Presidential Agent (The Lanny Budd Novels)

by Upton Sinclair

  And what about the mind, most familiar of our possessions, yet the least investigated? Lanny was coming to the conclusion that his mind was one with all the other minds existing—and this, not because his mystical stepfather had dreamed it, but because of facts which he was observing and for which he could find no other explanation. He saw himself as a bright and lovely bubble, floating on the surface of a vast dark ocean; he was keenly aware of his own existence, and somewhat less keenly aware of other bubbles, dancing in the sunshine all around him; but of the infinite ocean from which he had come and to which he was destined to return, he knew next to nothing, and was considered an oddity because he kept trying to find out.

  An ocean of mind-stuff, a cosmic consciousness, or unconsciousness—whatever that could be and however it could function. Some called it evolution and others called it God. Whatever its name, it brought you into existence and kept you going. Very certainly you hadn’t made yourself, either body or mind; very certainly you didn’t know how to make your own blood or to repair your tissues; your thoughts came, but you didn’t know how, and the wisest scientist had no explanation of the process whereby a thought, desire, or act of will could cause your muscles to flex and your hand to move. You had some control over both mind and body; you lived your life, as you said, and did what you pleased; but why you pleased this and not something else was a question you left to the learned psychologists—very few in number, and mostly not agreeing with one another.

  Dipping into the subconscious mind of a dull old Polish woman, Lanny had discovered fragments of the minds of other people, mostly dead, but now and then a living one. Were these disembodied minds, spirits, or ghosts, or did they exist as fragments of mind-stuff—just as long-buried fragments of bones exist in the grave? No, scientist had to apologize for studying a piece of the skull of a Piltdown man and learning what he could about that ancestral being. Why shouldn’t some of them get busy to study the mental fragments of a long-dead Amerindian chieftain, or a Greek munitions king, or a victim of the Nazis murdered in a concentration camp? Nobody could give any reason that satisfied the son of Budd-Erling, so he went ahead holding séances and jotting down notes.

  II

  He had watched his stepfather hypnotize Madame; he had read books on this subject, and now he wanted to try it once. He asked her permission, and she said Yes without hesitation. She would do anything for this family who had been so kind, solving all her problems for her and granting her every request. In her secret heart she held Lanny as a son, and at the same time as a lover; when she went to the cinema, he was the hero upon the screen, and a lonely old woman dreamed dreams which she would not put into words or perhaps even admit to herself.

  With Horace Hofman watching, Lanny seated himself in front of her and fixed his eyes upon hers; he made the gentle passes he had seen Parsifal make before her face, and murmured slow words of command. He was himself surprised by the quickness with which she passed into a trance; quite evidently a different kind from those which she herself induced, tapping a different level of consciousness, or at any rate bringing a different set of phenomena. No “control” and no “spirits”; only passivity and silence. If he had told her that she was a bird flying, she would have got up and waved her arms; but he wasn’t interested in parlor tricks. He wanted to find out what sort of mind he now had to deal with. He asked questions, and she answered; she was satisfied and would do what he told her. Yes, she knew about Tecumseh, but he wasn’t there now; there were no “spirits” anywhere about, and she didn’t know how to get any.

  Lanny said, in a quiet, firm voice: “Listen carefully, Madame, and remember what I say. You will have nothing more to do with Claribel. You will take control of Tecumseh”—how Lanny would have liked to find a way to get Tecumseh under hypnosis!—“and ask him to bring me a man named Ludi Schultz whom I very much want to talk to. You will remember the name?”

  “I will remember.”

  “Also his wife, Trudi, if you can find her. They are good people who will do you no harm, but will tell you about themselves if you can find them. You will remember all that?”

  “I will.”

  “And above all no more Claribel. No more Claribel. You will wake up now.” Lanny snapped his fingers, and the old woman came to herself. “You feel all right?” he asked—having been worried by the thought that he might put her into a trance and then not be able to get her out. She said she was all right, and he asked her to go into her own kind of trance. She sank back in her chair and closed her eyes, and it worked like magic—there was no Claribel and no Tecumseh, but a voice, speaking German, and saying that he was Ludi, and that he was well and happy in the spirit world.

