“Good evening, Colonel Heydrich,” he said, holding out his hand. “It is indeed a privilege to welcome you.” Heydrich shook hands with the man, but said nothing, only nodding curtly. “You will tell the Reichsfuhrer that I am always at the service of the SS?” the man continued. “And if there is anything you desire”—his eyes swept over me—“a private room for supper, perhaps?”
I felt my face go red and Heydrich fixed his icy blue eyes on the director. “Are you now a whoremonger, Herr Director?” he said, and with his hand grazing my back, led me through the swinging doors, which the aide held open. The man hurried in front of us down a short corridor to a second pair of swinging doors. Heydrich stopped several feet away from the door. Still embarrassed by what the director had said, I did not look at him, but stood smoothing down the front of my black velvet evening coat with my gloved hand.
The coat had small rhinestone buttons in the shape of bows all the way down and a small stand-up collar. The cuffs were as large as those of a seventeenth-century Cavalier’s coat, with black braid and three more buttons on each. I loved the coat, and touching it restored some of my courage. Still, I was even less sure of the outing than I had been. Would everyone who saw me with the colonel think what the director had thought? I knew nothing about Heydrich’s reputation. I had not told my father that I was going out with him, and I wondered if that would turn out to have been a mistake.
Heydrich was watching me and I smiled sheepishly at him, aware that he knew what I was thinking.
“Do you want to continue?” he said softly, turning his body so that he stood very close to me, concealing me from the aide.
I did not look at his face, my eyes flitting over the front of his uniform, the buttons, the red-and-gold swastika pin on his tie. “It’ll be fine.”
“Yes,” he answered. He raised his hand, turning it palm up. His fingers were very long, like those of a figure from an El Greco painting, the nails short and well kept. “I apologize for the clumsy oaf. His manners are even worse than mine.”
I looked up at him, conscious of his great height. He was smiling and I smiled back. I was beginning to like him.
“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” I said, taking his arm.
“What?” he said, startled. “What is this that you say?”
“An old American war cry, Colonel,” I replied, feeling suddenly very gay and carefree.
He repeated Admiral Farragut’s quotation, laughing at it, and his high, dry laughter carried through the doors into the main hall of the exhibition.
The pictures in the exhibition were awful. I walked silently next to Heydrich as we worked our way through the galleries at a steady pace. The other viewers, party officials, officers and their wives, strolled along more happily, their fulsome praise gushing over the exhibits.
Many of the paintings were huge canvases, and the sculpture was, all of it, enormous. Nearly everything celebrated the National Socialist view of life, family, and the world. Happy children frolicked in their mother’s arms, stalwart fathers looking on; half-naked farm girls coyly bathed; and, in picture after picture, brown-shirted soldiers of all ages fought and sang and looked into the distant National Socialist future with far-seeing blue Aryan eyes. It was utterly depressing.
The colonel and I entered a room empty of all pictures except one displayed at the far end. The walls were hung with red draperies, and there were Nazi banners arranged behind the painting, which was cleverly lit so as to point up its dramatic subject.
“Ah, I recognize this one,” said Heydrich, almost in relief.
Red velvet ropes were strung along both sides of the room and in front of the painting, creating a walkway. The other people walked slowly, reverently along, whispering.
All along, our progress had been unheeded, no one coming close or crowding us. It was no different now. I looked behind for the young aide. He was there, unobtrusively bringing up the rear, his hands clasped behind his back. He did nothing, but no one walked between him and Heydrich. I wondered how they knew, how it worked. Surely, if Heydrich was from Munich, these Berliners wouldn’t know who he was, and SS uniforms weren’t exactly a rarity in the city.
The colonel and I made our way up to the painting, standing alone before it. The aide stood to one side, the line of people stopped behind him. I turned my attention to the picture.
I nearly laughed out loud, managing in the nick of time to stifle myself. Turning the laugh into a cough, I clapped my gloved hand over my mouth so hard that I smeared lipstick on it. Heydrich looked at me, his face impassive except for the merest twitch around his thin mouth.
