by David Boyle
Her attention was wandering as she put all her crossword puzzle energy into figuring out a key to the Wittgenstein dilemma. Of course she understood why Paul was refusing to help. Was there some way she could reassure him that his name need not be involved? Right now, she could think of nothing.
“Listen, are you sure I can’t see Mr Ross for a couple of minutes only? I have a great deal to thank him for – and Joe Liebling specifically sent his regards.”
“Sorry, honey. No can do. In fact, his deputy quite specifically asked me to entertain you.”
Something about this exchange reminded Xanthe of the elder Wittgenstein, now dead, who had shot himself – Kurt. Why had Ludwig suggested she bring him up? And she had actually forgotten those aspects of her instructions.
Once she was outside again in West Forty-Fifth Street, with her written proposals for articles still burning a hole in her folder, she came to a decision. She could probably get away with one more approach to the one-armed concert pianist. This time, she would reveal more of the purpose, and she would bring up brother Kurt, as the philosopher suggested she should. But first, she would delay her flight and get one good night’s sleep. It would be lovely to see one city lit up at night again after nearly two years of black-outs. Then there would be the lights strung along the trees in Central Park. It was going to be dreamlike and heavenly.
*
To her surprise and some relief, Paul Wittgenstein answered his own front door himself. He seemed flustered.
“Miss, um… I fear my decision was…”
“I am so sorry to disturb you,” she said in her best English manner, “I think I forgot my glove.”
How sensible she had been to leave one behind, just in case.
“Did we find Miss Schneider’s glove?” he was shouting down the hallway. “What colour was it? Where were you sitting?”
There it was poking out of the sofa.
“How silly of me,” she said. “You know, the British government was most insistent that I should carry gloves…” She was ad-libbing. The morning sunlight glinted on the chandeliers. Then when he seemed to be relaxing, she made her confession.
“Perhaps, now you are here, you might like some coffee?” He glanced nervously in the direction of the kitchen. Xanthe guessed he had never made coffee himself.
“I have to admit, I did have another reason for coming round as well. I wanted to pass on what your brother told me before I left him in London. He said I should remind you about Kurt.”
Paul Wittgenstein looked confused for a second. Then he sat down and motioned her to do the same. They were not slow on the uptake in this family – whatever the uptake was in this case.
“I see what you mean,” he said.
Paul stared ahead of him, clearly moved.
“You see, Miss Schneider, my elder brother is dead…”
He began a long story about Kurt’s final weeks in the last throes of the Great War. Ignored by his men, who were deserting the cause in their thousands and going home, he had shot himself. “I have to do something,” he had told one of their sisters. “We have lost the war. Austria is no more. I have to redress the balance.”
“I understand,” she said. Then daring to push a little further: “I believe what your brother Ludwig meant was that perhaps your family might feel they owed something to the effort of getting rid of the Nazis – currently being shouldered by young men like Kurt now – to balance all that money you paid to them. I don’t say I think that, of course.”
He carried on staring ahead.
“Something to sort of redress the balance.”
The silence continued. Then, still staring like an automaton, he spoke.
“Miss Schneider, as you have guessed so correctly, I do feel – and clearly my brother Ludwig feels the same – that we owe something to humanity in this matter. I will, therefore, help you if I can. But you will have to explain to me why this is so important.”
“I am very grateful, Dr Wittgenstein. I will tell you, but you must agree to keep what I say strictly within these walls.”
“I will. I promise.”
*
Outside, the snow was swirling around in a desultory way, as if deciding whether it dared settle in November. She was making her way across from Port Washington, a few miles from New York harbour, towards the Pan Am Clipper which floated a few hundred yards away from the launch. Those travelling with her were wrapped up warm, but their faces were peculiarly closed in other respects too. It occurred to Xanthe that anyone who needed to fly to Europe at this period of history would hardly be holidaymakers. They must have their own reasons for taking an uncertain flight to Portugal, and they would be serious.
Nor was she keen to go. She had wanted to fly back on the RAF flight home, to see Indigo. But there had been a change of plan.
She had explained to Dr Wittgenstein absolutely nothing about Enigma, nothing about Bletchley Park, though she had hinted at work involving cryptography that was going on somewhere vaguely inside the British armed forces. She explained something of the threat of the Lorenz code – without being able to convey why it was so urgent. In practice, it seemed, she didn’t have to.
“You say that this company, which I own part of, is actually supplying the Nazis with war weapons? From a neutral country like Switzerland?”
“I’m afraid that’s the case, sir. The Swiss supply the German side in order to complicate the argument about whether the Nazis should invade Switzerland.”
“Really? What you say is quite unexpected. Quite surprising. Perhaps I was naïve. I believed there were international laws to protect against such abuses.”
Xanthe felt the moment had come to sound judicious.
“I suppose also that an attachment for a teleprinter might be construed as not for military use.”
“That would be a lie, would it not?”
“It would, sir. But may we discuss now, what we can actually do?”
