by Stephen Fry
“Mikey,” said Hubbard. “Feel like doing me a favor?”
“What sort of favor?”
“A very simple one. How about you recite to me the Gettysburg Address?”
I swallowed. “I’m sorry?”
“Are you mad?” my father spluttered.
“The Gettysburg Address, Mikey,” said Hubbard, ignoring him. “How does it go?”
“Er . . .” I racked my brains for a way out. The Gettysburg Address? Something about “Four score and ten” came into my mind and I knew it contained that famous spiel about “government of the people, for the people and by the people,” but that was all I did know. How the various parts connected up was a mystery to me. I had a dread feeling that the Gettysburg Address was one of those things that every American was supposed to know. Like the words of the “Star-Spangled Banner” and the meaning of “grade point average.”
“Go on, honey,” my mother said encouragingly, “like you used to. Michael has a lovely voice,” she added to the room.
“My memory is not so good . . .” I said, huskily. “You know, since . . .”
“That’s okay, Mike,” said Hubbard. “Matter of fact, you can read it if you like. It’s up there on the wall behind me. See?”
Sure enough, above his head, framed in pale wood, was a long passage of text, mounted on deckled cardboard, the opening word “FOURSCORE” in fancy block capitals. I knew that Hubbard was not interested in whether or not I had remembered the speech, but what my accent would sound like when I read it and what effect that would have on my parents.
To hell with it, I thought, and began to read. I declaimed without pretense, without any effort at American vowels or cadences. Even to my own ears, after a day of hearing nothing but American voices all around me, I sounded more like Hugh Grant than anything human, but what the hell . . .
“Fourscore and seven years ago,” I read, “our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add—”
“Fine,” said Hubbard, “that’ll do fine, Mike. Thank you.”
He turned to look at my mother, who was goggling at me as at a ghost. “Mike . . . darling!” she said, a hand to her mouth. “Read it properly! Like you used to. On Fourth of July parades. Do it properly, honey.”
“I’m sorry, Mother,” I said. “That’s how I sound. This is my voice. This is me.”
My father was staring at me too. “Michael,” he said, “if this is your idea of a joke, then let me tell you—”
“No joke, sir,” I said. “It’s no joke.”
Hubbard, more relaxed now, switched on the recording box, and once more the conversation between me and Steve at the Alchemist and Barrister was broadcast to the room.
My father frowned as the machine played. My mother shot anxious, uncomprehending glances between us.
“Hitler, Pölzl, Brunau . . .” Hubbard switched off the recorder and repeated the words slowly. “You’ve told us, Colonel and Mrs. Young, that these names mean nothing to you. Judging by the conversation we have just heard they mean a lot to your son, wouldn’t you say?”
My father pointed at the recorder. “Whose was the other voice we heard?”
“That was the voice of an undergraduate named Steven Burns, a junior year history of science major. We have nothing against him other than that he is a suspected homosexual.”
“A homosexual?” My mother’s eyes rounded in horror. “Is this what this is all about, because let me assure you, Mr. Hubert—”
“That’s Hubbard, ma’am.”
“Whatever your name is, let me assure you that my son is no homosexual! Absolutely not.”
“Of course not, Mrs. Young. Believe me, that is not what we wished to imply. It was what your son said that interests us. Hitler, Pölzl, Brunau . . .”
“You keep mentioning these names,” snapped my father. “What’s so darned important about them? Isn’t it clear that my son is sick? He needs medical attention, not this . . . this inquisition, this childish cloak-and-dagger nonsense.”
“You are still quite sure that he is your son?”
“Of course we’re sure! How many times do I have to tell you?”
“In spite of his accent?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve told you. I would know Michael if he shaved his head, grew a beard and spoke in nothing but Swahili.”
Hubbard put up his hands. “Well now, you see, that’s what makes this whole affair so curious.”
“Affair? Affair? What is this, the Lisbon Incident? A boy bangs his head, loses his memory and speaks in a strange accent. This is a matter for medical science not paranoid midnight interrogations. Now,” my father started to rise, “if there is nothing further, we would like to take Michael home.”
Brown, who had been pacing up and down behind Hubbard, leaned forward and whispered in his ear. Hubbard listened, whispered back a quick question and then nodded his head. Something in their body language made me aware, with some surprise, that it was Brown who was the senior of the two.
“Colonel Young, sir,” said Hubbard. “I’m afraid that isn’t going to be possible just yet. I need you to sit down to listen to me.”
“I believe I have listened quite enough—”
“It won’t take long sir. Perhaps Mrs. Young wouldn’t mind waiting in the next room for a short while?”
“I am staying right here!” said my mother, pink with indignation.
“What I am about to reveal is classified, ma’am. I’m afraid I cannot allow you to stay.”
“Well, what about Mike?”
“We have reason to believe that your son is already in possession of this information. That is the reason we are gathered here this evening.”
