The Traitor Blitz

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  "An hour or so. We were talking about Karel, the boy that got shot this afternoon at the camp."

  Suddenly Fraulein Louise's expression was ecstatic. "So you know all about it!" she said breathlessly.

  "Sure, I know."

  "The poor, poor boy!"

  "Yes, the poor kid. Pigs—the ones who did it. Politics are at the bottom of it, shitty politics. Forgive me, compatriot."

  Fraulein Louise accepted the apology with a gesture of her

  hand. Her head cocked to one side, she said softly and confidentially, "You're my friend, aren't you?"

  "Sure I'm your friend," said the driver, limp with relief that the old lady wasn't hurt.

  "Yes, I can see it now. Oh, how wonderful! Dear God!" and she looked up at the sky.

  "What's up there?" The driver looked, too, then it occurred to him. "Oh. I see. The dear God."

  "Yes," said Fraulein Louise.

  She's thanking God that she didn't break any bones, thought the driver. I should be doing the same thing, so he looked up again and said aloud, "Thanks!"

  "That's all we needed," said Fraulein Louise, "that you run over your Louise, Franticek."

  This the driver had to think over. What the hell was she talking about? Franticek? And "your Louise"? And suddenly he remembered the crazy social woricer at the camp who spoke to people who weren't there, to dead people, a story Kuschke had told him after making him swear he wouldn't repeat it, ever. The name of the crazy woman was—was Louise! Dear Lord... and there she was standing in front of him. Absolutely harmless, a truly good soul according to Kuschke. Well, wasn't that something! Here they were, face to face. "I'm sorry, Louise," he said. "Of course I didn't mean to do it. But the damned light—"

  "And the damned schnapps and beer," she said, shaking a finger at him. Then both of them laughed.

  The driver said, "I am—"

  "Oh, I know who you are," said Fraulein Louise, quite sure of herself now.

  "Yes?"

  "Yes."

  "Who am I?" The driver was curious.

  "You're my Czech friend."

  Careful... she's nuts, thought the driver, and said, "Right. And you are my Louise."

  Tears of joy welled up in Fr&ulein Louise's eyes. She leaned her head against his broad chest and said, "Oh, but this is wonderful! Truly wonderful! And you'll really help me?"

  "Of course I'll help you," said the driver, who was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

  "I've got to get to Hamburg," said Fraulein Louise. "But you know all about that. Are you on your way to Hamburg?" 210

  "No. To Bremen. I got some peat, over on the other side of the moor where they're still cutting it."

  Fraulein Louise couldn't stop gazing at him, the tears shining in her eyes. "Would you take me to Bremen? To the station? So I can get the train to Hamburg?"

  The driver thought this over for a moment, then he decided that the poor crazy old thing could report him and cause him a lot of trouble if he said no, so he said, "Sure I will, Louise."

  "Because you're my friend. I knew it! I knew it! So that's how the whole thing starts!"

  So that's how what whole thing starts? the driver wondered, but then he thought he'd better not ask and said, "Because I'm your friend, Louise. Get in. I've got to get the truck out of this curve or somebody'11 run into me."

  "And you're not drunk anymore?"

  "Word of honor," said the driver.

  Two minutes later the truck, laden with peat moss, was bumping over the miserable road, its headlights on high. Fraulein Louise was sitting beside the driver, her big bag on her knees, her eyes still open wide with excitement and joy. "Where are you from, Franticek?" she asked.

  "From Gablonz," said the driver. "It's called Jablonec now," he added. "Not that it matters." And my name is Josef, not Franticek, which doesn't matter either. If the crazy old thing wants to call me Franticek, it's all right by me.

  "Which makes you my neighbor!" cried Fraulein Louise. "I'm from Reichenberg."

  "Well, of all things!" said the driver. "And we meet up here!"

  Fraulein Louise was in a state of bliss. "Did you flee, Franticek?"

  "Yes, two months ago. And you, Louise?" And then he added hastily, "What an idiot I am! Of course you didn't flee. You've been here twenty years."

