“We know he’s a coward, Herr Doktor. We’ll have no difficulty in getting whatever we want out of him.’’
“We’ll have no difficulty,” Gleicher agreed, looking at him directly, “but remember what I’ve told you. We are not the Gestapo and I did not take on this job to soil my hands.”
“I know your views on that subject, Herr Doktor, and I have nothing but respect for them. But physical pressure was not what I had in mind. Seeing what a coward he is, I think the mere threat . . .”
Gleicher interrupted him sternly.
“There’s no question of that, either. I will not countenance the specter of torture—or physical pressure, as you put it—in this service. I should not be able to sleep at night if I ever debased myself by methods like that. No, Otto, psychological means are what we shall use,” he added in a gentler tone, “and in this particular case, to which I’ve given a great deal of thought, I’m certain the weapon we possess is infinitely more efficacious than violence.”
“Perhaps,” said Otto without much conviction.
“Have you really any doubt about it? Do you mean to say you still can’t see what his position is with regard to his superiors? Don’t you realize he has accused the other fellow of treachery and passed himself off as a hero? Nothing else can account for his having been entrusted with another mission. That being so, don’t you think this man will do absolutely anything for us to keep his secret?”
Otto looked at his chief with surprise, then with admiration. He would never have believed him capable of such ingenuity. For a moment, but no more than a moment, he had a vague suspicion that this plan might involve him in a procedure even more cruel than the methods of the Gestapo, but the evidence of its efficacy prevented these qualms from assuming definite shape and he merely replied:
“You're right, Colonel”—this was the first time he had addressed Gleicher by his military ran —“he is obliged to obey us. It’s unpardonable of me not to have realized that before. I’m grateful to you for opening my eyes to the immorality and the uselessness of torture."
“Ein Herrendienst, Otto," Gleicher concluded, grinning with delight at this tribute.
Arvers did not offer the slightest resistance when Gleicher took him in hand. Such an effort was beyond him. The vague apprehension in which he had been living until then was succeeded by a palpable terror in the form of a ghastly vision that obtruded on him at every hour of the day and night.
The scene was Dr. Fog’s office, which his memory depicted as the haunt of a mysterious and forbidding figure. The doctor was there with Austin and a number of French officers Arvers had known in London and who were full of admiration for his brilliant record. Claire had just come in, with that abominable smile on her lips. He himself was sitting in an armchair; the at- tention of the others was directed elsewhere.
Dr. Fog was examining with interest a flat, cylindrical object, turning it over in his nervous hands. At times his features reminded Arvers of Gleicher. He was saying:
“This has just arrived from France. This lady here brought it with her. An extremely interesting document, it seems.”
“Extremely interesting, sir,” Claire murmured.
“Extremely interesting, sir,” Austin echoed.
“Very, very interesting indeed, sir,” all his assistants repeated in unison, as though they knew what it was all about.
“We’ll soon see,” said Dr. Fog. “Someone bring me a tape recorder.”
“A tape recorder, someone go and get a tape recorder! Where can we get hold of a tape recorder?” the rest of them chorused.
They scattered like a flock of sparrows and started hunting around the house, passing in and out of the room in frantic haste. The dream then assumed a particularly horrifying form for Arvers. During their interminably long search, he struggled feverishly but in vain to start his mind working. He cudgeled his brain passionately to find some means of preventing the audition. His mind, generally so fertile, was paralyzed by the weight of the problem and refused to work; his imagination was completely powerless; and his acute awareness of this total intellectual impotence was one of the most frightening aspects of his nightmare.
The machine was eventually brought in. Then all of a sudden, as though at the touch of a fairy’s wand, the matrix imprisoning the workings of his brain seemed to dissolve and he recovered his mental powers. An idea came into his head by which he could avert the danger once and for all—an idea magnificent in its simplicity and which he greeted as a glorious miracle of his intelligence. But this glimmer of hope was instantly extinguished and his suffering assumed another form; for no sooner had he begun to congratulate himself on his marvelous discovery, no sooner had he been dazzled, in the incoherence of his hallucination, by the brilliance of this brain wave, than his physical paralysis, following on his mental impotence, hindered its execution. And so his ingenuity had shown itself in vain; for this amazing scheme consisted simply in his pouncing on the tape, tearing it into shreds, and swallowing the pieces!
