Paving the New Road

by Sulari Gentill

  “We are art dealers—here to buy paintings. It is a good time to buy.”

  Richter seemed to accept this readily. “Yes, a great deal of art has become available lately…Jews selling up to leave.” He frowned as if the situation did not entirely meet with his approval. “Ah, here it is!” He handed Rowland a large sealed envelope. It was quite heavy. “I believe some of Peter’s personal possessions are in there too. The rest of his belongings have been repacked into his trunk.”

  “Perhaps you could arrange for them to be sent to our hotel,” Rowland began, as he took a calling card from his pocket. “We’re staying at the Vier Jahreszeiten.”

  “The Vier Jahreszeiten!” Richter exclaimed. “Well, that will not do! The place is crawling with Brownshirts…ill-bred thugs, not the kind of men with whom a gentleman such as yourself would choose to share accommodations.”

  “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Richter, but the hotel is very comfortable.”

  “No, it will not do!” Richter was adamant. “You must stay here. There is much room here…I will tell Mrs. Schuler.”

  “We couldn’t possibly impose,” Rowland protested.

  “No, you must stay…See, Stasi has already fallen in love with Miss Greenway.” Richter pointed to the dog who, aside from the barest movement of its ear, looked as though it might have expired. “If you take her away, he will pine!”

  Rowland laughed. “Miss Greenway seems to have that effect, but we have business associates who will look for us at the hotel.”

  Richter sighed. “Ah, of course. Forgive me…I am a stupid, lonely man trying to stave off old age by playing with young people.”

  “We would much rather stay with you and Stasi, Mr. Richter,” Edna scooped the dog into her arms. “I don’t care much for the SA either.”

  Chapter Nine

  BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

  MULLENS FOR GIFTS

  ROBERTSON AND MULLENS LTD

  THE LEADING BOOKSELLERS,

  STATIONERS LIBRARIANS

  MULLENS FOR GOOD BOOKS

  SUGGESTIONS FOR GIFTS

  HORSE NONSENSE, by authors of “1066” and “Now All This”: 1/6 each (5d.)

  WEEK-END BOOK, a social anthology: 9/ (5d.)

  KING EDWARD AND HIS TIMES, by Andre Maurois: 16/6 (9d.)

  DISRAELI and BYRON, by A Maurois, cheap edition: 7/ each (5d.)

  MY STRUGGLE, the Autobiography of Adolf Hitler: 21/ (l/)

  FLAT OUT, by G. E. T. Eyston, motor racing: 9/(5d.)

  FOR EVER ENGLAND, by General Seely: 8/6 (6d.)

  —The Argus, 1933

  “Poor old bloke should face facts and bury that wretched hound,” Clyde murmured, as they strolled down Schellingstrasse.

  Edna shoved him, though she laughed. “Stasi is just a little lazy.”

  “Lazy!” Clyde guffawed. “I’ve seen fur stoles show more signs of life!”

  “Mr. Richter loves him, Clyde. Stasi keeps him company.”

  “I suppose. Gotta admit, the hat had me worried for a while, but Richter’s not a bad bloke really.”

  Rowland agreed. Richter had been a warm and generous host. He had shown them examples of the uniforms that his factories made for the Reich, pointing out the modifications that would be made if he were to have his way. Opening his best wine, he had pressed upon Rowland the keys to his house on the edge of Lake Starnberg, should they wish to use it.

  “Perhaps we should have agreed to stay with him,” Edna sighed. “I don’t think Mrs. Schuler is great company.”

  “We need to be at the Vier Jahreszeiten for this chap Blanshard to contact us,” Rowland said, trying to stem Edna’s compassion with practicalities. He suspected that Richter reminded Edna of her own father, who had a similar proclivity for ridiculous headgear.

  They had, after taking an extended and lavish luncheon with Richter, decided to explore a little before returning to the hotel. And so they strolled down Schellingstrasse, enjoying the Gothic façades and Baroque architecture of Munich.

  “Richter’s correct about one thing,” Clyde said, casting his eyes about the busy street, which was bustling with business and smartly dressed shoppers. “The Germans seem to be doing well under the National Socialists. I haven’t seen a beggar since we arrived.”

