The Hungry Blade

by Lawrence Dudley

  “Papa? Meine Liebe? Es tut mir leid Sie aufwecken. Wie war dein Nickerchen? Sólo un poco de dolor. Sí, es difícil envejecer.” They chatted on for few minutes, swirling from one language to another. Then she asked about Wilhelm Aust, that she had an interested guest. And of course he knew him. They talked for a few more minutes while Hawkins looked around at her paintings, including the self-portrait with a pair of black cats she was working on. Then he heard the cane tapping up the hall.

  “Papa says Aust is a former Imperial German naval officer. He settled here after the last war. He owns an insurance agency, Seguro del Capitolio, representing a Swiss company. Highly respected. His office is near the Zocalo. Papa has taken many photographs for him, pictures of wrecked cars and burned houses. Eh, when you have a photography studio you must oblige paying customers.”

  Insurance? That makes all kinds of sense, Hawkins thought. And offers all kinds of possibilities. Actually, that’s half the equation.

  “Thank you, that’s marvelous. What about galleries, are there any dealers here who are, well, on the shady side? Or are Nazi sympathizers?”

  “Sympathizers? I would say no, and I think I know them all, but shady? Heads can be turned. Money ruins everything.”

  “I’d like to meet some of those. The ruined ones, that is.”

  “I cannot help you myself, but I have a friend, a young protégé, a talented artist, who can show you around. Come back tomorrow. And I will speak with Diego. He knows every—” The maid was at the door, mouth open on the edge of a shriek.

  “Es camarada Trotsky! Ha habido otro ataque! Algo terrible ha sucedido!”

  “What?” Hawkins said.

  “Stalin! That monster! He’s tried to kill Leon again.” She started off without her cane, almost fell, reached back as Hawkins grabbed it for her and hobbled to the phone. “I must call Diego. Go. See what they have done. Return tomorrow.”

  Hawkins raced out of the house and began running. As he turned into the Avenida Viena he could see a crowd at the end of the street. He sprinted down hard, holding his hat, had to stop halfway, bend over, hands on knees and catch his breath, his head suddenly buzzing—damn, the altitude—started again and pushed his way into the crowd. Police were running in and out of the house, guns drawn. The people’s voices were rumbling in an angry, excited way, some shouting, mostly in Spanish, here and there he could hear the words “Trotsky” and “Stalin” and the question “Muerto? Muerto?” Dead? Dead?

  An ambulance arrived pulling up to the gate, opening its back doors. The gate opened. The guards carried Trotsky out, his head wrapped in bloody cloths. He waved slightly with one hand. They cheered, a burst of applause, then one man began singing “The Internationale” in Spanish—“Arriba, parias de la Tierra”—others joined in, in several languages, loudly, as the ambulance drove off.

  Then another commotion at the door. Several police officers and plainclothes detectives emerged surrounding a man with a bandaged head. The crowd surged forward to get at him, cries of “¡Asesino!” and “Assassin!” and “¡Justicia ahora!” rending the air. The officers began swinging with their nightsticks, thudding against arms and shoulders and heads, forcing the mob back, jostling violently, pushing their way through. After a minute of two of struggle they got the man in a police van and sped off, siren wailing, the crowd running and screaming in pursuit, shouting curses and insults.

  Hawkins drifted back down the street, his head feeling in a vise from the air or something. He found the old Ford and heavily sat in it until he recovered a bit. So they finally got him, he thought. He queasily remembered the almost flip casualness with which Trotsky proposed the death of millions, and implicitly his father’s own suffering. Maybe it’s a good thing, Hawkins thought, maybe he got what he deserved, the millions who died in Russia. What a horrible place he helped create. And his opinion of Cárdenas. An honest man who seizes other people’s property. There’s a novel idea.

  But his head began to clear some more as he rested. Wait … Waitwaitwait—what if he doesn’t recover? What am I thinking? No—don’t think that. Damn, he thought. This is damn bad. Trotsky’s messages started all this. What could he find out? Damn.

  Then he realized, I probably need to eat something. Find a café. His hand touched a newspaper—Deutsche Zeitung von Mexiko. He opened it and began scanning the ads. There it was: Seguro del Capitolio. Tarifas Justas. Servicio confiable.

