by Chris Petit
Schlegel deliberately explained himself badly, in the hope that he would be taken for a bumbling idiot; he stopped well short of any mention of Dr Goebbels defacing the casting directory.
Goebbels screwed the top back on his fountain pen, sat back and sighed. ‘What do you know about the Führer?’
‘What you tell us, Minister,’ said Schlegel in a desperate attempt to show some spine.
Goebbels threw back his head and gave an unfunny laugh, showing gold teeth.
‘And these stories about doubles used for the Führer? What the British call stooges.’
‘For strategic reasons, I presume.’
‘More complicated than that, theological even. What do you remember of your divinity and the Holy Trinity?’
Schlegel said it was the union of three persons in one godhead.
‘Exactly. Similarly, the Führer is a man, a leader and a figurehead. The Führer is unique, so the man cannot be replaced. His leadership cannot be duplicated, but he can under special circumstances be represented as a figurehead.’
A tutorial from Dr Goebbels.
‘What you have to understand, Schlegel, is that the Führer’s image was always the point. From the very start, he presented himself as an enigma, to build curiosity about the movement. No photographs! The charismatic leader who refuses to stoop to cheap reproduction. The only way people can find out what he looks like is by attending the meetings.’
The transformation in Goebbels was extraordinary. Talking of the Führer, he became transfixed by religious adoration. He spoke on, apparently oblivious of Schlegel.
‘No photos! Cameras smashed! The buzz grows tremendous. What does the man look like? As early as 1922, an American photographic agency puts a price on the Führer’s head. One hundred dollars for a picture when the going rate is five! And no one collects the bounty, thanks to the vigilance of the Führer’s praetorian guard.’ Goebbels growled, ‘They kick the shit out of anyone who tries.’
The inference was obvious. They still do.
Goebbels stood and paced in an arc behind Schlegel, who was thrown for being unable to see him.
The lecture resumed. ‘The first time a double was used other than as a decoy, was in 1924 when the Führer was a political prisoner.’
Goebbels circled in front of Schlegel, gesturing to say that the thought of an incarcerated Führer was impossible to imagine.
‘Anyway, what we might call the more artistic among his followers decide to stage a Christmas tableau vivant in the Café Blüte in honour of him.’
Goebbels moved behind Schlegel as he continued. ‘Picture a prison cell on a half-lit stage, showing a man sitting with his back to the audience, face buried in his hands, while an invisible male choir sings “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht”.’ Through a barred window, snowflakes are seen falling. As the music ends a tiny angel enters and places an illuminated Christmas tree on the table beside the lonely man.’
Goebbels found it impossible not to laugh. ‘In film production the biggest battles are always hair and makeup. In this job the greatest struggle is against kitsch, and in those early days there was an awful lot of it. But when the prisoner turns to the audience many think it is indeed the Führer – miraculously transported from his cell – and a half-sob goes up. You may think the whole thing sounds like tosh but the effect is what counts.’
Schlegel noticed how Goebbels seemed able to switch effortlessly between the ecstatic and sarcastic.
‘Achenbach, the stooge cast by Hoffmann: uncanny resemblance, everyone said.’ Goebbels gave a bark. ‘The man has been duly rewarded, with the Bureau of Investigation for Aryan Racial Purity to run.’
Goebbels looked at his watch, an expensive Heuer. It was typical of the man to share his appreciation. ‘Nice, isn’t it? Three more minutes in which we decide what to do with you.’
Goebbels had the same shiny currant-bun eyes as children’s teddy bears, which Schlegel had once found so sinister. See nothing and record everything.
Goebbels snapped his fingers. ‘You were here that afternoon the Army made its pathetic attempt to take over. Imagine how I felt booking a call to the Führer and thinking, oh the irony because only that morning, as you say, I was at Babelsberg, seeking actors who can pass for him.’
Schlegel thought the appearance of Goebbels sharing the confidence was probably a way of lulling him into a sense of false security.
