by Rex Baron
The afternoon sun cast golden orange light across the meadow near the house as Kurt and Helen walked. It reminded her, for a moment, of the orange and violet skies of the Californian sunset. She had not thought of that place, nor allowed the images of her past to filter through in years. She had been distracted from such simple offerings of beauty by a need to get on with the progress of her ambitions. It had been countless years since she had been in the company of a man who held her and made love to her, who found her desirable in cotton stockings, and kissed her ears when there were no diamonds there to lure his hungry lips.
She squeezed Kurt’s hand, allowing an expression of her feelings to be felt. A current of emotion passed through his body, prompting him to speak.
“Now, I must tell you what I need you to do,” he said.
The words came as a command, but with the surety of one confident in the unquestioning fidelity of his followers.
“I need you to create for me… to use your skill as a sculptress and as a sorceress to aid me in my purpose.”
Helen gave voice to a mild protest, a denial of his charge that revealed her as a member of the Kraft, but he gently pressed his fingers to her lips to silence her and continued with his request.
“There is no point in denying it. I told you when we met that I could read your thoughts. I knew from that time on that you possessed the power. Who, but one with your gift, could understand what I have told you about the workings of the Magician and the Medium. Now it is time to place that knowledge and purpose at the disposal of fate, so that posterity, that fluid current of time, which is at present choked with disease and stagnation, can flow freely again, taking us and the Fatherland to our rightful place in a glorious future.”
He drew Helen closer to him, but she remained detached, thinking of what he asked.
“I know you are aware of the realms of unseen beings, that you have spoken to those who exist there and have even summoned them to carry out your wishes… to do as you command them, even murder.”
He let the last word drop to a whisper, as if reassuring her that he too was willing to keep the secret. Helen's eyes widened and her denial stopped in her throat. Once again, he placed his fingers on her lips to silence her perjury.
“This is the realm of which I speak,” he continued. “It is the place where I intend to build an army, invincible, like the demi-gods of the Thule legend, hidden from the sight of mortal men. This army shall rise up in secret and penetrate the subconscious mind of every enemy of the State, destroying them before they even recognize its existence.”
“If it's only in the mind, what harm can it do?” Helen asked.
“The mind is the creator,” Kurt insisted. “Form follows thought. If you think something, it will surely come to be. It is only those who have a weak will and cannot focus their minds who give birth to stillborn thoughts. Those who are trained to concentrate their attentions can produce the fruits of their imaginings. Come, I will show you this unseen world.”
He took Helen by the hand and led her to the house. Inside, the furnishings reflected the tastes of a man who was seldom there. Baroque and Napoleonic revival pieces, formal and ostentatious in their association with greatness, dominated the vaulted drawing room. In its Bourgeois style, the house emulated the grandiose furniture and painted details of the great manor houses nearby. Spiraling carved columns, painted to look like rare marble, anchored the great arch of the gilded ceiling to the limestone floor and massive flower arrangements made of silk gathered dust. Had it not been for the lovely violet light pouring through a bow window, the surroundings would have been altogether cold and oppressive.
Kurt motioned for Helen to sit on a brocade loveseat, bathed in the exotic evening light. He looked out of place in his uniform, standing in the rustic glamour of the country gentry, more like a chauffeur allowed above stairs to call on the lady of the manor than the possessor of all he touched. Helen frowned at the demeaning image of him in her mind.
“There will be other days to enjoy the pleasures of this life,” he said in answer to her thought. “For the moment, we have work to do in order to ensure that future is ours.”
He came closer to her, taking her hand in his. It was not a romantic gesture as she had first thought. After an instant, she realized he was taking her pulse.
“Your body must be brought to a state of total relaxation,” he explained, “a meditative state, not unlike that achieved by the Hindus and the ancient ascetics. It is the only way to be able to visit the realm of the unseen, as I have described it to you.”
“Where is this place?” Helen asked with trepidation.
“You have summoned the denizens of this kingdom to you. Now it is your turn to return the visit on their plane of existence.”
Helen remembered the frightening thing she and Claxton had conjured in the swimming pool, shrouded in the ghastly glow of phosphorescent electrical light. Her body tensed, and Kurt set to work soothing her arms by running the cool fingers of his hand lightly down the length of her limbs. He explained that the realm, which they would enter, was a kingdom parallel to the human world. It was a plane inhabited by a hierarchy of beings, from the lowly elementals that make up the consciousness of earth, water and fire... to the angels of music and light and beauty, the masters of this world and messengers of God himself.
“Organized religion has spent centuries proving the existence of this realm for the faithful, calling upon its occupants to do their bidding in much the same way you have done for your... shall I say, less than noble purposes.”
Helen shifted anxiously in her seat.
“In fact,” he continued, “the holy mass cannot be consecrated without the presence of one of these beings, these angels, nearby. It is a world above the place of ghosts and bad dreams, a world above the conscious mind. It is a place where all things begin, where the very stuff from which thoughts are created is born. It is a place where every mind has access to every other human mind, every disincarnate soul and every angel. It is a world above our own, where reality is shaped. We shall go there, using our minds as a doorway and shape the reality we desire, which will affect all of humanity and every being who has a physical brain to receive our truth.”