  Something odd, he thought. What is it? He puzzled over it a long moment. What? Maybe it’s the thin air, brain still adjusting. Then … No, wait … He fumbled in his wallet for Eckhardt and Falkenberg’s business cards, then checked the Zeitung, holding the cards to the paper. Damn. There it is: Norddeutsche Luftfahrtpartner, 37 Calle de Tacuba.

  -26-

  “Guten Tag.” Hawkins shut the frosted glass door labeled seguro del capitolio in arched letters and handed his fake Alpert Gallery card to the clerk at the desk. He’d checked the building register in the lobby, then quickly scanned the corridor. Seguro del Capitolio was at number four, number six, Norddeutsche Luftfahrtpartner’s door—dark with no name—was down the hallway. In German he asked if Herr Aust was in? Aust heard German being spoken from his office a few feet away and quickly came, hand outstretched in welcome. The usual introduction, the reference from the Kahlos, and they were sitting in Aust’s office.

  Aust was a tall well-tanned man with large brown freckles across the top of his balding scalp. He was pushing sixty, but seemed uncommonly fit, no paunch, a flat stomach, exuding a relaxed athletic vigor, small frameless glasses perched on top of his head.

  “Are you newly arrived from the Fatherland?” Aust asked.

  “No, I’m American,” following up with the same explanation about his parents coming to New York after the war that he gave to Eckhardt and Falkenberg, growing up in Manhattan, keeping his German, and all the rest.

  “I came here right after the Great War, too,” Aust said. “Once the Revolution ended here the prospects seemed better than under the Weimar regime. Those were terrible times back home.”

  “Ever return?”

  “No. Never felt the need to. I do like it here. Wonderful climate. It’s a nice way of life.”

  Yes, Hawkins thought, that I believe. Aust’s casual, easygoing manner was diametrically opposite the stiff formality one normally expected in a German office, or anywhere on the Continent, his coat off, sleeves casually rolled up, a colorful bow tie. Life here in the sun of Mexico had obviously relaxed and mellowed him.

  “Lately we’ve been wondering—my family and I—if we made a mistake leaving when we did. Considering …” Hawkins said.

  “Yes, I know what you mean. Extraordinary events, there, eh? I do stay in touch. Amazing. And England soon.”

  “A battle all in the air,” Hawkins said, as neutral and numb inside as possible, keeping it cool, although a twinge in his stomach threatened a roll.

  “Yes. I was in the navy, but who could’ve imagined such a thing. You have to feel pride in it all. Despite the propaganda.”

  “What propaganda?”

  “The papers from El Notre. You’d think Hitler has horns and a tail, from what you read.”

  “You read English?”

  “Oh, of course. I initially worked for an American oil company when I came over. I handled shipping—naturally, I had experience from the Kriegsmarine—including dealing with the insurers. Became expert. I wanted to get off on my own, move up to La Capital, get out of Tampico. You can’t believe a thing you read. Same lies about Germany as the last war.”

  “Like what?”

  “That Kristallnacht business? Lies. Like the posters of soldiers in the last war with babies on their bayonets. All lies. The Jewish shops? Didn’t happen. I have it on good authority that it was a put-up job.”

  There were lies told for sure during the last war, Hawkins thought. The posters with babies on
bayonets were a disgrace Britain had yet to live down. But the real danger was they’d blinded people—like the fable of the boy who cried wolf—to the things the Kaiser and his government actually did do: the unprovoked invasion of neutral Belgium, the mass looting of Belgian industries, the forced deportation of the laborers, starting the gas attacks, bombing civilian cities with zeppelins, all true. And now those old lies about babies and bayonets were immunizing people against the truth of what Hitler was doing now, even to Germans themselves. I saw the broken windows and looted shops myself, Hawkins thought, it was all true.

  Aust was understandably proud of the new German victories, but was he that naïve about Hitler and his regime? Possibly, Hawkins thought. If he was getting his news from state-controlled services like Trans-Ocean and the Zeitung von Mexiko, and had never been back, it was quite likely he was entirely ignorant of the current scene in Germany.

