The Castle in the Forest

by Norman Mailer

  He did not cry. It took a considerable effort by his will. He had to negotiate with himself in order to keep from weeping, and then was hurt that no one applauded his newfound stoicism. His feelings were as bruised as the scrape on his cheek. His nose burned from the outrage to his nostrils, but he managed not to cry.

  He also managed to get through the rest of the battles that day without another collision. He was quick to dart away whenever an enemy soldier came near. To his delight, he even tagged one boy.

  On the next day, his face was in the dirt again. The fat boy was rueful about it and begged him not to tell his brother. Adi had the pleasure of patting him on the back. No cause for alarm, he announced, not a word would he say. Yet that night he could hardly sleep. He felt that in time to come, the fat boy, Klaus, would be his lieutenant, while he would be captain.

  To accomplish such an aim, he came up with a new set of rules. War, he reasoned, was not two armies charging at each other all the time—war was also maneuvers from side to side. He did not know the word as yet, but he had an instinct for the concept.

  To his new mates he now proposed that they shift over from the flat field to a hill in the next meadow. Each army could now begin at the base of opposite slopes, and so would not be visible until one or the other crossed the summit.

  Once he had convinced the boys of this change, he brought in an amendment. The leader on each side, he insisted, must not be touched. “The highest officer,” he argued, “must always be respected.”

  To gain his point, it did not hurt that stout, sturdy Klaus was always by his side. All the same, Adi was a little amazed at how well he could deal with these matters. So was I.

  9

  Following young Adolf’s first war games, I was instructed to take a more direct interest in his development.

  Be it understood that further investiture is never routine. Each case is unique. The average man or woman assumes that one can lose one’s soul to the Devil on an instant, and permanently, but the premise is so false that the sermon is repeated in church every Sunday as an active threat. The real situation, however, is that we do not appropriate people by way of a lightning flash. Nor does Satanic entrapment brand a man or woman forever as our vassal. Rather, it is an ongoing tug-of-war. So soon as we seek to invest our powers in a client, the Cudgels are likely to appear. Complete possession rarely occurs. Indeed, after a series of such battles, the odd soul actually captured by the Cudgels or ourselves can bear more resemblance to a throwaway than a prize. (Schizophrenic people can be the victims of such contests.)

  Entrapment, then, is not free of paradox. The clients that we find most difficult to approach are those with the greatest potential. Conversely, individuals who are easy to pick up rarely offer real skills. It takes so little to traduce a drunk. We do, however, polish what is left of their charm. That helps to consume a little more of the compassion of their families, especially if the mother, father, or any of the siblings are obsessed with not losing the last of their charity. In effect, we injure that family’s God-loving hearts. But such is simple work. Gains are small. Ultimate ends are not served. Our final aim, after all, is to draw the majority of humans away from allegiance to the D.K.

  There is, however, another factor in every contest—an economic factor. It concerns the separate resources of Divine energy and of Satanic energy. They differ.

  I can allow that even in the higher cadres of devils and angels, we hardly know who has more Time to allot to a contest once we vie for possession of a particular man or woman. Of course, this does not involve immense happenings. The D.K. can, for example, disburse whole bonanzas of Divine substance into His sunsets, which, it must be admitted, bolster human morale. There, I would call Him a spendthrift, but then, we devils devote our attention to the expenditures of Time involved in securing a new client. To give years to a promising varlet who eventually goes over to the Cudgels leaves a budgetary blemish on one’s record. When choosing a target, we try, therefore, to exhibit more acumen than our opponents.

  For example, we rarely fail to attend the couplings of rich and powerful people (so full of infidelity!). As has been noted, we do not ignore incest, whether among the rich or the poor. Sex acts, however, particularly those illumined by angels, present a more demanding task—it is not routine to slip through their blockade. But we try. It seems—I dare to speak here only for myself—as if the E.O. has never been able to accept his failure to be present in the hour when Jesus Christ was conceived.

  Fortunately for us, Jesus proved to be a not untypical Son. The record we are furnished informs us that He was often at odds with His Father.

  I stray from my point. The prevailing fact of our existence is that we are obliged to live within a limited budget, and so, our projects are chosen with discretion. Except in special instances, we do not take large interest in the early development of children. “Over the first few years,” our Maestro will remark, “a child is caught between the need for love and the development of its will. These inclinations are so naturally at odds with each other that an early approach is rarely necessary.”

  Except for unusual cases like Adi’s, we exercise no intervention until the age of seven. Well into the nineteenth century, a very young child was always in danger of being carried off by one disease or another.

  Past the seventh birthday, it becomes easier for us to assess the prospective health of young clients. On the other hand, our Maestro terms the next five years the Age of Clods. “They are now encountering the world in its basic form—their school years. Nearly all of them rush toward habit, routine, and stupidity as the most immediate forms of protective insulation.” More often, then, our selections commence with adolescence. Now the energies invested by the D.K. are there at last for us to mine.

  I have spoken at this length of our cautious process of selection because I wish to emphasize how uncommon was the special attention given to Adi for his early years. That his name was Adolf Hitler was, after all, of no importance then.