He took her hands in his and sat opposite her, continuing his description in a slow, calculated, mesmerizing voice. Helen realized that she was being hypnotized. He told her it was so, and she experienced the mildly unsettling sensation of floating, fully conscious, above her own body at the distance of about a foot. Her head seemed to fill with a white light.
It was different from the visualization of her desires that she was accustomed to in her own quiet ponderings. There was a physical presence now, which was more than her own, an awareness of the countless other minds churning out their wishes, chanting a million desires in selfish supplication.
“You are hearing the astral voice of humanity,” she heard Kurt's voice through the din of prayers. “This is where our fears and desires reside. It is a plane of existence very near our physical world, but it does not concern us. We must go higher. Relax your mind still further.”
He continued to guide her with coaxing, kind words, tightening the passageway inside her head, leading her upward into a different plane, a place that seemed to vibrate with a single sustained musical note, a chord composed of all the harmonies mathematically possible in the musical scale.
It was a sensation of light as space, stretching out in every direction, an endless void of electrical light, yet elastic and able to be manipulated, brought into form by the ordering of her thoughts. Then, she realized that it was not her own thoughts by which the properties of this place were demonstrated, but by Kurt’s, somehow physically present, influencing and commanding her mind, sharing its space with her.
She sensed his presence all around her. Then, out of the mist of white light he appeared, walking toward her, a physical form as in a dream. He was the Kurt she knew yet taller, perfect in proportion and naked as a god. His dar
k hair, thick and shiny, crackled and glowed in an electrical current of airless motion. He stretched out his arm to her, and called to her in a voice that came in waves, rolling like an echo over the mountaintops, each word diminishing proportionately as the next was spoken. She saw her own fingertips appear before her and take hold of his hand. She heard the name he called her, and she recognized it as her own name, the name she had been called before she had found the handkerchief and created Helen. It was that name and many other names, every name that she had ever been called in countless lives and incarnations.
“My name is Athar, the sum total of all my names,” the spectre’s reverberating voice informed her.
Her head felt light and she knew that she, as Helen, was still sitting on the brocade sofa in the pompous little manor house. But she was also aware of her physical presence here in this place as well. She felt the sensation of his hand holding hers, as he placed it on the rippling muscles of his naked god-like body.
“This is our kingdom,” he said. “It is ours to shape as we choose, to populate with our children, those who have our purpose in mind.”
His shining hand swept the horizon of light, like an emperor's hand, awarding a Barony on some loyal subject.
“It is ours,” he said, repeating the words again and again, lulling Helen back into a kind of sleep. Her body rocked gently, rhythmically back and forth like a mother rocking a child, hearing the soothing words inside her head and all around her. Her eyes fluttered open to see Kurt sitting before her in a straight-backed chair, staring into her face with the interested concern of one who had just administered smelling salts for a fainting spell. She felt her palms, cold and bloodless in his hands.
The face before her had lost the luminescence of divinity, and she noticed that his hair was cut short and receding at the temples, a startling contrast to the abundance of dark waves she had remembered seeing just minutes before.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded her head mutely.
Kurt's voice was soft and tender next to her ear.
“Now you know the terrain upon which our future is built. One by one we shall place them there, our invisible host, our army,” he said. “They shall be in full glory within our sight. There they shall remain in this unsuspected world. Even when we return to this world of the present, this place of drab shadows, they shall remain unseen, like the stars remain in the heavens unobserved when daylight comes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jewish Quarter, Munich
The streetlights were turned on one by one as the evening fell. Lexi and Michael hurried through the darkness of the narrow street, holding their coats closed against the force of the autumn winds. Through the window they were able to see Uncle Jacob, wearily moving about the jewelry shop, replacing silver pocket watches back in their proper cabinets. He appeared so tired and worn that Lexi hesitated before entering. She stopped Michael by his arm.
“Wait,” she said. “I'm not sure that this is a good idea. He seems so old and...”
Michael cut her off before she could finish.
“You said yourself that if I'm going to be working at the Ministry, I can't very well be living here in the Jewish quarter. You promised that I could live with you. If you're backing out, let me know now and I'll find somewhere else to go, but I won't stay here.”
His face was filled with the determination of a grown man. Lexi watched the handsome angular face under the dim overhead light from the street lamp. The soft, pale fullness of childhood had given way to sharp planes and a ruddiness that she had not noticed before.
The determination in his voice caused her to open the door to the shop and step inside. Jacob blinked in surprise, then turned his back on her.
“The shop is closed for business,” he said, pointing to a sign in the window. “Surely, that is the only reason that would bring you here, to buy something.”
He puttered pointlessly with the baubles in the case, spitefully avoiding turning to face them.
“Hello Uncle Jacob,” Lexi said with a sigh.
Jacob threw up his hands in mock surprise.
“Oh I hardly recognized you, either of you. I'm so flattered by this visit, I hardly know how to act.”
“I've come for my things,” Michael said flatly, unwilling to play the game.