  “Coffee?” He checked the fake card again. “And you work for the Alpert Gallery?”

  “Yes. We’re looking for art and antiques here. Interesting, colorful things, amazing prices. Really interesting. But then there’s shipping or, rather, shipping losses. Duties. It’s more complicated than I thought. It’s got me worried.”

  “That it’ll be destroyed or lost.”

  “Or stolen. Or get hit with costs we didn’t anticipate.”

  “Ever do any international shipping?”

  “No.”

  “There are issues. And you know, you’ll want—no, excuse me—need insurance. I can help with all of that. Also the shipping. Who to go to, who’s reliable. Crating and trucking. Oh! Storage and warehousing. That’s always a major concern. All the way around and out. We’re a full-service shop.”

  “Say, that’s a relief. Yes, thanks!”

  That exchange provoked Hawkins to wonder something else: Did Aust know what was going on with those cases of paintings? Hawkins did not believe in coincidences, in his gut his inclination was to take it for granted Aust was complicit in whatever the hell Eckhardt and Falkenberg were doing—solely because he was German.

  But logically, his mind told him it could be risky to take anything for granted, you could blow things up for nothing, accidentally expose yourself. There was no guarantee Aust had any inkling there was a covert operation underway, or that Eckhardt and Falkenberg were spies, or anything else. Just because he was German? Maybe he was one of those malleable people who only wanted to get along and go along, whatever General Houghton thought of them.

  Aust could think Eckhardt and Falkenberg were on the level, and for their part they could’ve thrown the business to a friendly and sympathetic local face, a purely commercial transaction. In effect, using him, or employing him, however you wanted to look at it. A full-service shop? Help with shipping, insurance and storage? Why wouldn’t they find that attractive, too? And Aust seemed, well … rather credulous. Or perhaps, faithful to something that didn’t exist anymore.

  Aust checked his watch. “I’m expecting another client shortly. Would you like to come for dinner?”

  -27-

  A gentle sprinkle began falling. Hawkins, Aust and his wife, Elise, moved their chairs back under the colonnade. The pink bougainvillea trained along the arches began dancing from the droplets as a maid hurried to clear the table in the center of the brick tiled courtyard. They’d had a leisurely dinner, a whole roasted chicken that obviously was not an iguana. Plump, too, unlike the scrawny birds in the tree up the street. The Austs were a couple from two civilizations now, Hawkins thought. A delicious avocado soup started the meal which ended with a Black Forest cake made with kirsch.

  The rambling house had been built in 1719, Elise told him, the country manor of a minor Spanish nobleman in the old government of New Spain. It was large, with a second story above the colonnade. The ten cases probably filled a room or two somewhere in here, there was more than enough space, although that wasn’t guaranteed, Hawkins thought. One major thing Hawkins had learned was that the Austs had live-in servants: a cook, a maid and a gardener. That ruled out waiting for them to leave, picking the locks and searching the place. Someone was always around.

  “He’s a vulgarian,” Elise said, setting her drink down, pulling her shawl over her shoulders.

  “He’s just another politician,” Aust said. The conversation had turned to the German victories. “What do you expect?” She still acted disgusted. Both were annoyed with each other, in the slight, smiling way married couples often had. They’d obviously had this conversation before. However, Aust wasn’t exactly admiring Hitler himself.

  You are right, lady, Hawkins thought. Hitler’s not just another politician. But Hawkins was careful not to join in. Every part of the evening seemed to confirm the impression Hawkins got in Aust’s office: He was no Nazi. He knew little about them or their policies and understood far more about the political situation in Mexico than Germany. In fact, he was remarkably ill-informed about things in the Vaterland today, and, frankly, rather naïve. Elise seemed to know more about it.

  “If the boys go back and join the army, I’m disowning you all,” she said, then looked at Hawkins and defiantly smiled, as if to say, So there! Elise was a tall, attractive woman, very little tan, unlike Aust, with an immaculate bob of perfect white hair. If only more people trusted their gut like her, Hawkins thought.

  “Drop out of college? No, they’re not going to do that,” Aust said.

  “Where are they?” Hawkins asked.

