The Traitor Blitz

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  "I'm surrounded by idiots, Tommy! Didn't we agree to fire Klefeld?"

  "Yes. So? All setded? End of February young Hollering gets his job."

  Young Hollering was the not-so-very-young-anymore son of our most important distributor, whom Herford evidendy wanted to do a favor. Friedrich Klefeld was in the sales department, Blitz employee for twenty years, almost since the founding of the paper.

  "I'm afraid it's not going to work out with young Hollering."

  "What do you mean, isn't going to work out? Has to work out! His father's after Herford about it all the time! Herford's given his word—"

  "I know. I know. I talked to Lang and Kalter about it a few days ago, told them to fire Klefeld. So he should have received his blue letter in time." 192

  "Right."

  "That's what I thought. But you know what happened?"

  "What? Get on with it, Harold. Herford has guests."

  "Lang and Kalter, the idiots, didn't get it out in time."

  Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity, I thought, as I saw Herford turn purple with rage and shout into the phone, "Didn't get it out in time? Are you trying to tell me that they didn't give him notice in time?"

  "That's what I'm trying to say. I'm beside myself. This morning—"

  "The assholes!"

  "Herford, please!" This from Mama.

  / am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal —

  "Idiots! That's what they are. This morning they come to me, their tails between their legs, and tell me they're terribly sorry but they forgot—"

  "Terribly sorry? Goddamn them! This is one shitty mess. Kief eld has a year's notice, contractual." Herford was seething. "And we'd have paid it—if he'd agreed to get out at once and his job could have gone to young Hollering. And we wouldn't have had to worry about the Labor Court. Because Klefeld's wife is sick. He keeps coming in late. Clear violation of his contract. We would have gotten away with it if he'd taken it to court, right?"

  And though I have the gift of prophecy and understood all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith ...

  "That's right, Tommy. And if we'd lost because he's been with us for such a long time and therefore can't be ditched, we could have negotiated with him, paid him something. A suit like that takes time. We could have risked it. He'd never have been able to, stick it out anyway, financially."

  "Of course not! His wife—the hospital payments—what does he want from us anyway? We're treating him much too well. He'll get his year's salary if he leaves. Would have been thankful to accept any setdement. With his wife's leukemia, he needs money."

  "All that plasma. His insurance has refused to pay anymore."

  "There you are. And we would have been well out of it. And he's old, too, isn't he? Sixty-three?"

  "Sixty one."

  "Sixty-one. All right. We should have fired him long ago."

  ... so that I could remove mountains ...

  "If we fire him next time around and are unlucky, his old lady

  could be dead and he wouldn't need the money all that much anymore and would rather go on working—"

  "Goddamn it, anyway! There must be something we can do."

  "Herford, please!"

  "Excuse me, Mama, but I can't help getting so excited about it. These idiots! So what can we do, Harold? Herford's got to do old Hollering the favor. You know he controls Upper Bavaria."

  "I know. But you can't do a thing about it. And what's worse—"

  "What's worse?"

  "The head of distribution didn't know anything about our plan to fire Kief eld. We decided to keep it secret, didn't we? So yesterday they gave a party for Kief eld, collected money, bought presents—flowers, schnapps—a real blast. And they had an award printed. And the award says that the house thanks him for twenty years of devoted service and that you are looking forward to many more years of harmony and collaboration!"

  "I am what? "

  ... and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing ...

  "Yes. Sorry, Tommy. But the document carries your signature, with our new facsimile method, you know—looks exactly like the real thing. Now nobody can fire Kief eld. Not if he goes to the Labor Board with that award."

  "Shut up! I feel sick! Those cretins! If one doesn't do everything oneself... Listen, Harold—Lang and Kalter get fired today, as a precaution."

  "Will do, Tommy. Was going to anyway."

  "And then look through the files and find someone we can discharge now. Not an important man, of course, but young Hollering's got to get his job. His father has all Upper Bavaria! Herford will tell him he's got to work his way up, then he gets Klefeld's job."

