The Castle in the Forest

by Norman Mailer

  Adi nodded solemnly. He had heard of the Chinese, heard of them in his one-room schoolhouse during the hour when Fräulein Werner instructed the geography class on the specific placement of India and China upon the great continent of Asia.

  “Yes, in that far-off near-mythical land, esteemed Finance-Watch Chief Officer Herr Hitler, it is said that some Chinese can employ the power to puncture possessed by sharp needles in order to alleviate gout, an excellent solution I would think, since the least attractive aspect of my beloved bees is their eagerness to sting, yes, we love them for their honey, but not necessarily for their haste to provoke us even as they surrender their lives.”

  Alois sensed that he would do well to leave this topic. The tea had left a penetrating aroma in his nostrils which, to his surprise, was compatible with the urine. Needless to say, he would have preferred a good swallow of beer to pump a few of his prepared remarks up into more forceful delivery, but as of now, this conversation did belong to Der Alte. At what length he went on!

  “I cannot,” he remarked, “begin to call you my good friend as yet. For I do not know you. Except, of course, by way of your fine reputation. Word of your former most respected position precedes our meeting.

  “Your father,” he now said to Adi, “is well regarded by all, but”—and he was now back, once more, to Alois—“I am still ready to call you my friend because I feel in myself an imperative to counsel you, for, oh, I must say, there is, dear sir, so much to learn about these bees and their good keeping.” He sighed with a sound of woe physically intimidating in its resonance.

  “Let me note that I would not wish in any manner to impose on your pride.” He stopped. Since a man’s pride was involved, he would proceed no further without a laissez-passer.

  “No, tell me, good Doctor, you must tell me what you think,” said Alois, his voice normal (to the degree he could command it) but his nostrils were near to quivering. He hardly knew if he was at the onset of an intolerable sense of woe or whether a true burden was about to be lifted. What could be this imposition on his pride?

  “Given your gracious permission, I would say that I must caution you about your honorable and honest desire to enter the endless vagaries of apiculture. It is, you see, a vocation.” He nodded. He turned again to Adi as if the boy was one more equal, yes, all three sitting there quite alike in implicit stature. “You, little fellow,” Der Alte said. “You, who look so smart, are you smart enough to know what a vocation might be?”

  “No,” said Adi, “but maybe I do. Yes. Almost.”

  “You do. You know it even before you are aware that you know it. That is the first sign of a truly intelligent person, not so?” Der Alte’s voice vibrated into the tender pit of Adi’s stomach.

  “A vocation,” said Der Alte, “is not something you do because others tell you that this is what you must do. Not so. With a vocation, there is no choice. You give all that you have to doing whatever has become important to you. ‘Yes,’ says the vocation, ‘you must do it.’”

  “I would not wish to dispute your learned words,” said Alois, “no, I do not wish to commence a dispute, but surely one can keep a hive without building a monastery. For myself, I foresee no more than a modest investment for a retired man like myself.”