“This morning, you mean!” said my mother tartly, rising with reluctance and moving towards the door. She cast a look back over her shoulder. My father nodded to her in reassurance and she left the room with a sniff. As the door closed behind her I heard a female voice gently asking her if she was hungry.
“I do apologize for that, Colonel Young, sir. When you have heard what we are going to say I believe you will understand the need for this caution.”
“Yes, yes.” My father nodded.
“Although you have retired from your previous position, sir, you are aware of what I mean when I say ‘grade one security’? The phrase is familiar to you?”
“Son,” said my father, pushing out his chest and tapping it a half a dozen times, “I’ve got secrets locked up inside here that would make the guts fly out of your throat.”
“I’m quite sure that’s true, sir.” Hubbard turned to me, a faraway look in his eyes, as if repeating a mantra learned at school. “And you, Michael. You understand that whatever I tell you here must never be repeated outside this room?”
I nodded, nervously wiping my hands on the cotton of my chino shorts.
“You are prepared to take an oath to that effect?”
“Certainly,” I said.
Hubbard reached an arm to the floor, like a man in a restaurant who has dropped a napkin, and came up with a small black Bible. He passed it over to me tenderly.
I looked across at my father, wanting someone with whom I could share the comic absurdity of this, but he was looking profoundly serious.
/> “Take the book in your right hand, please, Michael.”
I did so. The cover, black bobbled leather, was stamped in gold with the seal of the president of the United States. I lifted the cover half an inch and saw with surprise that this wasn’t a Bible at all.
“Repeat after me. I Michael Young . . .”
“I Michael Young . . .”
“Do solemnly swear . . .”
“Do solemnly swear . . .”
“On the Constitution of the United States of America . . .”
“On the Constitution of the United States of America . . .”
“That I will hold fast within . . .”
“That I will hold fast within . . .”
“All information tendered to me . . .”
“All information tendered to me . . .”
“Pertaining to the security of my country . . .”
“Pertaining to the security of my country . . .”
“Nor ever reveal by word, deed or any means whatsoever . . .”
“Nor ever reveal by word, deed or any means whatsoever . . .”
“That which is divulged to me . . .”
“That which is divulged to me . . .”
“By officers of the United States government . . .”
“By officers of the United States government . . .”
“So help me God.”
“So help me God.”
“Fine,” said Hubbard, taking back the book. “You understand the oath you have taken here?”
“I think so.”
“If ever we have cause to believe that you have repeated to anyone outside this room what you are about to hear, you may be charged with a felony. The name of that felony is treason and the maximum penalty for treason is death.”
“That’s pretty clear then,” I said.
“Alrighty then.” Hubbard looked across at Brown. “Don, maybe you’d like to take it from here?”
Brown, still standing, nodded his head and started to pour out coffee, perching a biscuit on each saucer as he did so, one of those big chocolate chip cookies, the kind freckled, crew-cut American kids have with their glasses of milk in fifties movies.
“The story I have to tell you,” he said, passing cups down to us, “begins a long, long time ago in the small town of Brunau-am-Inn, Austria, in the year 1889. Brunau is a dull, provincial little town today, and it was a dull provincial little town then. Nothing ever happened there. Life just went on, birth, marriages, death, birth, marriages, death. The local round of the market, the inn, the church and of course, gossip.”
FAMILY HISTORY
The waters of death
“Gossip,” said Winship, banging down his coffee cup, “that’s all this place is. A great hypermart of gossip.”
“So, what do you expect?” said Axel, dabbing the froth of chocolate from his mustache with a college napkin.
“Yes, but there’s gossip and there’s gossip. I make one casual remark to a student and before I know it, the Faculty Professor is breathing fire and brimstone and prophesying a budget disaster. I never said the Sorbonne had beaten us to it. I merely said that Patrice Duroc would probably get there first.”
“You think that’s true?”
“Well, it’s possible,” said Winship. “And, frankly who cares? There’s such a thing as the wider fellowship of science, you know.”
Axel chuckled deeply. “You believe that? You really believe that?”
“Well, as far as Berlin is concerned, it doesn’t matter who gets there first, does it? So long as it’s Europe, not America. But the budget masters, Jesus, the budget masters. You’d think it was the future of civilization at stake.”
“You’re not saying that you don’t believe in internal competition?” Axel said in mock horror.
“Well, it’s all right for you. Your work is so ‘important’ you can get any money you like for it. How’s it going by the way? Close to getting somewhere or is it all still, as I hear, all pi r squared in the sky?”
“You know I can’t talk about it, Jeremy,” said Axel gently.
“Yah, what’s the point of talking about anything?” Winship rose heavily. “Heigh-ho, back to the grindstone. Are you off to the labs? I could do with a ride.”
“Sorry to disoblige, but I have a gentle afternoon of teaching in college.”
