He thought: I must read that Grasshopper book. Patriotic duty, from the sound of it.
Betty said softly to him, “Robert, you’re not eating. Is the food misprepared?”
At once he took a forkful of salad. “No,” he said. “It is virtually the most delicious meal I have had in years.”
“Thank you,” she said, obviously pleased. “Doing my best to be authentic . . . for instance, carefully shopping in teeny-tiny American markets down along Mission Street. Understand that’s the real McCoy.”
You cook the native foods to perfection, Robert Childan thought. What they say is true: your powers of imitation are immense. Apple pie, Coca-Cola, stroll after the movie, Glenn Miller . . . you could paste together out of tin and rice paper a complete artificial America. Rice-paper Mom in the kitchen, rice-paper Dad reading the newspaper. Rice-paper pup at his feet. Everything.
Paul was watching him silently. Robert Childan, suddenly noticing the man’s attention, ceased his line of thought and applied himself to his food. Can he read my mind? he wondered. See what I’m really thinking? I know I did not show it. I kept the proper expression; he could not possibly tell.
“Robert,” Paul said, “since you were born and raised here, speaking the U.S. idiom, perhaps I could get your help with a book which has given me certain trouble. Novel from the 1930s by a U.S. author.”
Robert bowed slightly.
“The book,” Paul said, “which is quite rare, and which I possess a copy of nonetheless, is by Nathanael West. Title is Miss Lonelyhearts. I have read it with enjoyment, but do not totally grasp N. West’s meaning.” He looked hopefully at Robert.
Presently Robert Childan admitted, “I—have never read that book, I fear.” Nor, he thought, even heard of it.
Disappointment showed in Paul’s expression. “Too bad. It is a tiny book. Tells about man who runs column in daily paper; receives heartache problems constantly, until evidently driven mad by pain and has delusion that he is J. Christ. Do you recall? Perhaps read long ago.”
“No,” Robert said.
“Gives strange view about suffering,” Paul said. “Insight of most original kind into meaning of pain for no reason, problem which all religions cope with. Religions such as Christian often declare must be sin to account for suffering. N. West seems to add more compelling view of this, over older notions. N. West possibly saw could be suffering without cause due to his being a Jew.”
Robert said, “If Germany and Japan had lost the war, the Jews would be running the world today. Through Moscow and Wall Street.”
The two Japanese, man and wife, seemed to shrink. They seemed to fade, grow cold, descend into themselves. The room itself grew cold. Robert Childan felt alone. Eating by himself, no longer in their company. What had he done now? What had they misunderstood? Stupid inability on their part to grasp alien tongue, the Western thought. Eluded them and so they took umbrage. What a tragedy, he thought as he continued eating. And yet—what could be done?
Former clarity—that of only a moment ago—had to be drawn on for all it was worth. Full extent not glimpsed until now. Robert Childan did not feel quite as badly as before, because the nonsensical dream had begun to lift from his mind. I showed up here with such anticipation, he recalled. Near-adolescent romantic haze befuddling me as I ascended stairs. But reality cannot be ignored; we must grow up.
And this is the straight dope, right here. These people are not exactly human. They don the dress but they’re like monkeys dolled up in the circus. They’re clever and can learn, but that is all.
Why do I cater to them? Due solely to their having won?
Big flaw in my character revealed through this encounter. But such is the way it goes. I have pathetic tendency to . . . well, shall we say, unerringly choose the easier of two evils. Like a cow catching sight of the trough; I gallop without premeditation.
What I’ve been doing is to go along with the exterior motions because it is safer; after all, these are the victors . . . they command. And I will go on doing it, I guess. Because why should I make myself unhappy? They read an American book and want me to explain it to them; they hope that I, a white man, can give them the answer. And I try? But in this case I can’t, although had I read it, I no doubt could.
“Perhaps one day I’ll have a look at that Miss Lonelyhearts book,” he said to Paul. “And then I can convey to you its significance.”
Paul nodded slightly.
“However, at present I am too busy with my work,” Robert said. “Later on, perhaps . . . I am sure it wouldn’t take me very long.”
