Dragon's Teeth

by Sinclair, Upton;

  The report, published in the newspapers, that the Führer had seen the Sister of Mercy, filled thousands of Bavarians with a desire to see it, and accordingly it was decided to continue the exhibition another week. But Lanny was tired of telling people about it, and tired of what they said; in fact, he was tired of what everybody said in Nazi Germany. If they said it because they wanted to, he hated them; if they said it because they had to, he was sorry for them; but in neither case could he be interested.

  Deciding to take the bull by the horns, he picked out a sunshiny morning when the inmates of Dachau might be outdoors—those who were allowed out. He put in his pocket a newspaper clipping about the Führer having viewed and approved the Detaze painting; also a few of the interviews with himself and Irma, containing his portrait, and mention of his having been a guest of Göring. These ought to be equivalent to a ticket of admission to any place in Naziland. Leaving Irma to do some shopping, he drove out the Dachau road, and instead of parking his car like a humble nobody, drove to the main gates and announced his desire to see the Kommandant.

  They looked at his car, they looked at his clothes and his Aryan face, and at the engraved card which he gave them. “Mr. Lanning Prescott Budd” might be somebody so important that he didn’t bother to put his titles and honors on his card, as was the German custom. They let him through the steel gates, and two Stormtroopers stood guard while a third took his card to the office. In front of him was a drill ground, and at one side a clatter of hammers; they were putting up new buildings, doubtless with the labor of prisoners. Stormtroopers were everywhere, all with their rubber truncheons and automatics; there were now half a million of these fighting men for whom jobs had to be provided.

  XI

  The Kommandant consented to see Herr Budd, and he was escorted to the private office of a tough young Süddeutscher with a scarred face and a round head with black hair close cropped. Having met Göring, Lanny thought he had no more to learn about toughness. He sat down and came straight to the point:

  “Herr Kommandant, I am an American sympathizer who happens to be in Munich because I am interested in an art exhibition. You may have read about it, and possibly about me. I had the honor of spending a morning with the Führer at the Braune Haus a few days ago. I am a friend of Minister-Präsident General Göring, and had the pleasure of accompanying him on a shooting trip last month. I live in France and visit frequently in England and America, where I hear a great deal of propaganda against your Regierung—you no doubt know of the charges of cruelty and torturing which are being widely published. I thought it might be a good thing if I could say: ‘I have visited one of the large concentration camps and seen conditions with my own eyes.’ I appreciate that this is a request you would hardly grant to a stranger; but it happens that I have some clippings from Munich newspapers which will show you who I am—and incidentally they contain pictures of myself, so that you can see I’m not anybody else.”

  The smiling visitor handed over the clippings; the tough Nazi studied them, and his toughness evaporated like early morning frost in sunshine. This elegant rich foreigner had actually enjoyed the highest privilege which any good Stormtrooper could imagine—of walking into the Führer’s private study and discussing art with him! “Certainly, Herr Budd; we are always pleased to show our camp to properly accredited persons. We have taken several foreign journalists through in the past month or two.” The Kommandant arose, prepared to do the honors himself—perhaps he could find the secret of how to make friends with the Führer!

  So Lanny strolled about and saw what was inside those concrete walls with heavily electrified barbed wire. The officer explained the routine of the camp, and led his visitor over to the corner where the barracks were situated, fenced off from the rest of the grounds with barbed-wire entanglements. They were dismal, unpainted, and half-rotted buildings which had been erected of flimsy materials in wartime and had been neglected ever since. There were numerous cracks in the board walls and some of the windows had missing glass. There were thirteen one-story buildings, each with five connecting rooms, and in each room were fifty or more berths, arranged in three tiers like shelves. The floors were of concrete, and the mattresses were straw sacks. There was one washstand in each room.