  “Dear sir, it cannot and will not ever be that way,” said Der Alte. “That much I can promise a strong person like yourself. Heartbreak or happiness. Nothing between.” He nodded with all the profundity of the decades he had continued to present himself as a great and learned doctor. “Herr Hitler, I cannot allow you to consider such a project until you are made fully aware of the risks that await you, the diseases and mortal enemies that surround our delicate sweet-seeking bees. After all, the honey they make is to the world of nature an exact equivalent of gold. So many of the creatures of nature, large and small, are jealous of the life of these remarkable little creatures who are not only able to make honey but dwell constantly amidst that golden and intoxicating presence. In consequence, honeybees are hated. They are pursued and entrapped. I can inform you of one species of spider who is evil, nothing less. Die Krabbenspinne, it is called. So soon as it finds a promising flower, this creature ensconces itself deep within the small perfumed cavern of the bloom. There the crab spider waits. I would suppose he even feels at home. He proceeds to activate the scent of this flower by stirring about in those blessed folds of the corolla; soon, the spider’s own awful odor is concealed by the intoxicating elixir of the petals. What then? The crab spider waits. When the forager bee, our sweet hardworking female with its undeveloped ovaries—only the Queen, as we know, is completely in possession of that most mysterious avatar of female existence!—ach, these other females are there to work for the length of their short lives. So here, contemplate this poor little forager. Our honeybee smells the inimitable redolence of the flower’s cavern. She enters, full of greed, to pick up her lusty store of nectar and pollen and, at once, she is done in. Cruelly! Sadistically! For the poor bee is not killed but is certainly paralyzed by a sting from the crab spider, and so must stay there, numb and incapable of saving herself, whereupon the spider, altogether without mercy, proceeds to sup on the vital liquids and subtle constituents of the bee’s internal elements. When nothing is left but the dry whisper of a husk, this crab spider goes to the actual labor of ejecting the remains from the flower, after which, it lingers in all the bliss of sleep, yes, a successful destroyer’s slumbers, sated, all sated, in the corolla. There, it nestles.”

  Adi would dream for weeks of the bee, the flower, and more than one evil bug. More came his way. Der Alte went on to describe the bee wolf, a wasp who would strike at the honeybee just as it was alighting on a flower. The bee wolf would always go for the throat. “Always. The honeybee has a soft throat. So once again, our forager is paralyzed. The wasp is now in complete command. She proceeds to squash the belly of the honeybee in order to disgorge all the nectar that hardworking little being has already taken into herself. This nectar squeezed up from the belly overflows out of the bee’s mouth into the maw of the bee wolf. Is that enough? No. This female brute is now ready for the labor of flying off with her stricken victim. She transports this paralyzed and ruptured little creature to a nest most specially prepared. There, she lays her capture down next to as many as six or eight still-living but wholly stricken other honeybees caught earlier. Then the wasp deposits into this same crypt one egg, one solitary egg that will soon feed on these live, but unmoving bees. After which, this larvae, now well fed, is ready to come forth as one more bee wolf. While it is apparent that the stricken bodies served as nutrients for her growth, and were ingested, limb by limb, how were these bees able to live long enough to serve as living food, piece by piece, sip by sip? And the answer is to be found in our so-called good and wise system of nature which also demonstrates here the cunning of the cruelest maniac. The venom in the wasp’s sting has preserved the flesh of these paralyzed bees. It has kept them alive for days while one hungry little wasp-to-be became a bee wolf.

  “I have offered these two exceptional cases as lively examples of the perils to the life of any colony you may hope to protect. There are so many enemies. A rat will fret his claws on the front wall of a hive until the guardian bees within must come forth to repel him. These soldier-guards are heroic, but futile. They are swallowed en masse. Toads wait beneath to pick up the droppings. Another variety of spider will wrap cocoons about each bee that happens to fly right into its web. Ants may invade your hive. I have seen colonies where the bees are obliged to tolerate the ants, and will even surrender a portion of their territory in order that these indefatigable invaders do not attack the combs that hold the future brood. With mice, it is worse. In summer, they loot the combs directly for the honey. In winter, they move into the hive seeking warmth, then proceed to construct a mouse nest in one or another corner. The most valiant of our home guard attack the intruder and can on occasion succeed through the force of sheer numbers. It is not impossible. They can sting to deat
h the invading monster. A glorious victory. But what can they then do with the carcass? For them, it is larger than Leviathan. Just so soon as the mouse begins to decompose, the hive becomes intolerable. So the bees proceed to cover this rotting presence with disinfectant. Contemplate their fabulous skill. They have managed to manufacture this now-necessary substance from pollen plus a few chosen green buds. Have you heard of it? Propolis?”

  “Of course,” said Alois. “They also know to use propolis for mending cracks in their walls.” He was pleased with himself again.

  “I see,” said Der Alte, “that I have failed to discourage you.”