  Rowland realised he was right. Perhaps they were not looking in the right places, but the streets seemed devoid of the homeless and destitute who haunted many parts of Sydney. “It does seem positive.”

  “Depends who you are, I expect,” Milton said, nodding towards a boarded shopfront. Its windows had been broken, vandalised. On the door was scrawled the word “Juden” in white paint. He thrust his hands into his pockets, his eyes hard.

  Rowland stared silently at the abandoned premises. That the fascist government of Germany victimised Communists was no surprise, but the hostility towards Jews was harder to understand. It seemed to him bizarre and arbitrary. He glanced up at the sign above the shop. “Blumberg für Mensch”…a Jewish tailor…at one time, at least. Perhaps this, too, was why business was so good for men like Richter, who were allowed to prosper unmolested.

  Edna entwined her arm in Milton’s and, quiet now, they walked on.

  Rowland’s face was dark. Silently he berated himself for allowing his friends to come. He could have refused. Why didn’t he refuse? As much as Milton was probably the most untraditional Jew in the world, he was still Jewish. To expect him to witness this and hold his tongue was too much.

  “Stop flogging yourself, Rowly.” Clyde and Rowland had fallen a few steps behind the others.

  Rowland did not reply.

  “Milt was determined to come…not just for you. We’d heard rumours through the Party—he wanted to see for himself.”

  “So now he’s seen.”

  “And we’re even gladder we came, Rowly. It’s important we don’t let Campbell take this home.”

  “This would never happen back home,” Rowland murmured, with more optimism than conviction.

  Clyde shrugged. “I hope not. I hope it’s just that the Germans are stupid or mad…but maybe they’re not, Rowly. Maybe, just maybe, Campbell could replicate this back home. If Lang hadn’t been sacked, how many more men would have joined Campbell and the New Guard?”

  “But Lang was sacked,” Rowland replied. “All the hysteria seems to have subsided, thank God.”

  Clyde extracted cigarette papers and a tobacco tin from his pocket. “You know what I think, Rowly?” he said as he tipped tobacco along a paper and rolled a cigarette. “I reckon that Campbell picked the wrong enemy. If Lang hadn’t been sacked, he’d still have an army, still be leading a revolution. Over here, he might just learn how to choose a new villain and create a new rallying point.” Clyde pointed his cigarette at a poster in a baker’s window. He couldn’t read it, but the sinister depiction of a misshapen money-lender with his foot on the neck of a weeping woman made its message obvious.

  Rowland cursed.

  Clyde lit his cigarette. “You know, I’ve seen a very similar drawing…on a New Guard poster, except it was Lang who was stepping on some hapless woman. As I said, Campbell just picked the wrong villain…he hasn’t got anybody to unite his fascist masses against anymore.”

  Rowland glanced at Milton and Edna ahead of them. Milton was laughing now as the sculptress pulled him towards some shop.

  He turned back to Clyde. “You make a lot of sense.”

  Clyde grinned. “I tend to. You’d do well to remember that, old mate.”

  Rowland laughed. “I shall try. I say, where did they go?”

  “That shop, I think.”

  The business was a photographic studio: Hoffman’s. Clyde and Rowland entered to find Edna trying to talk to the young, blond assistant with the half-dozen words of German in her vocabulary. For a while they simply watched as the sculptress engage
d in pantomime to ask whether Hoffman’s would develop the film she had shot. Milton stood beside her, obviously amused and no help whatsoever. Eventually, Rowland intervened, introducing himself and his companions in High German. “My friend would like to have some photographs developed, if that is a service your business provides.”

  The shop assistant smiled warmly and responded. “I’m afraid we don’t, Herr Negus. Herr Hoffman provides a complete studio service. He is our beloved Chancellor’s personal photographer, you see. We develop only our own pictures.”

  Rowland translated for Edna, who was visibly disappointed. “We shall have to wait till we get home.”

  “I could develop the photographs for Fräulein Greenway on my day off, if you like,” the shop assistant volunteered. “I would hate to have to wait, myself. I know I’m impatient, but I usually do my own developing, you see, so I find waiting a trial.”

