V
Lanny went back to his friend the Deputy Führer and reported: “That is a really extraordinary astrologer. He told me a number of remarkable things—and I’m sure he had no means of knowing my name or anything about me. He told me I’m going to die in Hongkong, and that really gave me quite a start, because I have an old schoolfriend who lives there, and has been begging me to take a trip around the world and pay him a visit. I had been thinking quite seriously of doing so—but now I guess I’ll lay off!” Lanny had invented this Hongkong friend as a substitute for his second marriage, which he took as a genuine case of some sort of mind reading, but which he couldn’t tell about.
“What you say interests me tremendously,” replied the dark Deputy. “I have many questions I would like to ask of my destiny at this moment.”
“You’d better not delay,” ventured Lanny. “I had a chat with this fellow after he got through with my horoscope, and it seems he’s in trouble with the police, and asked me for help.”
“Because of his practicing his profession?”
“No; they suspect him of having smuggled some jewels out of the country. He tells a plausible story, but of course I have no means of guessing how true it is. I told him I couldn’t have anything to do with a matter such as that, being a foreigner. But I said I had a friend who was prominent in Germany and deeply interested in astrology, and I would tell this friend about the case. Naturally I didn’t give him your name or any hint of your identity, so you are free to do what you wish about the matter.”
“Thank you, Herr Budd. Give me the man’s name and address, and I will make inquiries, and perhaps pay him a visit—or maybe send him the necessary data and let him work over the problem. I am frightfully busy at the present moment.”
“The time when you are busiest may be the time when you need help from the stars,” remarked the philosopher-friend.
VI
As when two mighty wrestlers struggle upon a mat, locked in an unbreakable grip, heaving and straining, exerting the last ounce of their forces; gasping and panting, they sway this way and that, and their muscles stand out in great lumps, and the cords are as if breaking through the skin, and the veins swell and the eyeballs seem about to spring from their heads; still they increase their efforts, and it appears that one is slowly yielding, but he summons new forces and holds his own; the spectators of this contest catch their breaths, and sway this way and that with the contestants, sharing through the power of the imagination the agony of the effort and manifesting even the physical symptoms of strain: so now it was in the diplomatic arena of Europe, where the once beaten champion Antaeus-like had touched the earth and renewed his forces, and now was coming back for another bout in spite of all the betting odds against him, he being determined, single-hearted and singleminded, while his opponent, grown soft through ease, was confused in his thoughts and hesitant to use the powers which he possessed.
Lanny Budd was watching this international contest from a ringside seat. Telegraph keys clicked, telephone wires hummed, dispatch riders came on motorcycles, important visitors were brought in cars—and the sum total of these communications spread in semi-secret whispers all over the Berghof. Nobody had ever been more skillful at making friends than the son of Budd-Erling, and being an American, he was regarded as a neutral, even a sort of arbiter, a court of appeals, a person not bound by precedents and conventions. “You see what they do to us?” the court physician would say, when some Sudeten German got hurt in a tavern argument and Dr. Goebbels spread it over the front pages of all the newspapers of the Fatherland. “Sehen Sie, Herr Budd!” exclaimed the Führer himself. “I take your advice and try to be moderate, and they drive my people to desperation.” The man who believed his own atrocity stories!
The Führer took a plane and flew to the town of Kehl, in the Rhineland, to inspect the new fortifications which he was rushing to completion, fronting the Maginot Line. Kehl—the name rang like a bell in Lanny’s soul, for it was on that bridge over the Rhine that the Nazis had delivered to him what was left of Freddi Robin after they had got through tormenting him. Only four years ago, and how much water had flowed under that bridge—and how many of the hopes of Europe had flowed away forever! The Führer came back in a towering rage because the French were answering his visit by sending more troops to the border. What else he could have expected was a question that nobody was supposed to ask him.
