The Traitor Blitz

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  Hem was wearing a plaid shirt and flannel pants. He had removed his tie and jacket. He never wore a jacket when he was called into Lester's office, and he never laid aside the Dunhill pipe he always smoked and also smoked here. The smell of the tobacco was pleasant. At least something was pleasant!

  Gert Lester (dark suit, white shirt, foulard tie) passed a hand across his short hair. His eyes narrowed, the nostrils of his eagle nose quivered. But Lester had to control himself because he needed me. So he bellowed at Leidenmuller instead. "Get back 174

  to your work! I'll cover for you once more, but it's the last time. And now get out!"

  Leidenmiiller was still bowing. "It will never happen again, Herr Lester!" he stammered. "Never!"

  Of course it'll happen again, I thought, and they won't fire you because you're too damned good! And this super-bastard will put you through the same degrading scene every time.

  "And thank you for your trust in me, Herr Lester." Leidenmiiller withdrew, bowing and walking backwards, with which he bumped into me. "Oh! I beg your pardon!"

  "Oh, shut up!" I mumbled. "Stop shitting in your pants in front of this fink!"

  "What did you say?" asked Lester.

  "Nothing worth repeating," I replied.

  "But I want to know what you said."

  I shrugged. Leidenmiiller had meanwhile left the room. Work had come to a standstill in many of the offices; you could hear only a few typewriters. The employees up here—reporters, writers, editors, secretaries, stenos, were all looking into Lester's office.

  "I told him he shouldn't shit in his pants all the time in front of you, Herr Lester," I said amiably, and bowed to Angela Flanders. "Begging your pardon, Angela."

  Hem puffed on his pipe, blew a cloud of smoke into the air. Not a muscle in his face moved.

  Lester began to bellow. "I never heard of such a thing! What got into you—?"

  I turned back toward the door. "Where are you going?"

  "Outside. Until you calm down."

  Five seconds passed. We stared at each other. Finally Lester said, "Had a few drops to drink?"

  "Many drops," I replied.

  "Sit down!" yelled Lester.

  I shrugged and sat down on a chrome chair in front of the desk. It shook unpleasantly. My jacket fell on the floor. I picked it up and laid it across my knee. Now nobody in the area was working anymore.

  "So?" I said.

  Lester was trying his best not to lose his cool and to control his absolute aversion to me. But somehow I always managed to unnerve him. "Has anything happened to irritate you, Hen-Roland?"

  "No."

  "But you look as if something had."

  "I do?"

  "Have we hurt your feelings in any way, Herr Roland?"

  "No."

  "You're not very talkative today, Herr Roland. What's the matter?"

  If you don't stop this shitty dialogue, 111 punch your face bloody, I thought, and right after that: I'm a lot drunker than I realized. I'd better watch it. Yes, yes, Hem, stop giving me the heavy warning signals. I get the message.

  "I asked you something, Herr Roland."

  "I heard you, Herr Lester."

  He leaned forward. "Do you want to make trouble?"

  "No, Herr Lester."

  "But I get the feeling that you do."

  "Then you're mistaken, Herr Lester."

  "Because if it's trouble you want, you can have it. I'm in the right mood."

  "I'm sorry to hear that, Herr Lester. Could we perhaps get down to business now?"

  "Could we get down to business? I like that! We've got to get down to business, Herr Roland. There's a lot of work still to be done on your article. There were a lot of things that didn't go over at all well with the women—unfortunately, quite a few basic things, and there isn't much time. You left it to the last minute again!"

  "I explained all that. I wasn't well. I had—"

  "You whipped the thing up this morning. I have my informers "

  "Aha!"

  "And that's what it looks like. Thrown together. I guess you think you can get away with anything, Herr Roland!"

  "I don't think I'm going to put up with this, Herr Lester."

  "Walter," said Hem, taking his pipe out of his mouth. "Try to behave like a normal person and not like a drunken idiot."

  I nodded. Whenever Hem spoke to me I usually snapped to.

  "Excuse me, Herr Lester."

  "It's all right. Frau Flanders, would you please read the ladies' objections to us."

