Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  The principal reason for which Lanny had come here was to find out about a certain Professor Schilling, who was an authority on nuclear physics and at the same time a hater of the Nazis and a secret informant against them. He was the goal for which the P.A. had tried to reach Germany a year and a half ago. Where was Schilling now, and what was he doing? No one had mentioned him; for all Lanny knew he might have been uncovered and “liquidated” as a traitor. To name him might bring suspicion on a visiting American. Obviously the proper course was to wait.

  Lanny devoted himself to being agreeable, and occasionally he dropped some fresh item of information, something that he knew was not vital, and that the Germans were sure to know already. This was all the easier, because Professor Plötzen himself liked to talk, and his conversation had a tendency to wander from the technical details of atomic fission to its possible effects upon the future. Power would be practically free; and what would that do to the coal and oil industries? Lanny said that his father had talked about that, and believed it would make a new civilization. Plötzen said: “What a shame that mankind cannot exploit such a discovery for the creation of wealth instead of for its destruction!” Lanny replied: “I see that you are a man after my own heart.”

  So when they parted they were friends. “I am afraid I haven’t been able to tell you very much,” the visitor apologized. The other replied that the subject of nuclear physics was a frightfully complicated one; a man had to study for years even to understand its language, and Herr Budd must be considered to have done very well to remember what he had and to repeat it so accurately.

  Lanny shook hands with the gentleman on the couch and wished him a speedy recovery. He went downstairs, and there was the polite butler, ready to help him on with his overcoat and to hand him his hat. Lanny did not speak a word, for there were portieres in the doorways and someone might easily have been listening. But there was no reason why a gentleman before departing should not put his hands into the different pockets of his overcoat. In the pocket on the right side, there were the fur-lined gloves, and he took them out. In the pocket on the left side was a handkerchief. The outside breast pocket was empty, and that was as it had been. Lanny was beginning to feel worried; but he reached into the inner breast pocket, and touched a piece of paper which he knew had not been there before. So everything was all right.

  He took his hat and put it on his head; he put on his fur-lined gloves, one after the other, in the manner of a person who has enjoyed leisure all his life. The polite butler said: “Pardon me, mein Herr, if I turn off the lights.” Lanny replied: “Certainly.”

  The lights went off, as the law required, and the door was opened, letting in a blast of wintry air. As the visitor started out, the butler said, in a voice for all to hear: “Be careful of the steps, Herr Budd; they may be slippery.”

  “Danke schön,” replied the guest. “Gute Nacht.”

  Lanny groped his way through the blackout to the Unterbahn; and there, in the bowels of Berlin, for the first time was a light. He took the paper from his overcoat pocket and read: “NW Ecke Strom- und Huttenturm-Strasse, Moabit, 9 Uhr morgens.” Monck had arranged for a meeting at once, on the chance that Lanny might be leaving the city. He had made a morning appointment, when it was unlikely that Lanny would have anything scheduled. The P.A. learned the directions, and when he had left the train and was walking to the Donnerstein palace, he tore the scrap of paper into tiny bits and dropped a few here and a few there. The winds which blew from the Brandenburg plains would scatter them still more widely before daylight.

  VII

  In these tragic days even the smart people of Berlin went to bed early, because fuel was, so scarce and getting about so difficult. When the traveler reached his night abode and was ascending the stairs to his second-story room, he was surprised to have Hilde open one of the other doors and invite him in. It was a small sitting-room, where these bereaved ladies had installed a tiny gas heater without any vent, an extremely unhygienic device. That was a part of what the Fürstin had meant when she said they were living “as if in a tenement.” Now she invited Lanny to have some coffee—she always said “so-called coffee,” in bitter determination to be honest. She had bought some Kuchen as a further lure, and Lanny knew that she wanted to chat. The other ladies had gone to bed in another room, and this one had been tidied up, sewing baskets put aside, and everything swept and dusted for a visitor out of a so-much-better world.

  Lanny sat and sipped a drink that had the virtue of being hot, even though it had little flavor. He knew what Hilde wanted, to talk about old times and old friends. Dante has said that there is no greater grief than to remember happy times in the midst of misery; it may have been true of an Italian poet, but it wasn’t true of a Prussian princess, for to remember happy times was the only happiness she had left. She wanted to hear about the sumptuous hotel in which Beauty Budd was staving in sun-drenched Marrakech. How fortunate she had been, to anticipate where the American Army was to be, and yet far enough away to miss the bombs! After three and a half years of war, Hilde Donnerstein’s desires had become very restricted; she asked only to be where there were no bombs.

  Lanny suggested: “Why don’t you go to your place on the Obersalzberg?” She answered that they were planning to go there as soon as the snow was out of the mountains. Her place there was a summer “camp,” but it was substantially built, and by doubling the windows they could make one or two rooms warm enough in winter. She had received notice that the Berlin palace was required for a hospital; she would be paid a rental for it, and on that they could live comfortably in the Bavarian Alps. She wanted Lanny to tell her whether the war might come there, but he wouldn’t have been free to tell even if he had known. “Anyhow,” he said, “our Army won’t bomb summer residences.”

