circles of Time

by Phillip Rock

  She stood up—a tall, slender, beautiful woman.

  “Good Lord,” Jacob said. “You’re not the Amelia I remember.”

  She smiled brightly as he walked toward her. “But you’re the same Jacob. Really you are. I would have recognized you anywhere. Do you still get irritated with young girls when they ask a lot of silly questions about ropes and sails?”

  “No,” he said, taking her hand. “I know now that young girls grow older.”

  Servants entered the room pushing wheeled trays piled with delicacies for tea.

  “Amelia,” her father said, “you pour.”

  The conversation was light, dominated by Jacob’s account of a performance of Romeo and Juliet he had seen at Max Reinhardt’s theater and a very good vaudeville act at the Winter Garden. Martin found it difficult to concentrate on what was being said. The room was warm, the tea hot, and yet he felt a cold chill along his spine every time he glanced at Lieventhal. Somewhere beyond the smiling man, beyond the French doors and the garden wall, perhaps at this very moment, young men were talking in a bar or café, whispering dark plans for death.

  “Do Romeo and Juliet actually get into bed together on stage?” Amelia asked.

  “Now, now, Amelia,” Lieventhal said. “It is hardly proper to ask such questions.”

  “But, Father, it’s only make-believe. Reinhardt theatrics. Do they, Jacob?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, they do. But it’s handled with great delicacy.”

  Martin excused himself and went back into the library. The sheets of notepaper lay crumpled on the desk and he smoothed them out with his hand, then folded them carefully and slipped them into his pocket. When he returned to the drawing room, Jacob was still talking about the theater, but Lieventhal was taking peeks at his gold pocket watch.

  “I think we’d better be going, Jacob,” Martin said.

  “Must you?” Amelia asked.

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  She stepped over to him and held his hand. “Please come again.”

  Martin could only nod. It was like holding Ivy’s hand. Like looking into Ivy’s face.

  They walked through the Tiergarten in the dusk, not saying anything until they reached the Brandenburg Gate and waited for the traffic to ease before crossing Pariserplatz.

  “I know what you were thinking,” Jacob said. “Amelia’s resemblance to Ivy is quite extraordinary.”

  “Yes. But to me, the resemblance of any dark-haired, violet-eyed girl is extraordinary. It’s disconcerting how many there are. But it wasn’t so much that, Jacob. What struck me was how young and beautiful she is. Ivy was that young and that beautiful when she died. These Black Knights of the Sky. What if they go after Lieventhal when he least expects attack? Perhaps on his way to a restaurant … or a theater? What if they go for him when Amelia is by his side? Will they shoot carefully, or cut loose with a submachine gun?”

  “You’re totally convinced the plot is real, aren’t you? In spite of what the old boy said?”

  Martin put his hand in his pocket and touched the folded papers. “It’s real, Jacob. Real as death.”

  XIV

  WOLF VON DIX read what Martin had placed before him and then tilted his chair back and swung his legs onto a corner of his desk.

  “And you say you gave this to Lieventhal to read?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “And what was his reaction to it?”

  “A kind of weary contempt.”

  “That’s understandable. Death threats are hardly news to him.”

  “Why so many directed against him, for Christ’s sake?”

  Dix shrugged and folded his hands behind his head. “Because he’s not afraid to stick his neck out and allow the extreme right wing to chop at it. Approver of the peace—if not the terms—signer of the trade agreement with the Soviets—any number of things not popular with certain ingredients of our ideological stew—these Knights of the Black Sky among them.”

  “Black Knights of the Sky,” Martin muttered.

  “Yes. Black Knights.”

  “Have you ever heard of them?”

  “No. But then, there are so many secret societies. The Black Knights, the Red Knights, the Sons of Siegfried … Whenever three embittered ex-army officers get together they form a society. One such group murdered poor Erzberger because he had followed orders and signed the armistice agreement. That was his only crime—helping to end the slaughter. Don’t look for any degree of rationality among these self-righteous thugs, Martin.”