  All the same, I had lived (by proxy) in the demonic instant of his conception, and then had been assigned to review the work of the devils who would oversee his family’s activities. It was light surveillance. Our jargon for this kind of action was milk runs, an expression we employed long before it was adopted by Army Air Force pilots in the Second World War. Any one of our devils might pass by a house in the hours before dawn, and by way of the small and large family storms that had transpired since the last visit, new information was acquired. It required no large expenditure unless the abode was guarded by a Cudgel. Normally, however, one could make a quick pass by the house and sweep up the findings. While humans slept, we did our work.

  I had been able then to keep up with a close history of the Hitler family over all the years since Adolf had been born. (Be it understood that my devils also kept track of numerous other projects in that region of Austria.) If what my agents had offered up to now was modest, it had, nonetheless, sufficed. Reviewing Adolf’s early years, I confess that I saw no vast promise in the boy. He was outrageously in need of love and damnably vulnerable. The odds were that he would creep through life with a self-protective ego. At least, so I would have judged if the Evil One had not been present at his conception. That event, however, had to enter my judgment, and so even during the busiest nights the Hitler family was included on every milk run.

  This routine of careful but passive observation was overturned altogether for me on the day that Alois Junior dragged Adi off to the boys’ afternoon game of war. The Maestro intervened. I received a direct message: “Take closer care of him now. Stiffen his spine. We can lose much of his potential if we don’t take steps.”

  10

  When given a direct order, I had no room for deviation. I did what I was told to do. I stiffened the boy’s spine. Indeed, I will make the claim that the task was accomplished with finesse. For I did not inject any special funds into his courage or his will; rather, I provided him with enough wit to carry out the j
ob himself, since he had been the one, after all, who chose not to weep when his face was in the dirt. Afterward, he had also displayed his own cunning at finding ways to avoid physical punishment.

  I was aware again of the superior insight of the Maestro. Adi showed a few signs that he was worth the work. The child might even be as much superior to an average five-year-old as a young racehorse to a run-of-the-mill mule. I enjoyed working with him, and that was just as well, since the order had come during a period when I could not afford new inroads on my budget. Improving a child’s courage usually demands the disbursement of precious stores, precisely those funds we have managed to steal from the Cudgels. Of necessity, we have become skilled at impersonating angels. Even an adult, feeling our infusion of love, tends to believe it is bona fide. I suspect Kierkegaard had just that in mind when he proposed that people had to be wary of feeling too saintly, since they could not be certain of the source of such feelings. They could be working for Satan.

  I might as well add that we devils are human to this degree—a fine return on our investment puts us in the best of moods, so I had come to enjoy being with Adi as he showed his capacity to improve the war games.

  He soon saw, and I believe this came as much from his perception as mine, that outposts were necessary. It was wrong to send soldiers over the hill with no knowledge of what they might encounter. A scout from each army had to attempt, therefore, to work his way up close enough to the summit to gain a look at the dispositions of the other side. Following in logical sequence came another change in the rules—an advancing army had to be free to move its forces from flank to flank, even as it climbed the hill. The defense could also shift. Of course, this called for larger forces on each side, but Adi was soon able to convince his regulars that more boys should be invited from nearby streets and fields. Of course, they, the originals, having been first on this hill, were entitled to promotion in rank. Let me offer one of his speeches to his troops.

  “Why are we here?” he would ask. “Is it because we need to know more about war? Yes. Because, my friends, when we are big men, we want to be heroes. Is that not true? Klaus, do you want to be a hero?”

  “That is what I want.”

  “Of course. It is what we all want. All of us. But for that, we must learn more. So, we need more soldiers. How are we to do this?

  “I will tell you. It is by talking to all who are willing to join us. We, who are here now, can then be given high rank. And we who command will be very high in rank. Not just captain, or major, but a general.

  “Klaus, here, will be my colonel.”

  Those are the words he used. I will admit I took the pains to inspire him. We have that power just as much as the angels. Under our influence, clients can speak with more wit, confidence, and insight than when they are on their own. We use such a technique, however, sparingly. It does require the use of special funds.

  On this occasion, it was worth it. While I had certainly helped to endow him with an eloquence no ordinary five-year-old could muster, some of those good turns of speech came from him. A few!

  Before long, he and his troops were engaged in hour-long contests. There were endless alterations of the rules. The numbers increased to fifteen and twenty a side.

  Word came from the E.O. “Enough for now. Let us see how much of this endures after the move.”

  That was not uncharacteristic of the Maestro. We had to be ready to accept quick changes. In this case, the family’s situation had altered. Alois was going to move Klara, Angela, Alois Junior, Adi, and the baby Edmund up from Passau to dwell on a farm some distance from Linz.

