Dragon's Teeth

by Sinclair, Upton;

  With the proceeds of their dramatic success Nina and Rick had got a small car. Rick couldn’t drive, on account of his knee, but his wife drove, and now they brought the Dingles to the Riviera, and stayed for a while as guests in the villa. Rick used Kurt’s old studio to work on an anti-Nazi play, based on the Brown Book, the stories Lanny had told him, and the literature Kurt and Heinrich had been sending him through the years. It would be called a melodrama, Rick said—because the average Englishman refused to believe that there could be such people as the Nazis, or that such things could be happening in Europe in the beginning of the year 1934. Rick said furthermore that when the play was produced, Lanny would no longer be able to pose as a fellow-traveler of the Hitlerites, for they would certainly find out where the play had been written.

  Lanny was glad to have this old friend near, the one person to whom he could talk out his heart. Brooding over the problem of Freddi Robin day and night, Lanny had about made up his mind to go to Berlin, ask for another interview with General Göring, and put his cards on the table, saying: “Exzellenz, I have learned that my brother-in-law’s brother is a prisoner in Dachau, and I would like very much to take him out of Germany. I have about two hundred thousand marks in a Berlin bank which I got from sales of my stepfather’s paintings, and I have an equal amount in a New York bank which I earned as commissions on old masters purchased in your country. I would be glad to turn these sums over to you to use in your propaganda, in return for the freedom of my friend.”

  Rick said: “But you can’t do such a thing, Lanny! It would be monstrous.”

  “You mean he wouldn’t take the money?”

  “I haven’t any doubt that he’d take it. But you’d be aiding the Nazi cause.”

  “I don’t think he’d use the money for that. I’m just saying so to make it sound respectable. He’d salt the New York funds away, and spend the German part on his latest girl friend.”

  “You say that to make it sound respectable to yourself,” countered Rick. “You don’t know what he’d spend the money for, and you can’t get away from the fact that you’d be strengthening the Nazi propaganda. It’s just as preposterous as your idea of giving Göring information about British and French public men.”

  “I wouldn’t give him any real information, Rick. I would only tell him things that are known to our sort.”

  “Göring is no fool and you can’t make him one. Either you’d give him something he wants, or you wouldn’t get what you want. He has made that perfectly plain to you, and that’s why Freddi is still in Dachau—if he is.”

  “You think I have to leave him there?”

  “You do, unless you can work out some kind of jailbreak.”

  “I’d have to pay somebody, Rick—even if it was only a jailer.”

  “There’d be no great harm in paying a jailer, because the amount would be small, and you’d be undermining the Nazi discipline. Every prisoner who escapes helps to do that.”

  “You think I did wrong to help Johannes out?”

  “I don’t think that made much difference, because Johannes would have given up anyhow; he’s that sort of man. He thinks about himself and not about a cause.”

  “You wouldn’t have done it in his place?”

  “It’s hard to say, because I’ve never been tortured and I can’t be sure how I’d stand it. But what I should have done is plain enough—hang myself in my cell, or open my veins, rather than let Göring get hold of any foreign exchange to use in keeping his spies and thugs at work.”

  IV

  Rick talked along the same line to Mama and Rahel; he was the only one who had the courage to do it. He spoke gently, and with pity for their tears, but he told them that the only way he knew of helping Freddi was by writing an anti-Nazi play. He bade them ask themselves what Freddi would want them to do. There could be no doubt about the answer, for Freddi was a devoted Socialist, and would rather die than give help to the enemies of his cause. Rahel could see that, and said so. Mama could see it, also—but couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “Consider this,” persisted Rick. “Suppose that what Göring wanted of Freddi was to betray some of his comrades. It’s quite possible that that may be happening; and would he pay that price for his freedom?”

  “Of course he wouldn’t,” admitted the young wife.

  “Well, money’s the same thing. The Nazis want foreign exchange so they can buy weapons and the means to make weapons. They want it so they can pay their agents and carry on their propaganda in foreign lands. And in the end it adds up to more power for Nazism, and more suffering for Jews and Socialists. These Hitlerites aren’t through; they never can be through so long as they live, because theirs is a predatory system; it thrives on violence, and would perish otherwise. It has to have more and more victims, and if it gets money from you it uses the money to get more money from the next lot. So whatever resources we have or can get, have to go to fighting them, to making other people understand what Nazism is, what a menace it represents to everything that you and I and Freddi stand for.”

  Rick spoke with eloquence, more than he usually permitted himself. The reason was that it was a scene from his play. He was writing about people confronted with just such a cruel decision. He didn’t say: “Let’s all put our money and our labors into getting an anti-Nazi play produced, and use the proceeds to start a paper to oppose the Nazis.” But that was what he had in mind, and Rahel knew that if her husband could speak to her, he would say: “Rick is right.”

  But poor Mama! She was no Socialist, and couldn’t make real to herself the task of saving all the Jews in Germany. She kept silence, for she saw that Rick had convinced Rahel and Lanny; but what gave her hope was a letter from Johannes, about to sail for Rio de Janeiro to try to work up business for Budd Gunmakers. “I’m going to get some money again, and then I’ll find a way to get Freddi out.” That was the sort of talk for a sensible Jewish mother!