  Angela Flanders took her notebook and began to read from it. Every now and then she looked at me apologetically. There 176

  really were quite a lot of objections. But the basic one was that much more attention should go to the idiosyncrasies, preferences, functions, and reactions of the man.

  Lester jiggled up and down on his chair, drummed on the desk, and looked at me malevolently. While Angela Flanders read, I grew calmer and calmer. Then I began to smile. Hem noticed it and looked worried. Angela Flanders got nervous; in fact, she looked frightened. For quite a long time there was silence in the glass office. When she finished I noticed that everyone was looking at me. "Anything else?"

  "That's all, Herr Roland." Lester was drumming on the desk again. "But I'd say it suffices. We've got to turn the whole thing around, do an about-face. Should have long ago. You'll have to approach your subject matter from a totally different viewpoint. A lot of work, I know. Talk it over with Herr Kramer. Before you start on it, come and see me once more. We must let nothing get by that might endanger the success of the series. Luckily, you write fast. And now drink a lot of black coffee and sober up. The thing must be ready to go to press by 6:00 p.m. It's your fault. If you'd handed it in sooner..."

  At that moment the whiskey took its toll. Suddenly, after too long a period of pressure, I couldn't go on, didn't want to go on. The noise outside seemed to grow louder; suddenly I saw the deep subway shaft again and the laborers below me and heard them singing the song about the tower of Pisa, and that did it. With my hearing, my sight, and my thoughts far away, I said, "No!"

  "What do you mean, 'no'?" For a moment Lester seemed baffled.

  "Walter!" Hem had leaped to his feet. He wanted to stop me, but I rose slowly and waved to him to be quiet. My voice was suddenly very low. "No. I am not going to rewrite the article."

  "You—"

  "I don't intend to rewrite anything anymore, Herr Lester," I said. "I shall never rewrite anything again. Why don't you rewrite it, Herr Lester?"

  Editor-in-chief Lester, not as tall as Hem and I, now jumped to his feet, too. He looked a little ridiculous standing behind his huge desk, and he was screaming again. "What do you think you're doing? Insubordination! I've noticed your obstructionary attitude for some time now. Don't think I haven't. But with me, you're not going to get away with it. I've succeeded in

  eliminating a lot better men than you, Roland. Ill destroy you, Roland!"

  "Walter!" cried Angela Flanders. "Be sensible, pleasel For my sake!"

  "I am being sensible," I told her. "I'm sorry, Angela, I'm sorry, Hem, but I can't go on. I simply can't!"

  "Walter! For God's sake, shut up!" cried Hem. "Do you think we enjoy what we're doing? So what? The paper's got to come out. The article has to be rewritten."

  "But not by me!" I said stubbornly. "I'm drunk, I know it. But I'm not so drunk that I don't know what I'm saying. / am not going to rewrite the article! Ewiva la torre di Pisa!"

  Lester shouted, "Well see about that! When I get through with you, you'll be this big." He demonstrated with thumb and forefinger. "You—you miserable lush!"

  Lester liked to shout. Everybody in the house knew it. "As I've said once before," he bellowed, "you're slipping, Herr Roland. You're not writing as well as you used to, and I'm not alone in saying this. The analysts in the research department are saying the same thing."

  "The analysts in the research department are fucking idiots!"

  "That—that's�
��But why am I getting so excited?" yelled Lester. "It's the alcohol! Your brain's soaked with it. This last article is an outrage! And for that you get paid top rates? And I when I tell you it's got to be rewritten, you refuse. Great! Just great! Herford will be delighted!"

  He was shouting so loudly that everyone on the floor could hear him. A few had come out into the hall—editors, authors, secretaries, all ranged along the glass wall of Lester's office, like outside an aquarium. From there they could see and hear everything. More and more of them came over, looking curious or disturbed, startled or grinning, disturbed or delighted to see Lester getting his comeuppance for a change.

  My head thrust forward, I walked slowly, very slowly, past Hem, who tried to stop me, to the desk Lester stood behind. What I said then, I who had stuck it out for fourteen years in this hellhole at the expense of my health and nerves, I who had drunk myself soft in the head—what I said then was saturated with hatred and fury against the entire industry. I spoke very softly, slowly, and clearly.