  ... BREASTS BARE: YES—84.6$...

  "Will do, Tommy."

  "And you'll see that Kief eld gets his letter in time next time."

  "Absolutely, Tommy. You can depend on it. We must just hope and pray that his old lady's still alive and he needs the money."

  "Look in the files at once, so that I can place young Hollering right away, at least for the time being." 194

  "Ill see to it. I'll call you back. 'Bye, Tommy." "'Bye, Harold."

  ...NIPPLES PROTRUDING UNDER LOOSE, WET SHIRT: YES—93.7$...

  Herford shut off the intercom, straightened up, and said, "I'll get ulcers before I'm through in this place, goddamn it! What a shitty mess! Well, Lang and Kalter get theirs today, that's for sure." He pulled down his vest and a jovial smile lit up his face that had been distorted with rage a moment ago. "So... that's done. As if I didn't have enough trouble! And people think Herford makes his money in his sleep."

  "Envy," said Lester, helpfully.

  "Yes, envy," said Mama. "Isn't envy a dreadful thing? When you think how hard Herr Herford has had to work to build up everything here." I looked at Hem, but he had chosen to look out of the window. "Take your pills," Mama was telling Herford. "You get so upset."

  Herford fished a little gold box out of his vest pocket, snapped it open, and I could see a number of varicolored pills. Herford was a pill freak. He swallowed quantities of them. In his villa in Griesheim he was supposed to have a large medicine chest filled with medication. Now he took two blue capsules and swallowed them with some water, which he poured into a glass from a carafe.

  "If Herford wasn't so devoted to his profession," he said, "he would have given up long ago." His profession and his millions. Hopefully Frau Klefeld would live a long time so that Herr Kief eld could be persuaded, in 1969, to leave his job immediately with a decent settlement.

  "Gentlemen!" Herford had taken up his position beside the Bible lectern again, a man of honor from top to toe (Only blond pussies on the front page. German readers didn't like brunettes). I looked at him and was frankly curious about what he would say. We were seated in deep, comfortable armchairs, and Mama was looking at her husband as if he were an illuminated saint. The two were made for each other.

  "Gentlemen—" Herford stopped. "Now what's the matter?"

  A painfully plain secretary (Mama chose the secretaries for the eleventh floor) had knocked and brought in my coffee. "Oh," said Herford, with the patient smile of a shark, "for our writer. Of

  course, Frau Schmeidle. Just put it down beside Heir Roland."

  Frau Schmeidle poured my coffee out of a large coffee pot and I added a good amount of the lemon juice out of the jug that had come with it. I was still pretty drunk, and it was high time I sobered up.

  "Please excuse the interruption, Herr Herford," said Schmeidle, and hurried off again, an elderly gray mouse.

  "Don't mention it," said Herford amiably. "Now drink your coffee, Roland, because you're going to be much needed."

  I nodded.

  "Herford asked you to come here," he went on, thumb in vest pocket, "to discuss something basic with you. Mama and I have been talking it over for months."

  "Day and night," said Mama.

  "And we have come to the conclusion that it is our duty to do it."

&n
bsp; "Do what?" Rotaug asked quietly. He always spoke quietly.

  "We have a democratic press in this country," said Herford, evidently moved by what he was about to say. "And Herford is proud to be able to say that Blitz was always in the vanguard of this democratic press. After all, a magazine with a circulation like ours has a duty to perform. Am I right?"

  "Sometimes I'm afraid that Herr Herford may collapse under the burden he carries," Mama said to me, and I nodded seriously.

  "Blitz has always fully realized its responsibilities," said Herford. "Herford can remember the Adenauer years, when communism began to spread in the unions and the SPD." (Not true!)

  "At the time it was clearly our duty to prevent impulses and trends from going too far, and we held a fairly liberal course, but a little to the right." We haven't been anything but liberal, a little to the right, to this day, I thought, and glanced at Hem, who was still looking out of the window.