  Rowland passed the offer on to Edna, who accepted gratefully.

  A conversation followed, for the sculptress had a talent for making friends which transcended language, and Rowland was, in any case, on hand to interpret. It was agreed that Edna would bring in her rolls of film, which the shop assistant, who introduced herself as Eva, would develop when next she had a chance. Eva was friendly and unreserved. She and Edna talked enthusiastically about photography, and the latest cameras and techniques. Her laugh was natural and easy.

  Rowland gave Eva the card of Robert Negus the art dealer, on which he wrote the name of the Vier Jahreszeiten, where they could be reached. “Dankeschön, Fräulein Eva. We will see you again soon.”

  “I will look forward to it, Herr Negus,” she replied, looking up at him with large china-blue eyes. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance…all of you.”

  Rowland smiled. “And we you, Fräulein.”

  When they finally returned to the Vier Jahreszeiten later that evening, there was a message waiting for Robert Negus.

  Rowland opened the envelope as Milton tried to replicate gin-slings from the contents of the Ludwig suite’s drinks cabinet. It seemed that the poet had developed a fondness for Raffles’ signature cocktail.

  “Is that from Mr. Blanshard, Rowly?” Edna asked, as she rummaged for the rolls of film she intended to have developed.

  “Indeed, it is,” Rowland confirmed. “I’m to meet him tomorrow morning at the Königsplatz.”

  “How will you know him?”

  “I won’t. Apparently, I’m to carry a copy of last week’s Der Stürmer, and he’ll find me.”

  “Just you, then?” Clyde grimaced as he tried the concoction Milton presented to him.

  “At this stage it’s easier to be discreet on my own.” He glanced at Milton, who was phoning down to the reception desk in search of pineapple.

  Clyde chuckled. Edna flopped down on the settee beside Rowland.

  “What’s the Stirmer?” she asked.

  “Der Stürmer.” Rowland sighed. “It’s a filthy rag, put out by some deranged idiot. I don’t particularly like the idea of even carrying it around.”

  “Well, where are you going to get a copy?”

  “They’re everywhere, Ed. Sadly, Der Stürmer is rather popular these days.”

  Milton handed him a glass and sat down opposite. “Don’t worry about it, mate, just do what you have to.” He sipped the frothy cocktail of his own making, his face breaking into a broad and triumphant grin. “I must say, I’m a genius.”

  Tentatively, Rowland tried the drink he’d been handed. It didn’t taste anything like the Singapore cocktail. He winced as it went down. “Good Lord, what did you use instead of pineapple?”

  “Crème de menthe and peach schnapps…shall I mix you another?”

  “I suspect the one might be enough to kill me.”

  Rowland awoke the next morning with a headache. It didn’t surprise him. The evening had somehow turned into a series of attempts to replicate the gin-sling without pineapple. At the time it had seemed like a good idea.

  He and Clyde had stumbled back to their own suite in the early hours of the morning. Now it was nearly nine. He was due at the Königsplatz by ten.

  Rowland showered and shaved quickly. A bleary-eyed Clyde emerged as he was searching for an appropriate tie.

  “Is it morning already?” Clyde groaned. Clearly the previous evening’s consumption had been generic in its effect. “He’s bloody well poisoned us,” he complained.

  Rowland smiled, pointing to the tray of coffee he’d just had sent up. “That’ll help…or you could just go back to bed.”

  “No,” Clyde sighed, reaching for the pot. “It’d hardly do for us all to be asleep while you go off to meet a spy.”

  The conversation was interrupted by a knock. Rowland answered the door, as Clyde was still undressed.

  “Good morning, Robbie!” Perhaps it was the after-effects of the alcohol, but Edna seemed dazzling that morning. Fresh, and so beautiful it was almost hard to look at her. Rowland stood back to let her in.

  “I thought I had better make sure you were up,” she said, as he shut the door. She smiled. “You didn’t look so well when you left last night…oh Clyde, you poor thing!”

  Having realised it was just Edna, Clyde returned to the coffee pot in his pyjamas. He grunted and poured.

