“Fink,” the cop repeated. “You’re a kike.” He exhibited a large gray folder. “Refugee from Europe.”
“I was born in New York,” Frank Frink said.
“You’re an escapee from the Nazis,” the cop said. “You know what that means?”
Frank Frink broke away and ran across the garage. The three cops shouted, and at the doorway he found himself facing a police car with uniformed armed police blocking his path. The police smiled at him, and one of them, holding a gun, stepped out and smacked a handcuff into place over his wrist.
Jerking him by the wrist—the thin metal cut into his flesh, to the bone—the cop led him back the way he had come.
“Back to Germany,” one of the cops said, surveying him.
“I’m an American,” Frank Frink said.
“You’re a Jew,” the cop said.
As he was taken upstairs, one of the cops said, “Will he be booked here?”
“No,” another said. “We’ll hold him for the German consul. They want to try him under German law.”
There was no list of attorneys, after all.
For twenty minutes Mr. Tagomi had remained motionless at his desk, holding the revolver pointed at the door, while Mr. Baynes paced about the office. The old general had, after some thought, lifted the phone and put through a call to the Japanese embassy in San Francisco. However, he had not been able to get through to Baron Kaelemakule; the ambassador, a bureaucrat had told him, was out of the city.
Now General Tedeki was in the process of placing a transpacific call to Tokyo.
“I will consult with the War College,” he explained to Mr. Baynes. “They will contact Imperial military forces stationed nearby us.” He did not seem perturbed.
So we will be relieved in a number of hours, Mr. Tagomi said to himself. Possibly by Japanese Marines from a carrier, armed with machines guns and mortars.
Operating through official channels is highly efficient in terms of final result… but there is regrettable time lag. Down below us, blackshirt hooligans are busy clubbing secretaries and clerks.
However, there was little more that he personally could do.
“I wonder if it would be worth trying to reach the German consul,” Mr. Baynes said.
Mr. Tagomi had a vision of himself summoning Miss Ephreikian in with her tape recorder, to take dictation of urgent protest to Herr H. Reiss.
“I can call Herr Reiss,” Mr. Tagomi said. “On another line.”
“Please,” Mr. Baynes said.
Still holding his Colt .44 collector’s item, Mr. Tagomi pressed a button on his desk. Out came a non-listed phone line, especially installed for esoteric communication.
He dialed the number of the German consulate.
“Good day, Who is calling?” Accented brisk male functionary voice. Undoubtedly underling.
Mr. Tagomi said, “His Excellency Herr Reiss, please. Urgent. This is Mr. Tagomi, here. Ranking Imperial Trade Mission, Top Place.” He used his hard, no-nonsense voice.
“Yes sir. A moment, if you will.” A long moment, then. No sound at all on the phone, not even clicks. He is merely standing there with it, Mr. Tagomi decided. Stalling through typical Nordic wile.
To General Tedeki, waiting on the other phone, and Mr. Baynes, pacing, he said, “I am naturally being put off.”
At last the functionary”s voice once again. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Tagomi.”
“Not at all.”
“The consul is in conference. However—”
Mr. Tagomi hung up.
“Waste of effort, to say the least,” he said, feeling discomfited. Whom else to call? Tokkoka already informed, also MP units down on waterfront; no use to phone them. Direct call to Berlin? To Reichs Chancellor Goebbels? To Imperial Military airfield at Napa, asking for air-rescue assistance?
“I will call SD chief Herr B. Kruez vom Meere,” he decided aloud. “And bitterly complain. Rant and scream invective.” He began to dial the number formally—euphemistically—listed in the San Francisco phone book as the “Lufthansa Airport Terminal Precious-Shipment Guard Detail.” As the phone buzzed he said, “Vituperate in highpitched hysteria.”
“Put on a good performance,” General Tedeki said, smiling.
In Mr. Tagomi’s ear a Germanic voice said, “Who is it?” More no-nonsense-than-myself voice, Mr. Tagomi thought. But he intended to go on. “Hurry up,” the voice demanded.
Mr. Tagomi shouted, “I am ordering the arrest and trial of your band of cutthroats and degenerates who run amok like blond berserk beasts, unfit even to describe! Do you know me, Kerl? This is Tagomi, Imperial Government Consultant. Five seconds or waive legality and have Marines’ shock troop unit begin massacre with flame-throwing phosphorus bombs. Disgrace to civilization.”
