“Oh, how provoking!” she exclaimed. “Why do you want to make yourself a slave like that?”
“It’ll only take a couple of days, and you don’t have to come. Wait for me in Paris if you prefer.”
Paris was always an agreeable place for waiting. You could do shopping, if you had what it took, and there were plays to be seen and fashionable friends to go about with. This young couple had two cars which they were taking to the Riviera, so they arranged that the chauffeur should drive Frances and her governess and maid direct to Bienvenu; Irma found traveling with children a nuisance and always avoided it if she could. Lanny would drive his wife to Paris and then proceed alone to Berlin.
There was but one dubious aspect of this project. “Lanny, can I really trust you in Germany?”
“Darling,” he smiled, “how could I be under better auspices than the head of the Prussian state?”
“You know what I mean! You’ll be getting mixed up with those friends of Freddi and Hansi again.”
He had thought carefully what he would say, and had learned a number of formulas. “My dear, I have important business to transact and I’m not going to let anything interfere with it. If I do this job, the old pirate may give me others. Don’t forget that Germany is a treasure-house of great art, and America can use a lot of it.”
“Lanny, I tell you I couldn’t stand anything like you put me through before. I’ve got to make that plain to you. I can’t stand it and I won’t!”
He knew that he had to grant her the right to say it all over again; it is a part of the duty of husbands to hear about their past sins. It is the part of wisdom never to argue, or question any statement, however inexact it may seem; merely utter soothing words, and the fewer the better—Mother Nature having apparently planned women to talk and men to listen. “Yes, dear,” he repeated. “I’ll take the best of care of myself, and not stay a moment longer than necessary.”
VII
Irma wanted him to take a train; but he liked to drive, even in January. He paid no attention to the weather—unless it was a blinding snowstorm, he went right through. He would need only one day in Berlin, and he wanted to bring the paintings out with him, and have them packed and shipped from France—trusting no one in Naziland. If anything delayed him, he would telephone without fail; meanwhile Irma would be gossiping with the Duchesse de Ceci and the Comtesse de Cela, and on the way to Bienvenu she would entertain him with all the latest scandals of the haut monde de Paris.
He motored without incident, and saw once more the factory chimneys of Germany, pouring forth smoke day and night; also the patient people, performing whatever hard tasks were assigned them, and winning the sympathy of an American who rarely had to do anything except what his fancy dictated. He arrived late, spent the night at the Adlon, and in the morning telephoned the Oberleutnant, a sort of glorified secretary in military uniform, who met him by appointment at the palace. Up to twenty months ago this marble edifice had belonged to a Jewish Schieber, and in it Lanny and his wife had eaten and drunk delight. Now it was the home of the fat General’s lady favorite, a darling of the German stage and screen; Lanny’s taste was all over it, and he hoped the statuesque blond beauty appreciated what he had done for her.
The two paintings, Head of St. John, a fragment of a larger picture by Tiepolo, and Parliament Buildings on the Thames by Monet—curious contrast of old and new—had been taken from the walls and set aside for him. He examined them and made sure they were what he wanted; then he put a bank draft into the Oberleutnant’s hands and took the bills of sale which had been signed by the Minister-Prasident’s personal disbursing officer. Lanny wrapped the precious works in two oilcloths he carried for the purpose, and two uniformed lackeys bore them to his car. “You can show these documents at the border,” said the staff officer, “and if there is any question about it, tell them to phone me.” Lanny thanked him, asked after his family, answered questions about his own; they smiled, bowed, shook hands, and parted the best of friends.
VIII
Lanny was returning to Paris, but he chose a devious route, not prescribed in any motorist’s guidebook. He turned a number of unexpected corners, and ended up in the Moabit district exactly at noon. As he passed a certain corner, there was a young woman in a worn brown coat, with a bundle of sketches in the crook of her left arm. He passed her and stopped as before; she stepped in without a word, and away they went—but not toward Paris.
Lanny watched in his little mirror, while Trudi sank low in her seat to make herself inconspicuous, and turned her face toward him so that it could not be seen by persons passing. “Lanny,” she exclaimed, “it is so kind of you to take this trouble!”
“My expenses are being paid,” he replied, amiably. “I have two paintings in the back seat, for which I have just paid your Air Kommandant the sum of forty thousand marks. It means that I have four thousand for you, if you can use them.”
“I have used most of what you gave me, and to good purpose.”
“O.K. Is that why you wrote me?”
“No—something even more important. Are you sure were not being followed?”
“I’ll take another turn,” he replied. The car roamed here and there about this old working-class district of the Hauptstadt. “All clear!” he said, in American. “Shoot!”
“I have some documents of a most confidential nature which I thought you might he able to put to use. They are photostatic copies of reports to Goring’s office, showing production of military planes in violation of the Versailles treaty. You perhaps do not know that we are manufacturing certain types of transport planes in Germany, while in Sweden the same types are being made for our government, but having armament; they bear the same type numbers, but the armored ones have the initial K, that is, Krieg. With these documents you can prove that Goring is getting more warplanes than France and Britain combined.”