  “You look pretty, Ed,” Rowland murmured, as he knotted his tie in the sitting room mirror.

  “Why thank you, Rowly,” Edna said, twirling to display the fullness of her skirt. “It’s a little exciting having a wardrobe full of clothes I’ve never seen before.”

  “How’s Milt this morning?” Clyde asked.

  “He was waxing his moustache when I left,” Edna replied, shaking her head and giggling. “He should be along in a minute.”

  Rowland checked his watch. “I’d better get going. Are you going out? Shall I meet you all back here for lunch?”

  Edna nodded. “Yes, do. I thought that since we’re supposed to be art dealers, the boys and I should be seen at a few galleries.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Rowland admitted. “I wish I could join you.” He thought for a moment, and then said, “Perhaps you should buy a few things. We’ll be rather unconvincing dealers if we don’t actually buy or sell anything.”

  “You want us to buy art?” Clyde asked incredulously.

  “Only if it’s good. We don’t want people to think we’re bad art dealers.”

  “No, that wouldn’t do at all,” Edna agreed.

  And so Rowland left his friends to purchase art, while he set out to meet Alastair Blanshard, who, as an Old Guard plant, had infiltrated Eric Campbell’s inner circle. He paused to collect an old copy of Der Stürmer from the reception desk on the pretext that he had missed an edition. He slipped the paper into his jacket without looking at it.

  He walked to the Königsplatz, and took a seat on the park bench on the grassed square adjacent to the Museum of Classical Art, in accordance with Blanshard’s instructions. He checked his watch. Still twenty minutes to ten. For a while he sat watching the plaza, the movements of people, of motor cars and horse-drawn vehicles, the children who played on the grass and the bullying presence of the Brownshirts. Almost without thinking he pulled the leather-bound notebook from his jacket to record what he saw. The square was surrounded by buildings inspired by classical architecture—Corinthian columns and iconic plaques on all sides—but Rowland wasn’t interested in the buildings. He sketched quickly, his eye drawn, as it always was, to faces and figures. With strong, stern lines he captured the ruthless arrogance of the SA patrol and then, with a softer hand, the faces of the boys who gazed admiringly at them. He had lost himself in trying to catch the wistful eyes of a young woman casting coins into a fountain when a man sat wordlessly on the bench beside him.

  Rowland glanced up. Dressed in tweeds, with a shock of thick red hair and aged about forty-five, th
e man opened a silver case and silently offered him a cigarette.

  Rowland declined in German.

  The man glanced down at the paper now on the bench between them. “Mr. Negus?” he asked. He looked disgruntled.

  Rowland nodded.

  The man sighed and cursed under his breath. “Alastair Blanshard,” he said finally. “How old are you?”

  A little startled by the question, Rowland did not reply immediately.

  “Well?”

  “I’m twenty-eight…but I’m not sure what that—”

  Blanshard swore—quite extravagantly, though his expression was so controlled that anyone watching might have thought them discussing the weather, and he nodded in a manner that was quite contrary to his words. “What the bloody hell do those fools think they’re doing? I ask for an experienced man and they send me some novice who—” he paused to glance at Rowland’s notebook, “who likes to draw pictures, for God’s sake!”

  Rowland did not react visibly. “I am who they’ve sent, Mr. Blanshard. What can I do to help you?”

  Blanshard cursed again while smiling congenially, and then he asked, “Do you mind if I glance through your newspaper?”

  “Be my guest,” Rowland muttered, a little disconcerted by the divergence between Blanshard’s gestures and what he was saying. He decided it was best to just not look at the man.

  Blanshard unfolded Der Stürmer and spent the next several minutes studying it. Unsure of what else to do, Rowland went back to his sketch. The meeting was not going as he had expected.

  Eventually, Blanshard refolded the paper and returned it to the bench between them. “You’ll find an itinerary in the paper,” he said, lighting a cigarette. He kept his eyes focussed on the plaza. “Campbell has a meeting with Göring at the Braune Haus the day after tomorrow…the details are all there. The meeting must not happen, or it must not go well.”

  “What exactly do you want me to do?”