Diplomats and “purely private persons” were flying back and forth between Prague and Berlin and Berchtesgaden and London and Paris. Henlein and Ribbentrop came to report to their Führer, and Lanny got a glimpse of them. Hess told him they had brought word of new proposals which the Czech government was making. These represented a painstaking effort to satisfy the Germans by giving them every sort of equality, political and educational, and full local self-government in all the cantons—the utmost that was consistent with the preservation of the Czechoslovak Republic’s integrity. But that was precisely what the Nazis didn’t want, because they didn’t trust the Czechs, but regarded them as a lower race of beings.
What interested Lanny especially was the part which Lord Runciman of Doxford was playing in this diplomatic wrestling match. This “private person” with all the prestige of his powerful government behind him was engaged in extracting from Prague a series of concessions which would mean for all practical purposes the end of the republic and its democratic institutions. For one thing, they were to abolish free speech in the country—since it displeased Nazis to have Communists and Socialists and Jews telling the truth about what Nazis were doing. Also, the alliances with Russia and France were to be ended, and there were to be commercial treaties with Germany which would force Prague into economic dependence upon Berlin. These were the things the Nazis were determined upon having, and the noble English gentleman had given up his yachting at Cowes to come and make plain to a long-time ally of Britain that it had to surrender and become a slave of Germany.
VII
As soon as Lanny had made sure of this information, he told his friend Hess that he had some more art business in Munich, and would take the occasion to pay another visit to the Rumanian astrologer. He would stay overnight to attend a concert, he added, and put a bag and his little portable into his car and drove away. But he didn’t go into Munich; making sure that he wasn’t followed, he turned south, into the high mountains of Austria and thence up the Inn valley to the Swiss border. Across the upper Rhine he stopped at a little inn and got a room and went to work on his big story—two copies, one for Rick and one for Gus. Being afraid that his typing might have attracted attention, he drove to another Swiss town where he dropped the letters at the post office and quickly disappeared. Needless to say, his name was not on them, either inside or out.
Next morning he drove back to Munich, and late in the afternoon called at the office of the stargazer. The young woman answered the door, and the moment she saw him exclaimed: “Ach, Herr Budd! Die Polizei!” Her manner was distraught and her face full of fear—which might have been for herself as well as for her employer.
Lanny said nothing until he had come into the room and closed the door. Then: “Tell me what has happened.”
“Two Gestapo men came the day before yesterday and took him away, and that is all I know.”
“They didn’t say what the charge was?”
“They went upstairs to let him pack a bag. I didn’t hear what they said up there. They said nothing to me and of course I was afraid to speak.”
“You haven’t made any inquiry?”
“Du lieber Gott! What could I hope for, except to get myself arrested too?”
Lanny told her: “I will make inquiries and see if I can find out anything.” With that he excused himself and took his departure.
VIII
But he got only as far as his car. Just as he was in the act of stepping in, a taxicab hove into sight and drew up at the curb. Out of it stepped the astrologer, with a suitcase in his hand. “Grüss’ Gott, Herr
Budd!” he exclaimed. He paid the driver, and then turned to Lanny. “Um Gottes willen, kommen Sie herein!”
They went into the house, Reminescu using his key. He greeted the woman casually—his thoughts entirely on Lanny. Shut up in the room he sank onto a couch, exclaiming: “Jesus Christus!”—and took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “Was für ein Erlebnis!”
“I hope they didn’t treat you too badly,” said Lanny, by way of being co-operative.
“They treated me as if I were Paracelsus, Pythagoras, and Trismegistus rolled into one,” replied the astrologer. “But God preserve me from such hospitality in future!”
“Tell me about it,” suggested the visitor, not embarrassed to reveal curiosity.
