Blackford studied his face. In Axel’s words there was assurance, but not a trace of that triumphalism that marks the fanatic, or the politician-on-the-stump. He was struck by Wintergrin’s conviction, and its gnawing plausibility. Question: Was there more that Blackford should pursue? Out of professional concern? Or should he feign now only the dilettante’s interest in the subject? What, he thought bitterly, would Rufus want him to say? He sensed he knew the answer to that question, and out of a sense of professional obligation he pursued the point.
“Surely those scientists you spoke about at Frankfurt must be known to the Russians? I can’t see any way the Soviets would sit around and let you develop an atom bomb.”
Wintergrin looked at him, and hesitated. He replied with manifest caution. “The scientists have already done their work.”
Blackford chose to sacrifice his vanity and appear obtuse: “Done their work? What do you mean?”
Again, Wintergrin paused. And then said, “The defense we would under extraordinary circumstances deploy against the Soviet Union is ours to deploy.”
Again Blackford affected to misunderstand the electric reply, taking cover behind a handy cliché: “Of course, of course. Scientific knowledge is universal. You can’t take E=mc2 and send it to Siberia. Good point, Axel.”
Wintergrin accepted the evasion, and changed the subject. Over the next course he recounted to Blackford the special problems involved in producing the crayfish. Blackford, tasting it, pronounced the problems well solved. Wintergrin said—the Cold War was well behind them—“This doesn’t quite remind one of our old school, Greyburn, does it?”
Blackford said, “I haven’t been reminded of Greyburn since visiting Sing Sing.”
Wintergrin laughed. “Come now, it wasn’t that bad, though your hyperbole is in the Greyburn tradition.”
Blackford said, in diligent pursuit of irrelevance, “I doubt the poor English can find food like this anywhere. And to think, they won the war!”
Wintergrin agreed. “Not even at Buckingham Palace” and stopped, as if to undo the clear suggestion that he was familiar with the fare at Buckingham Palace. Blackford who had drunk more than usual and more than he should have, began to feel giddy. “Ah, yes. But of course, Axel, you are a second cousin of the Queen, a relationship frequently remarked in the press. Now let me tell you something you don’t know: I have tasted the food both at Buckingham Palace and at Windsor Castle.”
“Oh?” said Wintergrin, taking the last of the red wine.
“Oh, yes. I said to the Queen, I said, ‘Ma’am? The grub here is okay, but I can tell you where in Atlantic City you can get better.’”
Wintergrin smiled. Blackford hated himself, but could not stop. He hoped, hoped, he could stop in time, but meanwhile, under the impulse of champagne, Mosel, claret, and Rufus, he barreled on. “Oh yes, Axel, that’s what I, er, said to the Queen. Then I went to Windsor Castle. Spent a couple of days there. Went riding with her, right around Windsor Park. Then, we went back to the castle and had dinner, just the two of us. Then”—Blackford felt like weeping, for the first time since, at fifteen, he learned at summer camp about his parents’ divorce. Was it seriously proposed—surely the most macabre coincidence in history that he execute another second cousin of the Queen? And this one, moreover—unlike the other—the most convincing relic, in the world of jaded human resolution, of a will to resist the bad guys? The liars, cheats, murderers, torturers, slavemasters? Was he—Blackford Oakes—conscripted to serve the West to that end? He sensed the nervous immobility at the other end of the table, the awful fear of hearing, an indiscretion …” And after dinner, I said to her: ‘Ma’am, it’s been a wonderful day.’” Blackford had pulled out of his nosedive seconds before hitting the treetops. “You see, I was there to look over the archives, to file an engineering report—and she was swell; she invited me, as a favor to the ambassador; talked about everything, including your common cousin Peregrine Kirk, who had taught her to ride horseback. When I went down to my room, I have to confess, Axel, I used some Windsor Castle stationery to write a letter to my girl in Washington.”
Wintergrin was relaxed again, “Here is the money to pay the bill”—he slipped one hundred marks to Blackford. “Remember, it’s my party, though you’re the host as far as Walter is concerned. Give him ten marks. Now, if you want to go upstairs, talk to Karl. He will make the whole thing very easy for you, no fuss. I shall be gone until”—he looked at his watch—“it is now ten-thirty. At twelve-thirty I’ll be here, with a glass of brandy for you. We will now go our separate ways. Tell Washington that.” Blackford looked up, though the focus was a little unclear, rather like the night he ended his three-year ordeal of abstinence for the greater good of the swimming team at Yale.
Blackford said: “No, Axel, thanks. I’m not in the mood. Let’s go home, unless you want me to sit here and, wait for you.
Axel rose silently. Blackford rang for Karl, settled the account, and walked out. Axel was sitting in the car, and they drove home. Axel talked about the days at Greyburn. They had been happy days, even though he was the resident Hun, and the martial winds were blowing. Blackford asked whether these were also happy days, even though the martial winds were blowing yet again, and Axel said he was happy for many blessings, among them that he had such a friend as Blackford; that the future was for Providence to worry about, and that Providence, with so much weight on its shoulders, cannot be supposed to be happy except in the special sense that Sisyphus, rolling the stone up the mountainside again and again, could be thought to be happy. Both men had read Camus.
