The Weltmann said tactfully: “All wars come to an end, Herr Kannenberg. Some day we shall be back at Berchtesgaden, and there will be a crop of new songs about the heroes who won this war. Do you remember the first time we met there, and how you played and sang, and I played the Moonlight Sonata for the Führer?”
“I remember it well. It must have been—how long ago?”
“Some seven years.”
“You had your wife with you, I recall.”
“I have a new wife now. Irma Barnes, whom you met, was immensely rich, and I was obliged to live in palaces and to behave accordingly. I found that I tired of it quickly. The richest people are not always the best company.”
“They expect a great deal of one. Glauben Sie mir, Herr Budd, I have had opportunity to observe them in the course of my business.”
“You have had an extraordinary career, Herr Kannenberg, and some time you should set it down on paper. Think what a book! Die Grössen Die Ich Kannte! Indeed, you might say Die Grössten, for you have known the greatest of our time. Shakespeare tells us that ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ The public has an irresistible desire to go behind the scenes and into the dressing-rooms of these players.”
“The public would find it a complicated and confusing kind of life. Believe me, lieber Herr, the person who serves Majestät sleeps in no bed of roses.”
Lanny wondered: Had this combination steward and court jester been getting into trouble of late, and was he longing for an opportunity to pour out his soul? The grown-up playboy smiled his most genial smile and remarked: “You may always have the assurance that you are rendering a service to the German Volk, preserving for them the man upon whom their destiny depends. It is surely not to be expected that the man who carries such responsibilities as unser Führer should not have his whims indulged, his human failings made allowance for. Surely it cannot be any great trouble to prepare his vegetable plate with a poached egg on top, even here in this remote land in wartime!”
“It is not that which troubles me, Herr Budd; it is the fact that I am not allowed to do more for him in the line of nutrition. The Führer suffers from incessant stomach trouble, as you no doubt know.”
“He gives many evidences of it.”
“Leider! And if only I could persuade him to try a good Bratwurst now and then! Surely it was not intended that the human stomach should be loaded with the fodder of rabbits and cows, even when it has been well boiled! For what did man tame the rabbits and the cows, except that they should digest all this spinach and carrots and turn it into more concentrated food?”
“I am afraid you are coming into conflict with the Führer’s religious convictions, Herr Kannenberg.”
“I ventured to protest to him in the old days, and he used to make a joke of it; but now my remarks annoy him, and I no longer dare open my mouth. I don’t know whether you are aware of it, but of late Adi has become convinced that he suffers from a stomach cancer.”
“Gott behüte! I trust that is not true!”
“Doktor Morell, Doktor von Hasselbach, his surgeon, and Doktor Karl Brandt, who is our Reichs Commissioner for Health, all have solemnly assured him that this is a mistake on his part, but nothing can take the idea from his mind. It has very important political consequences. Pray do not ever quote me—”
“Ach, gewiss niemals, Herr Kannenberg!”
“I have heard from his own lips his statement that the attack upon Russia was caused by his belief that the time is short, and he felt that was the one task which no one else was adequate to perform. ‘If God will give me two months,’ he said. God has given him nearly two years, but the end is not yet; and how can it end if we lose each winter the half of what we have gained in the summer?”
“It must be a frightful strain upon our friend’s mind, I fear.”
“It would be enough to destroy any man’s digestive system, even without the rabbit-and-squirrel-fodder diet. You may have noticed that the Führer’s left hand trembles, and that he drags his left leg slightly. This embarrasses him greatly, so that he never signs his name in front of others—you see, he would have to hold the paper still with his left hand, and he cannot do it. This is a result of the grippe he suffered last year in the Ukraine. Doktor von Hasselbach calls it Parkinson’s disease, and says that its cause might be mental—the dreadful strain and worry, the sleepless nights, the bad news breaking in all the time. We who love him and who would like so to save him stand helplessly by and dare not even speak.”
“Who is his physician now, Herr Kannenberg?”
