by David Nickle
“An excellent answer.” Ruth sat down in the seat opposite Albert. “And why did she want to know?”
“I wonder this too. May I smoke?” Albert was dressed as though the train were due in Munich in just a few minutes—in an overcoat with a light scarf and wool trousers. From his coat, he pulled his pipe.
“No,” said Ruth. “Frau Waggoner will wonder why this cabin smells of your tobacco if you do.”
“And we don’t want that,” agreed Albert. “She did tell me why she wanted to know. I asked her this myself and she answered. But I am not sure I believe her. She said that she had been thinking about her time—all of your time—in that town of Eliada. She said that she believed that the disease . . . that killed everyone . . . not the Juke’s disease . . . that it might have been a blessing. And that by allowing it to spread through the town, killing them all to a child . . . that this might have been a service. A good killing. What evil might they have wrought, had they been permitted to survive?” Albert looked at the pipe in his hand with a certain regret, and slipped it back into his pocket. “She wondered if I had felt that way about the enemy that I killed in the War.”
“And you don’t believe her?”
“Why would she come in the night, to ask this of me, my opinion concerning a twenty-year-old question that she must have given thought to long ago? Why would she not have asked me this during those times at Vire, when she brought in a plate of dinner and waited quietly until I was finished?”
“She is going to join Andrew, in a hunt for Jason Thistledown and the Juke. Or Orlok, the hybrid. And she is thinking that something similar must happen when she finds them? Perhaps she is steeling her will for that?”
Albert shook his head. “Perhaps,” he said, “she has blood on her hands already.”
Ruth nodded.
“Perhaps,” she said.
The train pulled into the München Hauptbahnhof at half past nine in the morning. There was a misting rain coming down, and—after changing a few francs for an absurd amount of Deutsche Marks—Ruth purchased umbrellas from a vendor near the front steps, and handed them around while they hunted for a taxi. Annie had an address on Rottmannstraße for Kurtzweiller, but none of them, not even Albert Zimmermann, the only one of them who had spent time in Munich before, had any clue as to how far it was from the station.
Albert stepped close to Ruth, and whispered in German: “Frau Waggoner does not seem to have slept.”
Annie joined them before Albert could say anything more.
“I think there is a stand for taxis there,” she said, and pointed across the crowded cobblestone plaza to a line of long black autos curbside.
What Albert said was true—she did not look rested. She had applied makeup and combed her hair, but that couldn’t hide the jittery look in her eyes, or the entirety of the dark rings beneath them.
They made their way across the plaza, through the crowd of mostly men. Their attention was mainly drawn to a small podium at the centre of the plaza, where a small wooden platform had been erected, and another group of men were gathered. Some of them, Ruth noticed, wore the red armbands and swastikas of Nazis. It looked as though they were preparing for a rally, but the preparations were early. Certainly, no one among them looked as though they were prepared to give a speech. As they passed a message post, she saw that handbills had been posted. Only one of them seemed like it was from Nazis: National-Solzialismus it read. Der Organisierte Wille Der Nation. With three stern-looking fellows in profile—much fitter looking than the stooges setting up their podium—occluding a swastika.
The organized will of the nation. Ruth shivered. Just what her father had fancied he was creating, in Eliada.
Maybe Annie was right. Maybe killing them would be a service.
They were soon near enough the taxi that the drivers spotted them, and the one from the second car sprang from the vehicle and shouted an offer to help them with their bags. The driver from the front of the line shouted at the second to stop, and summoned them to his car. Over the objections of the other driver, it was this one that Ruth led them to. The driver was a dark-haired man of middle age with a thick handlebar moustache and curling hair barely controlled under a navy blue cap. His white shirt collar needed cleaning, and his breath smelled from the row of yellowed and decaying teeth he revealed in a wide smile.
They loaded their luggage into the boot and piled into the car. Annie read off the address for Kurtzweiller’s flat. The driver asked for it again, then asked if she was certain.
“Ja,” said Albert, “We are certain. How much?”
“Mein Herr, I cannot take you right there,” said the driver. “I would not recommend that you go there at all in fact. Not with the ladies.”
“Why is that?”