“No,” Paul murmured. “Very short book.” Both he and Betty looked sad, Robert Childan thought. He wondered if they, too, sensed the unbridgeable gap between themselves and him. Hope so, he thought. They deserve to. A shame—just have to ferret out book’s message on their own.
He ate with more enjoyment.
No further friction marred the evening. When he left the Kasouras’ apartment at ten o’clock, Robert Childan still felt the sense of confidence which had overtaken him during the meal.
He meandered down the apartment house stairs with no genuine concern as to the occasional Japanese residents who, on their way to and from the communal baths, might notice him and stare. Out onto the dark evening sidewalk, then the hailing of a passing pedecab. And he was thereupon on his trip home.
I always wondered what it would be like to meet certain customers socially. Not so bad after all. And, he thought, this experience may well help me in my business.
It is therapeutic to meet these people who have intimidated you. And to discover what they are really like. Then the intimidation goes.
Thinking along those lines, he arrived at his own neighborhood and finally at his own door. He paid the chink pedecab driver and ascended the familiar stairs.
There, in his front room, sat a man he did not know. A white man wearing an overcoat, sitting on the couch reading the newspaper. As Robert Childan stood astonished in the doorway, the man put down his newspaper, leisurely rose, and reached into his breast pocket. He brought out a wallet and displayed it.
“Kempeitai.”
He was a pinoc. Employee of Sacramento and its State Police installed by the Japanese occupation authorities. Frightening!
“You’re R. Childan?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. His heart pounded.
“Recently,” the policeman said, consulting a clipboard of papers which he had taken from a briefcase on the couch, “you were paid a visit by a man, a white, describing himself as representing an officer of the Imperial Navy. Subsequent investigation showed that this was not so. No such officer existed. No such ship.” He eyed Childan.
“That’s correct,” Childan said.
“We have a report,” the policeman continued, “of a racket being conducted in the Bay Area. This fellow evidently was involved. Would you describe him?”
“Small, rather dark-skinned,” Childan began.
“Jewish?”
“Yes!” Childan said. “Now that I think about it. Although I overlooked it at the time.”
“Here’s a photo.” The Kempeitai man passed it to him.
“That’s him,” Childan said, experiencing recognition beyond any doubt. He was a little appalled by the Kempeitai’s power of detection. “How’d you find him? I didn’t report it, but I telephoned my jobber, Ray Calvin, and told him—”
The policeman waved him silent. “I have a paper for you to sign, and that’s all. You won’t have to appear in court; this is a legal formality that ends your involvement.” He handed Childan the paper, plus pen. “This states that you were approached by this man and that he tried to swindle you by misrepresenting himself and so forth. You read the paper.” The policeman rolled back his cuff and examined his watch as Robert Childan read the paper. “Is that substantially correct?”
It was—substantially. Robert Childan did not have time to give the paper thorough attention, and anyhow he was a little confused as to what h
ad happened that day. But he knew that the man had misrepresented himself, and that some racket was involved; and, as the Kempeitai man had said, the fellow was a Jew. Robert Childan glanced at the name beneath the photo of the man. Frank Frink. Born Frank Fink. Yes, he certainly was a Jew. Anybody could tell, with a name like Fink. And he had changed it.
Childan signed the paper.
“Thanks,” the policeman said. He gathered up his things, tipped his hat, wished Childan good night, and departed. The whole business had taken only a moment.
I guess they got him, Childan thought. Whatever he was up to.
Great relief. They work fast, all right.
We live in a society of law and order, where Jews can’t pull their subtleties on the innocent. We’re protected.
I don’t know why I didn’t recognize the racial characteristics when I saw him. Evidently I’m easily deceived.
He decided, I’m simply not capable of deceit and that renders me helpless. Without law, I’d be at their mercy. He could have convinced me of anything. It’s a form of hypnosis. They can control an entire society.