“Well sod you then,” said Winship, in English.
“I understood that,” said Axel with a smile.
They parted outside the door of the Senior Combination Room.
Axel stood for a while sniffing the gentle spring air and then walked at a leisurely pace to the Porter’s Lodge.
“Morning, Bill.”
“Morning, Professor Bauer.”
“Summer is on the way.”
“Not before time, sir. Not before time.”
Axel looked vaguely at his pigeonhole. Stuffed as usual with useless pamphlets and reminders. Another time, he would clear it another time.
“You got the message then, did you sir?”
Axel turned. “Message? What message?”
“A teleform for you. Urgent, they said. Young Henry called your rooms but you weren’t there.”
“I’ve been at lunch.”
“I believe Henry posted it through your oak, sir, but I have the master copy here.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“You’ll see that it’s from Germany,” said Bill handing over a yellow envelope. “From Berlin,” he added with a wistful blend of awe and curiosity.
Axel felt for his reading glasses and tore open the envelope.
Professor Axel Bauer
St. Matthew’s College
Cambridge
England
Dear Professor Bauer,
We regret to inform you that your father, Freiherr Dietrich Bauer, is very seriously ill. We have done everything we can here to make him more comfortable, but it is my duty to advise you that it is most unlikely that he will be with us for more than a week. He has expressed an urgent desire to see you and if you are able to arrange this with your employers I would strongly suggest that you come as soon as possible.
With friendly greetings
Rosa Mendel
(Director)
Axel was exhausted by the time he arrived at Flughafen Speer. The plane, a Messerschmidt Pfeil 6, had been crowded with businessmen whose sharp suits and absurd attention to their portable computers had made him feel shabby and out of place. The stewardesses, it seemed to him, had treated him as if they too felt he was an inferior being. Ah well, the days of respect for academics and scientists were over. Today it was commerce that Europe valued and it was the businessmen who, having exploited what the scientists and technologists had done for the world, now reaped the rewards and garnered the honors.
Honors! It was only halfway through the flight, pondering on this noisy, brash new world around him, that Axel realized with a bolt of surprise that he must soon and as a matter of course inherit his father’s barony. Freiherr Axel Bauer. Ridiculous.
Maybe this explained the extraordinary courtesy and helpfulness the university authorities had shown him when he applied for his week’s compassionate furlough. Somewhere in the files, he supposed, he was written down as the son of a Reichsheld, a Hero of Greater Germany. Nobody had much time for such Gloderite chivalric nonsense these days, but there were still enough sentimentalists and snobs around to ensure that a real live genuine Baron of the Reich got attention. Good tables in restaurants at least. And perhaps, when he updated his credit cards and papers, a little more service and respect from these stewardesses . . .
The authorities in London and Berlin too had been exceptionally cooperative considering the high secrecy of the project that he and his colleagues were working on at Cambridge. They d
idn’t like it when unmarried men working in sensitive fields traveled, even when it was within Europe. Married men, men with wives and children left behind, the authorities were comfortable enough with them. Nonetheless, they had waved his paperwork through politely and speedily.
The taxi ride from the hotel in the Kurfürstendamm, in a brand-new DW Electric—Germany still got the new models first, he noticed, whatever the avowed public policy might be—was comfortable enough, but while his eyes looked admiringly out the window as they sped through the Tiergarten and past the statues, pavilions and towers erected to the greater glory of Gloder, his thoughts were all for the dying man he was about to visit. This father about whom he knew so little. Since the death of his mother in the 1960s, Axel had exchanged two letters with the man. Nothing more. Not even cards at Christmas.
The director of the Wannsee Hospital was a calm, efficient young woman who, standing under an original oil portrait of Gloder in the lobby, reminded Axel of one of those archetypes of German Womanhood in fifties musical shows and films.
“I won’t keep you long, Herr Professor,” she said. “You are a man of science, you will not wish me to raise false hopes. Your father has cancer of the liver. He is too old, I am afraid, for any hope of success with transplantation.”
Bauer nodded. How old was the old man in fact? Eighty-nine? Ninety? How appalling not to be able to remember.
“How is he in his mind, Frau Direktorin?”
“His mind is good. First class. Since he heard you were coming, he has been much more at peace. You will follow me please?”
Their heels echoed on polished marble tiles as they walked. They passed through an arched corridor, one side of which was glazed and gave over a long, sweeping lawn that led down to the lake. Axel could see old men and women being wheeled about in the sun, each with their own starched attendant.
“This place,” he said, gesturing, “it seems to be magnificently endowed.”
“It is reserved,” Frau Mendel said proudly, “exclusively for heroes of the Reich. There are not so many of that generation left. A little piece of history. When the last of them goes, I don’t know what will happen here. You are aware, I hope, that all the expenses of your father’s funeral will be met?”