“Control yourself, Miss Jackson,” he said dryly, and turned his attention to the picture. I took a deep breath, my hand on my chest, calming myself. This was not the place to get the giggles. Nor was he a man to insult. But the picture . . .
It was of Hitler, as had been several pictures in the museum, but here, here the Fuhrer, standing against a huge swirling swastika banner, was portrayed as a knight, his armor indeed shining. His forelock hung disarmingly over his forehead, as he clutched the enormous banner and stared, as all good heroes do, into the distance. The huge three-quarter-length portrait was in the typical super realistic style of the rest of the exhibition. Hitler as Parsifal. I wondered if he had actually posed for the painting.
“He should have shaved the mustache,” I said quietly, the laughter bubbling up against my will. “But then, maybe no one would recognize him,” I added, controlling myself with great difficulty. I covered my mouth again, turning toward Heydrich, trying to hide my hilarity from the reverent group behind the aide. Heydrich quickly took a firm hold of my arm.
“Come,” he said, and led me briskly down the velvet-rope corridor. I kept my head down and dug a handkerchief out of my little handbag, using it to cover my giggles. I hoped everyone would think I was overcome with some deep emotion, not with hilarity.
Without letting go of me, Heydrich gestured to his aide, who moved up to us. “Champagne,” he said, and the young man turned and left. I tried to compose myself. But everywhere I looked there were more of those silly pictures reminding me of the pseudo heroics of the Hitler portrait. People were beginning to stare at us. Fortunately, the aide returned quickly with two glasses of champagne. Heydrich let go of me and took them both, looked around briefly and led me over to a long sofa that crouched under a closed window. He sat me down and stood over me.
Taking a deep breath, patting my face vaguely with my handkerchief, I looked up at the colonel, who loomed over me in his black uniform. He was watching me intently, his face, as usual, quite empty of expression. I tried another deep breath. “Are you going to give me one of those?” I said, gesturing toward the champagne in his hands.
He sat down next to me and handed me a glass. “Are you quite all right now?” he said, turning so that he faced me, his long-booted leg extended in front of me, but he did not touch me. I leaned against the sofa, sinking back against the softness of the cushion. The seat was very wide and my feet barely grazed the floor.
“What an uncomfortable sofa,” I said, squirming to sit up straight. I looked at Heydrich out of the corner of my eye as he raised his glass and took a sip of champagne. He had one of those Prussian-soldier haircuts, shaved up to the top of his ears, and very short on top. It was not attractive. Because his hair was so light and his skin so fair, he almost looked hairless, like a pink baby mouse. That struck me as being funny, and I was convulsed all over again. Heydrich watched, exasperated.
“I am sorry,” I said, “it’s inexcusable of me. I don’t know what came over me.”
“You needn’t apologize,” he said, taking a sip of champagne.
“No, my behavior is inexcusable, I just couldn’t help myself when I saw that mustache . . .” I couldn’t go on, overcome with the blasted giggles. “Oh, my,” I said when I was finished. I felt exhausted with the tension of holding in my laughter. I drank some champagne. It was very cold and fresh and tasted goo
d.
“It’s like giggles in church,” I said, sighing.
“Yes,” he said. He turned, facing the room. We sat for several minutes in silence.
The champagne glass—a wide one—prompted a memory. “My mother once told me—when I was very young—that champagne should always be drunk out of flutes. You know, the tall glasses. It has something to do with the bubbles.”
“That is advice for an aristocrat’s child. Or a reprobate’s.”
“Yes. She wasn’t a reprobate. At least, not when I knew her. She might have been in her youth. But she was something of an American aristocrat. If there is such a thing. She died,” I added, when he didn’t ask, “in an automobile accident.”
“I know.”