“There was a battle on Rottmannstraße. Brownshirts and Kommunistische gangs. Last night. You are not from Munich, Mein Herr?”
“No.”
“Munich is the home of the Nazi Party and Herr Hitler. We do not treat Kommunistische interlopers kindly. It has become a matter for the Polizei. But they and the brownshirts . . . not so far apart.”
Ruth started to translate for Annie, but she shushed her with a touch. “My German’s not good, but I get the gist,” she whispered.
Then to the driver: “Can you take us close by?”
Albert repeated the question, and the driver shrugged, and named a price.
The driver left them outside the Münchener Polytechnische Schule—the Munich Polytechnical School—and gave walking directions to the address on Rottmannstraße. The rain was coming down harder, and perhaps they should have sought shelter there, but none of them suggested it or even seemed to consider it. Bags in hand, they set out along the broad high street of Gabesbergerstraße. It was lined with shops and offices, and some of them were open—but there weren’t many about on the street outside them this morning. At first, Ruth thought they might explain that with the rain, which was cold and steady and utterly discouraging.
As they drew nearer Rottmannstraße, it became clearer that there was something other at work, and Ruth understood the taxi driver’s reticence. The neighbourhood seemed to be in a state of emergency. The street itself was barricaded, with men who were obviously Polizei stationed beside wagons, and alongside them, other men who were obviously not Polizei . . . who by their brown shirts and caps like the ones Ruth had seen on the poster . . . were Nazi brownshirts. Several of them carried rifles.
Beyond, Ruth could see more police wagons, and also what looked like a fire wagon, affixed with a massive water pump, and hauled by a team of powerful draught horses. As they approached, two of the Polizei and three brownshirts were talking with a pair of young men just this side of the checkpoint. It did not seem, to Ruth, to be particularly cordial. Albert suggested that they pause and perhaps reconsider.
“This is unusual,” he said. “Why would they barricade the whole street?”
“True. A battle between Nazis and Communists,” said Ruth, “is not that unusual, I understand. I wonder what’s different?”
She stepped forward, and motioned for Albert and Annie to follow. Albert shook his head no, but Annie nodded and continued forward.
They’d made it to within a half-dozen yards of the checkpoint when one of the brownshirts noticed their approach, and cried out for them to halt.
“We will wait until you are finished, Mein Herr!” said Ruth, and stopped, adjusting her umbrella.
Ruth noticed that as they approached, the conversation between the young men and the Polizei had stopped. They all looked now at the three newcomers. The brownshirt who’d shouted was a young man himself, with an unfortunate string of acne crossing his cheek between his left eye and jaw. He had a rifle, but it was slung over his shoulder. He looked to the others, who shrugged, then stepped forward.
“Guten Morgen, gnädige Frau,” he said.
“Good morning,” said Ruth. “What is the trouble?”
“Not a concern for you,” he said. “The district
is closed. Be on your way, please.”
“Forgive me. We have just arrived in Munich, on a train overnight, yes? We are very tired. The family we are visiting . . .” Ruth motioned beyond the barricade.
One of the Polizei came over. He was older, with a well-trimmed beard. He looked on Ruth kindly.
“Where are you staying, gnädige Frau?”
“On Rottmannstraße.”
The Polizei looked over at the young men at the checkpoint. The kindness drained from his face.
“I am sorry to tell you, gnädige Frau. There is nothing there for you.”
“Nothing?”
Behind him, one of the young men smirked—and seeing this, a brownshirt drove the butt of his rifle stock into his belly. The man doubled over, and his mate raised his hands in defence.
“I think,” said Ruth, “that I need to speak to someone in authority.”
Three
“Andrew! You’ve arrived!”
“All of us have,” said Andrew, and stepped back so that Kurtzweiller could see into the hallway. “Almost all.”
It was late in the morning of October 12th.
“Well yes,” said Kurtzweiller. “I had expected you two.” He indicated Dr. Lewis and Dominic, who stood on the landing. “But Dr. Waggoner—I thought you would be at the cabaret tomorrow evening. We were to meet there. . . .”
“I thought so too,” said Andrew. “But . . .”
“We should come inside,” said Dr. Lewis. “There’s much to discuss.”