CHAPTER 11
On the following day Blackford informed Overstreet he would be bringing in two electricians to lay out the wiring. This was two months ahead of schedule; but, he said, he had been told while in Bonn that two expert electricians had finished their work on the reconstruction of Monte Cassino in Italy, and Washington had decided to send them directly to St. Anselm’s rather than back to the States, and back again to Europe in February, as the St. Anselm’s reconstruction schedule called for. Overstreet grumbled that the chapel was hardly ready to rewire, and Blackford consoled him by saying he had said exactly that at Bonn, but that Colonel Morley had replied: “What the hell, you want me to argue with Washington? Let ’em go to St. Anselm’s. If there’s nothing for ’em to do, ship their asses back to Washington.” Blackford’s imitation of the cigar-chomping colonel pacified Overstreet, who shrugged his shoulders and said, Well, he supposed they could work on the schematics even if they couldn’t do any installations, and Blacky said sure, they could work on the schematics, and the next morning, having got two passes fur them from Jürgen Wagner, he introduced Overstreet and Conditti to Hallam Spring and Bruce Pulling. Spring, in his early forties, was the senior. He was paunchy, direct in manner, had worked as an electrical engineer during the war, never married, and moved around the world now doing special jobs for the government. Usually—it depended on the assignment—he traveled with Bruce Pulling, a diminutive man in his thirties who wore thick glasses and seemed forever to be making squiggly notes on a pad, bending over, which in his case was never very far, to look at something—a circuit plug, a light socket; but, sometimes, seemingly at nothing at all—a bit of wall, a piece of carpet. He spoke hardly a word. Hallam Spring, a Californian who wore Levi’s, an open shirt and, on formal occasions, a string tie, didn’t say much either, though he was pleasant enough. He maneuvered with Blackford around the chapel, Bruce Pulling made a few notes, and Spring said they’d be back in the morning after settling down at the inn and resting from the long drive. Blackford led them around the courtyard to give them a tourist’s-eye view of St. Anselm’s before escorting them back to his car and driving them to the gasthof. In the car, past the sentry, Blackford said: “Did you come with any ideas, or are you going to work out some ideas here?”
Spring exhaled his cigarette smoke. “Don’t know what Singer has in mind for us yet. He’ll be letting us know in a few days. Meanwhil
e, we can keep busy, don’t worry. There’s a lot in and around that chapel we can be doing. We’ve got a little sweeping to do.” Hallam Spring was one of the Agency’s finest communications technicians and electrical experts. Bruce Pulling, early in the war, had been assigned as a demolitions instructor but he proved impossible as a teacher, so was sent to the field. Soon he was given the assignment of passing on unusual and complicated demolition problems. Occasionally he would venture out himself and take on an assignment: always when Rufus asked him to. Singer had said of him to Blackford: “Pulling plays explosives like Pablo Casals plays the cello.”
Blackford was correct with his new associates, but not quite his old-boy self. Face it, he told himself ruefully: It wasn’t all high principle that was churning him up. It was also the debauch of the night before. What would he have done without that last bottle of champagne at three in the morning? he wondered. Died of thirst maybe? He lunched briefly with his electricians, answered their questions, and returned to the chapel to work during the afternoon, and to think.
As he drove into the courtyard, Count Wintergrin’s caravan was preparing to move out. That night the speech would be at Bremen. In front there was a police motorcycle, courtesy of the federal government. Then a passenger car, a middle-sized Mercedes, with two men in front, one in the rear—members of the Freiwillige Schutzwehr, the voluntary security corps organized by Jürgen Wagner to protect Wintergrin during the campaign. Then the candidate’s own car, a 1941 Opel Admiral belonging to the countess. The windows had been bulletproofed; the bullet-resistant tires were reputed to weigh 175 pounds apiece. The chauffeur was a trained bodyguard like the grim Wolfgang who sat next to him. Behind, but not easily visible—though he could open the car’s roof and stand up through the opening was Count Wintergrin, and the ever-present Roland Himmelfarb. Following the car, a bus—a traveling office, really, with three well-appointed desks, two mimeograph machines, six typewriters, two radio-telephones, and another half-dozen phones that could be quickly connected to a circuit when the bus drove up alongside either a hotel where the candidate was staying, or a theater or gymnasium where he would speak. In the bus were Wintergrin’s communications chief Heinrich Stiller, his press chief Kurt Grossmann, his chief translator Erika Chadinoff, and their staffs, plus two security men, heavily armed. Behind that the press bus would attach itself, completing the caravan. Wintergrin, talking with an aide, a leather portfolio in the crook of his arm, approached his car and waved a greeting to Blackford, who waved back but did not approach him. Instead he walked toward Erika, who was looking over a clipboard held up to her by an elderly woman. In a language Blackford was unfamiliar with, they were obviously wrangling, presumably about the proper translation of a passage from the evening’s text. Erika smiled at Blackford. “Why don’t you come along? We should all be back by one or two at the latest.”
