The Death Instinct

by Jed Rubenfeld

  'Eternal damnation,' he answered, 'for a night in your arms.' 'Only one night?'

  That evening, despite a fierce storm outside, the ocean liner erupted with merrymaking, toasts, and the blowing of party whistles. In all the dining rooms and lounges of every class, bands and orchestras played American music while the rain beat on the portholes.

  'What's happening?' asked Colette. They were descending the grand red-carpeted stairwell into an Edwardian ballroom. Dancers whirled around the floor.

  'The United States has elected a new president,' said Younger. 'Who won?'

  'A man named Harding.'

  They took a seat at a table in silence.

  'What's the matter?' she asked him.

  'Nothing.'

  'All right,' she said. 'Then ask me to dance.' He did.

  Well after midnight, they returned to their luxurious stateroom. 'Only one room for both of us?' she asked him, cheeks flushed. 'Monsieur is very presumptuous. Is my corruption never to end?'

  The next morning, in their cabin bed, she was happier than he had ever seen her. Lying on their backs, she made him extend a leg in the air and put hers alongside it. She tried to persuade him that despite the difference in their overall height, her leg was almost as long as his. Certainly it was smoother and more appealing in shape.

  In the afternoon, however, as they strolled through the ship's exotic outdoor palm court — open to first-class passengers only — she grew contemplative. 'What does Dr Freud mean,' she asked, 'when he says I may be the cause of Luc's condition?'

  'I don't know,' said Younger, telling the truth.

  'I always thought I could take care of him.'

  'You did take care of him.'

  'But what if I did the wrong thing keeping him with me all these years?' she asked. 'What if I wanted him to be different? What if I wanted him to be mute?'

  'Why?'

  'So that I wouldn't have to be alone.'

  'Oh, stop it,' Younger replied. 'Pure self-indulgence.'

  'You're the one who said I didn't love him.'

  'I never said that,' replied Younger.

  'You said it with your eyes,' she answered. 'Because I left Luc behind when I took the train to Braunau. You thought killing Hans Gruber was more important to me than taking care of my own brother.'

  Younger didn't answer. He hadn't thought any such thing, but she must have.

  'If I had died,' she said, 'you would have raised him, wouldn't you?'

  'That's why you wanted me to come to Vienna.'

  She tightened her grasp around his arm. 'You would have done it — raised him — wouldn't you?'

  'If you had died chasing Heinrich?'

  'Yes.'

  'No, I would have put him in a home for deaf-mutes. Where he belongs. So that he wouldn't remind me of you. But then he couldn't have reminded me of you because I would have killed myself. Besides, you wouldn't have wanted me to raise him: I'm a pauper. Have I mentioned to you how much I have left?'

  'No.'

  'I don't have anything left. Our stateroom took the last of it. Fortunately, that comes with meals for two, so we won't starve until we reach America.' He stopped, disengaged himself from her arm, and put his hands in his pockets. 'I'm serious. I'm ashamed of my poverty. I should have told you about it. I'm not penniless. I still have my house in Boston, and I believe Harvard will take me back as a professor. But I seduced you under false pretences. No, I did. The worst cad could not have behaved more basely. All this luxury — first-class cabins, grand ballrooms — you'll never see it again. You'd be perfectly justified to leave me now that you know the actual state of things.'

  'What a long speech,' she said, taking his arm again. 'And so foolish. I like you much better poor.'

  Part 4

  Chapter Nineteen

  Telegraphic instructions flew from station to station, east to west, across the United States on the morning of November 18, 1920 — the day after Littlemore found the secret cache of Mexican documents. Their point of origin was the War Department in Washington, DC. The most important of these wires was issued to Fort Houston in San Antonio, Texas. It ordered Major General James G. Harbord, commander of the Unites States Army, Second Division, to mobilize for immediate deployment to the Mexican border.

  Colette Rousseau held Younger's hand at the ship's rail, steaming into New York Harbor that same morning. All around them, passengers crooned over the fantastical Manhattan skyline, lit by the morning sun. 'This time, even I think your skyscrapers are beautiful,' said Colette.