Tomorrow I will have to go out and buy that Grasshopper book, he told himself. It’ll be interesting to see how the author depicts a world run by Jews and Communists, with the Reich in ruins, Japan no doubt a province of Russia; in fact, with Russia extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I wonder if he—whatever his name is—depicts a war between Russia and the U.S.A.? Interesting book, he thought. Odd nobody thought of writing it before.
He thought, it should help to bring home to us how lucky we are. In spite of the obvious disadvantages . . . we could be so much worse off. Great moral lesson pointed out by that book. Yes, there are Japs in power here, and we have to build. Out of this are coming great things, such as the colonization of the planets.
There should be a news broadcast on, he realized. Seating himself, he turned on the radio. Maybe the new Reichs Chancellor has been picked. He felt excitement and anticipation. To me, that Seyss-Inquart seems the most dynamic. The most likely to carry out bold programs.
I wish I was there, he thought. Possibly someday I’ll be well enough off to travel to Europe and see all that has been done. Shame to miss out. Stuck here on the West Coast, where nothing is happening. History is passing us by.
8
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK in the morning Freiherr Hugo Reiss, the Reichs Consul in San Francisco, stepped from his Mercedes-Benz 220-E and walked briskly up the steps of the consulate. Behind him came two young male employees of the Foreign Office. The door had been unlocked by Reiss’ staff, and he passed inside, raising his hand in greeting to the two switchboard girls, the vice-Consul—Herr Frank, and then, in the inner office, Reiss’ secretary, Herr Pferdehuf.
“Freiherr,” Pferdehuf said, “there is a coded radiogram coming in just now from Berlin. Preface One.”
That meant removing his overcoat and giving it to Pferdehuf to hang up.
“Ten minutes ago Herr Kreuz vom Meere called. He would like you to return his call.”
“Thank you,” Reiss said. He seated himself at the small table by the window of his office, removed the cover from his breakfast, saw on the plate the roll, scrambled eggs and sausage, poured himself hot black coffee from the silver pot, then unrolled his morning newspaper.
The caller, Kreuz vom Meere, was the chief of the Sicherheitsdienst in the PSA area; his headquarters were located, under a cover name, at the air terminal. Relations between Reiss and Kreuz vom Meere were rather strained. Their jurisdiction overlapped in countless matters, a deliberate policy, no doubt, of the higher-ups in Berlin. Reiss held an honorary commission in the SS, the rank of major, and this made him technically Kreuz vom Meere’s subordinate. The commission had been bestowed several years ago, and at that time Reiss had discerned the purpose. But he could do nothing about it. Nonetheless, he chafed still.
The newspaper, flown in by Lufthansa and arriving at six in the morning, was the Frankfurter Zeitung. Reiss read the front page carefully. Von Schirach under house arrest, possibly dead by now. Too bad. Goring residing at a Luftwaffe training base, surrounded by experienced veterans of the war, all loyal to the Fat One. No one would slip up on him. No SD hatchetmen. And what about Doctor Goebbels?
Probably in the heart of Berlin. Depending as always on his own wit, his ability to talk his way out of anything. If Heydrich sends a squad to do him in, Reiss reflected, the Little Doctor will not only argue them out of it, he will probably persuade them to switch over. Make them employees of the Ministry for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment.
He could imagine Doctor Goebbels at this moment, in the apartment of some stunning movie actress, disdaining the Wehrmacht units bumping through the streets below. Nothing frightened that Kerl Goebbels would smile his mocking smile . . . continue stroking the lovely lady’s bosom with his left hand, while writing his article for the day’s Angriff with—
Reiss’ thoughts were interrupted by his secretary’s knock. “I’m sorry. Kreuz vom Meere is on the line again.”
Rising, Reiss went to his desk and took the receiver. “Reiss here.”
The heavy Bavarian accents of the local SD chief. “Any word on the Abwehr character?”
Puzzled, Reiss tried to make out what Kreuz vom Meere was referring to. “Hmmm,” he murmured. “To my knowledge, there are three or four Abwehr ‘characters’ on the Pacific Coast at the moment.”
“The one traveling in by Lufthansa within the last week.”
“Oh,” Reiss said. Holding the receiver between his ear and shoulder, he took out his cigarette case. “He never came in here.”