  Many of the inmates were outside the camp, working on the roads under heavy guard. Others were in the workshops, or building the new barracks, or in the offices. The old and the sick were getting the advantage of the sunshine, the only gift of nature which was still free to them. They sat leaning against the sides of the buildings, or strolling slowly. Apparently they were forbidden to converse; at any rate they weren’t doing it. They looked dully at Lanny, and he was ashamed to meet their eyes. Fortunately he had no acquaintances among the Reds and Pinks of Bavaria, so he gave no soul-wounds.

  A drab and distressing spectacle the prisoners presented. They had close-cropped heads. They wore the clothes in which they had been arrested; but that had been months ago, in many cases nearly a year, and doubtless they were sleeping in their clothes on these near-winter nights. The intellectuals of Bavaria had evidently not been fond of outdoor sports; some were lean and stoop-shouldered, others were paunched and flabby. Many had white hair, and might have been the grandfathers of their guards, but that earned them no consideration. Ill health and depression were written all over them. They did not know what they were here for, or how long they would have to stay—they who had been free men, free thinkers, the best of the land’s intellectuals. They had dreamed of a happier and more ordered world, and this was the punishment which fitted their crime. “We are not running a health resort,” remarked the Kommandant.

  Lanny kept walking, as long as there was anything to be seen: sixty-five bunk-rooms, several mess-halls, a dozen workshops, and various outdoor constructions. Everywhere he scanned the faces, looking for that of his brother-in-law’s brother or that of Trudi Schultz’s husband. He saw neither; and after he had covered all the ground he could find out about, he ventured the question: “Don’t you have any Jews?”

  “Oh, yes,” replied the host, “about forty; but we keep them apart, out of consideration for the others.”

  “They work, I suppose?”

  “They work good and hard, you may be sure.”

  “Could I see them?”

  “That, I am sorry to say, is contrary to the regulations.”

  The man volunteered no more; and Lanny, having asked as many questions as he dared, let himself be led back to his car. “I thank you, Herr Kommandant,” he said. “I will be able to tell newspaper reporters that I didn’t see any bruised or bloody inmates, or any wire whips or rubber hose for beatings.”

  “You might have looked still farther and not seen any,” replied the tough Nazi. The remark was open to more than one interpretation, and Lanny thought: “Maybe he is like me, and prefers not to lie if he can help it!”

  XII

  The amateur investigator drove back to the city, wondering how Freddi was standing it. Freddi himself had wondered, did he have the needed courage, could he find in himself the spiritual resources? Lanny, being of an imaginative temperament, asked the same questions of himself; he lived in those dingy and squalid sheds and felt on his back the lash of those whips which he had not seen.

  Then his busy mind began inventing a little story. He went to see the tough Nazi Kommandant, and invited him to see the show, and after that to take a ride. When they were well out in the country Lanny addressed him as follows:

  “Herr Kommandant, one of the Jews whom you are providing with plenty of hard work happens to be a sort of relative of mine. He is a harmless young fellow, and if I should take him to my home in France he would be content to play the clarinet for the rest of his life and never do any harm to your glorious movement. It happens that I have just sold some paintings and have cash in a Munich bank. Suppose I were to pay you, say twenty-five thousand marks, in any form and by any method you direct, and you in turn would find some way to let me pick up that pri
soner in my car and whisk him up into the mountains and across the Austrian border—would that appeal to you as a good night’s work?”

  Lanny’s fancy created several dénouements for that story. He knew that the Nazi machine was pretty well riddled with graft; Johannes Robin had told many tales of pure Aryan business men who were getting what they wanted by such methods, old as the first despotism. On the other hand, this particular toughie might be a sincere fanatic—it was impossible to tell them apart. Lanny was sure that if Hugo Behr had been in charge of the camp, he would have taken the money; on the other hand, Heinrich Jung would probably have reported him to the grim Gestapo.

  And what would happen then? They couldn’t very well do worse than escort him to the frontier, as Generalissimo Balbo’s men had done in Rome nearly ten years ago. But here was the thing to give Lanny pause: if the Kommandant was a really virtuous Nazi, he might go back to his camp and make it impossible for Lanny to corrupt any weakling among his men, by the simple method of taking Freddi Robin and beating him to death and cremating the body.