I thought for a moment about that. He knew my mother was dead. The knowledge made me nervous, or, I should say, even more nervous than I already was, because certainly my behavior up to that moment had been giddy with nervousness. I leaned forward and carefully put my champagne glass on the floor, then I took out my compact and checked my makeup. My mascara was smudged under my eyes from the tears of my laughter, and I used my handkerchief to wipe it off. I flicked the puff over my nose, replaced it, and snapped the compact shut. Heydrich was watching me.
“I really made a fool of myself, didn’t I?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you always say what you mean?”
“Usually.”
“Well, I’ve said I was sorry,” I said.
“Yes,” he repeated, still watching me.
“What are you looking at?” I blurted out.
He laughed softly, then shook his head, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he drank the last of his champagne and stood up.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hand to me, “I think we have both had enough of this art.” The emphasis he gave the last word, almost mocking it, made me look sharply at him. His expression was not unfriendly, and although I could not decipher it, I felt he was not so much angry with me as . . . what?
“Come along, Miss Jackson,” he said patiently, still holding out his hand.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked, tilting my head.
He smiled. “No, I am not; now stop flirting with me and come along.”
Speechless at last, I reached up, took his hand and let him pull me up.
We exited the way we had come, through the back door, where the aide had the car waiting. The colonel helped me into the backseat, then leaned in through the open door. He was wearing a very pleasant after-shave, tart and lemony, and the scent filled the small space.
“It has been a most diverting evening, Miss Jackson,” he said politely, in fact so politely that I strongly doubted his sincerity. “I will be interested in hearing your opinions of our great and heroic German art.”
Taking a leaf out of his book, I merely answered, “Yes.” Heydrich closed the car door and, pulling on his cap, raised his arm and saluted as the car pulled away.
I watched him turn quickly and, together with the silent young aide, walk to another car. What an odd evening. What an extremely odd man. I had expected him to be furious with me over my behavior. After all, it was the leader of his country whom I had insulted by my laughter. My father would have chastised me for my non-diplomatic giggles. But Heydrich had remained impassive and even a little amused. I shook my head. Obviously, there was a lot more to him than I had imagined at first. And I had not been flirting with him.
He was so secretive. He hid everything, from the fact of a wife and child in Munich to his thoughts, and even his smiles. And why had he asked me along with him? I pushed back the cuff of my coat and looked at my little watch. The whole thing had taken just under two hours.
I’d gotten all dressed up for that? Some terrible pictures and one glass of champagne? No dinner? Well, he had said that he was returning to work. Which led me to wonder just what exactly was his work. What did a secret policeman do?
A day or so later, I caught my father in his library as he was about to leave for a meeting. It was late afternoon and he had stopped home to change into evening clothes, as he was going on to a reception at the Russian embassy that evening. I was not accompanying him because he anticipated a working evening. He was, as usual, trying to do three things at once, including carrying on a conversation with his secretary at the embassy.
“Damn,” he said when he hung up. “Sometimes I wish I had decided to live on the Wilhelm Platz. It would be more convenient for me, I can tell you. What is it, dear?” he said, truly noticing me for the first time, but continuing to fuss with his papers.
“I don’t know if I told you that I went to an art exhibition—God, was it ghastly . . .” I stopped at my father’s upraised hand.
“Sally, I’m in a hurry, can you get on with it?”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” I came straight to the point. “Do you know anything about Colonel Heydrich?”
He looked up at me, his spectacles reflecting the banker’s lamp on his desk. “Heydrich?” he repeated.
“Yes, you know, the man at our cocktail party. You introduced him to Dails.”
“Diels,” he said, absentmindedly correcting me. “Yes, I remember now. Why do you ask?”
I shrugged. “I was just curious.”
“You went out with Heydrich?” he said, proving that he had listened to me.
I nodded. “To an art exhibition.” My father looked at me for a moment, almost as though he had never seen me before, then he picked out a paper from the stack on his desk and laid it carefully in his open briefcase.
