The Castle in the Forest

  “Nicky,” said Uncle Alexey, “surely you are aware that your cousins, these Mikhailovichi, and Sandro most particularly, are not people you can afford to listen to. They are young and inexperienced. They are radical. They are silly. They are worse than silly. I tell you, they will never admit it to themselves, but they are siding with unholy forces. They wish to depose Sergey Alexandrovich so they can put in one of their own as Governor General of Moscow. Think what that will do to Sergey Alexandrovich and to Ella. Your wife will be distraught that her beautiful sister Ella has to suffer this disgrace.”

  I was near enough to hear these opinions. Again, the Cudgels were not about. A host of just-perished souls must have been in need of succor—perhaps the Dummkopf had dispatched the Cudgels to the morgue. This once, at any event, it was not at all difficult to stay close to Nicky.

  So I heard Sandro’s brother Nikolai Alexandrovich. So soon as Uncle Alexey marched off, he was ready to speak. “Nicky, I beg of you, do not go tonight to the French Ball. Recognize what I am saying. Whether we like it or not, we are still living in the shadow of Versailles. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette could dance all night because they were naïve. They had no sense of the approaching storm. But we do. We know!

  “Nicky, search into your heart. What happened, has happened. The blood of these men, these women, and these children will remain forever upon your reign. That is unfair, because you are good, you are kind. I know, if you could, you would revive the dead. But you cannot. So, Nicky, you must show your sympathy to their families. Your allegiance to them. Your respect. How can you allow the enemies of this regime to be able to say that our young Emperor was engaged in dancing through the night while his slaughtered subjects were still unburied?”

  His eloquence succeeded. Nicky now knew that he did not want to go to the Ball. But his cousin was unable to maintain the high level of his argument. He soon surrendered to rage. “Why, I would ask,” he went on, “didn’t Sergey Alexandrovich anticipate how great was the need for police? Any fool could have told him.” Soon enough, he was suggesting that nasty tricks had been played. Could he have been listening to the same rumors we had generated? In Moscow, the word was out. Many were being told that the Governor General had siphoned off Coronation funds to pay his gambling debts. It was not true. Sergey Alexandrovich was not guilty. It happened to be his assistant. (The fellow was not only in debt to gamblers, but to us—one of our Russian agents. Indeed, it was this assistant to Sergey Alexandrovich who had initiated the rumor that the Governor General was corrupt.)

  Poor Nicky. If he had one weakness, it was that he could not hold two opposed ideas in his mind long enough to decide which might have more to offer. Just as he was in the midst of giving real attention to cousin Nikolai’s fine speech, so two of his uncles came back to the room. They proceeded to explain, and in the sharpest terms, that it would be an international insult should Nicky not be present at the Ball. The French Embassy had made expensive preparations. The absence of the Tsar and Tsarina would affect relations between the two countries. “Nicky, we depend upon the French alliance. For that alone, you must attend. The French take pride in measuring themselves by the sanity they can muster in crises. They detest sentimentality. They are proud of their froideur. If you are absent, they will see you as a womanly creature, swayed by compassion, exactly when we are in need of sound diplomacy. Foreign policy must not be affected by accidents.”

  Nicky attended. He had the first dance of the evening with Countess Montebello, who was the wife of the French Ambassador, and Alix danced with the Count. In his diary, Nicky left this comment:

  The Montebello Ball was very magnificently done, but the heat was unbearable. We left after supper at two o’clock.

  Meanwhile, the Governor General of Moscow was smiling. He was enjoying the Ball. Grand Duke Sergey Alexandrovich had a favorite saying: “It does not matter how awful the day has been. One must possess the character and the wit to be able, when the music is lively and your drinks inspire, to enjoy an evening to the full. That is also our duty.”

  Sandro and his brothers had long been aware of Sergey’s credo. So, on this night, they found his presence doubly intolerable. They made a point of leaving at the moment that dancing began. Uncle Alexey spoke out loudly: “There go the four imperial followers of Robespierre.”

  I was content. The Maestro would be pleased. He would also be amused, I was certain, when he learned that I had been able to insinuate myself into the Royal Chamber that night. Yes, I had reached the Bedroom. The Cudgels were in more disarray than I could ever recall.