  He told her about Irma and life at Wickthorpe Castle; the bombs had not come there, at least not up to the time of his last visit. Through this winter the Germans had been making only sporadic fire raids on London and other cities, but Hilde didn’t know that—she read the Völkischer. Lanny didn’t contradict any of her ideas, for he thought that one secret was enough for her to keep. He told her what he had told Hitler, that there was a strong peace movement in Britain, and that “Ceddy” was active in it; he had resigned from the Foreign Office so as to be free from Churchill’s control. Hilde said in a tone of bewilderment: “Imagine that there is a place where a man can oppose his government in wartime!”

  She wanted to know more about that “Ada” whom Lanny had married. Where had she come from and what was her family, rich, poor, or medium? What did she look like, tall or thin, blond or brunette? How old was she, and what had she been doing when he met her? Hilde was one of these modern ladies who have a smattering of feminist ideas, and have applied them to their personal selves, or, at the utmost, to their own set, their own circle of friends. Freedom for women? Yes, of course! Freedom to do what you please, to say what you think, to ask what you want to know! She had known Lanny for close to two decades, and especially well because she had picked his heiress wife for her “pal.” She knew about him, not merely what a man will tell a woman friend in these modern days, but what a man’s wife will tell about him.

  Now Lanny was in a pickle and had to think fast and talk slowly. He had to grab in his mind for an imaginary woman, and he chose Lizbeth Holdenhurst, who had gone down on board the yacht Oriole, escaping from Singapore, and who therefore could never appear to confront either Lanny or Hilde. He grabbed in his mind for a family name, and the one that came was “Harkness.” He placed this Ada Harkness in Pittsburgh, a city that he knew fairly well because of his friends the Murchisons. He gave her a “steel” family, because he knew there were a lot of them in Pittsburgh and he could only hope there was no Harkness among them. He described Lizbeth in this environment; and when he was through, the shrewd woman of the world remarked: “Lanny, I don’t believe you love her very much.”

  “Why not?” he asked, taken aback.

>   “You don’t want to talk about her. When a man is very much in love, he doesn’t want to talk about anything else.”

  “I assure you, I love her, Hilde; and we have a little son, a treasure in our lives. As you know, these are not happy times, and a man’s thoughts are preoccupied with what may happen to the world his child is to grow up in.”

  “Tell me,” persisted the other. “Did your mother know Ada?”

  “Yes, quite well.”

  “And did she make the match?”

  “No, but she approved it.”

  “Did you marry for money a second time, Lanny? You will never be happy that way!”

  “Take my word for it, Hilde; that isn’t the case with this marriage. I have all the money I need, and Ada is well satisfied with an apartment in New York.”

  “And a husband who goes away most of the time? Don’t tell me any such tale!”

  VIII

  The P.A. went up to his icy chamber. He put his clothes on top of the bed, as before, and climbed in. He had just about got warm when he heard the knob of his door turned; the darkness was complete and he could not see, but he heard faint sounds of an approach, and then a voice whispered: “Lanny, may I come in?” The voice was close, so evidently it was the bed and not the room that was referred to.

  “Um Gottes Willen, nein!” he exclaimed. “I am a married man.”

  “Lanny, I am so lonely and so miserable!”

  “I am sorry for you, Hilde; but I have pledged my faith and I mean to keep it.”

  “No one will ever know, Lanny.”

  “I will know, and my honor is involved.”

  “You know I have always loved you; and now I am the most desolate of women.”

  Poor soul! He had always been sorry for her; and a poet had told him that pity moves the mind to love. She had made what New Yorkers called a “pass” at him some years ago; she had indicated a willingness to become his amie. He hadn’t known quite how to get out of it, and had intimated tactfully that there was something wrong with him. Now, since he was married and had a newborn son, he could hardly expect that excuse to stick. Hilde was a widow, and empty-hearted; it was the state of so many women of Germany, and indeed of all Europe; their husbands, their lovers, their sons—all their men were gone, and millions would never come back.

  “Lanny,” she pleaded, “I am freezing, standing here.”

  He might have said: “Go to your own room.” But she was his hostess as well as his friend, and he was sorry for her. When she pleaded: “Let me get into the bed,” he answered: “You may have half of it, for friendship’s sake, but nothing else.” He moved over and gave her a generous half.

  There they lay and talked; a strange procedure, but one that has happened to more men than have told about it. Lanny didn’t rebuke her or lecture her; he had no such feelings, for he had been sorry for women all his life, considering that they got the worst of things. The war had broken down most of the barriers in civilized life, and the scarcity of men would prevent their restoration. Lanny told her that, but said that in his case a promise had been made and he had to keep it. “Do you think your wife will keep it?” she asked. He replied: “I am absolutely certain that she will.”

  He talked further about the imaginary Ada, and this time he took the trouble to put in some of the real feelings he had for his real wife. He lay there, a safe distance away, and presently he realized that the woman was sobbing gently to herself. He knew enough about love not to let that move him to any response; he did not even touch her hand, and there remained a foot of space between them. When she said: “How few German men have such ideas!” he agreed with her, and added: “Especially among the Nazis.”

