“That will be quite all right, Herr Budd.” Then, tempted by his fears, the old-style Prussian nobleman permitted himself to add: “It might be well if you could communicate that information as soon as possible. Lose no time, I beg you. In these times decisions are made quickly, and when steps are taken it may be impossible to recall them. There has never been a greater danger.”
That was what Lanny had come to hear, and it was worth an evening and a couple of thousand francs for a cabinet particulier and five converts. He added, with a smile: “You did me a favor once, if you remember, and I have hoped for a chance to return it.”
“I do not know many persons, even Germans, who can carry a message direct to the Führer, Herr Budd.” That was, in the American phrase, “buttering Lanny’s parsnips for him,” and it was up to him to smile graciously and assure his friend that he appreciated the courtesy.
VI
Next morning Lanny typed out a report and put it into the airmail. Then he packed up and stepped into his car, and said to his chauffeur—himself—“Berlin.” He stopped at Les Forêts for a short visit with his sort-of-godmother. Emily’s mind was clear, but her physical powers were failing, and it annoyed her greatly; Lanny put one arm about her and petted her a little, to cheer her up. She wanted him to stay and discuss with her the destiny of man, and whether there was going to be anything left of her when her physical powers were ended. He extracted from her the promise that she would try to communicate with him if by any chance she found herself still there, wherever it was.
Also, she wanted to know what she should do with a considerable fortune which she had managed for some thirty years of widowhood. Lanny was concerned not to have her mention that she might leave something to him. His middle name, Prescott, had been borne by her son, who had died in childhood. He told her: “Don’t keep much money in France; the times are too uncertain.” She answered: “Oh, God!—are the Germans coming again?”—remembering what they had done the last time.
He gave his advice: “Leave it to some scientific body in America, for some kind of research—say cancer.” Then he thought of the work that was being done at Duke University, to determine whether “extrasensory perception” was a reality. He told her about it, and added: “They could use money, no doubt.” Said the châtelaine, with a wan smile: “They might employ a medium and let me talk to her, or him, after I have passed on.”
“Mediums are scarce,” Lanny answered; “and money can’t make them.”
He couldn’t stay, he explained; he had a date for the following evening in Berlin—and that was no fib. The arrangement with Monck was that, allowing a reasonable time after mailing a letter, he would come to the appointed street corner on a Wednesday evening at ten o’clock, and thereafter every Wednesday and Saturday. Lanny bade a sad farewell, and followed one of his familiar routes, up the valley of the river Oise. Then he came into the valley of the Maas, which, twenty-five years ago, the armies of the Kaiser had pounded with their hobnailed boots; Sophie Timmons, Baroness de la Tourette, had been caught in that dangerous gray flood and had to escape in a peasant’s cart behind a spavined old white horse. Lively times Lanny Budd and his friends had been born into!
He spent the night in Cologne, and fell asleep to the sound of artillery and tanks rumbling under big windows. This was for him not merely the city of the perfume and the cathedral, but a place where he had suffered great anxiety, coming to meet Hansi and Bess soon after the Reichstag fire. They had been giving a concert there, two notorious Reds, one of them Jewish and the other a betrayer of her Aryan honor. Would they be allowed to give that concert, and would Lanny be allowed to drive them out of Germany afterwards? Lanny didn’t know and nobody could tell him; but nothing had happened. Oh, God, if only Johannes and Mama and Freddi and the rest had come at that same time, instead of waiting a few weeks to straighten out their affairs! Lanny relived these tragic days while driving through the German Ruhr, with its ten thousand chimneys belching black smoke, all eighteen hours of the day and six hours of the night, the way it is at the time of the summer solstice. Everywhere troops were moving westward, slowing up his driving and making him hate all things German.
VII
Next morning straight on to Berlin, by one of those wonderful Autobahnen. They were the Führer’s pride and hope; and who was the smarter, the one-time Gefreiter or the president of Budd-Erling Aircraft? Robbie said it was the greatest of blunders, because in a war Germany would run short of gasoline and rubber; Hitler should have built up his railroads, because he had unlimited coal. The answer was that he was gambling on short wars; easy little wars, one at a time, like those on Spain, on Austria, on Czechoslovakia. Would he get them? That was something a P.A. could meditate upon while rolling past a seeming-endless string of industrial towns, all with their factory chimneys smoking.
Into Berlin, and the Adlon, with anti-aircraft guns mounted on its roof and the lobby crowded with SS men. Lanny had time to bathe and shave, eat an excellent dinner, and read the papers. This last was no small part of his job, for these “co-ordinated” journals told the German people what their rulers wanted them to believe, and from them you could come pretty near to guessing what was scheduled for the next few weeks. You could wager your eye-teeth, and your eyes, too, that Germany wasn’t going to war with the Soviet Union in that period, for all the propaganda against the horrendous monster of Bolshevism had vanished from the Nazi press. No more of that crouching apelike figure, hairy, snarling, with blood-dripping dagger in one hand and flaming torch in the other! Instead—since the Nazis had to have somebody to hate—you saw a smartly clad gentleman with a jutting jaw and a cigarette holder a foot long, grinning maliciously; his name was Rosenfeld and his ancestors were Jewish, which was why he hated the Aryan Germans so bitterly and sent gauche telegrams to the Aryan Führer!