On the other end the SD flunky was sputtering anxiously.
Mr. Tagomi winked at Mr. Baynes.
“… we know nothing about it,” the flunky was saying.
“Liar!” Mr. Tagomi shouted. “Then we have no choice.” He slammed the receiver down. “It is no doubt mere gesture,” he said to Mr. Baynes and General Tedeki.
“But it can do no harm, anyhow. Always faint possibility certain nervous element even in SD.”
General Tedeki started to speak. But then a tremendous clatter at the office door; he ceased. The door swung open.
Two burly white men appeared, both armed with pistols equipped with silencers. They made out Mr. Baynes.
“Da ist er,” one said. They started for Mr. Baynes.
At his desk, Mr. Tagomi pointed his Colt .44 ancient collector’s item and compressed the trigger. One of the SD men fell to the floor. The other whipped his silencer-equipped gun toward Mr. Tagomi and returned fire. Mr. Tagomi heard no report, saw only a tiny wisp of smoke from the gun, heard the whistle of a slug passing near. With record-eclipsing speed he fanned the hammer of the single-action Colt, firing it again and again.
The SD man’s jaw burst. Bits of bone, flesh, shreds of tooth, flew in the air. Hit in the mouth, Mr. Tagomi realized. Dreadful spot, especially if ball ascending. The jawless SD man’s eyes still contained life, of a kind. He still perceives me, Mr. Tagomi thought. Then the eyes lost their luster and the SD man collapsed, dropping his gun and making un-human gargling noises.
“Sickening,” Mr. Tagomi said.
No more SD men appeared in the open doorway.
“Possibly it is over,” General Tedeki said after a pause. Mr. Tagomi, engaged in tedious three-minute task of reloading, paused to press the button of the desk intercom. “Bring medical emergency aid,” he instructed. “Hideously injured thug, here.”
No answer, only a hum.
Stooping, Mr. Baynes had picked up both the Germans’ guns; he passed one to the general, keeping the other himself.
“Now we will mow them down,” Mr. Tagomi said, reseating himself with his Colt .44, as before. “Formidable triumvirate, in this office.”
From the hall a voice called, “German hoodlums surrender!”
“Already taken care of,” Mr. Tagomi called back. “Lying either dead or dying. Advance and verify empirically.”
A party of Nippon Times employees gingerly appeared, several of them carrying building riot equipment such as axes and rifles and tear-gas grenades.
“Cause célèbre,” Mr. Tagomi said. “PSA Government in Sacramento could declare war on Reich without hesitation.” He broke open his gun. “Anyhow, over with.”
“They will deny complicity,” Mr. Baynes said. “Standard technique. Used countless times.” He laid the silencer equipped pistol on Mr. Tagomi’s desk. “Made in Japan.”
He was not joking. It was true. Excellent quality Japanese target pistol. Mr. Tagomi examined it.
“And not German nationals,” Mr. Baynes said. He had taken the wallet of one of the whites, the dead one. “PSA citizen. Lives in San José. Nothing to connect him with the SD. Name is Jack Sanders.” He tossed the wallet down.
“A holdup,” Mr.
Tagomi said. “Motive: our locked vault. No political aspects.” He arose shakily to his feet.
In any case, the assassination or kidnapping attempt by the SD had failed. At least, this first one had. But clearly they knew who Mr. Baynes was, and no doubt what he had come for.
“The prognosis,” Mr. Tagomi said, “is gloomy.”
He wondered if in this instance the oracle would be of any use. Perhaps it could protect them. Warn them, shield them, with its advice.
Still quite shaky, he began taking out the forty-nine yarrow stalks. Whole situation confusing and anomalous, he decided. No human intelligence could decipher it; only five-thousand-year-old joint mind applicable. German totalitarian society resembles some faulty form of life, worse than natural thing. Worse in all its admixtures, its potpourri of pointlessness.
Here, he thought, local SD acts as instrument of policy totally at odds with head in Berlin. Where in this composite being is the sense? Who really is Germany? Who ever was? Almost like decomposing nightmare parody of problems customarily faced in course of existence.