  “I live by the law of averages,” said Alois. “I prefer to think of the ongoing possibility of profit rather than of the intermittent perils that surround all activity.”

  “Does the bee-wasp frighten you?” asked the old man of the boy.

  Adi nodded, but then was quick to say, “If my father is ready to do this, then so must I be.”

  “You have a splendid son,” said Der Alte.

  Alois was ready to agree for the first time that this might be a possibility. How nice it was to learn that his little Adolf was more than a bed wetter. Might he even be the equal of Alois Junior one of these days?

  But thoughts of Alois Junior invariably reminded him of all that was not yet in place. So now Alois wondered why Der Alte had been seeking to discourage him. It made no sense. Given the state of his hut, the old man could use the money. To what purpose then was he scorning a potential customer’s desire to invest?

  For the first time, he felt as if he had a grasp on Der Alte. The hermit understood him better than others, decided Alois. “He knows that I am a man who looks to keep his pride intact. I do not give way to the first warning. So Der Alte must know that the more he discourages me, the more I will be ready to begin my colony. He will have his money after all.”

  Alois now gave Der Alte what he considered his largest and most confident smile. “I respect your cautions,” he said, “but we must move now to the other side of the question. Can we speak of what you will do for me, and what I can do for you?”

  “Not quite yet,” said Der Alte. “If you wish to remain a man with a modest little hobby, I will, of course, be available for necessary materials. But I see in you, Herr Hitler, if I may speak on a more personal level, the possibility of a true vocation. So I would propose another consideration, a better approach. To learn my metier, I put in an apprenticeship that continued for three years, but provided me with an advanced license. What I would propose to you is a more collegial relationship—may I put it so? I am prepared over the next few years, for the most modest fees, to have you associated with me as I work on my colonies. It could prove an agreeable arrangement. You will learn much, and I will have the pleasure of an intelligent man’s company. It is sad to say, but in all these verdant fields that surround our Hafeld, we are the only two individuals of outstanding intelligence.”

  Alois kept a smile on his face but his nostrils were paying their own tithe. “Work for years with you, you foul-smelling old goat?” was the speech he did not utter. There was, after all, the need to come to an arrangement with the old mountebank.

  In turn, I was horrified. No professional has a greater desire for competence than a devil. I had been incompetent here. Der Alte might have been a pensioner, but I had neglected him for too long. The loneliness revealed in these last remarks was like the chill of an unoccupied house. How intense was the old man’s yearning to see more of Adi. No bold move is ever free of unplanned turns. Calculated mischief might be our province, but such indulgence should not be there for a client. Not if we can prevent it. We look to direct the romantic habits of our fold, rather than to correct them. Any future episode between the old man and the boy would not be to the Maestro’s liking. Too many indeterminables!

  At this point, Alois said, “I am honored by your personal interest in me, but I must explain. In my family, we are blockheads. All of us, blockheads. We are even proud of that. So, I must work alone. That is how I am. I look forward, therefore, to enjoying a mutually agreeable commercial relationship.”

  Der Alte nodded. He, too, had his pride. He would not repeat his suggestion.

  “Yes,” he said, “we will make arrangements. I will put together a couple of colonies for you and supply those tools and products you do not have in hand already.” He turned to Adi. “Soon your father will be very busy. Are you able to count to one thousand?”

  “Yes,” said Adi. “They do that in the Upper Class at school, and so I know.”

  “Good. Because this spring your father will be master of many, many thousands of bees. Will you be afraid of them? Are you ready?”

  “I am afraid,” said Adolf, “but you know, I am also ready.”

  “A wonderful boy,” said Der Alte, and his expression was full of love. Tears came into Adi’s eyes. His mother would soon have another baby, and again it would be the same as when Edmund was born. He would not see the love he wanted to find in her eyes when she was looking at him. Not for a while.