  Martin leaned forward in his chair and tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk. “I was hoping you might know something about this particular band. That perhaps Anna …” He paused, eyeing the lanky editor steadily. “I think both you and Anna knew a little more about Herr Hitler and the National Socialists than was contained in your files. Am I wrong about that, Dix?”

  Dix yawned and stretched his long arms toward the ceiling fan above his head. “That’s possible. But then you casually mentioned that the little gold swastika pin had come from a friend’s pocket. Werner von Rilke’s pocket, no doubt, of Bad Isar and Berlin, your kinsman. I purposefully held my tongue. As for the files in the morgue, may I remind you, dear Martin, that I am the bureau editor of an American news agency. I send Herr Kingsford only those items that he can sell, and he is not interested in reports of minor beer-hall brawlers and Jew baiters.”

  “What made you so sure it was Werner’s pin?”

  “Because, like you, I’m a good reporter. I may make my living sending out stories on Berlin night life, visiting celebrities, and rising theatrical stars, but in my off moments I keep my ear to the walls and my nose to the ground. Werner von Rilke is the primary financial backer of the budding Nationalsozialisten party—‘Nazi’ for short.”

  “Is that hard evidence, Dix?”

  “As hard as it comes.” He swung his legs from the desk and leaned forward. “I have people who pass on information, all of it sound as holy gospel. I’ll make some calls and see what I can find out about the Black Knights—but don’t expect much. These little societies have raised secrecy to a fine art. And Berlin is a big city, Martin—and as tangled as a jungle.”

  MARTIN SCANNED FACES on the street as the taxi inched its way toward the Unter den Linden, through traffic congealed by swarms of bicyclists, great horse-drawn wagons, rickety trucks, and worn-out cars that seemed to stall or break down completely every few yards. Streams of people, overflowing the sidewalks, wove through the stalled lanes of vehicles. Two young, fair-haired men wearing leather jackets crossed in front of the taxi, talking earnestly, and disappeared from view in the crowd. What were they talking about? Martin wondered. Their jobs—or lack of jobs? Their girls? Or were they perhaps discussing murder? He stared broodingly at the passing throngs, but there was no point in that kind of crazy speculation. Equally pointless, he felt sure, was the possibility of uncovering the names of six conspirators in this city of so many millions. And he doubted strongly that any of Dix’s informants had the necessary qualifications to penetrate such a close-knit band. There was only one person who could, conceivably, have the proper connections to ferret them out. He leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

  “Take me to the Grunewald.”

  The von Rilkes’ majordomo, splendid in velvet jacket with brass buttons, was quite taken aback by Martin’s arrival at the house in a wheezing, spluttering Berlin taxicab. It was not the custom for visitors to drop by unexpectedly. Every morning the majordomo was presented with a list of callers by Frederick von Rilke’s secretary, with the approximate hour of their arrival. Martin Rilke’s name was not on the list—but then, he was, to be sure, a relative. Still, it was hardly proper.

  “Herr Werner?” The old man looked puzzled. “He is not here, Herr Rilke, neither is he expected.”

  “Today, you mean?” Martin asked.

  “This is not his residence. His apartments are in Zelten Allee, Herr Rilke, number forty-s
even, off the Charlottenburger Chaussee.”

  A spit and a holler from Lieventhal’s home. He felt like an ass.

  “Thank you,” he said, backing away from the door. “Thank you very much.”

  Number 47 was one of a row of four-story stone buildings of baroque design set back from the street behind a screen of linden trees. Flags flew from the balconies of several, marking them as the residences of foreign ambassadors. Martin paid the taxi driver with an English crown. The man was so startled to have a solid silver coin pressed into his hand that he almost stripped the car’s gears as he lurched away from the curb.

  Werner had a twelve-room apartment on the ground floor. The upper floors had been turned into two huge apartments which he rented to a Chilean businessman and the Argentinian chargé d’affaires.

