The Luzern Photograph

by William Bayer

  The photo shows Chantal standing in her chariot wearing a smartly tailored business suit. She holds a black single-tail whip in one hand and a double set of reins in the other. But the aspect that causes me to tremble is the pair of men to whom the reins are attached. They’re equally tall, equally muscular, and totally naked, a matched pair of human beasts of burden. Though both face the camera, their heads are encased in identical full black leather buckle-on hoods with eye and ear holes and mouth openings zippered shut, the kind I saw in the glass case at the fetish shoe store where I first met Lynx.

  It’s a bizarre compelling image. In it Chantal appears incredibly glamorous, even more than in Josh’s Queen of Swords. But what fills me with awe is the clear reference to the photograph of Lou Salomé, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Paul Rée that so obsessed her.

  I can’t help but wonder what was in Chantal’s mind. Was this photo taken to memorialize her reenactment of that famously ‘infamous’ image? Was she trying to reproduce it or parody it? And did the male participants have any notion of the reference?

  It takes me a while to explain all this to Scarpaci. I bring out books in which the Luzern photo is reproduced while explaining the backstory and Chantal’s obsessive interest in it. When I’m finished, Scarpaci shakes his head.

  ‘Weird disconnect,’ he says. ‘We find a hidden locked strongbox filled with odds and ends along with a photograph you think could be important. I gotta ask myself – why store trinkets in a hiding place, and if the photo really was important why’d she leave it behind?’

  I wonder about that too. Might she have forgotten it?

  Seems unlikely since she was so thorough about cleaning out her loft and selling off her stuff. But as I gaze at the items laid out on my coffee table, I realize they tell a tale about Chantal, who she was and what she did.

  Could she have left these things behind for someone like me, someone who’d find them and think about them and perhaps use them as a way to unravel her story and the final drama of her life?

  SEVENTEEN

  Extract from the Unpublished Memoirs of Major Ernst Fleckstein

  (AKA Dr Samuel Foigel)

  Returning to the case of Frau Lou Andreas-Salomé, I was well prepared when in early 1937 I received news that she was close to death. In preparation I secured a large room in the cellar of the Göttingen city hall for the inspection of her books and files. In addition on Bormann’s orders I was assigned a highly trained unit of Gestapo assault troops under the command of a young lieutenant named Hans Beckendorf.

  Young Beckendorf, with his short-cut blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and lean athletic physique, met all the physical requirements of a cliché Aryan warrior. In fact some years later, watching a newsreel in Berlin, I saw him decorated for leadership and valor with a Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. Back in ’37, Beckendorf struck me as an intelligent and efficient young officer who was annoyingly curious about my mission. As we awaited Frau Lou’s death, he irked me by his insistence that I tell him precisely what his men would be looking for when we raided her house.

  I had prepared a cover story hinted at by Frau Lou during our 1934 interview, namely that her library included a great number of inflammatory and dangerous communist tracts and ‘Jew-books’ that must be confiscated.

  I clearly recall the unbelieving expression on Beckendorf’s face.

  ‘You’re tying up twenty of my men trained in assault tactics to pack up and transport books! Ridiculous!’

  At this I felt the need to remind the callow lieutenant that he had been temporarily assigned to me on direct orders from Reichsleiter Bormann. Thus it would behoove him to obey all my instructions lest I find it necessary to report him for insubordination. I added that the rationale for this confiscation of Frau Lou’s books and papers had to do with matters far beyond his purview. Then to further quiet him I whispered that there was a good likelihood we would uncover some valuable Nietzsche material, including personal letters, that would be of great interest to the Führer. Young Beckendorf assured me that, as an avid reader of Zarathustra, this was something he fully understood. Then, in what was clearly meant as a friendly gesture, he invited me to join him on his rigorous morning exercise regime by which he kept himself in top-notch fighting condition. I noticed a little sneer when I declined, but by employing the Nietzsche gambit I was able to shut him down during the final days of our deathwatch.