Dr. Fog had picked up the cylinder again before he was able to lift a finger. He placed it on the machine with infinite care. Claire’s laughter rang in his ears, a chant of triumph that intensified his torment. Arvers was now trying to channel his remaining energy into the muscles of his throat. His will was strained to the utmost in his effort to speak, to shout out loud, to drown the sound of the damnable machine that was already emitting his initial splutters, like the jarring voice of a demon announcing some infernal entertainment. But just when he thought he had succeeded, when the cry of salvation was about to issue from his lips, Dr. Fog noticed his presence. He now resembled Gleicher so closely that he might have been his twin. He silenced his victim with a lordly gesture.
All eyes were then turned on Arvers, and the lamentable note of entreaty in his voice resounded in the deathly hush: “I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything, everything! I’ll do anything you wish. . .”
25
The sound of that voice set in motion such painful vibrations in his body that he woke with a start. He was not in London but sprawled in an armchair in his living room, from which he had not moved for some time. He tried to persuade himself that this ridiculous dream was the product of a morbid imagination. It could not possibly happen like that in real life. He would find some way of warding off the danger. He had got himself out of many tight spots before. But first of all he would have to find a means of defense against this excruciating nightmare constantly hovering around him, waiting to overwhelm him the moment he was off guard. And in order to gain the upper hand in this struggle, his nature could conceive of only one weapon, one single stratagem—to charm away the diabolical obsession with the virtues of some other obsession of his own choosing and deliberately invoke a divine hallucination in colors bright enough to obliterate the first. He sometimes actually succeeded in doing so.
It was by no means an easy business. A desperate mental effort was needed for him to create the illusion that he was still a man of honor. Gleicher had done nothing to make this task any easier. He despised him to such an extent that he did not even bother to conceal his true intentions. He made no attempt to lend the least plausibility to the pretext he had invented in order to draw an important member of the Allied services into his clutches. His attitude could leave no doubt in Arvers' mind as to the infamy of his conduct. And yet, during those pathetic moments when he feverishly tried to find some antidote to the haunting nightmare, he frequently succeeded in convincing himself that his behavior had been dictated by an ardent sense of patriotism in the interests of the Allied cause. Such is the sovereign power of the human mind; such is its sublime dishonesty.
That day, as on every previous day, he racked his brains to conjure up the wretched arguments he considered fit to support this thesis, to furbish them with infinite patience and endow them with the quality needed to create his supreme illusion. After all, though Gleicher did not attempt to persuade him of the purity of his intentions, the German had not
actually said this was a case of deception. There was nothing to prove he was not genuinely seeking a means of collaboration. Admittedly, Arvers had been careful not to question him on this subject, for fear of receiving a forthright answer that would deprive him of all hope. This was a tenuous starting point, but enough for his dream to begin to take shape and eventually to illuminate the evidence of his integrity and perspicacity.
Then . . . then, in his mind’s eye, he emerged as the promoter of one of the most important negotiations of the war. He, Arvers, the secret agent hunted by several police forces, whom his superiors did not provide with means worthy of him, accomplished the feat of leading the enemy to believe in their defeat and to surren- der. Few characters in history had maneuvered with such Machiavellian cunning. Of all the masters of intrigue whose names he recalled, none had solved a
problem comparable to this, or under such difficult conditions. And it was in his apparent submission to Gleicher that his ingenuity showed itself most strikingly. In fact, it was he who inspired every step the German took and directed every move he made, without his realizing it.