  A most unsatisfactory Ludi, far different from the aggressive Social-Democratic Party worker whom Lanny had known in Berlin. He didn’t have very much to tell that he hadn’t told in previous séances; he took some time to speak, and his answers were vague and sometimes faint. He said Yes, he knew Lanny Budd, and remembered having met him in Berlin. He, Ludi, had been a prisoner of the Nazis, and had “passed over” a long time ago. The spirits apparently didn’t like the word death, and in general were as mealy-mouthed as if they were in church. Ludi said he had had different ideas when he was on earth, but now he had changed. He said Yes, he knew what was happening to his friends on earth—sometimes, at any rate; but he didn’t prove it by giving details. He said that he knew some of those he had known on earth, and what had happened to them since they had passed over. Lanny named several persons whom Trudi had mentioned as having fallen into the hands of the Nazis, and Ludi said they were here and they were well and happy. It was a formula.

  III

  Lanny had found that these fleeting and unsatisfactory beings didn’t like to be pinned down and forced to answer questions, and he was taking no chances of having the voice of Tecumseh suddenly break in and scold him. However, there was one subject nearest to his heart and he came to it quickly: “You remember Trudi, and your life with her?”

  “I remember her, of course.”

  “Have you seen her lately?”

  “I thought I saw her, but I wasn’t sure. I think it must have been her ghost.”

  “How interesting! Do you mean they have ghosts in the spirit world?”

  “Sometimes; at least, some believe in them, but I never did.”

  “But you saw something that you thought was Trudi?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did she speak to you?”

  “A few words. She called my name, and said she was coming.”

  “Did you answer her?”

  “I tried to, but I am not sure if I could.”

  This cross-questioning went on for quite a while. Lanny was interested to know if Trudi had been near to death and had appeared to her former husband in the “spirit” world in the same way that she had appeared to her second husband in the world which called itself “real.” He wanted to know if people appeared on the threshold of the spirit world and then receded into the real world again. He wanted to know how Trudi had looked, and what Ludi had thought about her near-appearance, and why he was so vague in telling about it. “Is it because when you were on earth you were so much opposed to the idea of spirits? Maybe in your heart you are still opposed, and that is why you don’t see Trudi and others of your old friends. Could that be possible?”

  The voice admitted that it might be, and Lanny proceeded to give him the same advice which Tecumseh had given to Lanny. “Try to change your attitude, and be more receptive to the fact that you yourself are a spirit, and that there are other spirits you might learn to know and love.” A strange kind of auto-suggestion, given to beings who perhaps weren’t beings at all, but merely imaginings taking form in some mind-stuff, fragments out of the minds of Madame and Lanny or pershaps the former minds of Ludi and Trudi.

  Lanny asked about that old man who was said to be helping Trudi; and again it was all vague and unsatisfactory. Ludi said the old man might have been a ghost, too; he had sp
oken Trudi’s name. He was rather stout and had a kind face. Yes, he was called Paul, pronounced German fashion, and Teich, or something like that—it was the German word for “pond.” Perhaps it was Teicher. No, Ludi had never met him before, and didn’t know where to find him. He would try to find out more about Trudi, and would come to another séance. Lanny, trying to give suggestions, pleaded in the name of friendship, and said he would be glad to have Ludi’s company at any time; but Ludi said it wasn’t easy to arrange. The man in the real world explained that he was trying to help Trudi without being sure what world she was in. Ludi ought to help them both; but instead of reacting to this with ardor, as Ludi on earth would have done, the spirit voice said that he was müde, erschöpft—very tired, and his voice trailed away, and it turned into the moanings of Madame, coming out of her trance, something which Lanny had learned to recognize and never to oppose.

  So there was one more not very successful experiment. Lanny said to Hofman: “Do you suppose we are shaping all this ourselves? Imagining the way things ought to be, and so getting them that way?”