  "For years I've been writing what was demanded of me, Hen-Lester. Every bit of shit. Every idiocy. How we actually won at 178

  Stalingrad. How the German Crown Prince, the best Crown Prince we ever had, really won at Verdun. I have rewritten and fabricated the whole unheroic history of Germany for you, obediently, docile as a little boy. What heroes I turned in for you! And the sex maniacsl The heartbreaking fates of prostitutes. The homosexual tragedies. I've written the memoirs of Nazi criminals after they left jail, because none of those brothers can write a literate German sentence!"

  "Walter!" Hem came rushing over to me. "Come to your senses, please!"

  I had reached the desk. Now I began to walk around it, my hands behind my back, leaning forward a little, straight up to Lester. "No," I said. "No, Hem. I have no intention of being sensible anymore. I am sorry for you and I am sorry for Angela. You were my friends. I wish you weren't here right now. I wish I could be alone with this gentleman—"

  "Don't you dare start anything with me!" screamed editor-in-chief Gert Lester, pale now, his arms raised protectively in front of his chest. And the noses of the curious, gloating, horrified humans outside pressed against the glass—everyone on the floor had assembled.

  "Who has raised the circulation of this paper over and over again?" I asked quietly—oh, so quietly. "I have! On your orders I transformed a decent illustrated magazine into a sewer!"

  I was standing over Lester now. He took a step back, then another. "Herr Roland, I demand that you—"

  "You are demanding nothing from me!"

  Lester took two more steps back. The people outside, mouths agape, were watching every move, listening to every word. One girl cried out. Frau Zschenderlein came rushing into the room, bristling with indignation. "Herr Lester, what—?"

  "Out!" I shouted. "Get out!" in a voice so menacing Frau Zschenderlein fled.

  Lester screamed, "You rotten drunk! You dare to—"

  I stood up straight for the first time, and for the first time shouted, like a crazy sergeant, "Shut your trap, you miserable specimen!" And something extraordinary happened. Lester's hands shot down to the seams of his trousers. It was as if he were about to click to military attention! Angela Flanders, her head in her hands, started to cry. Hem sank back helplessly into his chair. His pipe had gone out. Lester removed his hands from the seams of his trousers fast, but it didn't do him much good. Everybody

  out in the hall had seen it happen, and they'd tell everybody who hadn't.

  Lester was struggling for breath. "You—you—" But I was after him. Step by step I moved forward and he moved back. In a circle at first, then in a straight line. It must have looked grotesque, but nobody laughed. The faces pressed against the glass looked like grimacing masks. And I went on chasing my boss around his office.

  "What haven't we all done together, Herr Lester? We've babbled about everything from miracle drugs for cancer to blue-green vomit! We've raised fucking to a worldwide sport." I was speaking calmly again, but at this point I was in no way responsible for my actions. Disgust, degradation, grief for the years lost, all this came rushing out. "We've done our bit for the Fatherland, we two, haven't we? We should get a medal for it. The Bundesverdienstkreuzat least. What achievements! German orgasms are the best orgasms! Read Blitz and become a rutting stallion, a mare perpetually in heat! Read Blitz, the paper with the intellectual level of its editor-in-chief!"

  "You goddamn bastard!" screamed Lester. "I'll—I'll—"

  But we never found out what he intended to do, because just then the intercom in the ceiling—which was a fixture in every office and was controlled by central—tuned in on us. The indifferent voice of a young girl said, "Attention, please. Editor-in-chief Lester, Herr Kramer, Herr Roland, and Herr Engelhardt are please to come to Herr Herford's office immediately. I repeat: Editor-in-chief Lester, Herr Kramer, Herr Roland, and Herr Engelhardt, please... to Herr Herford's office."

  1*7

  "With his fiancee..."

  "Yes."

  "But I am his fiancee!"

  "Then he had another fiancee."

  "He already had her in Prague. Didn't you hear Herr Kubitzky 180

  say the girl spoke with a Czech accent, and Michelsen said Bilka had brought her with him?"

  I had heard all right. "Sorry," I said, "but that's the way it seems to me."

  "Then he must have been engaged to two women at the same time."

  "Yes," I said.