  Finally, on February 10, 1937, a cold rainy morning, I received word that Frau Lou had passed in the night. I immediately ordered Beckendorf to assemble his men, then proceed to Loufried and retrieve everything we could find there that resembled documentation. We sped out of town, through the mist and rain and into the forested hills north of Göttingen, arriving at Loufried in the manner of a raiding party prepared to bust down doors and arrest communists and Jews.

  The housekeeper, Marie, the woman I’d met back in 1934, expressed outrage at our intrusion. She shouted at me: ‘The poor woman is dead but a few hours and already you and a gang of thugs come to pick through her bones.’ Beckendorf, furious, wanted to arrest her but I instructed him to leave her alone. Meantime, while his Gestapo troops were busy packing up Frau Lou’s library, I asked Marie if there were any safes or strongboxes in the house. She solemnly shook her head. As we spoke I noticed a teenage girl peeking out from behind the kitchen door. This, I knew from my research, was Marie’s daughter, named Mariechen, sired by Frau Lou’s late husband, Friedrich Carl Andreas, who, denied the pleasures of congress with his wife, had with Lou’s permission turned to their loyal housekeeper for satisfaction.

  After everything had been packed up and carried out to the trucks, I made a final search of the premises, tapping on walls, seeking out possible hiding places, all under the close scrutiny of Marie. Something in her manner, the amused expression on her face, led me to believe she’d been told a thorough search was to be expected and was fully confident that whatever it was her late mistress had concealed would not easily be found.

  Back at City Hall, I spent several days going through everything, examining every document, glancing through Frau Lou’s many notebooks and diaries, even holding every one of her books upside down then vigorously shaking it to see if the drawing, concealed between pages, might just happen to fall out … but to no avail. I found letters, photographs, postcards, cancelled checks, even ticket stubs, pressed flowers, and old receipts, but not a single drawing.

  Her body, on her instructions, had been cremated, and although she requested that her ashes be spread upon the grounds at Loufried, the town authorities would not allow it.

  Depressed by my failure to find the drawing, I attended the burial of her ashes in the town cemetery. It was a cold rainy day. Marie was there, of course, and the love-child, Mariechen. Again I noticed a mocking supercilious grin, this time on both their faces. Annoyed by this and certain I had missed something important, I hired a taxi to transport me back up to Loufried.

  Beckendorf, on my instructions, had ordered his men to seal the place up. I used my penknife to cut the red wax, then entered and went straight to the study-consulting room where Frau Lou had received me in ’34.

  Memories of her flooded back, her quick wit and engaging eyes. As I had reported to Bormann, I’d found her highly intelligent and crafty, and although I knew she’d spoken falsely to me, I’d still found her greatly likeable.

  I walked over to a pair of armchairs, sat in the chair she’d used that day, then tried to imagine what she’d thought of me as, gazing at one another, our eyes met. My eyes then fell upon the solitary chair positioned behind the tilted back of her analytic couch, where she’d sat while her patients, lying down, willingly spewed out their most intimate fantasies and dreams.

  During my time as an investigator I had heard quite a few confessions proffered during moments of personal stress. Later, after joining the party, I had heard others coerced by beatings and torture. The willingness of a patient to confide in an unseen analyst was something I found diffi
cult to grasp. But perhaps, I thought, the end result would be the same: the feeling of relief that comes after one has spilled one’s guts. I began to muse upon the possibility that under the guise of psychoanalysis a targeted individual might be induced to reveal matters that could later be used for purposes of extortion and blackmail. What a wonderful methodology, I thought: under the pretense of compassion the most dangerous secrets could be extracted and exposed. How much cleaner than the crude methods of torturers. And the only device needed would be a simple chaise longue. As Frau Lou had told me, the couch was merely a tool, so much more soothing than a red-hot needle, set of electrodes, or pair of pliers, and in all likelihood a good deal more efficient. This is definitely something to ponder, I thought.