Kurtzweiller stepped aside and bade them enter. Dominic gamely took hold of the trunk and hauled it into the long hallway connecting the rooms that Kurtzweiller had found for the Société de la biologie transcendantale.
“We had an incident in Stuttgart,” said Andrew.
“An incident?”
“A Juke incident,” he said. “Hallucinations. At the train station. We all disassociated. Lost time. The musicians—”
“They are gone,” said Dominic.
“They left us there,” said Lewis. “They went to Berlin with a group of men. They went willingly, might I add.”
“Maybe willingly,” said Andrew. “But the Juke—”
Kurtzweiller held up his hands to interrupt. “Let’s talk about this in time, when we can be more discreet,” he said. “You are not the only ones with things to report. Let us retire to the sitting room. There is a gentleman here, who I think may help clear matters up.”
Kurtzweiller led them along the hall and through a doorway, and into a small and sparsely furnished sitting room. There was indeed a visitor. A slender fellow, small with hair that was cut very close to his skull . . . dark, with tiny flecks of white. He wore a wool suit, and sat on a wing-backed chair with one leg crossed over the other. He plucked at the fabric of his wool trousers, and didn’t rise when the men entered the room—but he did smile broadly.
“Andrew Waggoner, isn’t it?” he exclaimed, in a high, delighted voice.
“Yes,” said Andrew. “I don’t believe we’ve—”
“—met? No, no, we have not. But I have heard all about you. Not you other gentlemen . . .” He blinked, and pointed a narrow finger at Andrew “. . . but you, Doctor Waggoner. A great deal about you.”
Kurtzweiller stepped around into the middle of the little room. He beamed, first at Andrew and the others, and then at his visitor.
“Allow me to introduce to you gentlemen,” he said, “Markus Gottlieb.”
No one said anything for a moment. Lewis looked at Kurtzweiller with an unreadable expression that might have been a glare, or just simple astonishment. Dominic retreated a step back into the hallway—as though he were preparing to bolt back out the door, and calculating how easy it would be to get round the trunk in the hall. Andrew shut his eyes for a moment . . . for an instant, fearful that the dreams of the Juke were intruding again, and this entire place were simply another hallucination. It was finally Gottlieb who broke the silence.
“Excuse me, Doctor Kurtzweiller. I know Doctor Waggoner. I would be only guessing which of these two is Dominic Villart, and which Doctor William Lewis.”
Andrew shook his head as though to shake cobwebs off, and Lewis spared Kurtzweiller having to speak, and introduced himself.
“And Herr Villart,” said Gottlieb, motioning to the doorway and smiling. He leaned forward to shake hands—still sitting, legs still crossed. Lewis took his hand and then Andrew did. Finally, Dominic re-entered the room and shook hands too.
“It is good to see you all.” He sat back and pressed his hands together in front of him—a gesture that might have seemed like prayer but in context seemed more one of delight. “And all so shocked!”
Kurtzweiller cleared his throat. “As I was, yesterday when you arrived, Herr Gottlieb.” He turned to Andrew. “I wish I could say that I had discovered Markus through my investigations. I am afraid that instead, my investigations caused him to find me.”
“It is so,” said Gottlieb. “Doctor Kurtzweiller made some inquiries at Braunes Haus. Excuse me. You three are foreign. That is the Brown House. The Nazi headquarters, the new one on Breinner Straße. Before that, he called on Heinrich Visler in Bogenhausen. In both cases, he asked about Wallgau, and the Visler farm and estate. . . .”
“I believe I was discreet.”
“Discreet enough,” said Gottlieb. “For the old days. Certainly, yes. But to be truthful, you could not be discreet enough to slip past Orlok. Not in Munich. And so . . . so we came to find you, Doctor Kurtzweiller.”
Andrew crossed his arms. “We?”
Gottlieb shrugged.
“We are many,” he said. “Now forgive me—I could not help but overhear as you entered. You had an, I believe you called it . . . an incident, in Stuttgart?”
“We did,” said Lewis. “What do you know about it?”
“Not much,” said Gottlieb. “Just what you blurted out at the threshold. But it does excite my curiosity. You were travelling with Neger, more Neger, yes? And they abandoned you?”
“Yes,” said Andrew. “We’ll talk about that in a minute. First: how did you know my name? All of our names?”
“I learned all of your names from Doctor Kurtzweiller. I learned yours from your old friend. Jason Thistledown.”
“Where is he?”
“It is good to hear you ask after him. He is not far.”
“And he’s safe?”
“Oh yes.” Gottlieb nodded. “He is safe. Soon we will all go to see him.”
“Why can’t he come here?”
“He’s not coming here,” said Gottlieb. His voice lowered. “Not here. Because here, Doctor Waggoner, is not as safe as that.” He smiled. “As you should know, having wisely decided to travel hidden among a Neger jazz band rather than take a chance alone, as you are. The countryside is bad these for good Volk, is it not? Now, you tell me. How was your journey—and how did you come to misplace, what are they called? Le Noir Qui Danse?”
Andrew didn’t tell Gottlieb very much more about the Stuttgart “incident” than he’d told to Kurtzweiller in the hall. But Gottlieb didn’t seem to be that curious about the details. Or rather, about nearly all of the details.
He didn’t care what Andrew saw when he wandered through the empty spaces of the station. He didn’t care that there were other people in the station, or how many, and his eyes wandered around the room when Andrew ventured there.
What he was interested in, was the music—specifically the song that the German boys wanted to hear so badly. What was the title? Andrew didn’t know; Dominic thought it was something about the seaside. Lewis said that it was a German song. None of them could hum it, even though Gottlieb asked them each to try.
“Music is very important,” said Gottlieb. “It is what binds we Volk together. When we sing, when we dance . . . when we hear the sweet voice of a girl . . .” he shook his head with a wistful smile “. . . or a young boy . . . singing a sweet song . . . we join together. This is what happened in Stuttgart, Doctor
Waggoner. A particular song drew good Volk together. You included among them.”
“I can’t hum the song,” said Andrew, although as he thought of it, he understood that to be a lie. He could hum the song. It was right there in his head . . . he remembered how the band played it, even some of the lyric—about a small beach basket. But if he did hum it . . .
It would be like opening a door.
“Well that is unfortunate,” said Gottlieb. “Perhaps we will hear it again, in our travels, and it will come back to you.”
“Maybe,” said Andrew. “Now you tell me, Herr Gottlieb, what is happening here?”
“In Munich?” He laughed. “Nothing good. So many people out of work. The Deutsche Mark is weak. And the Nazis have a grand new home! Kurtzweiller went to see it.” He spared Kurtzweiller a wry look. Andrew stepped in.
“What’s happening in Wallgau then? With Jason, and with this man Orlok.”
Gottlieb looked down at his hands, which he had folded over his knee. “Well. Something hopeful, I think. Yes. Very hopeful. It is good that you are here. A happy coincidence. We had hoped to go and fetch you in France. Did you know that?”
Andrew shared a glance with the men of the Société. “I didn’t. Why would you do that?”
“You are all so very clever. The Société de la biologie transcendantale. Transcendental biology.” Gottlieb unfolded his hands and set them on the armrest, and uncrossed his legs, and for a moment it looked as though he were preparing to rise. “Things are moving a bit more swiftly than we thought. As I said—we hadn’t expected you to be here quite so early—not all of you.”
Gottlieb looked at Andrew as he leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, and pushed himself up.
“You will excuse me, Doctors Kurtzweiller, Lewis . . . and Waggoner. I must go and make some arrangements. Please do not attempt to leave. I will return, hopefully shortly, with transportation.”
“Transportation to where?”
“Why to Wallgau, of course, Doctor Lewis. Where else would you be going, knowing what you know?”
They did try to leave. Dominic tried the front door, down two flights of stairs and coming out alongside a tailor shop. It was no good; there were a pair of young men standing guard there, and before they ushered him back inside, he thought he caught sight of three more, watching the door from a café across the road. The apartment also had a fire escape, coming out from a wide window in the kitchen. But looking down into the alley, Andrew saw four more men, loitering in full view of the window and the ladder. As he stepped out onto the ironwork walkway, they caught his eyes and motioned no, back inside. Andrew waved back and retreated.