“Holy smoke!” said the art expert. “How do you get such things?”
“That is one question you are not permitted to ask. Suffice it to say that all our friends are not yet dead, or even in concentration camps. Old-time party members come to us; some of them have turned Nazi as a camouflage.”
“That is pretty risky business, Trudi.”
“They risk their lives, and so do we. Whether you care to help us is for you to decide.”
“What do you want me to do with the documents?”
“It is a field altogether strange to me. I should think the information would be of interest to the military authorities of France and England.”
“Anyone would suppose it; and if I tell you that they might do nothing about it, you would be shocked. But I know some of them, and they believe what they want to believe and nothing more.”
“Even if you put the documents into their hands?”
“They would want to know how I got them, and if I didn’t tell them, I’m afraid they’d begin to suggest they mightn’t be genuine. All intelligence departments forge documents for their own purposes, and naturally they are sure that others are doing the same. They can’t trust any anti-Nazis, because they have the same sort of people in their own country and fear them even more than they do Hitler and Goring.”
“I haven’t told you everything yet,” said Trudi. “I have photostatic copies of Wehrmacht intelligence reports, sent in by agents in Paris and London, giving data as to the situation of military objectives such as oil-depots, gas-tanks, arsenals, and other bombing-targets.”
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed the American.
“They are evidently the results of surveyor’s work; that is, they tell you, so many meters north-northwest of some prominent object—things like that.”
“Are they in code?”
“They consist entirely of names of places, distances, and directions. They are abbreviated, and for place names they give only initials. The person who brought them to us has supplied interpretations which make it all quite clear. One hundred and forty-seven meters due north of such and such
a station of the Paris Metro there is an oil-storage depot; so and so many feet southeast of the south entrance to Waterloo Bridge there is a warehouse full of explosives—things like that. Don’t you suppose that might be of importance to the English authorities?”
“I’ve no doubt they’d read them with great interest,” replied Lanny, “and doubtless would check them carefully. But would they do anything that made any real difference? You should hear my father talk about the British brass-hats, their dumbness, and their utter, impenetrable complacency. It is beneath their dignity to worry or even to take precautions about anything. They are as solid and as self-satisfied as their own Rock of Gibraltar.”
IX
Lanny took his friend for a long drive, discussing every angle of this complicated problem. His final decision was that the documents ought to be published in some paper. The brass-hats wouldn’t fail to read them, and the public clamor would stir them up, if anything could.
Trudi had but one objection. “It might be pretty hard on the person who got them for us.”
“Does he imagine that you can turn these documents over to the British or the French military authorities and not have Goring get wind of it in a few days? Just as you have spies in his office, so he has equally efficient ones in every army and navy headquarters in the world.”
“I suppose so,” admitted the woman. “We may have to get our friend out of the country.”
“Let me suggest something I thought of while I was figuring out ways to help Freddi. Devise a scheme to cast the suspicion on some good Nazi official. That is a way to confuse them and break them up.” When she did not answer, he added: “Tell me this: have you the right to let the documents be published?”
“I was told to make whatever use of them seemed best.”
“Very well; I’ll take them on that basis.”
“Do you think you can get them out safely?”
“It happens that I am in position to do so. There’s no use going into details.”
“You must be careful, in disposing of them, that there’s no trail leading to you; for surely the Gestapo will get busy with all their resources, and if they trace it to you, you’ll not be able to come back here again.”
“I understand, and I think I know a way.” She had told him not to ask questions, and now he showed that he had learned the lesson. “I wasn’t bargaining for anything like this, but I see it’s important, and you may count on me to do my best. If I fail, it won’t be from lack of careful thought.”
X
That subject settled, he told her about a stout old woman, widow of a butler in the home of a Warsaw merchant. Trudi had heard all about Lanny’s interest in spiritualistic matters; it had been part of the gossip concerning the rich American couple, and had cost him a good part of the respect which the comrades might otherwise have felt for him.
“I have never given any thought to such matters, Lanny,” she said, taking no chance of offending him.
“I know, but you’re going to give some now. Last week I had a seance, hoping to get Freddi, and instead I got a voice that said he was Ludi.”
“Ach, Gott!” He felt her start. “Did it sound like him?”
“Not especially; but it usually doesn’t. What I did was to ask for a sort of password; something that you would be sure to know.”
“And he gave one?”
“He said to tell you ‘Chin-Chin.’”
She sat up, forgetting about the traffic and the possibility of being seen. “Oh, Lanny, how amazing!”
“You recognize it, then?”
“It was a little Skye terrier we had.”
“He barked with great excitement—short, quick barks—you’d almost think he was crazy.”
“Did Ludi say that?”
“He did it. At least there was a lot of barking, and when I asked if it was a dog, he said: ‘It was me.’”
The woman sat with her hands pressed together until the knuckles were white. “Lanny, that takes my breath away! Ludi used to play with the dog; he would get down on his hands and knees and bark at him, and the dog would bark back, and you could hardly tell one from the other. It used to terrify me, because the dog became so excited, and I was afraid he might bite Ludi’s nose.”