  "Under the present coalition government, th^ right-radical movements are becoming increasingly powerful. And that is why—Mama and I have already outlined our idea briefly to Herr Stahlhut and asked him to make a comprehensive survey on the subject—" (Aha! I thought. So that's the scenario!) "... we feel it is our duty now, with the help of the powerful abuses—consider for a moment the recent growth of the NPD—to steer the people back onto the correct course."

  "Herr Herford is always thinking of the people," said Mama. "So am I."

  "All of us think first and foremost of the people, gntidige Frau" said manager Oswald Seerose.

  "The voice of the people is the voice of God," Rotaug said softly, as if to himself.

  "In totalitarian states the press is allowed only one opinion," said Herford. "In a democratic state it has to keep track of many opinions." He laid his hand on the Bible. "It is our sacred duty"—he really said it; he said "sacred"—"to check on these opinions and to steer them onto the right course. We have therefore decided to let Blitz take a left-liberal course until further notice. For the freedom of our people! For their well-being!"

  I began to feel sick. The jackal was closing in. I drank my lemon coffee. I would have liked a swig of Chivas.

  So Herford and Mama had suddenly found a heart for the left. Herford and the left? The devil and the good Lord? Water and fire? God gave me my money,

  Herford was saying, his hand still on the Bible, "At the time when we made our right-liberal drive, things looked bad, and our enemies taunted us with the fact that by switching allegiance, our circulation rose—as if we had done it for that!"

  "If our circulation goes up again now, with our switch to the left-liberal course, will they taunt us again?" asked Mama.

  "That's something that can't be avoided," said poker-faced Dr. Rotaug. "Don't let it trouble you."

  "Of course, Herr Herford doesn't let it trouble him," said Mama. Her dark mink slipped to the floor. Lester jumped up and picked it up. "Thank you, dear Herr Lester." She sighed. "The just man always has to suffer."

  "True, true," said manager Oswald Seerose. "But as long as he knows he's doing the right thing, he doesn't have to defend it."

  Evidently the circulation was slipping. I knew that Bertie, who hadn't spoken a word, and Hem were thinking the same thing: A change of the guard in Bonn was long overdue. Anybody who thought Herford and Mama were stupid was crazy. They had the instincts of rats who know when to leave a sinking ship. When the time to get back on it came, with their fine instincts, they'd be the first!

  "Good intentions," said Herford, "don't always go together

  with good earnings. For us they did until now. But Herford doesn't know how things will turn out when we follow the dictates of our conscience and move to the left. However, even if it does lead to higher earnings, that does not speak against the rightness and the decency of our intentions."

  Suddenly I had to think of something Hem had said: "In the last analysis, the thing that causes the downfall of all ideologies is not the evil in men, but his limitations, the tragedy that man can think only on a small scale—wretchedly and narrow-mindedly."

  "No party and no ideology," Hem had said at the time, "can afford to declare that it is propagating evil. Because most people are basically stupid, egotistic, and tactless, but not evil. That is why it would never be possible to win over a great number with a recognizably evil program. As a result, all isms and ideologies, whether Catholic, socialist, or communist, must address themselves to mankind with the well-meaning and decent maxims."

  This conversation had taken place in his big apartment in which he—a widower now—lived alone. It was an old house in the Fiirstenbergerstrasse, under Griineburg Park, and outside the windows you could see the beautiful trees and lawns of the park and the high-rise buildings that had been built around it. The apartment was much too big for Hem; he didn't use all its rooms. Hem collected music scores and a big library of musicians' biographies, books on the history of music, and monographs of all the famous composers. He had the largest record collection of anyone I knew, and a very elaborate sound system. He still had his cello, and sometimes when I visited him, he played for me. His favorite modern composer was Helmuth Rahmers, a Swiss, and Hem was, of course, a member of the Helmuth Rahmers Association and owned all the composer's records.