The oracle will cut through it. Even weird breed of cat like Nazi Germany comprehensible to I Ching.
Mr. Baynes, seeing Mr. Tagomi distractedly manipulating the handful of vegetable stalks, recognized how deep the man’s distress was. For him, Mr. Baynes thought, this event, his having had to kill and mutilate these two men, is not only dreadful; it is inexplicable.
What can I say that might console him? He fired on my behalf; the moral responsibility for these two lives is therefore mine, and I accept it. I view it that way.
Coming over beside Mr. Baynes, General Tedeki said in a soft voice, “You witness the man’s despair. He, you see, was no doubt raised as a Buddhist. Even if not formally, the influence was there. A culture in which no life is to be taken; all lives holy.”
Mr. Baynes nodded.
“He will recover his equilibrium,” General Tedeki continued. “In time. Right now he has no standpoint by which he can view and comprehend his act. That book will help him, for it provides an external frame of reference.”
“I see,” Mr. Baynes said. He thought, Another frame of reference which might help him would be the Doctrine of Original Sin. I wonder if he has ever heard of it. We are all doomed to commit acts of cruelty or violence or evil; that is our destiny, due to ancient factors. Our karma.
To save one life, Mr. Tagomi had to take two. The logical, balanced mind cannot make sense of that. A kindly man like Mr. Tagomi could be driven insane by the implications of such reality.
Nevertheless, Mr. Baynes thought, the crucial point lies not in the present, not in either my death or the death of the two SD men; it lies—hypothetically—in the future. What has happened here is justified, or not justified, by what happens later. Can we perhaps save the lives of millions, all Japan in fact?
But the man manipulating the vegetable stalks could not think of that; the present, the actuality, was too tangible, the dead and dying Germans on the floor of his office.
General Tedeki was right; time would give Mr. Tagomi perspective. Either that, or he would perhaps retreat into the shadows of mental illness, avert his gaze forever, due to a hopeless perplexity.
And we are not really different from him, Mr. Baynes thought. We are faced with the same confusions. Therefore unfortunately we can give Mr. Tagomi no help. We can only wait, hoping that finally he will recover and not succumb.
13
In Denver they found chic, modern stores. The clothes, Juliana thought, were numbingly expensive, but Joe did not seem to care or even to notice; he simply paid for what she picked out, and then they hurried on to the next store.
Her major acquisition—after much trying on of dresses and much prolonged deliberating and rejecting—occurred late in the day: a light blue Italian original with short, fluffy sleeves and a wildly low neckline. In a European fashion magazine she had seen a model wearing such a dress; it was considered the finest style of the year, and it cost Joe almost two hundred dollars.
To go with it, she needed three pairs of shoes, more nylon stockings, several hats, and a new handmade black leather purse. And, she discovered, the neckline of the Italian dress demanded the new brassieres which covered only the lower part of each breast. Viewing herself in the full-length mirror of the dress shop, she felt overexposed and a little insecure about bending over. But the salesgirl assured her that the new half-bras remained firmly in place, despite their lack of straps.
Just up to the nipple, Juliana thought as she peered at herself in the privacy of the dressing room, and not one millimeter more. The bras, too, cost quite a bit; also imported, the salesgirl explained, and handmade. The salesgirl showed her sportswear, too, shorts and bathing suits and a terrycloth beach robe; but all at once Joe became restless. So they went on.
As Joe loaded the parcels and bags into the car she said, “Don’t you think I’m going to look terrific?”
“Yes,” he said in a preoccupied voice. “Especially that blue dress. You wear that when we go there, to Abendsen’s; understand?” He spoke the last word sharply as if it was an order; the tone surprised her.
“I’m a size twelve or fourteen,” she said as they entered the next dress shop. The salesgirl smiled graciously and accompanied them to the racks of dresses. What else did she need? Juliana wondered. Better to get as much as possible while she could; her eyes took in everything at once, the blouses, skirts, sweaters, slacks, coats. Yes, a coat. “Joe,” she said, “I have to have a long coat. But not a cloth coat.”
They compromised with one of the synthetic fiber coats from Germany; it was more durable than natural fur, and less expensive. But she felt disappointed. To cheer herself up she began examining jewelry. But it was dreary costume junk, without imagination or originality.