  Setting that aside, my thoughts turned back to the matter at hand: where might Frau Lou have hidden the Führer’s drawing? I stood again and paced the room. While doing so I noticed that I was actually circling the prominently positioned couch. Recalling how my eyes had been drawn to it at the end of our interview in ’34, I recalled something that had escaped my attention at the time, what poker players call a ‘tell.’ A ‘tell’, I’d been taught, could be something as simple as a tightening around the eyes, a fidgeting foot, a turning away, or just a slight change in position. And I remembered how, as Frau Lou and I briefly discussed the efficacy of the psychoanalytic couch, she had seemed to grow tense in a way that in retrospect was inappropriate since our interview was over and I was about to be shown the door.

  I asked myself: Could it have been hidden the entire time we spoke not two meters from where we sat, even as she claimed she had no idea what I was asking about?

  Maybe, I thought, that was the trick that brought a smile to the housekeeper’s lips. I have described Frau Lou as crafty. Could she have been that crafty? Could she have been inwardly laughing at me the entire time we’d talked?

  I went over to the couch, ran my hand over the tilted portion where a patient would rest his upper body and head. The cushion there was covered for hygienic reasons with a removable rectangle of white cloth. But the long cushion upon which the patient would stretch out was decorated with fine needlework. I pulled the head cushion off the frame of the chaise longue. There was nothing beneath it, not surprising since this cushion often would have been removed, recovered, and then replaced. But the long cushion was another matter. It was, I saw, lightly sewn to the thin box spring beneath. Again I brought out my penknife and used it to slice through the thread. Then, heart beating rapidly, I pulled the long cushion off the chaise and set it on the floor.

  Eureka! There it was! A cardboard portfolio with a faux-marble black and white cover bound with a gray ribbon, a perfect container for a drawing.

  I took it to Frau Lou’s desk then carefully opened it with shaking hands. Inside I found the Führer’s drawing. An inscription on the back made it clear this was a vision he had dreamt up concerning himself and Frau Lou in what I can only describe as a highly compromising positional relationship. Further, due to my earlier research into Frau Lou’s past, I immediately recognized this positioning as identical to the way figures were posed in a comedic photograph taken in the late nineteenth century of Frau Lou with Nietzsche and another gentleman. The difference was that due to the inscription and expressions on the faces of the parties, it was clear that Hitler’s drawing was intended as a dead serious homage.

  I will not claim that I was shocked. By that time I was well aware of some of the Führer’s, shall we say, personal proclivities. The Geli Raubal case was replete with accusations of sadomasochism. In fact it was a letter from Geli about this aspect of her uncle’s personality which Stempfle had been threatening to make public that made it necessary to arrange for the good priest’s termination. Thus it was not a matter of my being shocked, but of becoming aware of how inflammatory the release of this drawing would be if it fell into the wrong hands, and why the Führer had been so anxious to pay a grand sum to buy it back.

  With this awareness there came a further realization: if I were to bring this drawing back to Bormann I would certainly win for myself considerable gratitude. At the same time, I would make myself vulnerable to the sort of unpleasant endings that seemed to befall people such as Fräulein Raubal, Father Stempfle, and others in possession of embarrassing information regarding the Führer’s intimate behavior. Thus, I reasoned, I must decide whether it was worth the risk to deliver the drawing to Bormann only later to face some sort of terminal consequence. My decision, I knew, had to be made quickly for I was expected to report back to Bormann the following day.

  To better describe what I’m speaking about, let me add that there was a well-known streak of ruthlessness in the NSDAP, a fondness for violent resolutions to unpleasant situations, that manifested itself in events such as late-night automobile ‘accidents’ in remote heavily forested areas, house ‘break-ins’ by thuggish thieves who, finding a robbery victim at home, don’t hesitate to slit his throat, as well as a propensity for setting up otherwise inexplicable ‘suicides.’ I knew a great deal about this kind of behavior for I had myself been party to it. And though I derived no personal pleasure from handling matters in this fashion, I knew many operatives who did. How ironic, I thought, if I, Bormann’s personal fixer and hatchet-man, should be struck down by the very sword by which I’d lived!