‘With the Führer otherwise so engaged’ – Goebbels broke off with his winning smile – ‘a think tank concluded it would enormously help public relations to have a substitute, to boost morale, visiting war-damaged areas, like the British Royal Family and the warmonger Churchill. Given what happened next, perhaps better if no record of that morning’s session is available. Imagine. Casting for a stand-in on the very day someone decides to try and kill the Führer. Then you go and find me out!’
It was all so light and teasing and skittish, with every hurdle effortlessly jumped.
Schlegel asked about Busl, since he was dead. Goebbels stopped, apparently stricken, and reached for Schlegel’s arm with a clawlike hand. Schlegel resisted flinching.
‘My God! What a tragedy! We discussed his illness. Busl didn’t have long. He asked me my thoughts on suicide. I said as long as there is hope he should banish them. He said there was none. Well, there’s nothing you can say to that. The man went back years – he discovered Peter Lorre and worked with Lang. A pity so much talent had to leave to churn out third-rate rubbish in Hollywood. The maker of the fabulous Metropolis reduced what they call oaters. Cowboy stuff, bang-bang shoot-’em-ups, compared to the visions we would have entrusted him with. I begged him to stay! But poor Busl. There was hope, though too late. The hospital had muddled his diagnosis with another. Such a sad story.’
Told with such brio, it seemed churlish not to believe him, however obvious it was that Goebbels was making it up on the spot. It was like watching a supreme piece of improvisation by a musician.
Schlegel pictured Goebbels’s memorandum to himself the moment Schlegel had left the room, writing him off: Be rid of him.
Green ink.
Schlegel’s impression as he walked out and marched jerkily down the long corridors was of everything starting to move at double speed. People seemed to come at him very fast, slowed for a second, and were gone, swallowed up in the wake of the corridor, as if chucked overboard.
Outside he panicked. He had questioned Goebbels’ authority, and also offended his vanity by daring to question him. The reflex action of such men was disposal. The price of the shared secret would be his removal, one way or another. Schlegel had never been so aware of his insignificance and expendability. A relief almost.
The streets seemed to be full of men following him. He walked on aimlessly, half expecting to be picked up and bundled into a car, no doubt by the same two thugs as before. All the while he was thinking how they had worked out that you could remove people from the system and those still in it would be too scared or grateful or obedient to object to all the bodies in cellars, high falls, deported cleaners and the countless others he didn’t know about. Schlegel knew the world wouldn’t stop for a second when his turn came. It was only a matter of time now. Presumably death had a backlog too, with so many still to dispose of before it got around to him.
It wasn’t even an imposed, totalitarian vision, these state-sanctioned deaths; more like housekeeping and the will to tidy, with a lot of ‘follow my leader’ and attention paid to what they were sold. No more crooked lines – a bright new future, pale wood, clean technology, private washing machines, family automobiles, the radio network. All that was understandable: away with the dark past, no shadows, don’t look back, self-reliance, helping each other out, a daily brightness, a healthy future. Then the small print about what doesn’t belong. ‘Oh, excuse me, you’re in the way, stand over there . . .’ ‘Oh, you don’t want to? Why not?’ Thump.
Everyone else is looking the other way.
Schlegel went home a
nd waited for Gerda and was about to give up and go to bed when he heard her light footstep on the stairs and her voice counting them off.
She asked what he thought about children. He said he didn’t on the whole, sensing what was coming, thinking it far too soon to be having such a conversation.
Gerda announced that she wanted their child. Schlegel was unable to tell if she was being flirtatious or in earnest, until she said, ‘Perhaps I am having it already.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Only teasing.’
Schlegel wasn’t so sure. They had been careless about contraception.
‘Not straight away,’ she went on. ‘But let’s soon.’
He still couldn’t tell if she meant it. She seemed in a strange unreadable mood. He wanted only to talk about something else.
‘It’s not the right time of month yet,’ she said, adding suggestively, ‘But practice makes perfect.’
He wondered if she suspected she was already pregnant and telling him she wanted a child was so it would not look like an accident.
