“Stefan, you didn’t come to my office so early in the morning to discuss art.”
“You are right. I am here about a serious matter, Brand.”
“Such a beautiful morning and you want to be serious?”
“Very serious.”
His face looked gray and old. Worry makes even the most elegant face look old.
“You have made a deal with Max Schiller. The rumor is out. I heard it in Venice,” he said in a solemn tone.
“A big deal, Stefan, a very big deal.” Brand’s face became flushed. He was surprised by the speed with which this news spread. Impressive. His eyes sparkled like crystals.
“Thousands and thousands of tons of coal,” he continued. “The mines will be working again. All those men, hundreds of them, that you were so worried and concerned about, will be working. You won’t have to ride on your stallion to their homes, giving them food parcels so they don’t starve. I wanted to save the good news to tell you tonight at Jonas’ birthday party. Just think: work and money. Now, it is my chance to help you.” Brand paused. There was an awkward silence.
“Of course, that is good news.”
“Why are you down in the mouth? Is Sonja ill, or you?”
“No, thank the Lord. We are well. Frankly, Brand, you are dealing with the devil.”
“What?”
“No wait, let me finish. Max Schiller, who is, if you didn’t know, part Jew, represents a group of men whom I am not happy with. They are supporting the National Socialist Party headed by that crazed maniac.”
“You mean Adolf Hitler. He is a big joke as far as I am concerned. He is as ridiculous as your new Expressionist painters.”
“Do you know what they are going to do with that coal?”
“Of course,” Brand said. “They will turn it into fuel. Let them build up their economy. Europe is in a deep depression and so is the world economy. Heaven knows if the new American president-elect will be able to do a thing about that. Things are just as bad there, too.”
“Brand, for heaven’s sake, the coal is not for industry. They want to make ammunition, guns, tanks.”
“The Versailles Treaty will never allow it.”
“That Treaty is as dead as ancient Rome, Brand. You have plenty of money. Don’t send them the coal. There are plenty of other markets. Take your excess cash and buy things in America. That is where the future lies. Europe is dying. Don’t send them the coal.”
“All right, we will send the coal to England, and then it will end up in Germany by a different route. I know very well that fellow, Farben, can and will, overnight, convert his aniline factory to powder. Don’t you think I realized when those ridiculous Americans at Versailles said, ‘We will never let Germany make arms again,’ that they were lying? Who in industry did not know the truth? If they really cared, they would have forced Farben to make pancakes. No, instead they let him be a dye maker. You have to agree, that is a funny joke. A first-year chemistry student knows that with a few changes in aniline production, you have gunpowder, so to speak. I’ll tell you something else I know. There is a guy in the U.S. by the name of Goddard experimenting on a new form of air travel called rockets. Did you ever hear of a place called Peenemünde?”
“Now, where is that?” the elderly gentleman asked.
“Not more than fifty miles from here by our favorite summer retreat, near Koningerberg, on the isle of Usedom, there are some German scientists who are hoping to do the same thing. There are two guys called Von Braun and Dorenberg. Do you want more names? Not much is happening – yet. And it’s very hush-hush. But it’s only a matter of time, maybe three, four years before this place breaks out and becomes a viable proving ground. So don’t tell me I don’t know what is going on. They want to go to the moon.”
“My dear Brand, you are reading too much science fiction. Anyway, my good friend who sees no limits, it’s 1932 and another year is soon ending. I can tell you the world is going to be a different place in ten years. Hitler is not to be taken lightly. He is appealing to frustrated, angry, hungry Germans who are ripe for a leader who promises them the good life again. The Jews are to blame for the German’s starvation and loss of dignity, so he preaches, but the master race will prevail. And Max Schiller is playing with fire, if you want my opinion.”
“That is just political crap; let’s not overestimate a former house painter. In the meantime, Jonas is having a birthday party in a few hours and if you and Sonja are not there, in good spirits, there will be a war like you have never seen.”