  It took me but moments to make my decision. No, I would not deliver the Führer’s drawing to Bormann! The risk would be too great. I would tell him that I could guarantee one hundred percent that at the time of her death Frau Lou was not in possession of any of the Führer’s artworks, and if she ever did possess such artwork it had long since been discarded. Meantime, I would keep the drawing safely hidden so that if ever I needed a bargaining chip to get myself out of a serious jam, I could quickly retrieve it and use it as payment for, perhaps, my very life.

  Before leaving Göttingen I returned to the basement of City Hall to arrange for the return of Frau Lou’s library and papers. Looking through the books, I picked up a copy of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, a rare first edition dated 1900 bearing a lavish inscription:

  ‘For Lou with special thanks for all your fine insights and contributions to our field. May you always have magnificent and fruitful dreams! Devotedly, Freud.’

  Very nice, I thought, deciding to keep it as a memento of my encounter with that extraordinary woman.

  Again as in 1934, Bormann was not pleased. Knowing how much he disliked reporting a failure to Hitler, I was prepared to be thoroughly chewed out. In fact, he was less abusive than usual, and seemed to accept at face value my conclusions regarding Frau Lou and the missing drawing.

  ‘Good!’ he said. ‘I’m glad that’s settled.’ He made the kind of gesture one makes when washing one’s hands. ‘I have a new assignment for you, Fleckstein. It is a highly sensitive matter requiring urgent attention. I think you will enjoy this one,’ he added, rubbing his hands with glee.

  Then, with what I can only describe as a high degree of relish, he asked me if I’d ever heard of the film actress Renate Müller.

  EIGHTEEN

  I gaze out at my audience seated on beautiful chairs in Grace’s ballroom. Careful to avoid eye contact with my personal friends in the back row, I engage the attendee friends of my fictional Mrs Z.

  Slowly I scan their attentive faces. I smile as I meet the eyes of several women as if I regard them as especially close. I am so very pleased to see them all, my smile says – these friends of many years, with whom I’ve served on committees and boards, whose Christmas gatherings and children’s weddings I’ve attended, who have come so exquisitely clothed and bejeweled to attend my evening musicale, Recital.

  I have much to say to them tonight. First a few niceties:

  ‘Oh, thank you so very much!’ I say turning to Luis, expressing gratitude to him for filling the ballroom of my home with glorious sound, also acknowledging by gesture my thanks for his attendance to an elderly lady’s personal needs … such as they are.


  ‘The arts are everything to us, are they not?’ I ask rhetorically. ‘I think of something my dear late Sam used to say: “The arts add luster to our lives.”’ I pause. ‘Now isn’t that true?’

  Most nod. I turn again to Luis, sitting coolly on his stool, cello secure between his legs. ‘Oh, dear Luis – your portamenti! And your wondrous bowing. Bravo! Bravo!’

  I turn back to my audience. ‘The arts heal us. Without them we’d be lost. I’m sure I would be. They give us solace and quiet our souls, so important in this hectic world we live in. And so we give much of our time and fortunes to support them.

  ‘Now that I have you here … again thank you all so much for coming … allow me, if you’ll permit, to, as they say, get a few things off my chest.’ I pause, glance down at my rack, give a little shudder, then face them again. ‘Yes, a few things, several of which you may find a bit indelicate. But that, as they say, is “hostess privilege”.’

  Some tittering, shuffling of feet, repositioning of chairs. I wait until they settle down. As a grande dame, I insist on full attention. I’m ready now to expose some of the injustices I’ve suffered through the years, little hurtful lapses of respect and expressions of ingratitude.

  I speak of the mean-spirited reviews that greeted my son Kevin’s painting exhibition, how the critics assailed his artwork as ‘derivative’ and ‘amateurish’, how they said he’d never have been exhibited at all if it hadn’t been for the money I’d thrown at the museum.