As she surrendered herself, Schlegel decided her wish was a fantasy to distract from the impending return of the maimed boyfriend, and as he thrust at her he wondered at this strange female world, even more impenetrable than all the others he was dealing with.
20
The following morning, Schlegel found himself deep in the heart of the Chancellery as if in the middle of a dream of malign intent, summoned there with no idea of what to expect.
Dunkelwert had confronted him in the office, telling him, ‘You are instructed to present yourself to Party Secretary Bormann at the Chancellery at eleven o’clock.’
Schlegel knew nothing of Bormann, except that he was known as the Brown Eminence. He looked at Dunkelwert for an explanation.
She repeated, ‘Eleven o’clock. Report back here afterwards. We have questions for you. And get a haircut. You can’t turn up looking like that.’
Schlegel was so fidgety during the barber’s shave that he got cut and had to be left in the chair, waiting for the bleeding to stop while avoiding himself in the mirror. He was still unsettled by Gerda’s announcement the night before. The matter had not been referred to again and when Gerda left she was back to her brisk, usual self. Schlegel wondered if she was more unstable or emotionally excitable than she let on.
The barber, annoyed at having his hand disturbed, proceeded to give Schlegel a brutal haircut when he had asked for a trim, leaving his ears sticking out.
He went home and ironed his least unpresentable suit using a damp cloth. He pressed the cuffs, collar and front of a once-white shirt, trying hard not to think.
Shoes were more of a problem as Schlegel had run out of polish and there was a shortage. He stopped off at the Adlon which still had a shoe-shine man. He had lost the best part of a leg and knelt on the stump. Schlegel watched as cardboard was stuck down the side of his shoes to protect the socks and the tired leather was coaxed into something resembling respectability. He was surprised in the end at how presentable he looked. His haircut gave him an altogether graver appearance, like a professional mourner or undertaker . . . about to attend his own funeral.
The scale of the government buildings performed their usual task of reminding all approaching outsiders of their puny existence. More marbled corridors of power. More unholy acolytes. Nothing frivolous. The Chancellery trumped even Dr Goebbels’ preposterous ministry in proclaiming itself the temple of orthodoxy.
Schlegel’s name was ticked off as he passed through several security locks that took him into the nerve centre of the building until he reached the Party Secretary’s office, where he was told by a frighteningly efficient secretary to wait in an outer sanctum the size of a tennis court and full of horrible practical furniture.
Schlegel sweated into his suit as he sat there in the forlorn hope that someone would come out and send him back after telling him it was a mistake.
The short man with a belly and a receding hairline who hurried in, cupping a cigarette on which he took a last drag before putting it out, Schlegel recognised immediately as the official standing attentively with agitated hands in the bomb-plot newsreel, and, before that, next to his stepfather in the photograph.
He introduced himself as Party Secretary Bormann. He seemed in a jolly mood, capable and friendly.
Schlegel gave his name in return. The other man took a step back, in surprise, and said, ‘You are different from what I was expecting.’
Expecting?
Bormann led the way to a tall window looking out onto the extensive Chancellery gardens. He lit another cigarette and motioned for Schlegel to join him. Schlegel doubted if he had been brought there to admire the view.
Bormann asked, ‘Why were you in Budapest last week?’
It was the last question Schlegel was expecting.
He could hear how doubtful he sounded as he said he had been delivering papers for signature and return.
Bormann looked crafty and amused. ‘And the Japanese gentleman who broke into your room?’
Schlegel’s knees sagged. How on earth did the man know about that? He considered and decided it wasn’t so surprising. The Budapest Astoria was a hotbed of international intrigue and no doubt Bormann was kept fully informed and probably knew more about why Schlegel had been there than he did.
‘He must have mistaken me for someone else. I had nothing worth stealing.’
Again, Bormann appeared amused as he said, ‘I will leave that to Dunkelwert.’
Christ! thought Schlegel. Was Dunkelwert working directly for Bormann as one of his apparatchiks? That put a completely different complexion on everything.