“Oh, it has been Doktor Morell for years. Adi swears by him and obeys him as religiously as he requires others to obey the Führer himself.”
“Who is this Doktor Morell?”
“He was a venereal-disease specialist to Berlin actors and gay blades. He is about fifty-five, and gray-haired; a very positive and convincing person, and, of course, high-priced. He fills his patient full of strange drugs for strange purposes, and by strange methods. Even by enemas—do you believe in enemas, Herr Budd?”
“I have never had occasion to try them.”
“Nor I either. Nature does not seem to have made me the right shape for such a proceeding. It is called ‘colonic irrigation,’ and I believe it came from America, perhaps by way of India or some other place where strange ideas have prevailed for thousands of years. No one would dare to ask the Herr Doktor such questions. He comes with new remedies; he shoots glucose into the patient’s muscles to give him energy, and a stuff called orchikrin to relieve his fatigue. It is one of a steward’s duties to see that the supply of these substances is kept up, so I know them all by heart: euflat pills, which combine pancreas extract and charcoal, and intelan, which combines vitamins A and D. He takes ultra septyl tablets for his catarrhal condition, and omnadin, a protein and gall mixture, to keep away colds. He relies on cardiazol to increase his circulation, and now he is beginning to receive intravenously another preparation—I have not yet been told the name, but it is supposed to check his arteriosclerosis.”
“Um Gottes Willen!” said the art expert. “Is there no chance that some of these substances might combine to make something poisonous?”
“Or explosive,” replied the faithful steward. “And all this would be unnecessary if only our dear Adi would permit us to prepare him a simple Weisswurst one day, and a Leberknödel the next! Look at me and see for yourself!”
III
The trays were removed, and the pair sat before the fire. The Ausländer told how much he loved this greatest man in the world, and the oft-told story of how an American playboy came to find out about him and to know him. When a household, great or small, has a master, everybody talks about that master, and everybody knows everything about him. Lanny emphasized how important it was to preserve and protect this Führer of the Germans from any sort of harm, and the steward told of the extraordinary care that was taken with the purchasing of food, all brought from Germany, because they would not trust any Ukrainian—The ex-Kellner stopped in the midst of his sentence and flushed with embarrassment. “Ach! I have said something that I should not, Herr Budd. Be so good as to forget it.”
“Certainly, lieber Freund. I have no interest in such matters; and besides, I could be a good guesser if I wished to.”
His smile was reassuring, and the other went on: “There is no one in this household who would not gladly die to help our Führer. We do everything in our power. Eva is here now, and he is always quieter for a while after she comes.”
“I do not think I have ever met Eva,” said Lanny, always quick on the uptake.
“She does not meet many persons. She is a simple Bavarian Mädel, without much conversation; that helps the Führer, because he likes to have someone to listen to him.”
“I do my best to fill that need when I am here,” smiled the visitor.
“Ja, Herr Budd, but men such as you stimulate him, because you have ideas. Eva has none, so she is restful. T
here have been other women, but she is his permanent friend. She exacts nothing from him and does not complain of long absences. You, I am sure, are not one to heed the hateful gossip about Adi; his sex life is rather deficient, because he is so much wrapped up in his cause, and as a rule more interested in trying to convert a woman than to take possession of her.”
“Quite so, Herr Kannenberg,” assented Lanny. At the same time he wondered if the ex-Kellner had failed to hear, or had managed to forget, the experience of the psychic medium who was now Lanny’s wife, and whom Lanny had taken to Berchtesgaden as a guest.
IV
The court musician took his accordion. “What did I sing at Berchtesgaden?” he asked, and Lanny said that he had sung “Tiroler sind lustig.” So he sang: “Tiroler sind lustig, so lustig und froh,” very softly, so as not to disturb anybody. Then he asked: “What else?” And Lanny said: “Z’Lauterbach hab’ i’ mein’ Strumpf verlor’n.” He sang that. He was just starting on “O, du lieber Augustin,” when there came a roar from outside in the hallway, a familiar and terrifying voice bellowing: “What fool is that making a racket at such a time? Maul halten!”