“Ludi said: ‘People do silly things when they are young, and happy, and very much in love.’”
The woman bowed her head in her hands and began to weep silently. It was too much, hitting her all at once. The fact that Ludi was dead—and the fact that he was alive! But was he? Right away arose those doubts which torment people who begin to consider the possibility of survival; especially when they have built their faith upon the dogma of materialistic interpretation—not merely of history, but of psychology, and of everything else on, under, or above the earth!
The woman began to stammer questions through her tears. Did Lanny really believe it was Ludi? What else had he said? Did he say what had happened to him at the hands of the Stormtroopers? And what was happening to him now? She was ashamed of her tears, because she was certain that it was all nonsense; but even to think about it was more than she could bear. The strangest paradox imaginable: she couldn’t believe that Ludi was dead unless she first believed that he was alive, and she couldn’t believe that he was alive unless she first believed that he was dead! And which did she want him—dead in this world and alive in a future, or alive in this world and certain to be dead before long? Also, which was more precious to her, love for her husband or love for Marxist doctrines?
Lanny couldn’t solve those problems for her. He could only tell her everything that had happened, every word that had been spoken. They were out in the snowbound country by that time, and he drew up by the roadside and consulted his notebook to verify details. Then she wanted to know about Madame from the beginning, and those strange phenomena the very thought of which had bored her two or three years ago. Zaharoff and his duquesa, Lady Caillard and her husband—“Vinnie, Birdie, and a Kiss!”—and then about Johannes’s Uncle Nahum, and all the other shadow figures who had haunted the personality of Madame, like so many bats in the twilight, fluttering past a light and then out into darkness again.
“Lanny, I must meet that woman!”
“We have brought her to Berlin more than once, and it may be possible to do it again. Meanwhile, here is something you might do.” He told her how he and his wife had each of them visited a different medium in Berlin at the same time, and had got what was called a “cross-correspondence”; that is, two parts of a message which fitted together, in this case a verse from the Bible. One of these women was fashionable and high-priced, but the other was poor and obscure. Lanny consulted his notebook and wrote down her name and address for Trudi.
“Don’t say an unnecessary word,” he advised. “Give a false name if she asks. Pay her five marks or whatever she charges, and sit still and listen to what she says.”
Immediately the Marxist conscience of Trudi Schultz began to trouble her. “Lanny, it seems wicked to spend money for such things when the cause needs it so badly!”
“I’m interested in this subject,” replied the young plutocrat, with a grin. “I make it obligatory—like the liter of milk every day! By the way, I see you have been getting that, for it shows in your face.”
XI
Lanny gave his friend the money he had brought, and then deposited her in the vicinity of a station of the Underground from which she could get to her home. Then he set out toward the west, and when he was out in the country he stopped and unwrapped the documents which Trudi had left with him, freight more dangerous than so many cans of nitroglycerin. With tools in his car he took off the cover from the back of a picture frame, spread the documents flat against the back of the canvas, and tacked the cover into place again. It wasn’t a perfect job, but he counted on the priceless bill of sale with the letterhead of the Minister-Prasident of Prussia and the official stamps and seals, so overwhelmingly impressive to every German functionary.
He wasn’t g
oing to Paris, but to Amsterdam, an orderly and well-conducted capital a safe distance out of Naziland. As he drove he tried to imagine all possible mishaps which could occur at the border, and to rehearse what he would do and say in connection with them. By no means the best thought-companions on a cold January day with flurries of snow in the air making careful driving imperative. He made up his mind to take the most haughty of attitudes; to stand on the prerogative of his expensive car, his impeccable clothing, and above all his almost divine document. Under no circumstance would he permit anyone to lay profane hands upon the precious paintings; he would produce a veritable tornado of Donnerwetter and threaten instant loss of office to the underling who dared to defy his commands. He would compel that person to telephone immediately to the Minister-Prasident’s staff officer; or, if this was refused, Lanny would insist that they wait until he had had opportunity to do so himself.
But all this worrying proved entirely unnecessary; such mishaps simply do not take place under deutsche Zucht und Ordnung. The fine car drew up in front of the painted pole which barred the highway, and the driver descended to meet the officials who came forth from the station. It was dark, and snow was falling; there were dim shadows while he stood in the rays of a flashlight. He swung up a stiff right arm and declaimed: “Heil Hitler!” They answered—it was obligatory, also automatic. He dropped his arm again, and in his best German announced: “I am an art expert”—fortunately the Germans have a full-sized and impressive word, Kunstsachverstandiger, literally, “art-object-understander.” He went on: “I have traveled to Berlin at the request of Minister-Prasident General Goring and purchased from him two art works which I have in this car. I am instructed by Oberleutnant Furtwaengler of the Minister-Prasident’s personal staff to present to you this bill of sale for the works as evidence that the matter is according to command—” befehlmassig, another impressive word. “Here also are my passport and my exit permit, which has been signed by the Minister-Prasident’s office.”
Wide Is the Gate (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 16