  For a few minutes (just before the Cudgels returned and I hurried to decamp), I was able to insinuate myself a little further into Nicky’s mind, and I can report that he felt doomed. Doomed and damned. He knew this with certainty. It would take more than two decades to confirm what he knew on this night, but this night he knew. He was truly appalled. He told Alix that it might be his duty to retire to a monastery, where he could pray for the victims. It was no way to speak to a wife on a night so full of a sense of doom. It may even account for the letter Alix would yet write to her friend the German Countess Rantzau.

  I feel that all who surround my husband are insincere. And no one is doing his duty for Russia. They are all serving him for their career and personal advantage and I worry myself and cry for days on end as I feel my husband is very young and inexperienced—of which they are taking advantage.

  How much more she might have wept if she had known what the ladies in Moscow were saying about her.

  Before the Coronation, she had made a critical mistake. She had confided to her closest Lady-in-Waiting that she adored Nicky. “I love him so much. I call him secret names.”

  “What are these secret names?” asked the Lady-in-Waiting.

  “Oh, I cannot tell you. They are so secret. I call him many sweet words, usually in English. For me, that is a warm language. Most hospitable.”

  It came out. Bit by bit. At last, it was in the air—her secret. The big secret that the Lady-in-Waiting swore she would never pass on to a soul. And the Lady-in-Waiting did not—not for a day or two. Then she told it to her dearest friend, and in turn this lady swore that she could be trusted altogether and forever.

  In the event, the dearest friend did not feel free to give the secret away too quickly. It took a few nights before she told one friend and then another. They, too, took a vow of silence but did not wait as long before transgressing their oath. Moscow’s society was soon snickering over the Tsarina’s much-avowed love of English. Anyone who had a reputation for knowing what others did not know was now familiar with Alix and Nicky’s secret words to each other. “Lovy, Boysy, Sweet One, My Soul, Manykins-mine, Sweetie, Pussy-mine.”

  After they finished laughing at Alix, one of the ladies felt bound to remind the others, “She comes to us from behind a coffin. She carries misfortune.”

  For that matter, the Governor General of Moscow was now called “the Prince of Khodynka.”

  15

  In the week that followed, there were eight days of fetes, dances, receptions, state visits, and musicales. On May 19, there was a banquet in Alexander Hall in the Kremlin, and on the twentieth, the Governor General of Moscow gave his own ball. The twenty-first brought the Moscow nobility together at the Hall of Columns, Prince Trubetskoi as host. Four thousand guests appeared. On the twenty-second, Nicky and Alix made a state visit to the Troisky-Sergeyevsky monastery, and on the morning of the twenty-third, Nicky gave twenty thousand rubles as a first installment on a children’s home for the orphans of Khodynka. That evening, there was dinner with the English Ambassador at a palace ball in the St. Andrew Hall of the Kremlin. Thirty-one hundred guests. The Germans, laying low, gave no more than a musicale at their embassy next evening, which was followed by a palace dinner for all the ambassadors on the twenty-fifth. For conclusion, they were back at Khodynskoe Field on the twenty-sixth to witness a military review. The pits had been filled by then. It was another brillian
t day, and Nicky’s carriage was drawn by six white horses. Thirty-eight thousand five hundred sixty-five enlisted men marched in company with two thousand officers. Sixty-seven generals watched.

  By now, I was awaiting orders to leave. I did not know if I could acclimate myself to Hafeld after these exceptional days in Moscow, but the Maestro was quick to tell me: “Respect Hafeld. It is important.” There was no reason to believe or disbelieve him—his real opinion was, after all, concealed within his impenetrable bearing, but I can say that on my arrival back to Austria, I did feel better than I had in years. Khodynskoe Field had been the largest operation in which I had participated for a long time. Or so it seemed.

  It is sad that few devils are permitted to retain much memory, but the Maestro employs the same principle as Intelligence agencies. No one in Intelligence is supposed to know anything about a project until there is a need to know. We, in turn, are not encouraged to remember whatever we will not use for a new project.