  “This was Father’s city house in the old days,” Werner was saying as he took Martin on a tour of his apartment. “I decided to turn it into flats. I live like a cozy bachelor here with a cook and a valet.” He indicated the spacious billiard room. “Would you care for a game of snooker?”

  “Not just now,” Martin said.

  “A drink, then.”

  “Nothing, thank you. I’d just like to discuss something with you. Perhaps you might be able to help.”

  Werner read the papers carefully and then placed them on the coffee table that separated their two chairs in the drawing room.

  “But it’s too fantastic, Martin. Black Knights of the Sky! Why, that’s the sort of name one would find in a boy’s adventure story printed in a penny dreadful. This is not to be taken seriously, surely?”

  “I take it seriously. Lieventhal doesn’t, and neither, I’ve been led to believe, do the Berlin police.”

  “I tend to go along with their feelings on the matter.”

  “Do you? But such secret groups exist—and are potentially dangerous despite their penny-dreadful names. Wouldn’t you say so?”

  “Your question seems pointed. What exactly are you implying, Martin?”

  “I’m not implying anything. I’m asking your opinion.”

  “Yes, they exist.” Werner stood up and began a slow pacing of the room. “It’s not difficult to understand their emotions. They are men who fought in the war. Spilled their blood from Tannenberg to the Marne. The army was not beaten. It never surrendered. And yet the war was lost. So many men feel it was lost because while they were at the front fighting nobly for Germany and the Kaiser, others—Bolsheviks and politicians—were stabbing them in the back. And so all the sacrifice came to nothing. Two million dead and the fatherland turned into a living grave. A Germany looted of its wealth—castrated by its enemies.

  “Yes, Martin, such little groups of angry men do indeed exist. But it would be a mistake to lump them all in one basket. They are not all Freikorps rowdies and street toughs. Many of them are sincere men motivated by the highest ideals of patriotism. Their sole intent is to see that justice comes to the traitors among us.”

  Martin’s mouth felt dry. “Do you place Erich Lieventhal in that category?”

  Werner paced in silence for a moment, then stopped and fixed Martin with his intense and troubled gaze. “Erich is motivated by his own ideals and sense of patriotism. A traitor? Hardly that, but his policies are being proved terribly wrong and Germany suffers for it. He’s too weak and diplomatic with the West. All of the ministers in this pathetic Republic act the same way. They are like men trying to keep a dog happy by offering their own hands for the beast to chew on.”

  “The funny name aside, what you’re really saying is that an assassination plot against Lieventhal is not, to use your own words, so ‘fantastic’ after all.”

  “I must admit,” Werner said, almost in a whisper, “it is not.”

  “That’s more like it. I’ll be blunt, Werner, and I hope you won’t take offense. There’s a group of young men somewhere in this city. Men with the highest of ideals and the ugliest of pistols. I believe you have the sort of contacts who could reach those men. I think you could not only find them but talk them out of this insanity.”

  Werner stiffened as though slapped in the face. “I’m afraid I do take offense, Martin. I have no such contacts. None at all.”

  “I find that very hard to believe.”

  “I am not a liar.”

  “I’m not saying you are. Maybe you honestly don’t recognize the type of men to whom you give money. Herr Hitler’s storm troopers are not so very different from the Black Knights!”

  Werner turned his back on Martin and looked toward the windows at the flickering green linden trees. “You have no right to criticize who I back or do not back. Hitler is not an assassin. He wishes only to heal. You can’t understand that, Martin, because you are one of the victors. I regret deeply having to say this, but I must ask you to leave my house.”

  THE PAGES HANDED to him on the bus were now worn and limp, the cheap paper beginning to deteriorate, the writing barely legible. Martin knew each word by heart. The pages lay on top of the dresser where he could see them as he struggled to turn his black tie into an acceptable bow. Was he the victim of a confidence trick? He wished to God he were. It would have been fifty pounds well spent. But the tattered paper sent a chill through his body. What they contained was as real, and as deadly, as a coiled snake.

  He took a taxi to the Adlon Hotel and picked up Jacob, who was standing in front of the awning.