The old man, once again silent, busied himself with his work. Michael disappeared behind the curtain and pulled his suitcase down from atop the armoire. Lexi placed her hand on her relative's shoulder, intent on explaining, but the words would not come. Jacob brushed her hand away as if removing lint from his sweater.
“Uncle Jacob,” Lexi began, “Michael wants to come and live with me while he works at the Ministry. He'll be all right. I'll take care of him.”
Her elder turned on her with fury.
“All right… living with you he'll be all right. Is that supposed to make me feel better about losing the only help I have in the store, my only companion. Living with you, he'll be all right... you, who deny who you are, turn against the rest of your people here, just so that you can be important among your Gentile friends. Oh, he'll be all right.”
“I'm sorry,” Lexi said, exhausted by the argument before it had begun. “He was denied the university and instead he was offered a good job.”
“A job with me here in the store wasn't good enough for him? He has to go off with you and your Gentile friends and learn to be a liar for the Gottverdammt State. Go off and be a liar with your sister,” he shouted through the curtain.
“If you need help here, we can have someone come and work for you,” Lexi said, steadying the tremor in her voice.
“I don't want your help! Who is going to read to me and cook the dinner? Who will take care of me?” he asked, raising his hands in lamentation.
Michael entered through the curtain, carrying a shabby leather suitcase filled with his belongings and books.
“I'm sorry Uncle Jacob,” he said. “But I would have to leave sometime anyway. I'm not aunt Frieda. I can't spend the rest of my life cooking for you and cleaning in the shop. Don't blame Lexi. She's just helping me out, that's all.”
“Go then,” Jacob shouted, waving his hands at them as if shooing a cat. “Your Gentile ideas are foreign to me. I believe in staying with your family, helping out in hard times, but no… the both of you run away, ashamed of who you are. These are bad people you take up with. Horrible things will happen. So go, get out of my shop. I am alone now. I have no family.”
The old man abruptly pushed Michael toward the door. He opened it and shoved his nephew into the street. Lexi followed, her head bowed, her hands clenched in front of her like Eve cast from the garden. He slammed the door shut and yanked the paper shade down, obliterating their image from his sight.
Michael let out a sigh of relief.
“Wow, he was madder than I thought, madder than when I lost the prayer shawl given to him by Rabbi Rabinowitz.”
Lexi wiped the tears from her eyes and took the boy's arm, hoping to comfort herself.
“He is more than mad. He is terribly hurt. He doesn't understand. He doesn't want to.”
Michael patted the hand clutching his arm in an unsuitably fatherly gesture.
“When I make lots of money, I'll send him some, then he'll see that it was a good choice. He's not a mean man. He'll come to understand, won't he?”
Michael's face, for an instant, lost the manliness that had so startled Lexi, and he looked at her with the questioning eyes she remembered from his childhood.
“I hope so,” she answered.
Their eyes were blinded for an instant by the harsh light from the headlamps of an auto parked a few feet away. The light flared, then switched off, and the sound of blind footsteps were heard approaching.
“I thought perhaps you might be needing help with your things,” a man's voice came from the blur of darkness.
It was Claxton's voice. He stepped into a pool of light from the streetlight, hi
s characteristic silver-headed cane tapping along the sidewalk as he approached.
Lexi's mouth dropped open in astonishment.
“Speaking of bad people. How did you know to come here?” she asked.
“I told him I was moving out from here,” Michael answered her question sheepishly.
“You remember, I already knew of your little deception,” Claxton replied. He took the suitcase from Michael, more a theatrical gesture of assistance than an actual kindness. “I thought you might be needing a lift home,” he said.
“We'll take a taxi,” Lexi snapped. “There is no need for you to trouble yourself.”
Disregarding her resistance, Claxton loaded the suitcase into the back of his automobile and slammed the door. He walked around and opened the passenger door and motioned for Lexi and Michael to get in.
“There is really very little point in continuing to refuse my help. I have no intention of letting my new assistant wander aimlessly in the streets of a bad quarter of town. I insist on giving him a lift, and his sister can come along for the ride, if she has the slightest sense.”
He held the door open as a smiling Michael went in and settled into the lush leather interior. Grudgingly, Lexi climbed in next to her brother and sat staring out the window, her arms across her chest as the car pulled away.
“Uncle Jacob says that we're falling into the hands of bad people,” Michael chattered, “but I don't think so. I think only wonderful things are going to happen from now on.”
Claxton laughed heartily at his new protégé.
“The only thing horrible around here is that dreadful necktie you're wearing,” he said. “Remind me in the morning to have some sent around for you to choose from.”
Lexi glared at the camaraderie of the two men with a seething disdain.
“Besides,” Claxton reassured the younger man, “the beauty of your job as an associate of the Assistant Secretary of Propaganda is to decide who the bad people are. You see it's a totally hypothetical question. Today's outlaw is tomorrow's hero. Remember, Napoleon is a villain or a saint, depending on whose history you read and in what language. We manufacture the truth. The facts are constant, they speak for themselves, but the truth is a malleable thing, shaped to do our bidding by the way we manipulate the facts. There are bad people, of course, but ultimately they are only those who do not believe in our truth, those who insist on reading the facts in the old way. Those people are obsolete, no danger to us. We are above all of that now.”