  V

  The Riviera was full of refugees from Germany; all France was the same. Many of these unfortunates tried to get hold of Lanny Budd, but he was afraid even to answer their letters. He was still clinging to the idea that Göring might release Freddi; if not, Lanny was going back to make some sort of effort. Therefore he had to be circumspect. Trying to play the spy makes one spy-conscious. How could he be sure that any refugee who appealed to him for aid might not have come from Göring, to find out how he was behaving, and whether he was a person to be dealt with?

  All this suited Irma completely. She didn’t care what was the reason, so long as her husband kept away from Reds and troublemakers. She and Beauty and Emily and Sophie consulted and conspired to keep him busy and contented; to provide him with music and dancing and sports, with interesting people to talk to, with Jerry Pendleton and the faithful Bub Smith to go fishing. Best of all for the purpose was little Frances; Irma got a book on child psychology and actually read every word of it, so as to be able to make intelligent remarks, and keep Lanny interested in what his home had to offer. She made love to him assiduously; and of course he knew what she was doing, and was touched by it. But he took Dachau with him everywhere; at one of Emily’s soirées musicales a strain of sad music brought tears to his eyes, and then a pro-Nazi remark by one of the ladies of the haut monde made the blood rush to his head and ruined his appetite for the delicate viands.

  Early in February Robbie Budd arrived in Paris on a business trip. Irma thought that change of scene would help, and she knew that the father would back her point of view; so they put their bags into the car and arrived at the Crillon the evening before Robbie was due. Always a pleasant thing to see that man of affairs sound and solid, if a little too rotund and rosy. He was taking his loss of the presidency of the company as just one of those things; what can’t be cured must be endured, and Robbie was getting along with the new head. A self-made man, well informed on financial conditions, he had won everyone’s respect; he didn’t try to tell Robbie how to sell goods in Europe, and had taken R
obbie’s word as to the capabilities of Johannes Robin. Things were going on much as in the old days.

  Robbie wanted to hear every detail of what had happened in Germany. It was important for him to understand the Nazis, for they were trying to get credit from Budd’s and from the banking group which now had Budd’s under its wing. Morals had nothing to do with it—except as they bore on the question whether the Third Reich would meet its notes on time.

  Robbie and the two young people discussed the problem of Freddi from every point of view, and Robbie gave his approval of what had been done. He said no more in his son’s presence, but when he was alone with Irma he confirmed her idea that the Reds and Pinks of Germany had brought their troubles upon themselves. Nor was he worried about Hitler; he said that all Britain and France had to do was to stand together firmly, and let the Nazis devote their energies to putting down the Red menace throughout eastern and central Europe.

  Of course it was unfortunate that one of the victims of this conflict had to be a young Jewish idealist. They must try to help the poor fellow, if only for the family’s peace of mind. Robbie, who usually thought of money first, made the guess that if Freddi really was in Dachau it was because of Irma’s stocks and bonds. Rumor invariably multiplied a rich person’s holdings by three or four, and sometimes by ten or twenty; the fat General doubtless was expecting to get many millions in ransom. Robbie said that he himself would offer to go in and see what could be done; but he didn’t propose to see Irma plundered, so the best thing was to wait and let Göring show his hand if he would. Irma appreciated this attitude, and wondered why Lanny couldn’t be as sensible.

  One thing Robbie said he was unable to understand: the fact that they had never received a single line of writing from Freddi in more than eight months. Surely any prisoner would be permitted to communicate with his relatives at some time! Lanny told what he had learned from the Kommandant of Dachau, that the inmates were permitted to write a few lines once a week to their nearest relatives; but this privilege was withheld in certain cases. Robbie said: “Even so, there are ways of smuggling out letters; and certainly there must be prisoners released now and then. You’d think some one of them would have your address, and drop a note to report the situation. It suggests to me that Freddi may be dead; but I don’t say it to the Robins.”

  VI

  Hard times were producing in France the same effects they had produced in Germany; and now the political pot boiled over, making a nasty mess. It was the “Stavisky case,” centering about a swindler of Russian-Jewish descent. “Too bad he had to be a Jew!” said Irma, and Lanny wasn’t sure whether she was being sympathetic or sarcastic. “Handsome Alex,” as he was called, had been engaged in one piece of financial jugglery after another, culminating in a tour de force which sounded like comic opera—he had promoted an extensive issue of bonds for the pawnshops of the town of Bayonne! Altogether he had robbed the French public of something like a billion francs; and it was discovered that he had been indicted for a swindle eight or nine years previously, and had succeeded in having his trial postponed no less than nineteen times. Obviously this meant collusion with police and politicians; either he was paying them money or was in position to blackmail them. When Robbie read the details he said it sounded exactly like Chicago or Philadelphia.

  Stavisky had gone into hiding with his mistress, and when the police came for him he shot himself; at least, so the police said, but evidence began to indicate that the police had hushed him up. The Paris newspapers, the most corrupt in the world, printed everything they could find out and twenty times as much. Two groups were interested in exploiting the scandals: the parties of the extreme right, the Royalists and Fascists, who wanted to overthrow the Republic and set up their kind of dictatorship; and the Communists, who wanted a different kind. The two extremes met, and while vowing the deadliest hatred, they made war on the same parliamentary system.