  “One is here at the National Autonomous University, the other at the University of Texas. Premedicine and petroleum engineering, the two of them.”

  A doorbell rang.

  “Good. They’re at the door again. Excuse me, Hawkins. A pleasure.”

  “But aren’t you worried they’ll expropriate your company the way they nationalized the railroads, the oil companies, the plantations, the—”

  “Naw.” He waved his hand dismissively.

  “I don’t understand, where’s the difference? If they can do it for one, why can’t they do it for another?”

  “No. They won’t—”

  “You came from the Vaterland, why can’t they see you as another foreigner?”

  “It’s too diverse a country. Indian in origin, then the Spanish, waves of new immigration.”

  “Perhaps, but simply taking things from others—”

  “They didn’t do anything illegal. They have a constitution, courts, a parliament. Mexico belongs to Mexico the same way Germany belongs to Germans.” His tone turned contemptuous. “The oil companies? They asked for it. They refused to negotiate with the unions, they gave nothing back. I saw it all in Tampico. In Texas, one wage. Across the border, a few hundred kilometers away, same oil terminal jobs, another, very low wage. Very low. Why? If they were asking for parity, well, maybe, it’s a poor country, wages are lower, but no. Pennies on the dollar. Stupid and greedy. Then they were offered compensation and turned it down—demanded to be paid for oil in the ground they never owned in the first place—all while extravagantly guessing how much there was. Words can’t describe it.”

  The most startling comment was that Aust agreed with Trotsky about Cárdenas. An amazingly honest man, Aust thought, although Hawkins hardly let on about how he’d heard that before. It certainly wasn’t a view W and General Houghton shared.

  “I hate to see El Presidente go. Big improvement in business conditions with him. Instead of the usual collection of political cronies that you normally get in this part of the world, including the US, he filled the government posts with a whole new class of educated technicians.”

  Hawkins heard footsteps and looked back expecting to see Elise returning. Instead Eckhardt and Falkenberg were walking across the courtyard. It’s late, Hawkins thought. They’re staying with Aust? What the bloody hell? Was this good? Or bad? Hawkins wondered. Careful—

  When they saw him a flickering reaction
crossed their faces: surprise, a touch of confusion, some alarm. Then Eckhardt went blank, Falkenberg coolly managed a small controlled smile, all while greeting them—Herr Aust! Herr Hawkins!

  “Herren! Kommen Sie vorbei!” Aust cheerily waved them over, adding in German, “You know each other?”

  “Yes, we dined on the Jorocho,” Falkenberg said. “Fancy meeting you here!” all smooth and graceful.

  “Yes, what are you doing here?” Eckhardt blurted out, face still blank.

  “Our friend Roy needs insurance and help with his shipments,” Aust said. They thought about that a second, then their faces went oh, of course, and relaxed. “Join us for a drink. A Dos Equis? Negra?”

  “Thank you, Wilhelm, but no, we have to be up early,” Eckhardt said.

  “Oh, you work too hard,” Aust said.

  “Ach, no—” Eckhardt said.

  “Work, work, work. Have a beer, it’s a lovely evening. Enjoy it.” Work, work, work? After living in Mexico all these years Aust very much has absorbed the more easygoing Mexican way of life, Hawkins thought, you don’t hear that in the Reich. Eckhardt kept shaking his head. But not Falkenberg, much to Eckhardt’s obvious annoyance.

  “Well, all right then.” Aust whistled for the maid. But they both sat and relaxed for a moment.

  “Finding things for your gallery?” Falkenberg said.

  “Making progress,” Hawkins said. “Stumbling across Wilhelm was a lucky break.”

  “What kinds of things are you buying?” Eckhardt said.

  “Still mainly Spanish colonial,” Hawkins said.

  “No, no, here, let me show you some real things,” Eckhardt said.

  -28-

  Eckhardt led them carrying their drinks to his second-floor room overlooking the courtyard, laying a large padded folder or binder on the table, opening it. Inside, like a photo album, were an array of flat flint and obsidian objects: more knives, spear points and small flat sculptures. He took a greenish-whitish one out and laid it in Hawkins’s hand.