“Is he going to say anything interesting?”
“Very interesting. He’s going to declare war on the Poles.”
“Oh? What’ve they done?”
“They’ve refused to declare war against Russia.”
“Well,” said Blackford cheerily. “Serves them right. Be sure you get the translation right. We wouldn’t want Count Wintergrin to be misunderstood.”
She laughed. Blackford asked her to dine with him tomorrow, and she said yes, but it might have to be late, was eight-thirty all right? He waved his assent. Heinrich Stiller was talking into his radio. The press bus waited at the junction in St. Anselm’s to join the caravan. A whistle sounded. Wintergrin walked toward the door of his car, and on reaching it stopped. There was no accounting for the silence, but for a few seconds, as Wintergrin gazed out toward the chapel and the castle, lit yellow by a brilliant October sun, the courtyard was motionless. The whistle stopped blowing, the passengers were all in their cars, the coordinators stopped speaking into their squawk boxes. The scene froze in Blackford’s mind: motorcade, entourage, the tall slim aristocrat setting out on a crusade. Perhaps almost a thousand years earlier from this courtyard, with a gaudier entourage, horses and infantrymen and archers had surrounded Ritter Erik von Wintergrin setting out on the first crusade while St. Anselm was still alive, coping with the heathen kings of England. Had anything changed?
The policeman fired his motorcycle, the other drivers followed suit, the count stepped into his car, closing the door, engines raced, the sentry opened the gate, and the procession moved fitfully out, to reach cruising speed only after descending the hill and picking up the press bus at St. Anselm’s. Blackford watched them go, and as he turned was startled at seeing Countess Wintergrin standing directly behind him. She was dressed in a tweed suit, wearing a floppy felt hat, and carrying a basket of oils and brushes and sketching materials. She spoke slowly:
“They will never allow him to succeed, will they, Mr. Oakes?”
Blackford answered evasively. “Of course, Countess, he has a great many enemies. I don’t think Count Wintergrin underestimates that.”
“But does he know who all his enemies are?” she asked. Blackford struggled to escape her intense eyes. Again he tried evasion:
“Perhaps you are saying that we are our own worst enemies? I suppose that is true. Your son, though, has never shrunk from risks.”
The countess smiled, nodded her head, and moved on with her basket toward the west garden. Shaken, Blackford walked into the chapel where, after a time, he felt, for the first moment since noon the day before, a certain composure. He worked for five hours gratefully with Overstreet and Conditti. He wished he could work there without end, wished he could exchange roles with Overstreet.
They walked silently to the Westfalenkrug, advertised by an old sign depicting crossed swords, the shield of Wintergrin, and the legend, Nobly live, nobly dine. Blackford led the way. He knew the waitress, who conducted him routinely to the usual table in the corner, removed from the jukebox which played, endlessly, bouncy German Volkslieder and lush American Volkslieder, of the Glenn Miller age. Weeks before, Blackford had made a mental note to requisition twenty new phonograph records from Bonn, intending to make a gift of them to Herr Musiktorturer. Three men and two couples were at the bar, one pair fiercely debating the political campaign, the man gesticulating to his wife and pointing to an iron cross he wore conspicuously on his corduroy jacket. She was pointing to a picture of Wintergrin and saying, repeatedly, Er hat recht! Er hat recht! Er hat recht! (He is right! He is right! He is right!) Blackford sat down wearily, told the waitress he would have a beer, and asked his two companions what they wanted. Spring wanted bourbon, but they didn’t have it, so he said, “gin mit anything.” Pulling bent over the list of beverages for a full two minutes, cleared his throat, and asked for water. They glanced over the menu.
“The sausage is good, so is the sauerkraut. If you’re feeling flush, the entrecôte—steak—is okay. So is the veal.” They ordered, and Hallam Spring began.
“We swept your room at the inn.”
“And?”
“Bingo.”
“Come on.”
“Yup.”
“Wintergrin’s people?”
“Maybe. If so, they’ve got an expert on the team. Well, why not? He’s surrounded by people who just finished waging a pretty sophisticated world war.”
“Straight bug?”
“Straight bug.”
“Where?”
“In the light socket on the floor lamp by your desk.”
Quickly Blackford thought back. Had he ever said anything indiscreet over the telephone? He was satisfied he hadn’t. He tended not to deviate from his training. All his calls to Bonn from that telephone had been to Colonel Morley, on straight chapel business. He had telephoned his mother in England, Sally in Washington. He had called Anthony Trust on his birthday. What had he said? He struggled to remember exactly. But he was certain he had been cautious.
“Did you track it?”
“Yup.”
“All right, to where?”
“Not very
far. To the translator’s room. Chadinoff.
“Erika Chadinoff? I’ll be damned.” He decided to approach the news professionally, analytically. “Well, that’s interesting. So Miss Chadinoff is either—let’s look at the possibilities: One, she is doing extracurricular duty for Wintergrin. Or two, she is an agent of Adenauer. Or three, she is an agent of Ollenhauer. Or four, she is an agent of the Commies. Or five, she’s a freelancer of some sort.”
Stained Glass Page 11