  5

  I must now inform the reader of an unexpected summons from the Maestro that removed me from Alois Hitler and his family for close to eight months. Indeed, it took me out of Austria altogether. I can add that this alert arrived on the same evening early in October of 1895 that Alois completed his apicultural negotiations. Two colonies of bees installed in two Langstroth boxes were purchased from Der Alte, as well as a variety of tools, together with enough sealed jars of pollen and honey to feed his newly acquired inhabitants through the winter.

  So soon as purchased, the goods were transported by Alois to the Hitler home. It was to prove an exciting trip for Adi, who sat beside his father in the dray and could not sleep that night in anticipation of morning, when the hive boxes would be set up on a bench under the shade of an oak tree some twenty paces from the house.

  If there is some curiosity concerning how much these purchases cost, I have no dependable way to carry a calculation forward from the kronen of Alois’ era to the present American dollar—certain products are priced one hundred times higher today than a century ago; other increases are more restrained. I will offer one rough estimate: Alois’ pension in 1895 may have been the equivalent of sixty or seventy thousand dollars a year in the present era, and so I can say that he found the new expenditures dear. What Der Alte charged him might be the equal today of a thousand dollars. Alois, fully anticipating that he would pay too much, was weary, nonetheless, of dealing with the old man and so did not press beyond the small satisfaction of acquiring a few extra tools at no cost.

  It was at this point that I was ordered to leave Adi and the other members of the family as well as my other clients in that area of Austria. They were, however, numerous enough for me to deputize three of my agents to remain while I left for St. Petersburg with my best assistants, all of us eager to embark on a massive oncoming project. We would attend the Coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, scheduled for May of 1896 in Moscow, an event still many months away.

  Off to St. Petersburg. Leave it that I was obliged immediately upon arrival to commence my study of the late-nineteenth-century Russian soul, all of it—vices, beliefs, harmonies, and inner disharmonies. Once in that Slavic realm (which is so much nearer to God and to the Devil than any other land above the equator) I stayed for all of a winter in the capital prior to coming down to Moscow on a cold April morning one month in advance of the Coronation that May.

  During these months in St. Petersburg, I did receive news regularly of Alois, Adi, Klara, and Angela. There were even reports on the temperament of the dog, Luther, and the horses, Ulan and Graubart. In any event, none of that was of great interest to me, not at all, what with our Russian venture approaching. The Maestro was obviously in the first stages of mounting a major and mighty mischief.

  I will now make an apology, although I will do my best not to repeat it. (Good readers do not read fiction, after all, to put up with the author’s regrets.)
I will say that having read the best and worst of novels for many years, which is, to remind you, part of a good devil’s education, I know by now that not even a loyal reader can stay true to an author who is ready to leave his narrative for an apparently unrelated expedition. Until now, I have spared the reader, therefore, any reference to other cases, particularly the month I spent in London back in May of ’95, when I attended the trial of Oscar Wilde and was in the courtroom on the day of his conviction for “sodomy and gross indecency”—a matter where I certainly took a hand in the jury’s deliberations, since my instructions were to do my best to get him convicted. It is likely that the Maestro was looking to stimulate a rabid sense of martyrdom among many of Wilde’s intimate associates, particularly those who were of good family.

  6

  I have yet to describe the disorder we planned to wreak in the wake of the Coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, but I would prefer to stay somewhat longer with an account of the small events and minor adventures of the Hitler family in Hafeld during the period while I was away. Only then will I feel free to recount our activities in St. Petersburg and Moscow. I will say that the eight months from our departure in October 1895 until my return to Austria in June 1896 were of personal importance for Adolf Hitler, and so I feel bound to tell what took place during my absence.

  There is, however, a difficulty. During this absence, reports of the various experiences of Alois, Klara, and the children were passed on to me by low-level agents—the three I had left behind to oversee my portion of the province of Upper Austria. Given the import of our mission to Russia, I had, of course, taken the best assistants along. So my knowledge of what was taking place in Hafeld had to suffer a loss. Lesser devils, like lesser humans, can be insensitive to significant detail.