  Lanny couldn’t afford to visit his Red uncle, but he invited Denis de Bruyne to dinner, and the three Budds listened to the story from the point of view of a French Nationalist. The situation in the de Bruyne family bore an odd resemblance to that between Robbie and his son. Denis belonged to a respectable law-and-order party, and was distressed because his younger son had joined the Croix de Feu, most active of the French Fascist groups. Now Charlot was off somewhere with his fellows, conspiring to overpower the police and seize control of the country’s affairs. At any moment he and his organization might come out on the streets, and there would be shooting; the unhappy father couldn’t enjoy his dinner, and wanted Lanny to find the crazy boy and try to bring him to his senses. Such were the duties you got in for when you chose a lovely French lady for your amie!

  Lanny said no; he had tried to influence both boys, and had failed, and now he was out of politics; he had made a promise to his wife. He listened to the innermost secrets of la république française, derived from first-hand observation. He learned about Daladier, the baker’s son, who had just become Premier, the fourth within a year; what interests had subsidized his career, and what noble lady had become his mistress. He learned about Chiappe, chief of the Paris police, a Corsican known as “the little Napoleon”—he was five feet three inches, and had just been “fired” for being too intimate with Stavisky. He had known all the wholesale crooks, the blackmailers and Jewish métèques of France, and had whispered their secrets to his son-in-law, publisher of one of the great gutter-journals of Paris.

  Lanny observed that the individuals who awakened the anger and disgust of Denis de Bruyne were the climbers, those struggling for wealth and power to which they had no valid claim. He rarely had any serious fault to find with the mur d’argent, the members of the “two hundred families” who had had wealth and power for a long time. They had to pay large sums of money in these evil days, and the basis of Denis’s complaint was not the corruption but the increasing cost. The politicians demanded larger campaign funds, and at the same time kept increasing taxes; their idea of economy was to cut the salaries of civil servants—which Denis had discovered was bad for the taxicab business. To make matters worse, the taxicab drivers were on strike! Robbie listened sympathetically, and when his friend got through scolding Daladier, Robbie took a turn at Roosevelt.

  VII

  Next day Lanny escorted his wife to the Summer Fashion Show. This wasn’t a public affair, but one for the trade; an exhibition of the new styles which the manufacturers intended soon to release. Irma was invited as a special honor by the fashion artist to whom she entrusted her social destiny. Lanny went along because, if she endeavored to take an interest in his things, it was only fair that he should do the same for hers. They sat in a hall with many potted palms, gazing at a long ramp with dark blue curtains behind it; along the ramp paraded beautiful and chic young women wearing summer costumes with a strong Japanese flavor, or note, or atmosphere—the journalists groped about for a metaphor. There were bamboo buttons and coolie hats; the ladies’ gowns had fan-tails like Japanese goldfish, the afternoon costumes had cut sleeves like kimonos, and the evening wraps had designs resembling Japanese flower prints.

  Among the favored guests at this show was an old friend of Lanny’s; Olivie Hellstein, now Madame de Broussailles, very lovely daughter of Jerusalem whom Emily had picked out as a proper match for Lanny. That had been some eight years ago, and now Olivie had three or four children, and had become what you called “maternal,” a kinder word than “plump.” Words which have an unpleasant connotation change frequently in the best society, where people try so hard not to wound one another’s feelings.

  Olivie was a woman of Irma’s type, a brunette with deep coloring, in temperament rather placid, in manner sedate. They had entertained each other, exchanged visits, and satisfied their curiosity. Now they talked about having to wear summer clothing with a strong Japanese flavor, or note, or atmosphere; they would have to wear it, of course—it would never occur to them to rebel against what the fashion creators decided was the fashion.
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  Lanny, wishing to be polite, remarked: “We were talking about your family last night. My father is having a meeting with your father.”

  “A business matter?” inquired Olivie.

  “Mine is trying to persuade yours that he can deliver certain railroad equipment at Brest at a lower price than it can be manufactured in France.”

  “It will be pleasant if they become associated,” replied the young matron. “My father has a great admiration for American production methods, and wishes they might be imported into France.”

  Pierre Hellstein was a director in the Chemin de Fer du Nord, and controlled one of the biggest banks in Paris. Robbie had asked Denis about him, and they had discussed this wealthy Jewish family spread widely over Europe; also the position of the railroad, reputed to be run down and overloaded with bonds. The Hellsteins didn’t have to worry, because the government covered its deficits; there had been criticism in the Chamber—the French Republic was going broke in order to protect the railroad bondholders. Denis de Bruyne, who owned some of the bonds, resented these criticisms as irresponsible and demagogic. As for Olivie, beautiful, serene, magnificent in a long sable coat, she was perfect evidence of the wisdom of guaranteeing large incomes to a few chosen individuals, in order that they may be free to attend fashion shows and constitute themselves models of elegance and refinement.