  The locksmith answered: “I admit that Ludi’s bewilderment is about what is in my own mind when I try to imagine the spirit world!”

  IV

  It didn’t take Beauty Budd very long to think of somebody who would know Lili Moldau, and she called up this friend and invited her to tea, along with a couple of other ladies so that they could play bridge. Lanny had been to a newspaper office and inspected what they had in their files concerning the actress. Thus it was brought to his mind that he had once seen her in a play in Vienna; he had forgotten the event, but didn’t have to tell her that. Posted on the details, Beauty had no trouble in leading the conversation, first to the stage and then to her favorite performer. “She is living in Paris at present,” remarked the friend. “Oh, do you know her?” exclaimed Beauty. “I would love to meet her, and Lanny would enjoy it, too.”

  The friend promised to invite Beauty and her son to tea. That is the way things go in smart society; people are always being “used” for some purpose or another, and they try not to know it, because they have a natural human desire to believe that they are loved for themselves alone. They don’t like to become suspicious and distrust other people’s motives; but they learn by sad experience, and the older they grow, the less faith in human nature they retain.

  A date was made, and Lanny and his mother dressed themselves in their glad rags and he drove her to a mansion on the Boulevard des Malsherbes, and there was the lovely Lili in all her Titian-haired splendor, clad in a sheath dress of green silk with a sort of patina of gold, tight-fitting as if to say: “See how I have kept my figure!” She had been in her time the most charming of ingénues, and now, at an age where that was no longer plausible, she was too proud to take older roles, and preferred to serve as a sort of scout for her lover and patron, exploring the wilds of French public life to find out who was in the market and at what price.

  Mother and son laid themselves out to be charming, and they knew all about it. An actress could not but be touched by this off-stage applause heaped upon her; apparently the pair had followed her about from city to city in Austria and Germany; they knew all her roles, and the fine points of her technique. Really, it was extraordinary! “Why have we never met before?” she asked, and it did seem surprising, for they had so many friends in common. Kurt Meissner for example; Lili knew him well, and after they had exchanged reminiscences, Beauty let it be delicately understood that she had played in Kurt’s life the same intimate role which Lili played in Graf Herzenberg’s. And then the Fürstin Bismarck, and the Fürstin Donnerstein, and Emily Sonnemann—why, they lived practically in the same world! Certainly they must be friends, they must see more of each other.

  Lanny didn’t take anything for granted. He let the stage star know that they were the Budds of Budd Gunmakers and Budd-Erling Aircraft, and that his mother was the widow of Marcel Detaze. On chance that Lili hadn’t heard of him, Lanny told about the Munich exhibition, and the painting of his mother, Sister of Mercy, which he had taken to the Führer at the Braune Haus. It would have been cheap to pull out the clipping and display it here; more comme il faut to prove it by the intimacy of his revelations concerning the great master of German destiny.

  An American art expert made it plain that he had followed the career of Adi with the same fidelity he had given to Lili Moldau. He had been to Berchtesgaden, an honor which had never been vouchsafed to an actress maliciously reputed to have Jewish blood. He had been a guest at Karinhall, and at Göring’s palace in Berlin, doors which Lili’s shadow had never darkened. He had visited the Goebbels family. “Poor Magda!” he remarked. “The last time I saw her, at The Berghof, she looked very sad.”

  Lili replied: “You men know what you are!” Tactful, and as far as one should go in referring to the scandals of the Regierung.

  Also, the Budds had connections in Paris; they were intimate friends of Mrs. Chattersworth, and of the de Bruynes, and the former Baroness de la Tourette; they had once leased the palace of the Duc de Belleaumont—in short, they represented for the amie of Graf Herzenberg a “find” of the highest value. “I would like you to meet Seine Hochgeboren,” she remarked; “you will find him charming.” Beauty replied, with exactly the right degree of empressement: “I know I should be proud to meet any friend of Lili Moldau’s.”