When Sonja and Metchnik arrived, the birthday party was in full swing. The birthday boy presided over the long tea table where fifteen of his cronies sat while their governess weaved to and fro trying to keep some order. Jonas wore brown lederhosen, a white shirt, and a red tie. His brown hair was neatly pressed down on his scalp with his father’s English pomade. Fräulein Marlow, hours before the party got under way, had prepared Jonas for the occasion.
The boy had been sitting on the floor of his large playroom, which stretched on like a bowling alley, when Fräulein came into the room. His tin soldiers were lined up facing each other for another battle as Astor quietly sat on the floor beside him. On one side of the room was a desk with a small graphite blackboard still showing the morning’s writing lessons.
“Did you practice your letters yet, Jonas?”
“Yes, Fräulein.”
“We better get ready, then.” She bent down and raised Jonas up from the floor.
“Come, let’s put away your army because once your friends get here you won’t find them again.” Her soft white blouse opened and Jonas caught a glimpse of her large breasts. It wasn’t the first time.
“Now, you remember how I taught you to be a good host. You know what host means. You don’t fight with your friends, and you let them play with all your things.”
She helped him bathe and dressed him in his birthday outfit. “A good German boy has to be neat, courteous, strong, and wear a red tie.” She gave him a kiss on his cheek and he felt her breasts against him.
“Your parents will be waiting for you.” She pressed his brown hair down with the pomade and placed a pin to hold it.
“Now, don’t run your hand through your hair, Jonas.” She took a step back to assess the results and smiled. “You look like a little Hessian prince.”
At the head of the table, covered with platters piled high with assorted tea sandwiches, meats and smoked fish, and small cakes, Jonas laughed and chattered with his friends. Fräulein Marlow looked on proudly as she watched Jonas acting like a gentleman, the host, the master of the party. Astor was underneath the table scrounging food from the guests while Lucia, Brand, Metchnik, Sonja, the Prince, and Bill Harrington were crowded around a small table, sipping champagne as they listened to Uncle Herman tell off-color jokes.
After the lemon ices were eaten, the light dimmed. Hilda, the cook, carried in a towering birthday cake with a small statue of a little boy made of marzipan standing on its apex. Nine candles plus one for good luck surrounded the small marzipan boy.
Lucia came over to the table with Brand and placed her arms around her son. “Now, Jonas, make a wish and blow out all the candles.”
Jonas stood on the chair and closed his eyes, and with one quick blow, all the candles were extinguished, followed by a round of applause as Lucia kissed him.
“Are you going to tell us your wish?” Brand asked.
“Don’t you dare,” the Prince broke in. “It is good to have a little secret that you keep for yourself.”
Fräulein Marlow quietly smiled. “Well, everyone in this household has secrets,” she said, and in the darkness she eyed Brand who was staring at her. She had missed him these last several nights and so disliked wondering whether or not he would show. Still, she thrilled whenever he did, rousing her from a delicious half-awake sleep, and climbing in next to her, crushing her voluptuous breasts with his muscular body. He knew how to touch every part of her body that was the most exqu
isitely sensitive. She trembled like a caught bird in his arms. And she knew things about Brand that his wife never would dream existed behind his outwardly stoic demeanor. She doubted sincerely that the frivolous Lucia, who had gone from her father’s house to her husband’s, understood what a man like Brand needed from a woman. His eyes told her he missed her, too.
“And now,” Brand proclaimed, “I have a surprise for the birthday boy and his friends. Everyone can come to our little theater for something special.”
Jonas led his friends to the small theater in the basement of the house. The grownups followed with their champagne glasses, and Uncle Herman carried the champagne bucket. The lights dimmed and a live bear appeared on the stage with its trainer and began to dance to a background of Viennese waltzes. The children applauded and screeched with happiness.