  Since I believe that I have been a devil for many centuries and have risen in rank and been demoted, it could be asked why, with such a history, I still learned a good deal while in Russia. It is because a newly gained sophistication fades once a venture comes to an end. So we develop many new qualities of mind, but soon lose them. What is curious here is that the Maestro allowed me to keep these recent experiences intact. Khodynskoe remained in my memory and my morale stayed close to excellent. Returning to the Hitler family, I could, given our success in Russia, believe again that the Maestro’s aims were not small for this client, this young Adolf Hitler.

  Filled now with a lightness of spirit altogether apart from the heaviness that is requisite to being loyal when there is no choice, I felt elevated upon my return to Hafeld. Soon enough I no longer thought about Nicky or Alix. Where was the need? If in future I was to be called back to Russia, the necessary recollections would be reconstituted.

  In fact, it is interesting that I had such thoughts, for, indeed, I was sent back in 1908, and would remain in Russia intermittently until the murder of Rasputin eight years later—that incomparable Rasputin, a most exceptional client. He was able to work in the closest union with me, but did insist upon continuing as well in the service of an astute and elevated Cudgel. What wars we had over Rasputin and the exceptional ins and outs of his soul.

  I may yet look to portray these exceptional events, but that is not for this book. All large interruptions concluded, I now wish to record what happened to Alois, Klara, and Adolf over the next nine years. That will bring a close to this literary venture. For the present, then, we are back at the farm.

  From here, I can see the path that leads to Der Alte’s house.

  BOOK IX

  ALOIS JUNIOR

  1

  There was an odd matter waiting on my return to Hafeld. It was to convince Der Alte to burn one of his hives. He had been stung so severely by his bees that I found him in bed with a cruelly swollen face. Several of the stings had come close to his eyes.

  Given Der Alte’s skills, he could not comprehend how so embarrassing an event had occurred during the course of looking into one of his better hives. While attempting to replace the Queen—she was showing the first unmistakable signs of final fatigue—he had been attacked by her escort. Der Alte was able to subdue this revolt with the cigar he happened to be smoking at the time, but so drastic a revolt of his creatures had not visited him in years. It aroused my paranoia (which is always there in ready supply, since it is preferable to poor powers of anticipation). I had to assume that this attack by the bees was inspired by the Cudgels, and so the hive had to be destroyed.

  Upon receiving my order—which I passed into him as he slept—Der Alte did not obey quickly. A few days went by. Again, I sent the thought into his sleep, but now with emphasis enough for him to recognize that it could not be construed as a dream but as an imperative, which left our old fellow full of dismay. “Do it,” I repeated to him in his sleep, “it will be good for you. Tomorrow is Sunday. That will augment the good effect. Sundays provide double value. But do not employ a sulphur bomb. Too many could survive. Rather, soak the hive with kerosene. Then light it, box and all.”

  He groaned in his sleep. “I cannot do that,” said Der Alte. “The Langstroth cost me dearly.”

  “Burn it.”

  Der Alte followed my orders. He had to. At his age, he knew how deeply we were infiltrated into him. He did not wish to live with the terrors we could arouse, fears as real to his flesh as an ulcer. Death was close to his thoughts, sometimes as close a caged beast in the next room. All of this, however, left me indifferent. It is hard not to feel contempt for old clients. They are so submissive. Of course, he did it. What facilitated the act was that a good part of him was still enraged by the attack from his bees. His sense of the given had been upset. Old habits are willing to afford few shocks.

  Sunday morning, he laid the hive on the ground and doused it. Staring into the commotion that seethed up in its flames, he did feel better. I was on the mark. It had been good for him. But he was perspiring like a horse. He was, after all, full of woe at the incineration itself—that did violate his professional instincts. He expected to weep for all those innocents now scorched into extinction with the guilty, but to his surprise, a rare sweetness returned to his loins. This was the first such sugaring of his body he had felt in years. As with many an old man, his lust had been confined to his head. It had been a long time since any accompaniment to a libidinous thought had been more memorable than a twinge of his groin.