The still agitated young man lighted a cigarette and took a couple of quick puffs, then began a curious tale. “Two Gestapo men came, the day before yesterday, and ordered me to come with them, no questions asked. ‘Bring all your charts and books,’ they said, so I packed them up. They took me, of all places on earth, to the Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel, which I am told is now run by the Gestapo. I had a most elegant suite, with Cupids on the ceiling, and a Death’s Head SS Major or something saluting me respectfully. ‘My apologies, Herr Reminescu; I am carrying out orders from above. It is desired that you should prepare horoscopes for certain important persons. While you are doing this, you will be my guest, and will be supplied with anything within reason that you care to order. No harm will be done you, but unfortunately it will be necessary for you to remain in this suite until the work has been completed. I will put before you the birth data of twelve persons and when your work is done, I will have it delivered, and if it is found satisfactory you will be paid two hundred and fifty marks, and will receive the exit permit which I understand you have applied for.’ Did you ever hear anything to equal that, Herr Budd?”
Lanny had to admit that it was a novelty in his experience.
“So, there is a typewritten list, and I spread out my charts and go to work. Such meals as I have never eaten, and such a soft bed with embroidered linen coverlets as I have never seen outside of a museum; and cigarettes, champagne, brandy—truly, I lived like the Shah of Persia, or maybe the Maharajah of Indore. But there I sit, and shivers run all over me, and the sweat stands out on my forehead, and I hardly dare to breathe; for I have run my eyes over the birth dates, and I dare not tell you what I see.”
“I can guess, if you will permit me,” smiled Lanny.
The other gazed about anxiously; then in a whisper: “Bitte, sprechen Sie leise!”
Lanny, replying in a whisper: “April 20, 1889.” The other nodded, and fear melted the bones of both, for that was the day when a last and least satisfactory son had been born to the Braunau customs officer Alois Schicklgruber who had changed his name to Hitler.
“It would not be fair to ask me what the stars told me, or what I wrote down,” murmured the astrologer, and the visitor replied: “I have not asked you.”
After a few moments, Lanny went on: “Do you remember the other dates?”
“They took the list from me, but of course they could not take it from my mind. However, I would not dare give them to you, and it might be very dangerous for you to possess them.”
“Quite possibly, Herr Reminescu. And you may be sure I will keep your secret, at least until you are safe in your homeland. I take it, your presence indicates that you managed to please the higher powers.”
“I did my best, and the twelve horoscopes were taken away early this morning. A short while ago the officer came and informed me that the work was all right, but that some further questions were to be asked. He had these in writing and I wrote the answers on the same sheet; then he paid me the money and told me that I was free, and that my exit visa would be sent to me. So here I am, and I wait. Do you suppose they will really send it?”
“I do not know, my friend; but if I were in your place I would not mention this experience to anyone else. It happens that I am good at keeping secrets. I have an idea that what has happened was a result of my effort to assist you, and I think I had better not try any further. I will just say that you were indisposed and unable to do any work for me today. Let me give you my home address in France, so that you can write me and we shall not lose touch with each other. Don’t write it down, it is easy to remember.”
The stargazer said that his memory was good, and Lanny told him: “Juan-les-Pins, Alpes Maritimes, France.” Then they shook hands warmly and parted forever.
IX
Everybody in the Berghof who was entitled to have an opinion of the diplomatic situation wanted to discuss it with Lanny Budd. They had discovered that he knew practically everybody they could mention in England and France; so he found himself once more in the position which he had occupied at the Paris Peace Conference, an interpreter not merely of languages, but of personalities and national characteristics—of manners, climates, councils, governments, himself not least but honored of them all. Word had got about somehow that he considered the British populace to be in a pathological condition, and officers of the household, young Nazis who had been reared upon the idea of the Führer’s infallibility, would stop suddenly in the midst of their vaunting and look at Lanny uneasily and ask: “Can it really be so in Britain? How can there be a great nation without any authority, without somebody who knows what it is going to do?”