  "Twenty years, yes," said Fraulein Louise. It never occurred to her that the driver could have found out all about her at the Skull and Crossbones. This was "her" Czech, her dead friend, her Franticek. Her friends had promised to help her. "You'll take me to Bremen, and from there I'll take the train to Hamburg, and in Hamburg you'll go on helping me, won't you?"

  "Of course," said the driver, and thought: In Bremen I'll be rid of the poor nut and I'll never see her again, and she can't report me. God, was I lucky!

  He dropped Fraulein Louise at the main station in Bremen at just about the time when an American, supposedly a pharmacist and supposedly called Richard McCormick, was pressing a cloth soaked in some anesthetizing fluid against my nose and mouth, in front of Eppendorfer Baum 187, and everything went black around me.

  The room was enormous. It didn't have a single window, and everything in it was white: walls, furniture, instruments, floor, and ceiling, with bright fluorescent lighting that gave everything a deathlike hue. The room was dust-free and air-conditioned, and it was a nightmare.

  I had to think of George Orwell's 1984. Facing me and sparkling with a thousand little lights that lit up erratically and lightning-fast—red, yellow, green, blue, and white, with magnetic tape reels moving jerkily back and forth behind glass—was the evil spirit of the house, the thing most hated, most feared, cursed by everyone and adored by Herford and his Mama—the computer. There were other machines in the room, among them one that looked like an oversized typewriter. Fat spaghettilike tangles of cables ran on wooden tracks from one instrument to the other. At a white table five young men in white coats were leaning over a long strip of paper and talking to each other softly. A man in white was seated at the strange typewriter, typing on it. You could hear the instruments, and the little colored lights blinked on and off, on and off, nonstop.

  The windowless room had two heavy metal sliding doors. The one leading to the passage was secured by many locks and was used by the men who worked here. I had seen it often from the outside. A red flash of lightning was painted on it, and below that, in red letters: Authorized Personnel Onlyl The second door led to a room next to Herf ord's office. Here he could rest and take his meals. A car with a warming oven was sent to the Frankfurter Hof for him, and a girl from the cafeteria served. There was a bathroom, too. Herford could spend the night in this little suite 212

  when he worked late. He entered his office by a door that was all bookshelves on the other side. It swung back soundlessly when he pressed a button. That was how all of us had entered this inner sanctum, and had proceeded on through the second door, white metal too, but with no flash of lightning on it. It slid to one side without a sound when you pushed a coded number on a control panel, and it closed again by itself. This was Herr Stahlhut's kingdom!

  He was standing before us, but he addressed everything he had to say to Herf ord and Mama, a slender man with fashionable sideburns, cold eyes, a mouth with practically no lips, and a crew cut. He spoke in an unnatural voice, in an aggressive tone that sounded as if it would brook no opposition. So here we had penetrated the heart of the publishing house and the heart of its publisher. What took place here was Kismet, Revelations, and God's will for Herford. And Stahlhut was the interpreter of this magnificent computer, which was as omniscient as God Himself. Perhaps Herford saw God as a computer—anything was possible—in which case, Stahlhut was its high priest.

  Stahlhut was standing beside a monitor that looked exactly like the one in Herf ord's office. He was holding his little lecture in front of the video screen, which didn't show anything yet—only flickered, empty and black. "Our investigation into changing political trends was conducted by our Op
inion Finding Institute over widely scattered areas," he said in a tone that sounded like a mixture of pastor, politician, and general. "For once, we had plenty of time. Our questions were aimed at two groups; the program is therefore divided into two parts. On the one hand, we asked people who read Blitz, on the other those who don't."

  And with that, I thought, we have the first case of manipulation. However the question about a trend toward the left had been expressed, what could those people answer who had no idea how far to the left or right Blitz was oriented? Bertie seemed to be thinking along the same lines because he exclaimed, "Just a minute! How can people who don't read Blitz-?"

  "Quiet!" Herford said angrily. Mama looked hurt.

  Hem looked at me and whispered, "Remember what I told you about the good principles and their dreadful realization?"

  I nodded.

  "Quiet, please!" said Rotaug, pulling at his Hjalmar Schacht collar. Hem grinned across at him. Rotaug turned away.