Usually he did not develop his romantic fancy beyond this stage: the submission of the Abwehr, brought about by his stratagems and by the influence he secretly exercised over Gleicher. He derived considerable comfort from the mere contemplation of this simple result and, in view of recent events, seemed to feel a sort of reluctance to venture toward more complicated ideas.
Today, however, he felt bold enough to let the hallucination grow in beauty and in power, follow its natural course unimpeded, gradually encroach upon those regions forbidden to the common run of humanity, and finally erupt into the glorious realm of his former chimeras, reviving the exaltation he had previously enjoyed:
The blow delivered against the enemy had to be exploited immediately. Arvers acted with the speed of lightning. Admiral Canaris having offered his services to the Allies, Arvers now demanded—he no longer dealt with any but the highest authority; Gleicher was restricted to a liaison role—he now demanded that Canaris arrest the Fiihrer as proof of his loyalty. He would allow no evasion, no delay, no excuse. The plot organized under his auspices succeeded beyond the wildest hopes. Hitler and the entire High Command were captured. They were handed over to him one night, bound hand and foot, and he took them back with him to England after countless adventures. This was his last mission. The news of this capture suddenly burst upon the world, leading to an immediate cessation of hostilities. The rumor began to spread that this exploit was the feat of a single individual, an unknown hero who was only now allowed to come out into the open. It was not long before these rumors were confirmed by official announcements.
The sudden revelation of his valor marked the culminating point of his dream, the well-nigh inaccessible summit toward which all his efforts were directed and beyond which it was impossible to progress any further. Even to maintain a footing there made a consider- able demand on his intellectual resources and, as usual, involved a number of precise material details to bolster his enthusiasm. He promptly applied himself to this task, exploring the various means of communication by which the news would, to use the expression he kept turning over in his mind, “burst upon the world”—the press, the radio . . . The idea of the radio was especially attractive. He paused for a moment at the vision of a typical family group gathered around their radio, listening to the startling announcement and repeating his name to one another with deference and admiration.
The telephone rang. A deathly chill gripped his body and mind, destroying the fruits of his heroic labor. At once he was plunged into the misery of reality all over again. A recently acquired reflex sent him rushing over to the instrument to lift the receiver before the initial ring had ceased. He knew what to expect. This was not the first time that Gleicher or Otto, eager to maintain their ascendency, reminded him of their presence in this way. He no longer dared to move from the living room for fear Claire might answer the phone. It was Gleicher’s voice, and in the background he could hear a faint buzzing sound.
“Listen, Herr Arvers!”
He was familiar with the ritual of these calls. The German would bring the tape recorder up to the mouthpiece. With the receiver glued to his ear, Arvers would then wait for the words he knew by heart, and which sounded more and more odious to him each time he heard them. As usual, the tape had been switched on before the call was put through, so that by now it had reached the essential passage: “I’ll tell you everything, everything! I’ll do whatever you wish . . .” The machine was then moved away from the telephone and Gleicher’s commanding voice broke in:
“Can you hear me, Herr Arvers? Can you hear me all right? Why don’t you answer?”
“I can hear you,” Arvers replied in a muffled whisper.
"Your friends in London seem to be taking their time. . . . You can’t do anything about it? I think you can, you know. You have their confidence; it’s merely a question of persuading them to make up their minds. You ought to know better than I do how to convince them. Don’t forget I’ll hold you responsible if there’s any hitch.”
He fell silent for a moment. The buzzing sound could still be heard at the other end of the line. Arvers could no longer distinguish the words but contrived to grasp the meaning from the intonation, as Gleicher continued:
“Perhaps you think I haven’t the means to carry out my threat? Don’t deceive yourself, Herr Arvers. Only today I was thinking of the various possible methods. There are any number, but there’s one in particular that appeals to me because of its simplicity, and also, I must admit, its originality. What do you think of this as an idea—include the recording in one of our routine broadcasts? How do you feel about that? I suppose you know that all your secret services make a point of listening in to Radio Paris—not to mention at least twenty million Frenchmen. ... I hope I’ve made myself clear, Herr Arvers. I only wanted to be sure you weren’t thinking of kicking against the pricks, as the saying goes.”