“The birthday boy may now dance with the bear,” announced the skinny trainer who reached for Jonas to come forward. Reluctantly, Jonas left the table and amidst all the cheers, took the trainer’s hand and the bear’s paw as the threesome made a circle going round and round to the music. Lucia watched nervously and was relieved when Jonas was freed from the circle and ran back to the table with his arms raised high like a true warrior.
Fräulein Marlow was anxious for the party to end because tonight was her night off. She was thinking of Bruno now. Her need for him was very different than what she experienced with Brand. It was raw, and political, and also just a little bit dangerous, although differently so.
Tonight she had promised to go to a meeting with Bruno at the Kammastrasse Hall where the new Socialist Party was having a rally. “You owe it to your Prussian ancestors to be there,” he had told her when they were together one night in bed, his massive hands cupping her ample breasts and making them feel girlishly small.
“Danzig can not be a free state run by the Jews. We must bring Danzig back to the Fatherland.”
Thursday night was a big night for all the maids and governesses of the town, and, for that matter, for all of Germany, Switzerland, and France. It was the one night that household help vanished, except for Karl-Heinz, Brand’s chauffeur bodyguard. The cafés in the old city were crowded with domestic help who came to drink beer, eat wurst and seasoned potatoes, and dance to accordion music.
For Prince Brandenberg, Thursday was also the night to make new conquests. As he pretended to enjoy the spectacle of young Jonas dancing with the bear, the Prince imagined himself hunting for bear later that night.
The Café Geiger was located in the waterfront district of the city where some of the low-lifes congregated. No one knew who the Prince was because he came dressed just like one of the ruffians, wearing worn-out baggy pants and a sailor shirt. He was a regular client of the Café Geiger, where the back rooms catered to the bizarre sexual needs of the clientele. It reeked with the smell of opium and wine, and the only politics were sex and drugs.
This double life of his suited the Prince and he had come to appreciate his darker nature. It worked for him, so long as he was careful – and he was – so that the darkness within him did not swell, like the walls of a bubble, and the toxins within him did not burst into the sedate and civilized world from which he came. On other nights, when the people of Danzig gathered in fancy drawing rooms where the conversations were gossip, theater, and politics, he knew all too well that were it not for his noble background, Danzig society wouldn’t tolerate him. So he had learned to be cautious.
Now sitting beside Bill and Sonja, he glanced at the small group of adults in the downstairs basement theater who were sitting apart from the laughing children – Brand, Lucia, Uncle Herman, and yes, even the honorable Metchnik – and wondered what their secrets were. One thing life had already taught the Prince was that no one could live with too much truth.
The party finally ended and all the children and grownups left, including Brand and Lucia. The little girl, Alexandra, was invited to spend the night. She and Jonas had the house all to themselves, except for the chambermaid, Frau Gross, who was left to care for them. Jonas was looking forward to opening his presents and going to his secret hiding place.
Alexandria, whom he called Ala, was one year older than he, with adorable dark round eyes and long black hair. Her parents, Prussians, were in the shipping business and lived next door on the famous street called Langfuhr, which was lined with magnificent mansions. Each residence had a majestic stone staircase at its entrance, and stone balconies, the famous carved balconies of Danzig.
The children were sitting on the floor of the kitchen as Jonas opened his first present, from Ala. It was a round paperweight with a tin soldier and a young girl inside. “Shake it,” Ala directed.
With his small hands Jonas shook the paperweight and snowflakes appeared. “Oh, that is beautiful,” he exclaimed.
“Tell me a story,” Ala said, “about the soldier and princess in the bowl.”
“I am the soldier and I was wounded from a battle with the French and the princess came to help me get better.”
“What about me? I want to be in the glass, too.”
“All right, you are the princess and you came to me and then we lived together forever in the glass.”
“I like that story better,” she said.
“Come on.” Jonas stood up. “Let’s go exploring, but don’t be afraid; it will be dark.”
“I won’t be afraid if I am with a soldier.”
They ran up the long winding stairs to the master bedroom. The late afternoon light was quickly fading.