The rosy accordionist turned almost yellow with fright. He sat as if frozen, holding the instrument in mid-air; his eyes looked as if they were about to emerge entirely from their sockets. His mouth dropped open, and he stayed that way, like a statue of terror, a living proof of the truth of his statement, that the person who serves Majestät sleeps in no bed of roses!
The screaming continued: “Fäulniss! Verdammte Scheissdreck!”—a torrent of the language which Adi Schicklgruber had picked up in the gutters of Vienna, some of them words that Lanny had never heard before. Deeply shocked, he thought: The man is really beside himself. And there goes my chance of an Erlaubniss-schein! It was hard to imagine such a tirade because of the simple offense of singing in low tones the songs which were native to Adi’s homeland and which he dearly loved.
Gradually both auditors came to realize that only the opening words had been meant for them. Out in that hallway some other person was getting the dressing down of his life. “So ein grenzenloser Blödsinn, in eine Irrenanstalt sollte ich Sie schicken!” In German it is the custom to address a single individual with the plural, Sie, and so Lanny never did know whether there was one general out there or a whole company of them. Adi called him or them Teufelsdreck—devil’s dung—and threatened him or them with confinement, not merely in a lunatic asylum, but in a Konzentrationslager, and again in die Hölle, even harder to get out of. “For what do I pay salaries to generals? If my troops are to run away, can they not do it by themselves? I send you fresh divisions, and no sooner do they arrive than they have to retreat. I send you guns, tanks, trucks, and you present them to the enemy, and come home and tell me that it was impossible to bring them out. lhr Hurensöhne, I did not send them to be brought out, I sent them to be used to fight and to win victories—um zu kämpfen und zu siegen!”
The voice receded, because the Führer was walking down the hallway. A door slammed, and there was silence. Even then it took some time for the terrified Kellner to be able to move and to use his voice. “Gott erbarm’ dich unser!” he exclaimed, for most Bavarians had been brought up pious and remembered the phrases even when they became Nazis. “We have had another defeat!”
“Leider, leider!” responded the sympathetic visitor. “Too bad!”
“Almost every day now we retire from places. The day before yesterday it was Rostov that was taken from us, and a few hours later it was Voroshilovgrad. What disagreeable names those Russians do give to places!”
“I suppose they don’t sound so bad to them,” ventured the other.
“If you will excuse me, Herr Budd, I will go out and see what has happened. Do not think that it is too bad, because Adi behaves this way all the time now. Since Stalingrad he has never had any peace of mind.”
The faithful steward went out, and while he was gone Lanny’s face assumed the expression of the cat that had swallowed the canary. He tried to guess what the defeat might be; he knew the battle line as it had been the day before he left Algiers, and he hoped it might be Kharkov, the second greatest city of the Ukraine. He knew that the Germans had been diligently restoring it ever since they had taken it, early in their attack on the Soviet Union.
Kannenberg came back, and his face was that of the canary which has been swallowed by the cat. “It is Kharkov,” he said. “It is awful, awful! Who can stand against these Russian hordes? We kill a million, and there is another million treading in their footsteps.”
Lanny assumed the manner and tone of a high-priced undertaker—or “mortician,” as they were asking to be called in the land of his fathers. “Often a retreat is preliminary to another advance, Herr Kannenberg. The Russian boots can march in deep snow, but when the ground is hard, the German Panzers roll over them.”
“So we have been told, Herr Budd. But this second winter is worse than the first. If we retreat much farther, it will be necessary to abandon this headquarters; and moving in the month of February will be miserably uncomfortable!” Der arme Dicke was thinking about himself.