IV
New York Harbour, November 1941
Xanthe settled back into her chair and looked out across the huge one hundred and fifty-foot wings of the clipper that was about to catapult her into the skies. She checked again the letter she carried, this time from Paul Wittgenstein to his financial manager in Geneva, M. Gruber.
How had she been so diverted, she wondered, thinking again of Indy asleep in his cot at this time? Here she was, listening to the propellers firing into life, and watching out of the small window as the four engines began to move them across the waters of New York harbour, before heaving them into the sky and setting course for Lisbon via Bermuda.
She looked at the other passengers curiously and wondered what was taking them across the Atlantic to a war-torn continent – why would anyone willingly take this seventeen-hour trip? Not that this was in any way the kind of discomfort of a mattress on the RAF bomber. She sipped her champagne with a little guilty frisson. It was, by some way, the biggest plane she had ever flown in, more like a house on legs than an aeroplane, with its huge silver fuselage and four mighty engines.
Of course, it had been inevitable, looking back, that she would be charged with talking directly to the Wittgensteins’ business manager. Paul could hardly get away now that the winter concert season was under way, and Ludwig, well, he could hardly go. There would be a short period of some risk as they crossed Vichy France in the train, but they were non-combatants and so, theoretically, was she, with her passport and her letters of accreditation from the editor of the New Yorker himself. In fact, it was almost as if the mysterious man with the homburg, who had greeted her at Grand Central Station, had been sent especially for the purpose by London. Thanks to him and his mysterious ‘chief”, the letter had arrived before she left, together with a handwritten note wishing her luck on her trip.
“I’m not aware that there are any American stringers in Berne or Geneva or in other parts of Switzerland,” he said. “But may I suggest you keep an eye out for a guy named Best. I think he’s gone over t
o the other side.”
There did seem to be this quiet acceptance by most American people that they had now chosen a side, Xanthe thought to herself. This was not what she had expected, though there was considerable naivety from most of those she had talked to about the war and what it was like.
The plane was now in the air and circling the Statue of Liberty before heading south. Below her, she could see the lights of Manhattan, blinking innocently in the early evening as she set course for Europe again.
*
If Switzerland was now the civilised corner of continental Europe, a small mountainous haven of sanity and warmth, then Geneva felt slap bang in the middle of it. After the long train journey through neutral Spain, battered and impoverished by civil war, and the stop-start journey through non-combatant Vichy France – which seemed brutalised and curmudgeoned by defeat – Xanthe’s train drew into the lighted station in Geneva with an exhalation of steam and relief.
There had been no trouble at either border, though she had been nervous as they had approached the French passport control and customs posts in the Pyrenees. She’d used her American passport – it was a relief to be travelling under her real name again. Her other one – in the name of Shirley Johnson – was also in her case, secreted away under the lining of her spare coat, on Fleming’s advice.
To be in the Hotel Génève in Geneva, on her New Yorker expense account, with its roaring Advent fire and the distant sound of Christmas on the way, felt almost as good as being home again in the Midwest.
Paul Wittgenstein had cabled M. Gruber, his financial manager, before she had left so he’d be expecting her. With a bit of luck, the whole trip would only take a couple of days and then she could write her article and go home. She had only really signed on for the first trip to Cambridge to see the professor. The other assignments had all been added incrementally, but she was at least now glad to be able to see the whole job through. The Wittgensteins were onside, though they did not know the full significance of what they had agreed to do. Paul’s decision was that he would simply order the company he owned to stop trading with one of the combatant powers.
There was something a little naïve about this approach which worried Xanthe. She had imagined and would have preferred something more subtle. But if it worked, it would at least have the desired effect.
The only stipulation he had set was that Xanthe should not expose his sisters in Austria to any kind of Nazi response. She knew how difficult this would be, so this was a subtle commission that must not be carried out in public. It would have to be organised secretly. All now depended on Gruber.
In the event, of course, she could take none of this for granted.
*
She arrived at Herr Gruber’s office at nine o’clock the next morning and was shown up to a small, dark office, filled with heavy black mahogany furniture. A small bald man got up and greeted her with outstretched hands.
“My dear Miss Schneider. I am delighted to meet you. May I introduce you to Herr Krieg, who as you may know, is Dr Wittgenstein’s banker.”
For the first time, Xanthe saw they were not alone. This was awkward. She had no information on Krieg. She could really say nothing in his presence, but it would be difficult to say so.
She played for time.
“Herr Krieg, it is very good to meet you and how unexpected. I was not warned that you would be here too.”
Krieg got to his feet and bowed. He did not smile. There was nothing for it. She would have to return later and see Gruber on his own.
Then Krieg spoke. He had a deep, gravelly voice which he used to good effect, putting the palms of his hands together like a pompous family solicitor telling you a difficult truth.
“Miss Schneider, I have been in telegraphic correspondence with Dr Wittgenstein in recent days, and he has impressed on me that he wants to make sure that none of his companies are trading with the combatant powers.”
It was getting colder as the evening drew in, and Xanthe found herself edging closer to the fire. Or was the cold emanating directly from Krieg?
“I believe so,” she said, happy to confirm what Paul had said, given his own warning not to compromise his sisters.