“I have to get some jewelry,” she explained to Joe. “Earrings, at least. Or a pin—to go with the blue dress.” She led him along the sidewalk to a jewelry store. “And your clothes,” she remembered, with guilt. “We have to shop for you, too.”
While she looked for jewelry, Joe stopped at a barbershop for his haircut. When he appeared a half hour later, she was amazed; he had not only gotten his hair cut as short as possible, but he had had it dyed. She would hardly have recognized him; he was now blond. Good God, she thought, staring at him. Why?
Shrugging, Joe said, “I’m tired of being a wop.” That was all he would say; he refused to discuss it as they entered a men’s clothing store and began shopping for him.
They bought him a nicely tailored suit of one of Du Pont’s new synthetic fibers, Dacron. And new socks, underwear, and a pair of stylish sharp-toed shoes. What now? Juliana thought. Shirts. And ties. She and the clerk picked out two white shirts with French cuffs, several ties made in France, and a pair of silver cuff links. It took only forty minutes to do all the shopping for him; she was astonished to find it so easy, compared to her own.
His suit, she thought, should be altered. But again Joe had become restless; he paid the bill with the Reichsbank notes which he carried. I know something else, Juliana realized. A new billfold. So she and the clerk picked out a black alligator billfold for him, and that was that. They left the store and returned to the car; it was four-thirty and the shopping—at least as far as Joe was concerned—was over.
“You don’t want the waistline taken in a little?” she asked Joe as he drove out into downtown Denver traffic. “On your suit—”
“No.” His voice, brusque and impersonal, startled her.
“What’s wrong? Did I buy too much?” I know that’s it, she said to herself; I spent much too much. “I could take some of the skirts back.”
“Let’s eat dinner,” he said.
“Oh God,” she exclaimed. “I know what I didn’t get. Nightgowns.”
He glared at her ferociously.
“Don’t you want me to get some nice new pajamas?” she said. “So I’ll be all fresh and—”
“No.” He shook his head. “F
orget it. Look for a place to eat.”
Juliana said in a steady voice, “We’ll go and register at the hotel first. So we can change. Then we’ll eat.” And it better be a really fine hotel, she thought, or it’s all off. Even this late. And we’ll ask them at the hotel what’s the best place in Denver to eat. And the name of a good nightclub where we can see a once-in-a-lifetime act, not some local talent but some big names from Europe, like Eleanor Perez or Willie Beck. I know great UFA stars like that come out to Denver, because I’ve seen the ads. And I won’t settle for anything less.
As they searched for a good hotel, Juliana kept glancing at the man beside her. With his hair short and blond, and in his new clothes, he doesn’t look like the same person, she thought. Do I like him better this way? It was hard to tell. And me—when I’ve been able to arrange for my hair being done, we’ll be two different persons, almost. Created out of nothing or, rather, out of money. But I just must get my hair done, she told herself.
They found a large stately hotel in downtown Denver with a uniformed doorman who arranged for the car to be parked. That was what she wanted. And a bellboy—actually a grown man, but wearing the maroon uniform—came quickly and carried all their parcels and luggage, leaving them with nothing to do but climb the wide carpeted steps, under the awning, pass through the glass and mahogany doors and into the lobby.
Small shops on each side of the lobby, flower shop, gifts, candy, place to telegraph, desk to reserve plane flights, the bustle of guests at the desk and the elevators, the huge potted plants, and under their feet the carpeting, thick and soft. She could smell the hotel, the many people, the activity. Neon signs indicated in which direction the hotel restaurant, cocktail lounge, snack bar, lay. She could barely take it all in as they crossed the lobby and at last reached the reservation desk.
There was even a bookstore.
While Joe signed the register, she excused herself and hurried over to the bookstore to see if they had The Grasshopper. Yes, there it was, a bright stack of copies in fact, with a display sign saying how popular and important it was, and of course that it was verboten in German-run regions. A smiling middle-aged woman, very grandmotherly, waited on her; the book cost almost four dollars, which seemed to Juliana a great deal, but she paid for it with a Reichsbank note from her new purse and then skipped back to join Joe.
The Man in the High Castle Page 20