It seemed to them a most dangerous thing, every bit as bad as Jew-Bolshevism, and indeed the same thing in subtle disguise. The Nazis were going to end it some day, and the only question was when and how? If the possibility occurred to them that they might be moving too fast and running into danger, they would dismiss it from their minds; for of course the Führer would know, the Führer was always right. How could it be possible that the British would be so foolish as to risk defying the German Air Force? And for such a political monstrosity as Czechoslovakia? Unsinn!
Adi himself was confronting one of the great decisions of his life; one which might lead him to triumph, or wreck everything he had accomplished thus far. He was in a continuing nervous crisis, and members of his staff kept out of his way when they could. His agency of communication with Lanny was Hess, who would ask this and that about Runciman and Chamberlain and Sir Nevile Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin. Once he inquired whether it might be possible for Madame to come to the Berghof again. Unfortunately Madame was laid up with the flu at Bienvenu, and could not travel, even to help determine the fate of Europe.
There came a royal command: Herr Budd was to take a motor ride with the Führer, late in the afternoon, the time when the great man usually went walking with his dogs and his daimon. This time he and his guest rode in the back seat, and a staff member in the front beside the chauffeur. They took a road which wound up a mountainside by a series of hairpin turns, and Lanny realized quickly what road this was. “I see you don’t forget your promises, Herr Reichskanzler,” he ventured, and the reply was: “Niemals.”
They were climbing the Kehlstein; but within about five hundred feet of the top the road swung suddenly straight into the mountainside. There was a great bronze door, apparently operated by an electric eye, for it began to swing back, disclosing a grotto, carved out of the solid rock, a chamber paved and walled with concrete, large enough for several cars to enter and turn in. Indirect lighting flooded the place with a warm glow, and when Lanny descended from the car he saw at the far end another bronze door, which also opened automatically. He entered an elevator, large enough to accommodate eighteen persons; but this time only two rode. The Führer pressed a button, and they stood in silence while traveling upward through the heart of a mountain.
When the doors opened, they stepped into a large living room, part of a villa with bedroom, small kitchen, and rooms for two attendants, perched on the very top of a mountain, entirely invisible except from the air. Around it was a terrace from which you looked over what seemed to be all the mountains of Europe: a relief map of deep depressions and swelling protuberanc
es; a study in deep greens, flecked with the bright blue of little lakes and the varied color of villages in the valleys and residences along the slopes. Lanny gazed, and cried several times: “Herrlich! Herrlich!”
Adi Schicklgruber, one-time Gefreite, had created this and owned it, and the idea that he should not be proud of it was one that had never occurred to him. His heart swelled, and the deepest chords of his soul began to vibrate—his love of the mountains and forests, of music, of the Herrenvolk and of his own rulership. He heard those grand open chords by which the Nordic gods ascend over a rainbow to Valhalla; he heard the music of the forging of Siegfried’s sword: “Nothung, Nothung, neidliches Schwert!” How could a people who had such music calling them to glory ever fail of their destiny?
X
They sat in two striped canvas chairs and watched the sun go down in an explosion of gold and pink, changing to deep red and then to pale violet. Said the Führer of the Nazis: “That is the capitalistic era dying before your eyes. People think that I mean only the National half of my party’s name, but believe me, I am not through giving the world surprises. Before I finish, I mean to keep every promise I have ever made.”
“I believe it, Exzellenz. I lack the power to read that future in the stars, but I watch day by day to see it happen.”
This was a trap Lanny was setting, and his host’s foot slipped into it immediately. “Tell me, Herr Budd, do you believe in the influence of the stars upon human destiny?”
“It has always been a problem with me, Herr Reichskanzler. I cannot find any basis in scientific theory, yet it has happened to me to have astonishing predictions made, and to see them come true. The same thing has happened to friends of mine, and I am forced to conclude that there are powers which I do not understand. Just the other day, for example, I went quite casually to a young astrologer in Munich and had him cast my horoscope for me. I am sure he did not know me from Adam, and the things he told me could not possibly be guesswork.”
Presidential Agent (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 76