  "Ten thousand people were questioned, all over Germany—"

  "What were they asked?" asked Bertie.

  "If you would be so good as not to interrupt me," said Stahlhut.

  "Quiet, damn it!" shouted Herford.

  Bertie looked at him, smiling like a child; then he looked at me and Hem. I shrugged. Hem closed his eyes and shook his head. There was absolutely no point in asking questions here. One might as well have challenged Herford and Mama on the existence of God.

  This fellow Stahlhut was a sly customer, I thought, not for the first time. So innocently that they didn't even notice it, he would ask Herford and even more frequently, Mama, what they liked and didn't like in the magazine, because he—and I mean it—a highly intelligent man, had recognized long ago that Herford and his Mama both had the same abysmal taste as millions of their countrymen, the sort of taste that was an absolute guarantee of high circulation. But I must say, on behalf of our people, that many millions did not share this taste. With an honest poll, therefore, Stahlhut's minions would have come up with a great many answers that said our magazine was a rag. Stahlhut had to take a very deliberate and selective poll, and to be quite sure of the results, had to formulate his questions in a way that would insure the right answers. These computerized results then miraculously corroborated Herford and Mama's views almost one hundred percent. Almost one hundred percent. Because Herr Stahlhut was smart enough to program a few (very few) discrepancy factors into the results.

  "Our decision," Stahlhut was saying, in the voice that was used to giving orders and seeing them obeyed, yet with so much heartiness (what an actor he would have been!), "represents the decision of the people. We have taken into consideration all the most common professions and ethnic groups, according to their social and cultural level, according to sex, age, religion, income, occupation. We have also taken the difference between the various provinces into consideration. The south, as we know, reacts differently from the north."

  "Aha!" said Hem. Nobody else said anything, and Stahlhut went on in his role as magician.

  "The rural districts react differently from the cities. We therefore made certain that the big city, medium-sized city, and 214

  small town were all represented. Because of this very wide spectrum, we and the Institute required two weeks for the survey, gnadige Frau" —this with a bow. And Mama gazed at him enraptured.

  "If you have come to a correct result—" said Mama. "It is so important, all of us realize, that we know exactly how the people feel."

  "The result is absolutely correct," said Stahlhut, bowing again. Behind him, on the awesome front of the computer, the little colored lights were flickering with breathtaking rapidity. "A computer, correctly and comprehensively programmed, cannot give a wrong answer."

  "Isn't that wonderful?" Mama looked up at Herford, who nodded. He also looked strangely moved. For him this room was as hallowed as church.

  Mama said, "Bob should see this."

  Bob (Robert) was their twenty-two-year-old son, no good, a tramp, girl-crazy, and lazy—Mama's pride and joy and a cause of constant irritation to Herford.

  Hem whispered in my ear, "A computer is a whore. You can abuse them both. But Mama and Herford haven't got wise to that yet."

  "And they never will," I whispered.

  "Psst!" from Rotaug, who was looking at me furiously.

  "The important thing was to set up a sensible set of questions that permitted people to answer freely, uninfluenced, and not manipulated," Stahlhut explained.

  One always speaks most positively about the things one isn't doing, I thought. You knew exactly what answers you were going to get—the answers your publisher and his Mama wanted. Answers that such a large number of Germans would never have' given if they hadn't been manipulated, or we'd have had a social-democratic government long agtf and not a coalition government. I looked at Hem and Bertie and they nodded. They were thinking the same thing. Oswald Seerose was looking at me with clinical interest while toying with the handkerchief in his breast pocket. He was the craftiest and coolest customer of them all. I had never heard him give an opinion. "His Excellency"— that was what he was called, and there was something about him that could be compared with Talleyrand, Fouche, and Holstein.

  "What did the questionnaire say?" asked Mama.

  "Oh, gnadige Frau, that can only be summed up," Stahlhut

  answered promptly. "First there were general questions: Did the person questioned like Blitz? What did he like best? What did he like least?" Mama nodded. "Followed by questions as to what he would like to see in the magazine, what he would like best, what he missed, and why. The main question about the political trend was very cleverly worked into the general questions. The person asked in no way got the impression that he was being questioned about his political views. So many people don't like to talk to strangers about anything like that. Don't you agree?"