He had finished speaking, but Arvers heard him bring the tape recorder back again so he would not miss the final words. At last there was a click at the other end of the line. He slumped weakly into the armchair. The nightmare was already hovering above his head, ready to bear down on him, and there was no longer any possibility of summoning his fantasies to the rescue. Gleicher’s threat to broadcast the tape had the effect of an icy shower on him, shriveling once and for all the apotheosis of his dream and making a mockery of his deep spiritual struggles.
In this way Colonel Count von Gleicher occasionally reminded Arvers of his presence, at irregular intervals and at various times of day. He had the mind of a gentleman and not a policeman, as he never ceased to proclaim. His sense of honor bristled at the thought of resorting to physical pressure to break down a hu- man being’s resistance. The noble and infinitely more effective weapon he had decided to use in this special form of warfare (he had impressed this on Otto, who had at last understood) was psychology.
26
“I heard him. I remember the words exactly. He shouted: ‘I’ll tell you everything, I’ll do whatever you wish.’ And again, later on: ‘I can be extremely useful to you; I have the confidence of my superiors.’ What more do you want as proof of his treachery?”
Deeply moved by Claire’s agitation, Austin gently increased the pressure of his arm around her shoulder to try to calm her down.
He had returned to France a few days earlier but had not yet notified Arvers of his arrival. He wanted to have a word with his companion first. He had sent her a message at her mother’s, fixing a rendezvous in front of the movie house at Rennes, where they used to meet. They had exchanged no more than a word or two before taking their seats side by side in the darkness of the half-empty auditorium. Austin leaned toward her, put his arm around her shoulders, brought his face up close to hers, and started questioning her under his breath. He had already noticed what a nervous state she was in. She was clearly at the end of her tether, and her condition was a s
ource of anxiety to him, both as a doctor and as head of the mission. At the same time he could not suppress a feeling of pity, intensified by the position he had adopted, which made him acutely aware of the trembling of her body.
Her opening words did nothing to reassure him as to her mental balance. She had meant to give him a methodical account of how her suspicions had developed and had then been confirmed during one of Gleicher’s nocturnal visits, but she lost control of herself as soon as she mentioned Arvers’ name. Her fury was manifested in sudden violent outbursts, and he had to caution her several times to lower her voice.
“My brother wasn’t a traitor. It was Arvers, only Arvers, all the time.”
All the symptoms of an obsession, Austin thought to himself with a sigh. For the last few months her only purpose in living has been to justify her brother by proving the other man’s guilt, and now it’s beginning to take the form of hallucinations. Has the first result of my boss’s diabolical policy been to derange her mind?
He went on questioning her with infinite patience, concealing his skepticism.
“You say you heard him?”
“Utterly despicable, it sounded. One would have sworn he was groveling at the German’s feet.” He asked her to try to put things in their proper order. She made a great effort to pull herself together and started on her story from the beginning.
Puzzled by the change in Gleicher’s attitude that night, she had followed behind when he and Arvers went out of the house and had watched them go into the villa next door. There she had paused for some time. She was furious with herself for having hesitated so long, and her mother had since reproached her in the strongest terms. With a little more presence of mind, she could have heard the beginning of the conversation. She had eventually decided to slip into the garden and had crept up to one of the windows. With her ear glued to the shutters, she had heard the sound of a man's voice and could distinguish a word here and there. It was Arvers’ voice, she was absolutely certain. He seemed to be gasping for breath and in the grip of a mortal terror. She had remembered one phrase of his, word for word: “I’ll tell you everything, everything! I’ll do whatever you wish”; then, a little later on: “I can be extremely useful to you; I have the confidence of my superiors.” As though begging for mercy. At first she thought they were torturing him, but she had examined him closely and he showed no signs of ill-treatment on his return. No doubt Gleicher had merely threatened him, and that had been all that was needed.
A Noble Profession Page 13