  While the war games are now done for a time, I feel the need to soothe what might be a growing uneasiness in the reader. Good readers are an unprotected species—their allegiance moves in advance of their judgment. Some may have felt uncomfortable, therefore, to discover that they were enjoying these first successes of the child, Adolf Hitler. Be assured. To read about the skills or triumphs of any protagonist is bound to elicit happiness in just about all who follow the story, especially if there is a suggestion of the sentimental, or even better, the magical—useful tools for any author who wishes to arouse quick emotions in the reader. That is why so many popular writers come looking for us. We love them. We do not disabuse them. We enjoy them. Popular writers usually believe they are working both for God and their own prosperous selves. All the while, we are encouraging them to steep their readers in baths of misperception. The profit comes to us. Misperception of reality will, at the least, waste God’s Time, and that is a form of compound interest in our economy.

  BOOK VI

  THE FARM

  1

  Yes, Alois was going to retire. He would buy a farm. In the last year of his Customs work, he had begun to look about, and by February of 1895, he bought what he deemed might be the right property in a town called Hafeld, thirty miles from Linz. So, in April, Klara and the children made the move from Passau to this newly chosen abode. It was, indeed, a rural retreat. The closest school was in the nearest hamlet, Fischlham, a mile away, and there, after the summer, Adi would enter the first grade. Meanwhile, over the next few months Klara could live on the farm with their four offspring while Alois completed his service in Linz.

  Of course, retirement could not come without opening a few cracks in what had been a most impressive edifice. I speak of Alois’ ego. When we consider the meager materials out of which he had had to nourish this stalwart of his psyche, he may even have been entitled to taste a little meditative nectar.

  He was not able to enjoy it, however. Too bad! If only he had enjoyed working at his final post in Linz, his last title, Chief Customs Officer, would have left a deposit of real satisfaction. But any problems with personnel that he had encountered at Passau were now magnified. Linz was a major center of attention for the Finance-Watch. It was the capital of a most important province, Upper Austria, and Customs was stocked, therefore, with ambitious junior officers who seemed never at a loss to show their subtle contempt for the failings of senior officials less wellborn than themselves. Most of these young men were ready to take for granted the future attainment of high office, and such confidence in junior officers left Alois feeling out of joint. For the first time in all the years that he had been wearing a uniform, he did not always strike the passing eye as an immaculate official. (That now demanded too many pains.) Nor was he as punctual as once he had been. Sometimes, at the point of issuing disciplinary reprimands, he would hesitate long enough to contemplate the possible repercussions. Worse. There were one or two occasions when he forgot what he was next about to say.

  For just such a reason, he eased up on smoking restrictions. He no longer enjoyed confronting the in-held wrath of younger officers. But, in consequence, he enjoyed his own tobacco less. He also began to feel as if all his associates, young and old, were now impatient for him to retire. He had put in, after all, near to forty years of service. While he had the right to continue for another twelve months, he did not deem it wise. Small, steady inroads on his vanity kept lowering him into a modest dream. What if he chose to become a gentleman farmer? That would not be so bad, no, not out there in the autumn sun of his last good years. What the hell! Born a peasant, he could end as a well-to-do fellow who had gone back to the earth.

  He had money enough. He could buy a decent farm outright. He would have his pension, and his savings—he and Klara had certainly exhibited thrift. Besides, he had in hand the sum and interest of a large part of three wives’ dowries. It could be said that the first two had brought real money to the union. If Anna Glassl had succeeded in recovering, through law, half of her large dowry due to their separation, still, the half remaining was not small. Franziska, while hardly up to that measure, was nonetheless the child of a prosperous farmer. Even old Johann Poelzl, Klara’s father, had come forth with some long-saved kronen when they married.

  On the other hand, Alois understood money only too well. Not all coin was equal. Deep in one’s conscience, o
ne had to pay a tithe for money that was not earned properly. Money gave back its reflection of how it had been acquired. Sometimes this thought gave him a passing chill. A good part of his prosperity could be seen as the flower that sprouted from the coffin-soil of dead wives’ dowries.

  During this last year of service, while Klara took care of the children in Passau and he was free in Linz, he had begun to feel too old for other women. That was when he told himself to go back to the earth. It was what he had always heard from Johann Nepomuk—“the real woman is in the fields.” The old man had to take but one drink and would repeat it over and over. “The real woman—look for the real woman in the fields. Respect the fields.”

  It was an adage Alois could enjoy even if his present plans did not include heavy work with the soil. His aim, rather, was apiculture. He was looking to develop beehives. He would market the honey. That would be his crop. All the same, owning a little land might be equal to acquiring another limb, a fifth appendage so to speak, as important to a man with peasant roots as a trunk to an elephant.

  Five years ago, about the time Adolf was born, he had bought a farm. In many a way that purchase had been more exciting to him than the birth. Unlike the first three of Klara’s babies, land was not going to die.

  The reverse had occurred. The land did not perish, but his ownership did. The holding had been near Spital, about a hundred miles from where he was then working in Braunau, but he had had, even then, some notion of retiring there later. In the interim, it might be a good way to take care of his sister-in-law, Johanna Poelzl, in preference to having her dwell with them as a maid. He did not want Johanna in the parlor every night, not with that dome on her back. Poor hunchback!