‘Fine view,’ said Bormann conversationally.
A couple of gardeners busied themselves with weeding. Fuel restrictions seemed not to have reached the Chancellery because Schlegel could hear a two-stroke mower.
He decided to offer a small gambit of his own, having nothing to lose. ‘I have a photograph of you with my stepfather.’
Bormann knew immediately what he was talking about. ‘Taken ages ago. Seven, maybe eight years.’
‘There’s a third man in the photograph.’
‘An American,’ said Bormann. ‘They were around then. Think carefully what you say to Dunkelwert about Budapest, given that two men wanted for conspiracy sent you. Of course, if you hear from your stepfather I would be obliged if you inform me directly.’
Schlegel had the sensation of being about to put his foot in a mantrap and watch it snap shut.
Bormann took Schlegel by the crook of the elbow and said, ‘As for your mother and that unfortunate business of harbouring a Jew, there are facilities elsewhere, better than her present ones, where confinement more resembles a sanitarium with medical attention and the guests are of a better class. I can arrange for her to be sent there.’
Depending on what? Was Schlegel being bought off in some obscure way?
There was no time to find out. The gardeners outside were making themselves scarce and the lawnmower stopped. Schlegel stood watching the empty view, then a man and a German Shepherd came into view. The man threw a stick for the dog to fetch. The dog broke off from its chasing to deposit a huge turd on the lawn.
Schlegel stared at the trademark forelock and moustache. It was obvious who it was. It was equally obvious Schlegel had been brought there to see it was.
His first impression was how stooped and aged the man was compared to the propaganda images. He even wondered for a moment if it really was the Führer, then realised it had to be because they wouldn’t show him such a decrepitlooking double.
The Führer was capless. Schlegel had heard the man’s eyes were light-sensitive but suspected it was probably just a story to enhance the impression of their glorious leader seeing the world more acutely than the rest of them; a benign version of the Nosferatu legend.
The doughy features reminded Schlegel of childhood gingerbread men before they got fired in the oven. Not the most appro
priate image, and Schlegel thought he might yet break into peals of deadly, hysterical laughter, and Bormann would produce a pistol and put him down like a mad dog.
‘Well?’ asked Bormann. ‘Do you know why you are here?’
‘You want me to confirm I have seen the Führer.’
‘According to Müller, your mind has been in some doubt; turmoil, even.’
Schlegel understood. Bormann was showing him the Führer to put an end to any speculation. His role was a variation of a line-up witness identifying a party.
‘And your best theory?’ Bormann asked mildly.
Schlegel suspected Bormann was insatiable in his quest for knowledge in pursuit of power, which was why he wanted to hear Schlegel’s version. There seemed no point in not saying as he was probably as good as done for anyway.
‘I mistakenly came to believe the Führer was in a clinic at the time of the failed assassination.’
Schlegel decided his only plea was temporary insanity.
‘Which clinic is that?’
‘One in Westend. It burned down.’
The Führer and his dog were back to their stick games. After each retrieval the dog sat waiting to be rewarded with a treat and a pat on the head.
The Führer had a rather girly throw, Schlegel noticed as he said, ‘I saw a man falling from the roof of the clinic.’
‘Excuse me?’ asked Bormann, sounding properly surprised.
‘I foolishly thought the man falling from the roof was the Führer.’ He still did in a way, for all the evidence in front of his eyes.
‘Why on earth?’ asked Bormann.
‘I came to believe he had been abandoned. It was a time of great confusion.’
‘Yet the Führer walks before us.’
‘I see that now. I was wrong to have doubted.’
Schlegel suspected he was fighting for his life, and that Bormann knew what Schlegel was talking about and wasn’t telling.
‘You were deluded,’ said Bormann as he thought: Closer than you know, my friend.
‘The clinic had been evacuated. I thought at first it must be someone who had got drunk and passed out and woken up too late, then I didn’t know what to think because the falling figure appeared to be wearing a straightjacket.’