“I don’t know specifically what he does,” he said, closing the case. He walked around the desk. I saw his overcoat draped over the leather sofa in front of his desk and picked it up for him. He took it from me and put it on. “But I know enough,” he said, buttoning up the coat, “and I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go out with him.”
“Oh, Daddy, I’m not, not really. It was just the once. And it was just the exhibit. He didn’t even give me any dinner. I’m not interested in him romantically. Besides, he’s married.”
“Now I know I don’t want you to see him,” he said in the mild tone he used when admonishing me.
“I don’t expect to,” I said. “I was just curious.”
“Your car is here, sir,” Vittorio announced, opening the door wide.
“Thank you, Vittorio. I’m coming,” my father said, and then he was gone. I remained where I was, perched on the wide back of his leather sofa, staring at the closed door, feeling disappointed.
THE MAESTRO
MY SECOND DAY in Berlin, I wrote a short note to the Mayrs, saying I was in the city, and sent it to the last address I had for them. When I hadn’t received a reply by the next week, I got a cab and went around to their apartment. They no longer lived in the building, but the concierge remembered them.
They were all gone, she told me. Herr Doktor Mayr had died, quite recently, in fact, and Frau Mayr had gone abroad, with a daughter, the concierge said.
“And Christian Mayr, the son?” I asked, and opened my purse. I handed her what I hoped was an appropriate amount. She sniffed and tucked the money into the pocket of her black cardigan. She was a short, fat woman, with black hair in complicated curls around her face.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “The son. He went away when the doctor died.”
“What did Dr. Mayr die of?”
She shook her head. “It was a terrible thing,” she said, dropping her voice. “I will not speak of it. A terrible thing.” And she turned and went back into her flat.
I was left with more mysteries. How had Herr Doktor Mayr died that the woman would call it “a terrible thing”? What had happened, and where had Christian gone? I turned away, wondering how I could find him or his mother. Musing on the fact that it had been such a long time since I had had any contact with them, perhaps they were better left in the happy past.
As promised, Colonel Heydrich had found me a fencing hall, a salle.
The fencing master was a man I had heard of, a former officer who had run the most influential—and fashionable—salle in Vienna at the turn of the century. He was so legendary that I had just assumed he was dead.
On the afternoon of my first visit, I pulled up in front of the building in which the hall was located. I told our chauffeur I’d catch a cab home, since I didn’t know how long I would be. I was nervous and very excited about the prospects of working with this man, although I could not imagine that I was a good-enough fencer for him to bother with. After all, he had coached the Emperor of Austria’s sons.
I lugged my foil in its canvas case and the bag of other paraphernalia out of the car. Fencing gear was not heavy, just bulky and hard to fit into tight spaces like automobile backseats. I looked up at the building. It was an ugly building, with rows of columns arbitrarily scattered across the facade and other architectural details that seemed to be an unsuccessful attempt to temper the building’s stolid, forbidding appearance.
A young man walked by in front of me, and as I hitched my gear up to carry it into the building, he stopped and turned. I ignored him.
“Say, miss!” he called, in an unmistakable New York accent, “don’t I know you from someplace?”
I stopped and turned toward him. He stood with his hands in the pockets of his baggy tweed slacks, his equally baggy jacket flapping behind him. He wore a blue-and-brown-patterned sweater under the jacket and a green, red, and yellow muffler wrapped loosely around his neck. A brown disreputable hat was pulled down on top of his unruly dark curly hair. To complete the picture, a toothpick stuck out of his mouth.
I smiled. “I’d remember you,” I said, and turned to go inside.
“Wait, hold on.” He walked up to me. “I know I’ve seen you somewhere.”
“Well, you figure it out,” I said, “I’ve got an appointment.” And I left him on the sidewalk.
The building had a large square inner courtyard, with a glass skylight over it. When I looked up, I could see that six or seven stories opened onto the courtyard. I looked around for a concierge, and not finding one, put my bag down to dig out the paper with the address on it.
The Last Innocent Hour Page 19