“This is where my mother and father sleep,” he said. Three large French armoires stood on the side of the bedroom.
“Follow me. I have my own secret place.” They squeezed behind the armoires, climbing into what appeared to be a very tiny alcove where Jonas kept a small blanket on the floor and some toy soldiers and two books. Astor also wriggled through the narrow separation between the tall chests.
“Here is my hiding place,” Jonas explained. “No one knows it except you.”
“It is dark here,” Ala said, “but I am not afraid. Can you keep a secret?” Ala asked. “You can’t tell anyone, not even Fräulein Marlow. I heard my parents whisper that we are going to leave for America soon.”
“Why America?” asked Jonas. “It is very far away.”
“I know. But Father said the streets are lined with gold.”
“I want to go to America, too,” Jonas replied, “and I will bring Astor and walk on the gold streets.”
“Not so loud, Jonas. Someone may hear you.”
“Let’s play doctor,” Jonas said. “You lie down and I will examine you.”
Ala reluctantly lay down on the blanket.
“You have to pull down your pants.”
“I don’t want too. It is too cold.”
“Then we can’t play doctor, and I won’t let you come here again. It is dark and no one can see you. Come on, Ala.”
She pulled up her dress and partially pulled down her panties a couple of inches. “That is all I am going to show,” she said. “You can touch me just here and not lower.”
He ran his fingers around her belly button, tickling her. Ala then sat up and rearranged her panties. “No more today. I want to leave your secret place. Let’s play with your new toys.”
Frau Gross was waiting on top of the stairs when they emerged flustered from the bedroom.
“Where have you two been?” She scowled at the blushing children. “I have been searching for you. It is time for your supper, and then to bed. What have you been doing?”
“Nothing, Frau Gross, we were playing hide and go seek, and I could not find Ala,” Jonas answered in a weak voice.
The Prince and Bill Harrington marched through the dark streets near the waterfront, heading for the Café Geiger. They heard their shoes echoing on the brick pavement as they passed old houses dating back centuries. In the alleyways stood sinister-looking men smoking cigarettes.
“These are the cocaine sellers. Mostly sailor
s. You don’t have to be afraid,” the Prince told Bill. In the week since their dinner together the two men had met daily, for coffee, for tea, for walks and English lessons. The Prince was careful to avoid by word or gesture anything the young American could construe as a seduction. Still, the Prince was enchanted, smitten by just about every pivot, and even how Bill said good morning when they would meet, without shaking hands, after the American fashion. What was more, the Prince sensed something about Bill that the young American didn’t know himself – yet. It was his mouth that gave him away. It was pink and soft, despite the all-American frame. Still, Bill, oblivious perhaps, seemed to genuinely enjoy the Prince’s company, quickly ascribing the nobleman’s after-party invitation tonight to just another “adventure.” That, after all, was what had brought him to Europe, to Danzig, and to what the Prince had described as a most “unusual” club.
To that point, the Prince continued, “In this port, ships from all nations arrive from all other ports. The Turks like this port because it is an easy market. You will enjoy the Café Geiger. The philosopher, Schopenhauer, used to hang around here, and there are some interesting characters. They are like owls; you can only see them at night. Night people whom you never see during the daylight.”
The Café Geiger had a flickering light, illuminating a small violin hanging over the side of the entrance. They climbed down the dark, narrow, sinister-looking stairs, which led to the café. The late afternoon sun that had bathed the Krugers’ birthday celebration in golden hues had given way to a clear, brisk late autumn night. The men had been walking for nearly an hour now. Bill welcomed the opportunity to warm himself.
Inside the smoke-riddled room was a man with a large mustache playing the accordion. A waitress brought them to the dark far side of the dreary room where two men were already sitting sipping beer.
“For a moment I didn’t recognize you,” one of the men said. “Your outfit is like a Sicilian sailor’s.”
“This is my American friend, Bill Harrington, from Ohio.”
Twilight in Danzig Page 4