  Over the course of the voyage, they had discovered certain intimacies about each other. She would insist, at night, on his extinguishing every light and candle before emerging from the dressing room in her slip and darting into bed, where she would pull the bedclothes up to her chin. She had an additional scruple — that he was not to be naked in her presence. She seemed to like it when he took off his shirt, but that was as undressed as she was prepared to have him.

  'Strange,' said Younger. 'I was going to say that this time even I find them unsettling.'

  From coast to coast, the newspapers that morning were filled with strange items concerning Mexico. There were rumors — unattributed to any official sources — of a military mobilization and of an imminent threat that American-owned oil wells were to be nationalized. From Washington, the following was reported:

  The Mexican Embassy issued a statement last night declaring that it had been authorized by General Obregon, President-elect of Mexico, to deny that Elias L. Torres, who last Tuesday extended an invitation to Senator Harding to visit Mexico, was acting on behalf of the Mexican government. 'The Mexican Embassy,' the statement said, 'is in receipt of a telegram from General Obregon, in which he categorically denies that Elias Torres is his representative.'

  No further details were offered to explain this curious report.

  Also that morning, in an antiseptic room in New York City, with perfectly white walls and a single hospital bed in the middle, a girl with long red hair opened her eyes. She tried to speak, but something in her mouth prevented her from doing so. She would have removed this impediment, but her wrists were tied to the bed rails with leather straps.

  'Will she be clean?' asked a male voice. Whoever spoke was out of her sight. She tried to turn her head, but couldn't.

  'Yes,' answered a man she could see, wearing a white medical coat. 'The last one wasn't clean.' 'It's acidic. It will clean.'

  'Will it hurt?' asked the male voice, out of her sight.

  'Probably,' said the man in the white jacket.

  'Can you give her something?'

  'For the pain — now?'

  'Please.'

  The white-coated man came to her bedside. She felt his hands on her arm and then the prick of a needle. Presently, her fears and wretchedness subsided. A warmth spread through her body. It felt pleasant, comforting. She wanted more.

  The man she hadn't seen — and, as the room began to swim, still couldn't see clearly — now came to her bedside. He gently parted her lips. Between those lips, a gag pulled against her cheeks, tightly tied.

  The man inserted something bristly into her mouth. It was a toothbrush. He was brushing her teeth, above and below the gag. He went about it methodically, thoroughly, minutely. He brushed in tiny circles, first her incisors, then her canines, then her molars, front and back, upper and lower.

  The doctor had been wrong: it didn't hurt at all. It wasn't even unpleasant. At least not at first. Then she felt a burning on her tongue and in her throat. The gag caused her to choke. Tears began to run from her eyes. The man stroked the tears from her eyes, gently. He parted her hospital gown and looked at her white, soft throat and bosom.

  'I like this one,' he said. 'No defects. Can't you give her more?'

  'She'll be unconscious,' said the man in the white coat.

  'I don't want her unconscious. Can you make her — almost unconscious?'

  She felt another prick in her arm. Soon the man with the tooth
brush set to work again, finding every crevice and crown of her teeth, cleaning her, cleaning. The paste burned her terribly, but she didn't mind it anymore. The pleasant, generous warmth spread deeper into her limbs and chest and elsewhere. Then everything became confused, tangled, and she couldn't understand what was happening. She was pulled, mentally as well as physically, in two different directions; someone was now scrubbing at her neck and shoulders with the same astringent paste, which hurt and which she wished would stop, but there was also more of the heavenly flooding warmth, which she wanted to last forever.

  Littlemore went to Secretary Houston's office first thing that morning. Denied permission to enter, he waited in the hallway, reading the newspapers, until, an hour later, Houston appeared.

  'Can't you see I'm busy, Littlemore?' asked Houston as he hurried down the corridor, the detective in his wake.

  'Is it the Mexican business, sir?'

  'Mexican business?' Houston stopped. 'What do you know about it?'

  'Been reading the papers.'

  The Secretary set off again, followed by Littlemore. 'Well, what is it?' asked Houston.

  'Just wondering who chose the date for the transfer of the gold.'

  'What? Why?'

  'I think it may unlock the whole puzzle, sir.'

  'The date? I don't see why,' said Houston. 'Everyone inside the Department knew when the gold was going to be transferred. In any event, it was before my time. The move had been planned for years. The new Assay Office was designed specifically for the purpose. Long before my time.'