  “I must think of something better,” said the grown-up playboy.

  BOOK SIX

  Blood Hath Been Shed

  25

  Grasping at Air

  I

  Christmas was coming; and Irma had been away from her darling for more than three months. It was unthinkable to stay longer. What was Lanny accomplishing? What was he hoping to accomplish? Göring was just playing with him. He was trying to get something out of them, and for nothing. He was keeping them quiet, sealing their lips. Not that Irma minded so very much having her husband’s lips sealed. If only he wouldn’t worry, and fill his mind with horrors so that he started in his sleep!

  The Detaze show was over, and a happy development had come. One of the great museums in Dresden had asked to have the paintings for a while; they would treat them in a distinguished way, putting them in a separate room. The art lovers of that Luxusstadt would come and admire them, inquiries would be made, and it would be a good thing both from the point of view of art and of money. Zoltan would be coming and going, and inquiring purchasers could be referred to him. Much better than having the pictures stuck away in a storeroom on a private estate!

  Beauty and Parsifal were going to London, on account of the strangest development you could imagine. Lady Caillard had sent a dear friend of hers all the way to Munich to persuade the American couple to come again as her guests, on account of a presentiment which had seized her; she was going very soon to rejoin her beloved “Vinnie” in the spirit world, and she wanted Beauty’s dear man of love to be in her home at that time to close her eyes and take charge of her funeral which was to be like none other in modern times, a thing of joy and not of mourning. The guests were to wear white, and there would be happy music and feasting, all under the sign of “V.B.X.”—Vinnie, Birdie, and a Kiss. “Perhaps she will send us some word about Freddi,” said Beauty; and then—a horrid thought: “Perhaps she will leave us some of her money.”

  The museum in Dresden was attending to the pictures, so Jerry Pendleton was free. Irma and Lanny took him with them through a pass in those snow-covered mountains which make for Munich a setting like a drop curtain. They crossed the narrow belt which the Versailles Diktat had left to Austria, and through the Brenner pass which had been included in Italy’s share of the loot. There Mussolini’s Blackshirts were busily engaged in making Aryans into Mediterraneans by the agency of rubber truncheons and dogwhips. It made bad blood between Fascismo and its newborn offspring in the north. Dr. Goebbels’s well-subsidized agitators were working everywhere in Austria, and not a few of them were in Italian dungeons. Optimistic young Pinks looked forward to seeing the Fascists and the Nazis devour each other like the two Kilkenny cats.

  Home sweet home seemed ever so humble when you had been dwelling and visiting in palaces; but roses were in bloom beside its gates, and down the drive came racing a treasure without price, a tiny creature in a little blue dress, with dark brown hair streaming and dark brown eyes shining—she had been told two days ago that mother and father were on the way, and had been prattling about them and asking questions ever since. She was more than halfway through her fourth year, and it is astounding how fast they grow when you come back after three or four months and a new being confronts you; you cannot restrain your cries of delight, and a watchful expert has to check your ardors, lest you promote the evil quality of self-consciousness. Irma Barnes, who had been brought up in a play-world herself, had a hard time realizing that a child is more than a plaything for two delighted parents. Irma Barnes, who had always had her own way, had to learn to submit to discipline in the name of that very dogmatic new science of “child study.”

  Yes, indeed; for even a twenty-three-million-dollar baby has to learn to use her hands, and how shall she learn if someone does everything for her and never lets her make any effort? How will she learn discipline if she always has her own way, and if she gets the idea that she is the center of attention, more important than any of those with whom she has to deal? The severe Miss Severne persisted in the notion that her professional authority must be respected; and likewise the conscientious Miss Addington, no longer needed as Marceline’s governess, but staying on as half-pensioner, half-friend of the family until she would take charge of Frances. Those two Church-of-England ladies had been conspiring together, and enlisted Lanny’s help against a doting mother, two rival grandmothers, and a Provençal cook and major domo—to say nothing of Santa Claus.