  V

  So mother and son came home well pleased with themselves. The promised invitation came by telephone next day; to meet Herzenberg at Lili’s town apartment, and not at the château. That was no less satisfactory to Beauty, and Lanny had to pretend that it was the same to him. One step at a time—and such long delays in between! Lanny reported progress to Hofman and Monck, and they spent hours figuring over what they would do in the event that Lanny’s social ambitions failed. Monck’s time was running out, and he insisted that he could not ask for an extension. But how could they venture into the grounds of the château at night unless something could be done to those dogs—to say nothing of the nightwatchman who was almost certain to be on duty? Wait a day or two longer, and we’ll see what Herzenberg is like, and whether or not he ever serves tea or gives dinner-parties at his concentration camp! Meantime, let’s have another séance with Madame, and see if we can get Ludi to tell us any more news!

  Beauty Budd and her preoccupied son dressed themselves again and drove to a fashionable apartment house near the Parc Monceau. There was die schöne Lili, playing the ingénue as she had done for twenty years or more, but now ad-libbing, as the American stage folk call it. She, too, must have consulted some “index,” for she had learned about Lanny Budd’s infatuation with the spirits and was primed for conversation on the subject. Did he know that the Führer and a group of his friends were deeply interested in all such mystical subjects? Lanny said he had heard it. Did he know that in the early days the Führer had always consulted an astrologer named Hanussen before he took any decisive political step? Lanny had been informed of that also. Then the actress inquired, did he believe in astrology? He said he had not had opportunity to investigate this abstruse subject.

  Lili had recently consulted a fortune-teller in Paris who charged five hundred francs a sitting, which certainly indicated that she must have something. She had told the actress of incidents in her past too painful to talk about, and then had told her that she was going back to the stage and make a greater success than ever. “Of course every person who has ever had a stage career cherishes that dream, and I am wondering if I should try to make it come true. Would that count a proof of foreknowledge?” Lanny replied that it would be a proof of psychology, at any rate.

  Seine Hochgeboren arrived: a shaven-headed Prussian with a dueling scar on his cheek and a monocle through which he surveyed you with what appeared to be a condescending air, though he may not have meant it that way. Certainly he had every reason to be cordial to a mother and son who possessed a knowledge of France and of the French fashionable world which might make them of
the greatest use to him. His manners were suave, and your feelings were smoothed, your self-esteem flattered; the conversation was guided so that you were asked few direct questions but were led to reveal your habits and desires. It was as if a master of many servants was investigating a candidate for some especially important and confidential position.

  This might be the case, of course, for Herzenberg had dealt with servants from childhood, and now had a large payroll at his disposal. Just what were these Budds and why had they sought an acquaintance with his amie? Were they as rich as they appeared? A great many smart people are like movie sets—all façade and nothing behind them. These Americans had a family fortune in the background, but did they command it, or might they be black sheep of some sort, devotees of the gambling tables, for example? If so, what were they prepared to offer, and what pay did they expect?

  A Nazi overseer could count upon the certainty that such wordlings knew who he was and what he was doing in France; also, that they were not motivated by pure love of Germany, or of National-Socialist ideals. Lanny, in his turn, could assume that Lili had told her lord and master all that she had been able to learn about the pair. Also, one could be reasonably sure that two young officers of the Death’s Head brigade had reported to their superior their clever feat in getting an American playboy drunk and hearing him blurt out the story of the Hooded Men and their plot. Even though Seine Hochgeboren might have known this already, it was confirmation, and held out the hope of future leakages.

  So Lanny didn’t have to recite that “spiel” with which he was accustomed to hypnotize Nazis, about how many times he had visited the Führer, and being an intimate of the Görings and the Goebbelses and the rest. He could be dignified and aloof, mentioning such mutual friends as Graf Stubendorf, at whose Schloss he had spent half a dozen Christmases since boyhood, and Emil Meissner, Kurt’s oldest brother, now a General in the Reichswehr and a Junker of the inner circle. It was as if Lanny had been saying: “These are my credentials; and my way of presenting them lets you know that they are genuine.”