  I didn't have to say much; she wasn't listening, anyway. She was sitting beside me in the Lamborghini on the empty street; the wind was howling around us and shaking the car. I had started the car and turned on the heater because it had turned cold. By now it was 2:35 a.m. We were parked in front of 187 Eppendorfer Baum, waiting for Bertie, who was supposed to meet us here. The airport wasn't far away. Something must have held him up.

  Irina wasn't crying anymore. She had wept at first, but now she was staring straight ahead, and her voice had a metallic ring to it. She was trying with all her remaining strength not to break down. I decided to let her talk for a while before getting down to business. She said, "But we were together two years."

  "Yes," I said.

  "And the other woman... how long has he known her? Not so long."

  "I wouldn't know."

  "Can a man love two women?"

  "Yes."

  "No!" she cried. "Not at the same time! Not truly! He loves one of them and sleeps with the other."

  "Not necessarily," I said. Where was Bertie?

  "But that's the way it was. He loved the other woman, but he slept with me. I was good enough for him in bed, but he fled with the other woman. She was the one he took with him, not me!"

  "Did you want to go with him?"

  "Of course I did," she said in that metallic voice. "But he said we couldn't leave together, that he'd send for me as soon as he'd found something in the West. He said I'd hear from him. And I waited. I waited for three months. I would have waited longer if I-"

  "I know," I said.

  "You don't know anything!" she cried. "Oh, forgive me! My nerves are shot. You've been so good to me. Please forgive me!"

  "Sure," I said. "Of course. I can understand how you feel. He betrayed you."

  "Yes."

  "And went off with another girl."

  "Yes." She sounded miserable.

  "I'd say that no decent man would do a thing like that," I ventured, hopefully but cautiously. There were a lot of women who could go on loving a man who had treated them like that, but not Irina. Thank God, not Irina, I thought, as she suddenly cried out, "You're absolutely right! He's a pig! A pig! And I trusted him. I always believed everything he told me."

  "And now he's gone away with the other girl," I said. "God knows where. He may even have left the country. And you sit here without a cent and don't know what to do. It's a bloody mess!"

  Suddenly she was sobbing again. I gave her my handkerchief and she blew her nose. "Thanks."
<
br />   "You see, Irina," I said as casually as possible, "I got you out of the camp and brought you here and—"

  "And I'm terribly grateful, Herr Roland."

  "Nonsense! You don't have to be grateful. But I'm a reporter. I'm supposed to write this story, and you play a part in it—"

  "Yes, and? Oh, I know, you mean you need a release."

  She was recalling my conversation with superintendent Kubitzky and antiques-dealer Garnot, in his apartment. It had been quite hectic when I had asked for a release from both of them. Kubitzky, especially, had behaved like a madman.

  "Sign a release? And then you'll tell everything? I'm not crazy! That would cost me my life! No, Herr Roland. Not from me. I won't sign anything. It's unfair of you to get us to talk and then say you want to write about us!"

  "Well, why did you think I was asking you all those questions?"

  "It isn't honorable. No. I won't sign anything. And if you write a word about me, 111 sue!"

  "Now listen to me," I said. "I can tell the police everything you just told me."

  He was beside himself. "No, no!" he cried. "You wouldn't do anything so despicable!"

  "But I shall have to," I said. "It's my duty. You can't forbid me to go to the police. And if I do, things will certainly start happening."

  "But my life!"

  "We're not in Russia!" 182

  "No? And what about what's happened up to now?"

  It went on like that for at least fifteen minutes. Then Garnot turned to Kubitzky and said, "Herr Kubitzky, I advise you to sign the release. When one knows something very wrong has happened and does nothing about it, one becomes guilty oneself. The police have our names anyway, as witnesses. We're already involved. And I trust the police. They'll protect us."

  "Yes. Like the fine fellows who were here and said to pay no attention to what goes on upstairs."

  "I'm not going to any of those fine fellows," I said. "I'm going to headquarters. This isn't a gangster country. You're in much more danger, Herr Kubitzky, if I don't go to the police and report this thing. Can't you see that?"

  Kubitzky began to waver. "All right, then. But I won't take any money for it. Not a penny!"