  II

  A merry Christmas, yet not too much so, for over the household hangs the shadow of sorrow; nobody can forget those two bereaved Jewish women and the grief that is in their hearts. Rahel and Mama try their best to restrain themselves, and not to inflict their suffering upon their friends; but everybody knows what they are thinking about. Really, it would be less sad if Freddi were dead and buried, for then at least they would be sure he wasn’t suffering. But this way the worst is possible, and it haunts them; they stay by themselves in the Lodge, their lost one always in the back of their minds and most of the time in the front. They are touchingly grateful for everything that has been done for them, but there is one thing more they have to ask; their looks ask it even when their lips are silent. Oh, Lanny, oh, Irma, can’t you think of something to do for poor Freddi?

  Hansi and Bess are in the Middle West, giving concerts several times every week. They have cabled money after the first concert, so Mama and Rahel no longer have to use Irma’s money to buy their food. They have offered to rent a little place for themselves, but Beauty has said No, why should they—it would be very unkind. Irma says the same; but in her heart she cannot stifle the thought that she would like it better if they did. She feels a thunder-cloud hanging over the place, and wants so much to get Lanny from under it. She is worried about what is going on in his mind, and doesn’t see why she should give up all social life because of a tragedy they are powerless to avert. Irma wants to give parties, real parties, of the sort which make a social impression; she will put up the money and Beauty and Feathers will do the work—both of them happy to do so, because they believe in parties, because parties are what set you apart from the common herd which cannot give them, at least not with elegance and chic.

  Then, too, there is the question of two little tots. They are together nearly all the time, and this cannot be prevented; they clamor for it, take it for granted, and the science of child study is on their side. Impossible to bring up any child properly alone, because the child is a gregarious creature; so the textbooks agree. If little Johannes were not available it would be necessary to go out and get some fisherboy, Provençal, or Ligurian or what not. There isn’t the slightest fault that Irma can find with the tiny Robin; he is a dream of brunette loveliness, he is gentle and sweet like his father, but he is a Jew, and Irma cannot be reconciled to the idea that her darling Frances should be more interested in him than in any other human being, not excepting herself. Of course, they are such tiny
things, it seems absurd to worry; but the books and the experts agree that this is the age when indelible impressions are made, and is it wise to let an Aryan girl-child get fixed in her mind that the Semitic type is the most romantic, the most fascinating in the world? Irma imagines some blind and tragic compulsion developing out of that, later on in life.

  Also, it means that the spirit of Freddi Robin possesses the whole of Bienvenu. The frail little fellow looks like his father, acts like him, and keeps him in everybody’s thoughts; even the visitors, the guests. Everybody has heard rumors that Johannes Robin has been deprived of his fortune by the Nazis, and that his grandchild is here, a refugee and pensioner; everybody is interested in him, asks questions, and starts talking about the father—where is he, and what do you think, and what are you doing about it? The fate of Freddi Robin overshadows even the Barnes fortune, even the twenty-three-million-dollar baby! Bienvenu becomes as it were a haunted house, a somber and serious place where people fall to talking about politics, and where the frivolous ones do not feel at home. Irma Barnes certainly never meant to choose that kind of atmosphere!

  III

  There wasn’t anything definite the matter with Lady Caillard, so far as any doctor could find out; but she had got her mind thoroughly made up that she was going to join her “Vinnie” in the spirit world, and sure enough, in the month of January she “passed on.” The funeral was held, and then her will was read. She had left to her friend Mrs. Parsifal Dingle her large clock with the gold and ivory bird that sang; a pleasant memento of “Birdie,” and one about which there would be no controversy. The medium to whom the Vickers stock had been promised got nothing but a headache out of it, for the directors of the huge concern were determined to protect Sir Vincent’s son and daughter, and they worked some sort of hocus-pocus with the stock; they “called” it, and since the estate didn’t have the cash to put up, the company took possession of the stock and ultimately the legitimate heirs got it. There was a lot of fuss about it in the papers, and Lanny was glad his mother and his stepfather were not mixed up in it.