  'You didn't have anybody advising you on the date, Mr Houston — making suggestions, reviewing the timing?'

  'Advising me on the date? I had nothing to do with it.'

  On checking in, Younger immediately had the hotel operator ring police headquarters. Informed that Captain Littlemore no longer worked there, he obtained a number for the detective in Washington. Some minutes later, he reached Littlemore in his Treasury office.

  'What are you doing in Washington?' Younger asked.

  'Long story,' said Littlemore. 'What were you doing in France?'

  'Long story. Did they get the radium out of the McDonald girl?'

  'Not exactly. I told her doctor what you said; he looked at me like I was nuts. He said she has syphilis, not radium. And I checked with the Post-Graduate Hospital. They've got no record of her.'

  'She doesn't have syphilis. What's the doctor's name?'

  'Lyme,' said Littlemore. 'Dr Frederick Lyme at the Sloane Hospital for Women. Listen, Doc — Drobac's out of prison.'

  The line crackled; Younger said nothing.

  'You still there?' asked Littlemore.

  'I'm here,' said Younger. 'What is this, the Perils of Pauline? How can he be out of prison?'

  'Because you jumped bail, for Pete's sake,' said Littlemore, 'and took the Miss and the boy with you. His lawyer told the court you fled the country. Whereabouts unknown. The Miss was the complainant. How are we supposed to prosecute a kidnapping when the victims have left the jurisdiction? I told them you'd be back, but the judge ruled we had to let him go.'

  'So the murderer's on the street while I'm to stand trial?'

  'It's not a trial. It's a bail revocation hearing. The judge ordered it after he heard you were out of the country. If you don't show, your bail gets revoked, a warrant issues for your arrest, and I have to pay up on your bail bond. You got to be there, Doc.'

  'I'll be there.'

  'Say — I'm catching the afternoon train back to town. Why don't you and the Miss come over for dinner?'

  A bellboy rang, delivering to Younger and Colette a packet of telegrams that had arrived during the last week. 'From Freud,' said Younger. 'I let him know where we'd be staying.'

  'Open them up,' said Colette eagerly.

  The first of the telegrams was sent only a few days after they boarded their ship for New York:

  7 Nov. 1920

  BOY FINE. TWO BRITISH PUPILS HAVE TAKEN LIKING TO HIM.

  VISITED ZOO. STRONGLY SUSPECT INVOLVEMENT OF FATHER IN

  BOY'S SYMPTOMS. PLEASE CONSULT MISS ROUSSEAU AND ASK

  AGAIN WHETHER SHE RECALLS ANY MISTREATMENT OF HER OR BROTHER

  AT FATHERS HANDS.

  FREUD

  'Mistreatment of me?' said Colette. 'That's the second time he's asked. What does he mean?'

  Younger, who knew exactly what Freud meant, didn't answer that question. 'What about Luc? Did your father ever — I don't know — beat him?'

  'Father doted on Luc. He was the kindest man in the world. What does the next one say?'

  Younger opened the second telegram:

  11 NOV. 1920

  IGNORE PREVIOUS WIRE. BOY HAS BEGUN SPEAKING TO ME. FOR NOW HE

  WHISPERS, BUT I EXPECT COMPLETE CURE. WEEKS NOT MONTHS. MORE

  SHORTLY.

  FREUD

  'Mon dieu,' said Colette excitedly 'Open the next one.'

  Younger did so:

  13 NOV. 1920

  BOY HAS RECURRENT DREAM. HE IS BACK IN BEDROOM OF HOUSE WHERE BORN.

  IT IS MIDDLE OF NIGHT. GOES TO A WINDOW. SEES WOLVES LURKING IN TREE

  WATCHING HIM. DREAM IS REVERSAL OF LATENT CONTENT. BOY DREAMS OF

  BEING LOOKED AT BECAUSE HE SAW SOMETHING HE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE.

  UNDOUBTEDLY FATHER INVOLVED, BUT ALMOST CERTAINLY ALSO SISTER. FREUD

  Colette was perplexed. 'Why am I involved?' she asked.

  'There's one more,' said Younger. He read it:

  17 NOV. 1920

  SETBACK. LUC HAS STOPPED SPEAKING. WILL NOT COMMUNICATE

  WITH ANYONE NOT IN WHISPER NOT IN WRITING NOT EVEN BY

  GESTURE. PLEASE URGE MISS ROUSSEAU NOT TO BE ALARMED.

  TEMPORARY REGRESSION NOT UNCOMMON IN ANALYSIS. POSSIBLY

  POSITIVE SIGN.

  FREUD

  'How could it be a positive sign?' asked Colette.

  'If it was brought on by their getting close to the source of the problem.'

  'What does that mean?'

  Younger ran a hand through his hair. 'I don't believe in psychoanalysis. I told you.'

  'But if you did believe, what would it mean?' 'The way Freud would see it is this,' he said. 'Luc has a memory from early childhood — from a time when he saw something forbidden or wished for something so wrong he had to suppress all consciousness of it. This memory doesn't like to stay hidden; it tries to escape the repression, to force its way into consciousness. That's what produces a patient's symptoms.'

  'What don't you believe?' she asked.

  'I don't believe in the wishes that Freud attributes to children. And I don't believe in repressed childhood memories coming to light years later. It's like a — like a too-neatly-tied-up ending in a novel.'

  Colette considered for a moment — and announced that she trusted Dr Freud.

  Newspapermen so crowded the office of Senator Albert Fall that Littlemore was barely able to squeeze in. The reporters' primary question was whether the Senator could confirm that United States troops were deploying to the Mexican border.

  'That's right, gentlemen,' said Fall. 'The Second Division is on its way.'

  'What are their orders, Mr Senator?'

  'Can't say,' answered Fall. 'But let's not get all out of joint. I'm heading to Mexico myself. Going to attend Senor Obregon's inauguration. I'm sure all parties would like to see our disputes resolved peacefully.'

  'What will you tell General Obregon, Mr Senator?'

  'I'll tell him to keep his hands off our oil. And that having America as your friend is a whole lot smarter than having us as your enemy.'

  After the conference, Littlemore voiced surprise at Senator Fall's planned visit to Mexico City. 'Don't you think it might be dangerous, Mr Fall?'

  'I'd imagine so,' replied the Senator. 'For somebody.'

  On the express to New York, Littlemore read a stack of afternoon newspapers, which, since he knew more than the journalists did, filled him with a sense of unreality but also of f
oreboding, as if he had a clairvoyant's foreknowledge of an impending catastrophe that could not be averted. In Washington, the papers reported, Roberto Pesqueira, confidential agent of the Mexican Embassy, had to be forcibly restrained at a meeting of American businessmen after insisting on his country's right to its own natural resources. In Los Angeles, Mexicans were purchasing munitions in dangerously large quantities. In Mexico itself, American citizens had begun fleeing the country.

  Littlemore next removed from his briefcase the architectural plans for the Assay Office in lower Manhattan. The new vaults of the Assay Building were closer to impregnable than any bank he'd ever seen. They were eighty-five feet below ground, reinforced with three separate layers of steel and concrete, accessible only by a single door through a four-foot-wide tunnel, and surrounded by alarm systems, weapons caches, even food and water supplies in case of siege. The plans had been approved in 1917 by then-Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo. A different Treasury Secretary's signature appeared at the bottom of the other document Littlemore had on his lap.

  It was a work order authorizing the transfer of the nation's gold reserves from the Sub-Treasury in New York City to the adjacent Assay Office via overhead bridge commencing the night of September 15, 1920. The detective had found the order crumpled in the back of a filing drawer. It was signed, as Littlemore knew it would be, by Secretary David Houston.

  Younger and Colette went to the Littlemores' that night for dinner. 'What are you doing in Washington, Jimmy?' asked Colette. 'It must be very important.'

  'Not much — just starting a war,' he replied. They expected him to say more, but he didn't.

  After dinner, while the women did the dishes, Younger and Littlemore sat without speaking at the table, the detective scraping his fork back and forth along his dessert plate. 'Littlemore,' said Younger.

  'Huh?'

  'You're out-silencing me.'

  'Wars don't always go the way they're planned, do they?' asked Littlemore.

  'They never go the way they're planned,' said Younger.

  'Remember when you said that the Wall Street bombing was a way to assassinate the people? What do they want, the assassins? How about those Serbs who assassinated that Austrian duke guy in 1914? What did they want?'