  “You’re a bit late, old boy,” Jacob said as he got into the cab. “Have trouble with your shirt studs?”

  “Tie. I might just buy one of those ready-made ones attached to an elastic band.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll never be a social success, Martin.” He lit a cigarette and leaned back in the seat. “Any luck at all today?”

  “No. One blank wall after the other.”

  “I’d stop worrying about it if I were you. No one else seems overly concerned. Just a sign of the times, as it were. Men of Lieventhal’s stature learn to take it all in stride. They develop a strong sense of fatalism—a German characteristic to begin with. Being threatened with death nearly every day merely strengthens it. You have to admire the old boy. He doesn’t deviate from his established routines. Never drives to the chancellery by different routes or leaves at different times. Regular as clockwork, there and back. It makes it easy for the Berlin police to keep an eye on him.”

  “Who told you all that?”

  “Amelia. I took her to lunch today.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.” He sounded vaguely defensive. “She’s a delightful girl.”

  “Woman, Jacob—woman.”

  “Is she? I hadn’t noticed. Certainly a very young woman. I felt downright avuncular.”

  “That must have been a novel experience for you.”

  “As a matter of fact it was. It made me feel protective. I told her about your cloak-and-dagger incident on the bus—and the letter. She was very appreciative of your concern—and mine, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “To cut the story of a long and pleasant afternoon short, Amelia is as fatalistic as her father. Concern, but not a shred of panic. She told me that the police know his routines. They can set their watches by him. Six days a week at seven-fifteen every morning he leaves the house, drives along Charlottenburger past the gate, then down Wilhelmstrasse to the chancellery. The police watch his progress—wary but unobtrusive. They do the same when he leaves his office at precisely six-thirty in the evening. His addiction to routine keeps him relatively safe. Any assassination group worth its salt must know that his car is always being tailed and that the two beefy guys puttering along in the Opel behind the limousine aren’t out for an airing. They’d be taking a hell of a chance if they tried to get to him. The local bobbies may be hopeless at nipping conspiracies in the bud, but they know how to follow a car. Does that make you feel better?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, it certainly made me feel better. Your informant may have been correct, b
ut in all probability it’s no more than one of scores of half-baked ideas hatched over brimming mugs of beer and quite forgotten in the morning. Still, you got your money’s worth. Amelia’s terribly grateful.”

  Martin glared at him in irritation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jacob leaned forward and stabbed his cigarette into an ashtray. “I honestly couldn’t say, dear fellow. A question of semantics—my girl vis-à-vis your woman.”

  ERICH LIEVENTHAL LOVED the city of Berlin, and had been, before the war—and for a time during it—very much a part of its night life, a familiar figure at the opera, the theaters, and nightclubs. Such places still existed, of course, but he would not go to them. The vision of men in top hats and women in furs alighting from gleaming limousines in front of the Winter Garden or the opera house and strolling inside past hordes of restless poor was too painful for him. So was the thought of having a fine dinner in the comforting Gemütlichkeit of an elegant restaurant while, perhaps only a few doors away, long, patient lines of ragged gray blobs lined up for a tin bowl of turnip soup at a Salvation Army kitchen. His entertaining was done at home. It was, at times, lavish—but beyond view of the hungry and the dispossessed.

  A servant took their coats and another servant escorted them upstairs to the ballroom, from which came the melodic strains of a small orchestra playing “April Showers.” Beautifully dressed couples were dancing under the shimmering glow of a crystal chandelier while others lined the great room enjoying cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.

  “Is my tie straight?” Martin asked before entering.

  “Reasonably,” Jacob said. “There’s Amelia, dancing with a chap who looks like Siegfried.”

  Martin saw her, slender and lovely in a dress of the latest style, dancing with a tall blond man of her own age. He looked away and walked toward the long table where servants in white mess jackets were pouring champagne.

  The orchestra swung into “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody” and Martin felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned, glass in hand, to face a smiling Amelia.