“I must tell you that it would be improper, not to say perverse of us, to remove our contracts from one side and not from the other. That would be to betray the treaty and – well, you can imagine what those consequences might be. We are surrounded by the Axis powers, and we rely on them completely to provide us with the food and energy and other resources we need to live. We have to make some sacrifices, whether these are moral ones or friendships with former trading partners. We cannot, as I have told your – um, client – have the luxury of completely clean consciences on this matter. It would indeed be most dangerous if we did so.”
The speech had now become headmasterly, and Xanthe saw that M. Gruber was looking increasingly uncomfortable, but for some reason chose not to say so. Perhaps he was nervous of Krieg. Still, it was all helpful for the New Yorker article she would write, even if it was extremely unhelpful for the central purpose of her visit.
On an impulse, she decided to leave – not to storm out but to leave the impression of moral disappointment and to see what would happen. Standing on her dignity, she rose and walked out of the room.
“Miss Schneider…!” said Gruber hopelessly as she left.
*
The hotel was filled with displaced Europeans. Xanthe settled at the bar feeling drained and downcast. Had Paul been a complete fool? Now, if anything was done about the Lorenz chronometer, then the danger was that the Swiss authorities would know, and the Nazis would know pretty soon after that. Or was Krieg, in fact, being quite clever by framing the suggestion that his only concern was one of even-handedness, which gave her a possible new approach to take. It was going to be difficult, either way. Somehow, she would have to find a way to see Gruber without his banking minder and ask his advice. She felt extremely unbriefed, not to say ignorant, about the Swiss political situation. She had never actually thought much about them before. Of course they must fear invasion too. Of course these must be live issues in Switzerland. She should have realised.
What was more, Herr Krieg had done her a favour by warning her before she had put her foot too far in it by displaying some crass insensitivity.
“I don’t know what it is, but you look like a fellow American,” said a voice next to her. He smiled broadly. A tall, cadaverous, balding man in a frayed suit, shiny with overuse, shook her hand vigorously.
“I’d buy you a drink, but I am temporarily embarrassed in funds, if you see what I mean.”
“Don’t worry. I have something already. May I ask, are you a journalist? Or a businessman?”
“Journalist – at least until United Press fired me, but I do stuff all over, New York Times, Herald Tribune, you name it. I’m here to look for work actually.”
It was with a huge sense of relief that Xanthe took his hand. At last, another sane voice, and she could ask him some of the background of the place. He stood up.
“Well, let me buy you a drink. I am temporarily in funds at the moment because I have only just arrived. Xanthe Schneider of the New Yorker.”
“New Yorker? Top stuff! Know Joe Liebling?”
Xanthe nodded.
“Never met him. But I’d like to. Boy, that guy can write…”
With a whisky in his hand and a gin in hers, they settled down away from the bar. Xanthe pumped him about Switzerland.
She learned about the great dilemma that faced the Swiss, surrounded on all sides by the “new world order”, as he put it. What could the Swiss do? And, in practice, they had to do what they were told, at the same time as they prepared for war. Xanthe heard about the great tussle between the general in command of Swiss forces, Henri Guisan, and his heroic order to eventually call up the whole male population and to militarise the Alps – and the foreign minister, Marcel Pilet-Golaz, who was determined to maintain the balance to avoid invasion.
“It is delicate, delicate,” said her new friend. “They have so far managed to hold off an attack from the German side, presumably because they’ve calculated that they would lose hundreds of thousands of men and might then lose access to some of the components that only the Swiss can supply. They are no longer supplying the British.”
Xanthe steeled herself for the main question.
“You don’t think that’s unfair? If the Swiss are neutral, why are they supplying one side only with military material? That isn’t exactly neutrality.”
“Well, I can’t say it really matters what I think. But it is realistic, isn’t it? Frankly, Xanthe, it can only be a matter of months before the British give up and the Swiss will need to come to some more permanent relationship with the Nazis.”
She was suddenly aware that she was again out of her depth. This was a completely different attitude to what she had expected.
“You don’t think that’s a little defeatist?”
“Depends whose side you’re on, doesn’t it,” said the man. “I like to think of myself as a realist, and – now I am facing a little difficulty finding work in my usual stamping ground in Vienna – I am feeling particularly realistic.”
You need to be a little careful of this man, said Xanthe to herself.
“But, hey! Ask away – any questions you have and I’ll help if I can.”
“That’s kind of you. I’m here to write about the Swiss at war, so you’ve already been quite helpful. Is there anyone particular I need to talk to, do you think?”
Hold on – she suddenly remembered she didn’t know what he was called.
“I don’t think I asked your name. Kinda rude of me – sorry.”
“Bob – Bob Best,” he said.
“Wow, I’ve heard of you,” she said and then wished she had not spoken. But he looked pleased. This was the man her editor had warned her about.
“My fame’s gone before me. Pity it doesn’t result in very much work,” said Bob. “To be honest, since we’re staying neutral back home, I have a feeling I can learn something from the Swiss way. Since the war in Europe isn’t going to last much longer, at least in the west, I thought I would offer my services to German radio.”