  "Absolutely!" thundered Herford.

  "And then," Stahlut went on, "the questionnaires came to us. A team"— he gestured behind him at the men in white coats who were debating something softly around their white table—"set about programming the results. For that the questionnaires had to be sorted according to the groups questioned; and the general answers were stored in the computer as new information beside the old standard program, which is being constantly revised and which gives us full insight into the magazine. The special question, about the desired political stance Blitz should take, was the core question of the program. It was fed into the computer in a new series, separate from the groups already mentioned. We also programmed the answers of those who do not read Blitz but know all about it, and who had something to say about the position an illustrated weekly of our dimensions should take in the present national-political situation."

  Bertie looked at me, I looked at Hem, Hem looked at Bertie. No comment.

  "We were also concerned with the younger generation, those under twenty-four. We know that these young people have never been our regular or potential buyers, but the answers show that if the magazine were to move to the left, the chances are excellent of our winning a group of readers we have not reached to date."

  "Wonderful!" cried Herford.

  Wonderful? I thought. You crafty wretch! You no-good mathematics students! That our young people tend more to the left than the right isn't exactly news.

  "And after they had sorted the questionnaires," said Mama, "did they feed them to the computer through this thing here— this typewriter or whatever it is?"

  "That's just what it is, gndidge Frau" said Stahlhut. "A typewriter with a certain set of controls. Over there they're working on a smaller program. For that we still use this—let's call 216

  it a typewriter. But with our ten thousand questionnaires we were able to use a more modern procedure, thanks to Herr Herf ord's generosity." A deep bow from Stahlhut, a benevolent gesture from Herford. "We now have a computer that can read whole sheets—with their symbols for ye$ y no, and undecided — electronically, via photo cells. The
impulses are recorded on the magnetic tape, and all we have to do is plug the magnetic tape into the data evaluation box. Since we divided the questionnaires meticulously into separate groups, the computer was able to give absolutely precise answers. Ulli!"

  One of the men at the white table looked up. "Yes?"

  "Program RX-22, please," said Stahlhut.

  The young man called Ulli went over to an instrument that looked like a Wurlitzer organ and began to press buttons. The result was chaos on the computer panel. The colored lights danced wildly, the magnetic tape reels moved even more jerkily, and the first green letters appeared on the monitor.

  ...LARGE CITY. NORTH GERMANY. MERCHANT CLASS. MALE. AGE: 35-40. MARRIED. 1-2 CHILDREN. OWN HOUSE OR APART-MENT. MONTHLY INCOME: 4000-5000 DM. PROTESTANT. UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS CAR TO EXPENSIVE CAR. RESULT: FOR A LEFT-LIBERAL ORIENTATION FOR BLITZ: 13.2$

  Herford and Mama stared at the writing on the screen, entranced. There was a soft rushing sound in the data machine, relays clicked, little lights flickered, the magnetic tapes moved jerkily.

  ...LARGE CITY. NORTH GERMANY. SELF-EMPLOYED GROUPS. MALE. AGE: 35-40. UNMARRIED. NO CHILDREN. RENTED APARTMENT. MONTHLY INCOME: 1700-2500 DM. PROTESTANT. LOWER MIDDLE CLASS TO MIDDLE CLASS CAR. RESULT: FOR A LEFT-LIBERAL ORIENTATION BY BLITZ: 22.4$.

  "Herford! twenty-two point four percent!" cried Mama enthusiastically. Herford nodded solemnly. General manager

  Seerose stood with his arms crossed, his face expressionless. Dr. Helmut Rotaug was pulling at his stiff collar; then he stood still.

  Stahlhut maintained his miracle-man attitude. For half an hour the green words passed across the screen. I was ready to drop; Bertie yawned loudly. Herford threw an angry glance in his direction, then he looked back at the monitor. Mama didn't take her eyes off it. Herford's face was transfigured. That was what Moses must have looked like, I thought, when he saw the Promised Land.

  Forty-five minutes later we received the following communication, at last!

  FINAL RESULT: ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF A LEFT-LIBERAL REORIENTATION BY BLITZ: