The Bookworm

by Mitch Silver

  How do you see something that was bid on years ago? Viktor, a whiz at all things electronic, once showed her how to navigate the site when she’d gone on eBay to buy Mr. Russky his bowl. It was coming back to her. Clicking her mouse on the button labeled Advanced Search, she typed in the item number and scrolled down to Completed Listings.

  Ta-da! The original 2006 listing page for Hitler’s Bible appeared on the computer, with the description of a book posted by someone with the screen name WattsUp from Fort Myers in the U.S.

  There were seven thumbnail photos across the bottom. Lara clicked on each one in turn, filling the screen. The first was of the cover, an old leather binding embossed in gold, taken straight on. The next was snapped from the side, showing how thick the book was. There were a couple of the centuries-old typeset pages, with crabbed handwriting in the margins that Lara recognized as Hitler’s own, ending in the initials “A.H.” A fifth picture showed a page penned in a kind of French poetry, and then another, this one typed on a separate sheet in German.

  She moused over to the final image, a black-and-white snapshot of an American soldier in a Jeep with the Bavarian Alps looming far above, before going back to the German translation.

  There they were, the same three stanzas of doggerel Coward had described, ending with, “Into a cage of iron is the usurper drawn/When the child of Germany overcomes him.”

  Tseluyu! She scrolled back up to read the seller’s description.

  “My grandfather, Delmer Watts, was a corporal in the 506th Parachute Infantry. In the last week of World War II, his unit was looking for German Army holdouts in the village of Berchtesgaden when he banged on a door with his rifle and it fell off its hinges. Inside, he found a 400-foot-long tunnel of polished stone with an elevator going up inside Kehlstein Mountain to the ‘Adlerhorst,’ Hitler’s ‘Eagle’s Nest.’

  “The Airborne had fought their way up the face of the mountain the week before and they’d already taken the ceremonial swords and such. All that was left were a few things protected from the bombing and overlooked in a maintenance shaft behind the elevator. This Bible came home with Granddaddy. Now that he’s gone, it can go home with you.”

  Excitedly, Lara dropped back down to the pictures and clicked on the one showing the original quatrains. She leaned in closer to the screen and peered at the image of the French writing. Was that a wormhole obliterating a couple of the letters? Da!!

  Okay, now for the jackpot question: What happened to it?

  The Bidding History button told her there had been eighteen bidders. The winner, at 1,902 euros, was a buyer called adler01, with the number 34 and a yellow star after it in parentheses.

  Lara got up, took from her handbag one of the ponchiki Cook had given her, and wolfed it down with the last sip of her lukewarm tea. Pacing around the room again, she stopped in front of the goldfish and asked, “What do you think, Mr. Russky? Is it someone named Adler? Or, adler being German for eagle, is ‘eagle01’ their screen name?”

  The fish pondered the question and then swam away. Lara sighed. “You’re right, there’s no way to tell. Let’s get some feedback.”

  She remembered Viktor’s explanation. “Every time someone buys or sells something on eBay, the other party can leave feedback afterward for everyone to see. ‘The seller sent me the thing I bought and it wasn’t a fake.’ Or, ‘The buyer’s check didn’t bounce.’ It’s how the site builds trust in the whole cyber system of unseen buyers and sellers.”

  The screen now said, “View all feedback for adler01.” What followed was a series of comments in German scrolling up the screen, like blurbs for a movie in a newspaper ad. “Great buyer, paid on time!” “Couldn’t ask for more!” “Quick payer!” The most recent posting was a month ago.

  Lara clicked the Leave Feedback button. Instead of a statement, she typed in a few questions for the unknown buyer. “Who are you? Where in the world do you live? Do you still have the Bible? Would you be willing to sell it?”

  It had been years since the auction ended. Adler might not be checking out his feedback anymore. Still, that number and the yellow star after his name meant he‘d done at least 34 transactions on the site. And if other eBay members were still posting blurbs about him as recently as a month ago …

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she told herself, clicking the Feedback button and posting her questions online. Then she gathered up her things for one more trip out to the Arkhiv and Noël Coward’s big finale.

  Four kilometers away, eyes fixed on another computer monitor widened as the keystrokes appeared on the screen. One of the watchers said, “She’s asking some guy if he still has the book. Better tell the boss.”

  The second man said, “Before I do, hack into the German server and get me a current address for that adler01.” He rubbed his massive neck and allowed himself a rare smile. “I told you this program would work.”

  Chapter 47

  Obersalzberg, Germany

  Ulrike Preisz felt things were finally looking up. After all the Sturm und Drang of going hat in hand with Horst to the Tourist Office, then to the blowhards on the local Council, then the Preservation people in München and back to Tourism in an endless tail-chasing of meetings and payoffs—only to have the European recession knock everyone for a loop—the place was finally nudging into the black.

  It was absurd that politics should decide whether a restaurant succeeds or not, but of course the Kehlsteinhaus was no ordinary restaurant, sitting as it did on the very top of the mountain, with a fifty-mile, 360° view of Bavaria and nearby Austria. Ulrike and her husband, who’d taken over after the previous concessionaires’ default, had made a few simple requests of their landlord, the Berchtesgaden Tourist Office: money for new tables and chairs, an automated window-washing system, a computer at the dining room workstation for entering the orders and one in the kitchen for receiving them, and, best of all, a website—so she and Horst wouldn’t have to be on the phone all day booking tables and rooms in their gasthaus at the foot of the mountain.

  The Tourist Office, packed with left-wing holdovers from the previous government, had dragged its feet on the improvements. The place had once been the Adlerhorst, Adolf Hitler’s favorite wartime retreat, and the Socialists didn’t want to appear to be subsidizing “Hitler’s place,” even after all these years.

  But when the Merkel government’s appointees finally gained a majority, the reconstituted Tourist Office had ponied up the money, with enough left over for Ulrike to redo the little alcove in the reception area into a proper gift shop, with wallpaper and new lighting, so she could get the books and postcards out of the dining room and bring her few pieces of Hitlerana out of mothballs.

  It wasn’t just the view that made people (especially foreigners) tramp through the tunnel to the elevator and come all the way up here. It was the history, Hitler’s history, for better or worse. Worse, of course.

  The dinner plate, the knife and fork he’d possibly used, the well-worn blotter and the gold fountain pen set had looked a little skimpy, sitting there on the table. They’d needed something to pull them all together.

  Ulrike frowned, interrupting her reverie to pick up a napkin and clean an obvious fingerprint from one of the glasses Klaus had set out on Table 21. Klaus would have to go.

  When Ulrike was growing up, Germany wouldn’t have acknowledged there had ever been a Hitler, much less build a national Holocaust museum in the middle of the capital. Then came the great reversal, the acknowledgement of their country’s shameful past. And with it, ironically, along with the dialogue on Hitler, genocide, and national guilt, came a market for the Nazis’ possessions, thanks to German eBay.

  She moved over to the computer by the door and clicked away from the Reservations page for the bookmarked site. Under the subhead “Sammeln und Seltenes” on eBay.de were 219 “rare and collectible” items. It was pretty much the same jumble sale as there had been the day she’d made her find: books about Hitler, some signed by the authors;
wartime letters, with Hitler’s picture on the stamps; a plate someone was claiming had come from the old Reichskanzlei in Berlin. What was she supposed to do with two mismatched plates? Now, if she had a service for eight, or even six, they could promote a special dinner “on Hitler’s own china,” providing the Tourist Office let them. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

  When she’d found it, under the heading “Hitler’s Personal Bible,” the thumbnail photo had been dark and hard to make out. Clicking on the listing, she’d found better pictures of a large, leather-bound book, the cover, and a few inner pages. One of the snapshots showed the flyleaf, inked with some old handwriting she couldn’t make out. And the whole book was in Latin. Did Adolf Hitler know Latin? Somehow she didn’t think so.

  But the sheet of poetry stuck in the book—something about Barbarossa’s sword—was in German and looked real enough. So did the “A.H.” at the bottom of a couple of comments in its margins. The convincer, though, had been the block of text from the seller in Fort Myers in the USA. It read, “This Bible was ‘liberated’ by a U.S. Army officer in May, 1945, from the Adlerhorst, Hitler’s wartime headquarters in the Bavarian mountains.”

  The Adlerhorst! Think of it … something that old Adolf would have handled right in this room! By the time Ulrike had found the listing, people had already run the price up to 1350 euros.

  She remembered going to the bidding page and wondering how many eyes all over the world were fixed on that auction just then, one with a picture of GIs in a Jeep staring up at the very place where Ulrike was sitting now?

  Horst was out shopping, so she’d taken the chance without him and typed in a bid of 1501, with a maximum up to 1999. If someone in America was willing to pay more than $2500 dollars, they could have it. There were six bids in the final ten seconds of the auction before eBay’s computer flashed her the “Congratulations! You Won!” message. Her winning bid turned out to be 1902 euros, almost the entire rainy day fund.

  Now, by turning her head to the left, Ulrike could see her prize, set out with the other things on the table in the alcove just as you got off the elevator. Truth be told, it was the focal point of the place. When she looked back at the screen, she noticed the You Have Feedback link was highlighted, and she clicked on it. Someone in Russia was asking about the Bible. She smiled as she typed in her reply.

  Yes, the Hitler angle had made all the difference.

  Chapter 48

  Moscow

  This is the last of my six cylinders and, fortunately for you and your typists, Robert, the finish line is in sight.

  Lara looked at her watch; it was nearly six. Her mind was all over the place. Concentrate on what Coward’s saying, dammit.

  By the middle of August, 1940, the Battle of Britain had moved inexorably—as you know—from a few German strikes at our Channel convoys to wholesale bombing of our ports and airfields to “dogfights” (forgive the vulgarism) in full view of the population.

  In September, five weeks after Anthony had let loose the hounds … all right, insects … I was telephoning him every day, some days more than once, to try to hurry things along.

  The very afternoon that Blunt informed me the “simulacrum” was finished, I was told by Churchill’s people I had ten minutes on the morrow, whilst they were setting up for a Cabinet meeting, to hand over my supposed “anniversary present” for Winston and Clemmie (though the actual event was weeks off). As I had already cast the remaining actor in our little farce, we were ready to beard the lion in his den.

  I remember we were standing in an antechamber just off the vestibule in Downing Street, a little room with a table and four chairs, when the Prime Minister spotted me. A year earlier he was appointed Honorary Air Commodore for the County of Surrey auxiliary Air Force, and so was entitled to wear the RAF uniform. Now, at five foot seven inches, the blue-grey cloth seemed to swaddle the Great Man in all directions.

  He started right in. “Noël, are you here to entertain the Downing Street Brigade? How delightful.” Then he spotted Blunt standing there, holding the Bible wrapped in brown paper with string round it. Shifting gears, he said, “Who’s your friend, and is that something for me?”

  I introduced Anthony, who wordlessly placed the parcel on the table in front of Winston with something of a thud. While his secretary stood against the wall, Churchill took the chair near the window and started working on the string. Acutely conscious, at six feet tall, of looming over the Prime Minister, I took the chair across from him. The secretary pursed his lips and glared at me; apparently one does not sit in the Buddha’s presence. To compound matters, Blunt also took a seat because I had.

  As the Bible emerged from the wrapping, I found myself trying to re-create the Kennedy boy’s pitch to me that night in New York, being careful not to say the actual word “Kennedy,” lest the mention of the American ambassador’s name spoil everything. I don’t know how much sense I was making, so I switched over to describing the manner in which we would plant the article where the Germans would be sure to find it.

  “Sir, with your permission, an associate will take that parcel with him by boat over to Flanders under cover of darkness and, in the guise of someone they trust, present himself to the German checkpoint at Antwerp before making his way to a certain monastery we know their army of looters will visit, and leave it there in plain sight.”

  The PM looked up at Anthony, dubiously, and then over at me. “Is he your ‘associate’?”

  I had to laugh. “Not quite. It’s your godson, Ian.”

  Surprised, Churchill left off what he was doing to look me in the eye. “Why on earth would the Germans trust Ian Fleming? I’m not sure I trust him.”

  “Because, sir, I intend to have him show up in Antwerp as Sir Oswald Mosley.”

  “You say Ian will be behind enemy lines, dressed up as the leader of the British Union of Fascists?” He seemed troubled. “I don’t know …”

  “He’s already agreed to do it, sir.”

  Churchill still appeared troubled. “Of his courage I have no doubt, but … there’s a problem: Don’t the Boche know Mosley’s safely tucked up in Holloway Prison?”

  “That’s why I need you to release his wife, Diana, from the women’s gaol. When Ian shows up with her, they’ll have to believe he’s Mosley and that he’s been exchanged for British prisoners.”

  Churchill was still considering the thing when an aide ducked his head in the room and said, “We’re ready for you, sir.”

  The leader of the armed forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth rose from his seat, so we stood as well. I thought he was going to leave without approving our plan, but he returned his attention to the Bible, now exposed to the air.

  Anthony produced a pair of white cotton gloves from his jacket pocket and, still without a word, handed them to the PM. He was eyeing the French inscription Anthony had done. Pointing to the last quatrain, he said “There shouldn’t be an ‘e’ at the end of sabre au claire. C’est un mot masculin, non?”

  Oh my God, a spelling mistake! I was glaring my best glare at Anthony when the PM allowed himself a chuckle. “Well, I suppose they hadn’t dictionaries back then. Possibly this Nostradamus you speak of couldn’t spell any better in his language than we can in ours.”

  Ice broken. Winston was about to poke his little finger into the punctatum’s freshly chewed hole into the ink when Blunt uttered his only two words of the interview. His “No, don’t!” was probably a little louder than absolutely necessary.

  With a baleful look at the man, the Prime Minister picked up his “gift” and dropped it back into Anthony’s grateful hands. Churchill’s aide came back again. All he said was, “Sir” as he pointed to the watch on his wrist.

  Winston looked me square in the eye. “Do it.” He shook my hand as he walked through the door to the meeting. “Just don’t let him get caught. Ian’s the only godson I’ve got.”

  Chapter 49

  Before I conclude my “testimony” as to events of the late summe
r of 1940, it occurs to me I’ve neglected the most important duty of a character witness—for that is certainly what I am: to attest to the nature of the man standing in the dock.

  Either I’m the worst possible such witness or the best: I just don’t like Anthony Blunt. I don’t know anyone who does. So, when I defend Anthony, it’s certainly not out of friendship … he has no friends. The man’s insufferable, a prig and a snob (and I should know). I’m quite certain if we passed in the street this afternoon, he would keep on going without the least sign of recognition.

  But what I do know is, when our lads were up against it after Dunkirk, when we were all up against it, it was Anthony who saved our bacon. When the Croupier called, “Les jeux sont fait,” Anthony rolled up his sleeves and placed all his chips on the spin of the wheel. Even though he was a Soviet spy and we were sending all those tanks and planes against the workers’ paradise.

  You see, Anthony and his handlers believed that, with proper advance warning, Stalin and his generals would be ready for Hitler. That his five-million-man army would lie in wait for the Austrian paperhanger and deliver the knockout blow once he crossed the border. But Uncle Joe didn’t believe them. He doesn’t believe anyone … especially the people who work for him.

  “Love of country” sounds dashed peculiar when one speaks of an admitted spy. So I’ll just say this: four years ago, he and I and the others who helped us accomplished something no battalion or even division could have done. My proof? That the jackboot has not yet trod this earth, this realm, this England.

  Now, with apologies to Mr. Shakespeare, I end my tale with a bit about how we planted the Bible where the Hun would find it. And here I wish to make a request: do not allow anyone but yourself to listen to what I’m about to read into the record; dismiss the typists for the afternoon. A woman’s reputation, such as it is, is at stake, and I would not want this part read out in open court or gossiped about in the Ladies’ Room.