  She answered: “I mean the aristocracy, the businessmen. They keep mistresses, nearly all!” Then, after a pause: “How I wish I had known you when I was young, Lanny.” He was being as tactful and as kind as possible, so he replied that that might have been fortunate for both of them.

  IX

  It was as pleasant a place for conversation as any; and Lanny, knowing that philosophical disquisitions do not move the mind to love, talked freely about his ideas as to the origin and destiny of man. He couldn’t discuss his ideas about economic affairs, for that would have stamped him as a Socialist, and surely not of the “National” variety. But he could talk about his belief in the possibility of a world government to keep the unruly tribes in order, and to guarantee the peace that all decent and intelligent people desired. He had to be a little vague about how to get this blessed state, for he was supposed to be depending upon a German to lead them there, and he must say nothing to contradict that.

  How long this informal entretien might have continued, and how Lanny would have got out of the predicament, there can be no telling. The matter was taken in hand by a flight of British Lancasters and Wellingtons, far out over the North Sea; they turned in the direction of Berlin, and kept on coming. Suddenly the sirens began to scream, and Hilde behaved as if she had received an electric shock. “I must go!” she exclaimed and leaped out of bed. Her house guest suspected that she might be more afraid of being discovered by her mother and sister than of being hit by a bomb.

  A mansion just up the street had been shattered in broad daylight by an American bomb only the previous day, and Hilde had begged Lanny not to take the risk of staying in his room during raids. So he hurriedly donned his clothes and groped his way down to the sub-cellar of this large building. He had been shown how to get there, and presently was sitting in an empty winecellar, full of dust and odors reminiscent of past delights. There were the three ladies and the two servants, one an old man and the other an old woman. All sat hunched and shivering, for it was cold as a tomb and there were no extra blankets; everything had been collected the previous winter for the Army that had been trapped in the Russian snows without proper equipment—because Adi Schicklgruber had been so certain that he was going to finish off the Reds in six weeks from the twenty-second of June!

  With bombs crashing in the distance and shaking the foundation walls of the house, Lanny sat reflecting upon the strange series of adventures he was having that night. He wondered: Did the mother and sister know where Hilde had been when the sirens had started? He would never know the answer to that question; and he made up his mind that there was one other person who would never know anything about it. Laurel already had reasons enough for not wanting him to come to Germany, and for being worried when he did come! Poor soul, he thought, another woman to be sorry for! She must be certain that he was dead in the Sahara Desert at this moment. How puzzled she would be if word should come out that he had been found buried in a cellar of the Donnerstein palace on the Bismarckstrasse in Berlin-Charlottenburg!

  X

  Lanny awakened soon after daylight, jumped into his clothes, and went shivering out into the bitter cold. He ran, to get his blood circulating, and dived down into the Underground. What a difference in the traveling public at that hour of the morning! His fellow travelers were not the well-to-do, but the workers, who showed the tragical effects of overwork and undernourishment. The Nazis were driving their wage slaves without mercy, and the newspapers were full of demands for still greater sacrifices. Those who showed unwillingness to make them were scolded. People who had lost half their night’s sleep were told that the Fatherland needed them to work faster, and to report their fellows who neglected to do so.

  The German people had always been a clean people, and Lanny was touched to observe that they were clean now, in spite of all difficulties. Clothing was neatly patched, and the workers did not smell too bad, even when packed together in a subway car. Lanny knew what that cost, for he wasn’t clean himself, and was trying to figure out a way to get his underwear washed and dried while he waited. Impossible to buy more, and even getting himself clean would mean a trip to some sort of bathhouse, for he had no right to impose upon the kindness of his hostess.

  He glanced at a morning paper. It reported a public address by Jüppchen Goebbels, a
furious tirade against those who were not making proper sacrifices for the country’s safety. Mostly it was against the rich, who were objecting to the new “all-out” war demands. Lanny knew what that meant, coming from this unscrupulous demagogue: the workers were discontented, and the Herr Doktor was trying to please them, talking the kind of “Socialist” talk which the “National Socialists” had used in order to get power but had long since forgotten.

  Sure enough, in another column there were accounts of “disturbances,” protests against the new draft procedures. In their frantic efforts to get new troops for the Russian front, the Army was conducting a proceeding known as eine Razzia machen, swooping down upon public places where men were gathered and sorting them out and carrying them off regardless of health, occupation, or previous claim to exemption. Oddly enough, the officer in command of this campaign was named General von Unruh and his adjutant was General von Wirbel; the former name means “unrest” or “anxiety,” and the latter means “whirlwind,” so the wits in night clubs and cafés were afforded opportunity for all sorts of innuendoes. Perhaps that was why these places had just been ordered closed, and with them the luxury shops of all sorts.

  Lanny watched the row of faces in this car, the weary, anxiety-driven faces of both men and women. Most of the men were old, and others crippled. He wondered: Did they still love their Führer? And were they still thrilled by the glory of belonging to a master race? In the days when they had been free men great numbers of them had been Social Democrats, and others Communists. Had they all forgotten what they had been taught?