Lanny got his car and at one minute before ten o’clock was at the appointed corner. There was no one in sight, so he drove around the block. Next time, there was Monck, just arriving; and according to his practice, Lanny drove on to a dark spot, drew up by the curb and unlatched the door of his car. A moment later the man stepped in, and away they went. Lanny had only to turn one or two corners and make sure there was no car following, then they could go on driving and talking all night if they pleased.
Monck wasted no time. “Ribbentrop hasn’t gone to Moscow yet,” he said. “The deal has been held up.”
“The Russians want too much?”
“Very probably so. I want you to know that my information was accurate. The trip had actually been arranged. I did not bring you on a wild-goose chase.”
“Do not worry; I had to come anyhow. Your news is important. Tell me all you can.”
“The negotiations have certainly been going on. The decision hangs in the balance. Hitler cannot make up his mind which way he wants to jump.”
“He is not alone in that, Monck. It is the same story in Paris and London.”
“You understand, I cannot tell you how this information came to me. I can say that it is an old comrade who has gone Nazi, and now his conscience troubles him. He does not deal with me but with another. I feel as certain of the accuracy of the information as one can of anything human. It has been known to the underground for some time that Hitler has been making approaches to Russia, but only recently have the Russians shown interest.”
Lanny replied: “I have sounded out several people, and their attitude supports what you tell me. Something is in the wind. I will get busy myself, and see what I can learn. It is the most important question in the world. Everybody to whom I mention the idea goes up into the air.”
“A sad blow for the Communists in France and Britain if it happens, Genosse.”
“I think my Red uncle in Paris is getting his mind adjusted to it; but in America they will be bowled over.”
Lanny was free to tell this friend about the Hansibesses, and about his trip to Detroit; also about Wickthorpe, and the de Bruynes, whom Monck had heard all about i
n Paris. Lanny said: “Don’t talk about any of this, for people might guess where it comes from.” The answer was: “I have never mentioned your name, nor that of anybody connected with you. I have said that my wife is getting money from relatives of hers.”
VIII
They exchanged ideas about the world as they saw it: a world that was groping in darkness, in the midst of dreadful dangers, and without any clue to a way of escape. There wasn’t a corner of this world safe from the intrigues of Nazi-Fascism, a fact which tormented the minds of two social idealists, but at the same time was in accord with their theories, and gave them the bitter satisfaction of seeing their prophecies come true. Capitalism was one thing throughout the world; and in every country labor was organizing, preparing to use its political power to tax big business and ultimately to take it over through the agency of the state. Capitalist resistance to this process called itself Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, Falangism in Spain. It varied slightly according to the climate, but fundamentally it was always the same; the great privileged interests, whether they were steel cartels or owners of landed estates or the Catholic hierarchy, put up the funds, and the gangsters of the “New Order” bought the weapons and did the killing. The same process was preparing itself in France, in Britain, in the United States, and all over South America; if there was any part of the world where such preparations were not under way, it must be some lonely island of the South Seas where the natives lived on coconuts and fish and had no surplus to exchange for trade goods.
Lanny said: “Tell me honestly, just how much of the underground is left in Germany now.”
“I fear not very much,” was the reply. “We have been stamped on with iron-shod boots. I cannot tell you what percentage of our members are dead or in concentration camps, simply because I do not know. We have learned in a school of bitter experience how to hide and be silent. I myself, if the Nazis were to get me and tear me to pieces, could not tell them the names of half a dozen persons who are active in our movement, and I only know where two of these are to be found. Yet things get done! If I ask for a forged passport, it is handed to me in a day or two; you saw that I was able to get a supercharger, and you say it works.”
“My father reports that it is working very well.”
“Another plan has been suggested to me. I can’t tell you how far it will get, but it holds out promises.”
“You want some money, I gather. I can give you foreign money now. If you want marks it will take me a couple of days to get them.”
“It is a question of buying some radio material abroad; so foreign money will serve.”
Lanny put a wad into his hands. “There is a couple of thousand dollars. If you need more, I will get it. It is all your money, of course.”
“This will serve for the present.”
Lanny continued: “I want you to know, Monck, I live an easy sort of life, but I’m not easy in my conscience. I am doing everything in my power.”
“Don’t worry, Genosse. For your comfort let me say, I have had for some time the idea that you belong to some secret service. I prefer that you don’t answer; I just want you to know that that is what I believe, so I am not accusing you in my mind because you don’t run the risks that I run.”
“I’ll tell you this,” was Lanny’s reply. “I was married to Trudi Schultz, and I loved her. I have not forgotten what the Nazis did to her, and I am never going to forget. Think of me as carrying out Trudi’s orders.”
IX
That was all Lanny had to say, and he was ready to stop by the curb when Monck surprised him by remarking: “Between us, Genosse, we are going to have another Trudi on our hands. That is Miss Creston.”
“You don’t say!”
“She has become a convert, and she means it. I am afraid she will do something reckless and get herself into serious trouble. I want to suggest that you should see her and give her a warning.”