  I will mention that Adi happened to be present at the burning. He, too, had been given a message in his sleep which he had no difficulty in accepting. He slipped away from Klara and Angela even as they were preparing to go to church. Nor did his escape bother Klara unduly. Adolf was no joy to bring along. If not squirming in his seat, he would commence a contest with his stepsister to see who could succeed in pinching the other. On the sneak.

  Yes, to be alone with Angela on Sunday morning allowed Klara to feel a little closer to her stepdaughter. If the truth be witnessed, she was also content not to bring Edmund along, nor to be obliged to hold Paula at her breast through the service, hoping all the while that she did not wish to be fed. Today Alois had said he would remain with the two little ones. Klara could hardly believe such generosity. Was he softening? Was that possible? That was certainly another question I might have to explore. But first I would speak of Adi’s excitement during this burning of the bees. His toes tingled, his heart shook in its chamber, he did not know whether to scream or to roar with laughter. The ardors of living in Russia had, however, left me a touch indolent. I did not, as yet, feel eager to reenter the complexities of this particular six-year-old. My morale was, as I have said, in fine shape, but I did not wish to set it to work so soon. Indeed, on my return to modest duties in this region of Austria, I did not mind that existence was simpler. Hafeld might even be ready to offer its own revelations, and meanwhile, it allowed me to live with the subtlety of small tasks. I could, for example, witness a few changes in Alois’ spirit. That alone was enough to interest me.

  For example, Klara had been mistaken. Alois was not softening, not exactly. He had told her it was good for him to spend a little time with the small ones every now and again, but the moment she left, he put Paula in her trundle bed and told Edmund to stay in the room and make certain she did not wake up. He knew Adolf would go off by himself, and Alois Junior would be on the other side of the hill with Ulan. Indeed, he was looking forward to being alone. He wanted to meditate upon Der Alte’s mishap. That event had left Alois feeling cozy. A dire expectation was gone. He had always expected to be the one savaged by the bees.

  All through May, as the weather turned warm, Alois’ recurring fear had been that he would lose his colonies. He lived with a vivid picture of himself up there, high in a tree, much too high, trying to charm a maddened swarm back to their hive. The sad fact was that, having eaten well through the winter, he felt as overstuffe
d as a man who has crammed 250 pounds into a 200-pound sack.

  Small surprise, then, if this Sunday he was ready to let his face go slack, his stomach rumble, his sphincter break wind. There had been too many weeks through the winter, and now even into the spring, when he had become convinced he was going to fail at some serious activity that would wipe out some important part of his self-esteem. If such an end once seemed unlikely because his vanity forbade it, that same energetic vanity (which he had constructed up from boyhood piece by piece, episode by good episode) now seemed to be fading. Where was his confidence? He had not gone to church on this Sunday, no more than any other. Of course not, not if he could help it. Yet he no longer knew whether he could continue to stay away. On this particular Sunday, he had even thought of accompanying Klara.

  The thought was odious. To sit in a pew through the drivel! Such an act would wipe out his sense of himself as a man who does not shiver as others do. But possessing bees had scared the hell out of him. Might this last year have loosened the keystone of his pride? No one else he knew had ever been as ready to thumb his nose at bad omens. That was an achievement not common to anyone born as a peasant.

  Yet, just a week ago, his hands had begun to shake while reading a story in his newspaper about the death of a beekeeper. The man had not recovered from an outbreak in a hive.

  Looking to allay such fears, Alois even paid Der Alte a visit. This occurred while the old man was still in bed and at his weakest. Indeed, Der Alte burst into tears while describing his mishap. It left Alois with the same sense of cockeyed virtue that a younger brother can feel when he sees the older one cry.

  Afterward, for a few days, Alois was relieved of his fear. He could not say why, but Der Alte’s ill fortune had relieved his own dread. Now it was coming back. He had not felt right ever since Alois Junior had returned. He could not be such a fool, he told himself, as to live in fear of his bees because he was not at ease with his son. All the same, that could be the truth! Human beings were full of subterfuge. He had learned as much at Customs. He remembered a woman who wrapped her gifts in the folds of her black lingerie. A good-looking woman. When caught by Alois, she was brassy enough to smile and say, “You are so smart. The other officers were afraid to touch these private things.”