V
In the morning the storm had ceased, and Lanny was told that the snow was not too deep for his departure. He packed his few belongings, and a young officer of the household staff first came and asked his wishes about money and other matters, and then placed in his hands the promised permit, on the Führer’s official stationery and signed with his own hand. “The bearer of this letter, Herr Lanning Prescott Budd, American, has my permission to travel in German territory for a period of three weeks. Police and military authorities are instructed to treat him with all courtesy and to afford him such travel facilities as he requests. He is authorized to leave Germany at any time within the period stated, and to exchange his French money for German, or take it out with him. Adolf Hitler.” No explanations or qualifications—it was the Führer’s will, and no laws would stand in the way.
The blindfold was put over the visitor’s eyes and he gave his word not to remove it. He was escorted from the building and into a waiting car. It was a freezing morning, and he was glad of the woolen underwear and overcoat. He was driven to the airport and put on board a plane. “Sie fligen nach Stubendorf, Herr Budd,” said the young officer, and Lanny replied: “Richtig. Danke schön.” The officer said: “Gut Rutsch”—it was the fighting pilots’ phrase.
The plane rose and flew steadily. The pilot did not speak; he may have been told not to, or he may not have relished carrying an enemy passenger. Lanny knew that they were starting from the western Ukraine and flying to Upper Silesia, so he could guess the course as slightly north of west and the distance as some four hundred miles. He would be over Poland nearly all the way. The cold outside would be deadly, but in the enclosed cabin it was comfortable enough. He occupied his mind with sorting out what he had learned in the ogre’s den and memorizing the important points; he could not make a single note.
At last the crackling in the passenger’s ears told him that he was coming down; the leaning of his body told him that they were turning. Presently he felt the plane touch the ground; the engines died and the plane came to a halt. The pilot said: “You may remove the blindfold,” and Lanny did so. The door was opened, and he thanked the pilot, and stepped out upon the snow-covered field. Airfield guards were running toward them, and Lanny took out his Erlaubniss-schein. They had never seen anything like it, and he realized that he was going to make his progress through Germany over the awed and stunned bodies of Nazi Beamten of all ranks.
They told him that Herr Kurt Meissner’s home was a couple of miles away, in the forest near the Schloss; Kurt had no telephone, but a sleigh could be hired. An officer ordered one of the men to carry the visitor’s bags, and presently he was bundled in a sleigh, with a venerable livery-stable horse taking him toward the five-story stone castle on the height. When Lanny had first come here, at the age of fourteen, the road had seemed steep and the Schloss magnifice
nt; now everything seemed smaller, but still precious to his memory. He liked most non-Nazi Germans, and even a few of the Nazis; he was ready to like the whole nation whenever they would stop trying to conquer their neighbors.
VI
Kurt’s home on the edge of the great forest had been built for him by the “Old Graf,” long since deceased. Kurt was to have the use of it during his lifetime, and his widow after him: this because he was a great Komponist and had brought new glory to Seine Hochgeboren’s ancient name, though, of course, that haughty personage wouldn’t have put it that way. The house had had to be added to as Kurt’s blue-eyed and buxom wife had performed her duty of making up for the destruction of German manpower. There were three little ones playing about the place, and five others at school, the visitor was told. They all knew this munificent American, for he had never failed to send them presents at Christmas, that is, until the last two Christmases.
A truly fairy-story occasion when a sleigh stopped before the door and this Prince Charming from overseas stepped out unannounced. The children, shy little creatures with flaxen hair and blue eyes, stood staring, speechless. Lanny lifted and dropped the knocker on the door, and there came the plump matron—her name was Lisa, but Lanny chose to call her Dorothea, after the gute verständige Mutter of Goethe’s poem. Fifteen of sixteen years had passed since Kurt had left the soft warm love nest which Beauty Budd had provided for him at Bienvenu. If he had delayed any longer to marry he would have broken his parents’ hearts, and Kurt was a dutiful Deutscher. Now he had a dutiful wife and eight little ones who would surely not fail in this virtue, for Kurt was a stern disciplinarian.