“What’s he doing?”
“God, I don’t know. Ask Canaris.”
“I’d like you to call the Foreign Office and have them call the Chancery and have whoever’s on hand get hold of the Admiralty and demand that the Abwehr either take its people back out of here or give us an account of why they’re here.”
“Can’t you do that?”
“Everything’s in confusion.”
They’ve completely lost the Abwehr man, Reiss decided. They—the local SD—were told by someone on Heydrich’s staff to watch him, and they missed a connection. And now they want me to bail them out.
“If he comes in here,” Reiss said, “I’ll have somebody stay on him. You can rely on that.” Of course, there was little or no chance that the man would come in. And they both knew that.
“He undoubtedly uses a cover name,” Kreuz vom Meere plodded on. “We don’t know it, naturally. He’s an aristocratic-looking fellow. About forty. A captain. Actual name Rudolf Wegener. One of those old monarchist families from East Prussia. Probably supported von Papen in the Systemzeit.” Reiss made himself comfortable at his desk as Kreuz vom Meere droned away. “The only answer as I see it to these monarchist hangers-on is to cut the budget of the Navy so they can’t afford . . .”
Finally Reiss managed to get off the phone. When he returned to his breakfast he found the roll cold. The coffee however was still hot; he drank it and resumed reading the newspaper.
No end to it, he thought. Those SD people keep a shift on duty all night. Call you at three in the morning.
His secretary, Pferdehuf, stuck his head into the office, saw that he was off the phone, and said, “Sacramento called just now in great agitation. They claim there’s a Jew running around the streets of San Francisco.” Both he and Reiss laughed.
“All right,” Reiss said. “Tell them to calm down and send us the regular papers. Anything else?”
“You read the messages of condolence.”
“Are there more?”
“A few. I’ll keep them on my desk, if you want them. I’ve already sent out answers.”
“I have to address that meeting today,” Reiss said. “At one this afternoon. Those businessmen.”
“I won’t let you forget,” Pferdehuf said.
Reiss leaned back in his chair. “Care to make a bet?”
“Not on the Partei delibe
rations. If that’s what you mean.”
“It’ll be The Hangman.”
Lingering, Pferdehuf said, “Heydrich has gone as far as he can. Those people never pass over to direct Partei control because everyone is scared of them. The Partei bigwigs would have a fit even at the idea. You’d get a coalition in twenty-five minutes, as soon as the first SS car took off from Prinzalbrechtstrasse. They’d have all those economic big shots like Krupp and Thyssen—” He broke off. One of the cryptographers had come up to him with an envelope.
Reiss held out his hand. His secretary brought the envelope to him.
It was the urgent coded radiogram, decoded and typed out.
When he finished reading it he saw that Pferdehuf was waiting to hear. Reiss crumpled up the message in the big ceramic ashtray on his desk, lit it with his lighter. “There’s a Japanese general supposed to be traveling here incognito. Tedeki. You better go down to the public library and get one of those official Japanese military magazines that would have his picture. Do it discreetly, of course. I don’t think we’d have anything on him here.” He started toward the locked filing cabinet, then changed his mind. “Get what information you can. The statistics. They should all be available at the library.” He added, “This General Tedeki was a chief of staff a few years ago. Do you recall anything about him?”
“Just a little,” Pferdehuf said. “Quite a fire-eater. He should be about eighty, now. Seems to me he advocated some sort of crash program to get Japan into space.”
“On that he failed,” Reiss said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s coming here for medical purposes,” Pferdehuf said. “There’ve been a number of old Japanese military men here to use the big U. C. Hospital. That way they can make use of German surgical techniques they can’t get at home. Naturally they keep it quiet. Patriotic reasons, you know. So perhaps we should have somebody at the U. C. Hospital watching, if Berlin wants to keep their eye on him.”
Reiss nodded. Or the old general might be involved in commercial speculations, a good deal of which went on in San Francisco. Connections he had made while in service would be of use to him now that he was retired. Or was he retired? The message called him General, not Retired General.