  On the day he spoke to me of the narrowness of man's thinking, Rahmer's Concerto in E Flat for violin and orchestra, composed in 1911-12, was playing on the stereo in the next room. 198

  It wasn't a concerto in the usual sense but rather the monologue of a violin with orchestra accompaniment, with the oboe, clarinet, and horns dominant. The music resounded in the beautiful room with its Empire furniture. I sat opposite Hem, who was smoking his pipe, and listened to his favorite composer. The first movement—romanticism a la Schubert, the sound of the horn as if emananting from a magical forest. One G-flat Minor passage serene, as if the moon were rising. And the dreamy violin above all the other instruments, as if grieving for a lost love, a love long past, dispelled and blighted—

  Hem was saying, "I can see it more and more clearly, my boy, how certain people use noble conceptions only to further their own ends. I don't know why so few people recognize this. The maxims serve these people but these people never serve the maxims. They should practice what they preach—'syntony,' as they say in psychiatry—but they never do. They use their so-called beliefs aggressively, to attain power, and for nothing else—"

  The violin sang. An allegro tried to interrupt but was prevented from doing so by the horn. Horn and violin were united in their grief.

  Hem said, "The important thing is the motive that inspires the guiding principles or faith. The motives—God help us and our civilization—were always bad. The principles were not— couldn't be; no one would have dared. Or how could the masses be inspired and made compliant and ready to make sacrifices? That, Walter, is the greatest deception ever practiced against mankind, at all times and under all regimes. Man was captured by ideas and qualities and wishful thinking, by dreams that were good, if you can forget their corrupt and criminal initiators for a moment!"

  The wild emotions of the first movement were becalmed. A repeat motive came next: cautious, gentle, more controlled. And I heard Hem say, "It is grotesque, and nobody even wants to mention it, but I do: A person should be honest, loyal, brave, fair, hardened, and healthy—what could be said against that? Nothing. But the people who preach this then turn around and murder six million Jews, remove their gold teeth, make lampshades of their skin, and cause the greatest war of all time, unimaginable suffering. Doesn't this demonstrate clearly how mendacious this mentality was, how diabolical and evil? But you can't say that bravery, loyalty, daring, honesty, frankness, and

  the readiness to make sacrifices are bad characteristics. They are good characteristics!"

  "You don't exclude the Nazis?" I asked. "But they were really criminals. You can't—"

  "Slowly, my boy. Don't rush me. Of course they were criminals. The greatest criminals of all. But even t
hey included good things in their programs and ideologies, had to! They couldn't simply say, 'We want war! We want to destroy all Jews and so and so many other nationalities!' That wouldn't have worked."

  "But in their party program they already spoke of 'living space' and 'ethnic purity,' and they were openly anti-semitic."

  "I know what a crazy program it is, my boy. I only want to prove to you that even the greatest criminals don't dare to step in front of the people without suffering some good and decent goals. Freedom and Bread! Work for Everybody! Law and Order!" -

  "And the Jews?"

  "That was exceptionally hellishly planned," said Hem. "The Nazis' appeal was directed at the German people, so all they had to do was declare the Jews non-German. Whereupon the stalwart disciples of the Nordic god could do as they pleased with them."

  The second movement began, hopeless and dark. An organ. Woodwinds trying to fight the darkness, and then the first violin, again as if mourning a love that no longer existed.

  Hem said, "And thus you can pervert the principles of freedom together with all the rest. This is what has happened to all ideologies since the beginning of time, and is happening today in East and West. The Nazis did the exact opposite of the good things they preached. They sent their strong, brave young men to die senselessly on the battlefield so that Goering, the biggest pig of them all, could steal art treasures, and Goebbels could sleep with every film star, and Hitler, that gruesome psychopath, could rise out of a lower middle-class milieu to the rank of a god! And look at communism! I approve of their principles one hundred percent. What comes closer to religion than communism? Freedom! Equality! The brotherhood of man! The abolition of all earthly possessions! What could be more wonderful? And where are the twenty-five million who lost their lives when Stalin was purged? Or give me a more beautiful sentence than 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' And what oppression, what horror, and the death of how many millions did 200

  the Crusades and the Inquisitions bring with them? The church is as guilty as all the rest. And in the name of God and the Cross!"