Of course Lanny wanted to know about that, and the ex-Capitán had quite a story to tell. Before he had parted from Laurel in London he had told her that he would sooner or later be coming back into Germany, and she had surprised him by exclaiming: “You have smuggled something out that you didn’t want me to know about!” When he didn’t deny it, she added: “I guessed that when you took the car away. You had something hidden in it!” When he asked her to forgive him she replied: “I have already done so. I wanted to tell you: I didn’t know there were any heroes left in the world.”
“So then we had a long talk,” continued the man of the underground, telling Lanny. “She wanted to know all about our activities, and what she could write about them and what not. I told her stories, including the story of Trudi, but of course without any hint about an American husband. She wanted to know if we expected to overthrow Hitler, and I had to tell her that there wasn’t a chance of it; the Nazi regime would have to be overthrown from the outside, and all we could do was to try to keep the spark of decency alight in the country, so that invading armies, whoever they were, would not think that all Germans were mad dogs. She made me promise that if I came back to Berlin I would let her see me again. I could drop her an unsigned note, and she would meet me on the street as we had done before.”
“And did you tell her you were a married man?” asked the son of Budd-Erling, quizzically.
“Indeed, yes! There is nothing of that sort. I made an appointment at night, and I wondered if she’d come. She did, and we walked for a couple of hours, about as long as her legs would hold up. What do you think that woman had done?”
“Go ahead and don’t keep me in suspense!”
“She had got the books I had told her about—bought them at a Red bookshop in London, and taken them into Germany in her trunk! I tried to explain the danger of it, but it was no use. She stands on her privileges as an American citizen. Fancy how far that would get her, with the fury the Nazis are in right now!”
“You mean on account of the Roosevelt telegram?”
“I mean just that. We all wonder about it. Did he really think he could make any impression on Hitler?”
“I don’t know,” said the suave Lanny. “It is my guess that he meant the letter for the American people—to give Hitler a chance to show himself up.”
“Well, maybe so; and maybe Hitler did. All I know is, it’s a poor time for an American to be caught with a copy of Kautsky’s Social Revolution and After.”
“Is that what she’s reading?”
“She had read it and got it well fixed in her mind. I was astonished; for I had looked up more of her stories in the library in New York, and while I saw she had a keen mind, I thought it would be limited by her class outlook. But no; she wanted to tell me about Kautsky’s formula: ‘Socialism in material production, anarchism in intellectual.’ I would have expected her to be repelled by the awful word anarchism; but not so.”
“What did it mean to her?” asked the amused art expert.
“I asked, and she answered: ‘The Roland Park Country Club that I used to belong to.’ I thought she was making fun of me, but she explained: ‘I mean the free associations that people form, for whatever purpose may interest them: churches, schools, clubs, publications, anything they want, and that they run as they please, so long as they don’t interfere with other people’s right to form their own groups and run them in their own way. That answers the question that troubled me—I was always afraid that Socialism would mean regimentation and restrictions on personal freedom; but I realize the distinction between material things that we want standardized—matches, soap, gasoline, and so on; we want them plentiful and cheap, and we want to pay what it costs to produce them and deliver them. But ideas are different—there’s no limit to those, and everybody can have all he wants, and any group of people can get together and say what they please and spread their ideas to all who want to listen.’
“That’s the way it went,” concluded Monck, alias Siebert. “And so you see, we have another convert. But I think you should persuad
e her to get rid of those Red books and keep quiet until she gets out of Hitler’s power. She is too naïve and also too conspicuous to take any part in our dangerous activities.”
X
In the morning Lanny called up Oberst Furtwaengler and they had one of their agreeable chats. Yes, Seine Exzellenz was fully recovered, his usual self, hardworking yet jolly. Busy days for the Air Force, many important changes, but he would no doubt find time to see Herr Budd. “How is your father?” asked the Oberst and then, “How is your family?” asked Lanny. “All well, thank you—a new baby, a boy, a future Führer, perhaps.” Every German boy would hope to grow up a Führer, and ever girl to be the mother of a Führer.
Lanny phoned to the town house of the Fürstin Donnerstein and learned that she had gone to her summer place on the Obersalzberg, not far from Berchtesgaden; he would hope to go there later and collect his harvest of gossip. Also he had a chat with Heinrich Jung. Heinrich’s superior had been sent to take charge of the youth of Czechoslovakia and Heinrich had moved up the ladder of authority. A wonderful system, a happy world—heil Hitler! A new baby was expected here, too. The master race must increase and its enemies be diminished. Heute gehört uns Deutschland, morgen die ganze Welt!
A return call from the Air Marshal’s office; Herr Budd would be expected at three o’clock. Herr Budd wrote some letters about his picture business—commissions from the Cincinnati visit. Then he read the B.Z.-am-Mittag, and observed once more how Stalin had been demoted and Roosevelt promoted to the position of Enemy Number One. Poland was Number Two; there was an editorial discussing the intransigence and fanatical pride of this people. They had had the Führer’s offer of friendship before them for months, and what were they waiting for? They were the sort of people who were incapable of realizing their true position in the world; they were ready to throw away their lives and their country’s independence because of a crazy notion of their own importance.
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