Now, Lanny discovered, Benoist-Méchin had been taken into the government; quite an important post, but still he couldn’t live on his salary. On the side, he considered himself an authority on antiques, and Lanny purchased a small painting from him, not haggling over the high price. So they became friends, and Lanny listened to a flood of gossip, freely poured out. He had been in many a hothouse of intrigue, but never anything to compare with half-frozen Vichy. The very impotence of the government, the impossibility of doing anything, made scheming and wire-pulling and whispering secrets the main occupations of men and women. Here were enough politicians and would-be statesmen and their wives and mistresses to have governed all Europe; but they had only the smaller and poorer half of France, and could only talk about doing things, because there were German commissions in almost every town and agents all over the place, watching, reporting, and countermanding orders when they saw fit.
It gave M. Benoist-Méchin the greatest of pleasures to tell his wealthy and generous American friend all about the quarrel between the Chief of the State and his Vice-President which had shaken the world a month ago. It appeared that Lanny’s informant had unwittingly been the cause, for he had suggested to his chief that it would be a gracious gesture if the Führer were to send to Paris the mortal remains of Napoleon’s unhappy son, known to the French as ‘L’Aiglon’—the eaglet—who had died a semi-prisoner in Austria. The remains had been put in a crypt in Paris with a stately ceremony, and Pétain had been invited to attend; but the old Marshal had learned, or thought he had learned, that this was a trap set by the treacherous Laval to get him in German hands and keep him there. Also, Pétain had got indubitable evidence that the fripon had been trying to employ units of the North African army in the interest of the Germans; so he called for the resignation of all his cabinet members, and then accepted only Laval’s, and ordered him to prison.
There was melodrama for you! The blond, airy-mannered young Frenchman told with many gestures how Otto Abetz had got the news in Paris and exploded into a fury and sped to Vichy with a guard of his trusted SS men. He had ordered the instant release of Laval, but hadn’t quite dared to depose Pétain; there had been several days of arguing and scolding, and Benoist-Méchin had been called into consultation, a circumstance of which he was very proud. Flandin, the new Vice-President, a tall, lean appcaser from long ago, had managed to convince Abetz that he was a man to be trusted, and so the Governor of Paris had taken Laval away, and Vichy had another lease on life, though nobody would guess for how long.
II
Who was this Admiral Leahy, who called himself a Catholic, and had been sent by the Protestant Roosevelt to undermine the political foundations of Catholic France? Was it true that Roosevelt was a Freemason, and that he was Jewish or had Jewish blood? Was it true that he was in the pay of Morgan and Morgenthau and the other Wall Street Jews? Such were the questions asked by a journalist who had been reading Nazi newspapers for a decade and helping to write them. Lanny had to say that it was difficult to be sure about such matters; however, it was true that opposition to Roosevelt’s interventionist tactics was rising rapidly in America, and that from what he had heard he wouldn’t be in the least surprised to pick up his morning paper and read that the President had shared the fate of Laval and been deposed.
The journalist was stirred by these tidings, and pressed Lanny to know how dependable they were. Lanny wasn’t free to mention Harrison Dengue, but he felt free to tell about the Nazi agents, and about the nationalists and pacifists of Detroit and Chicago and Hollywood. Also he mentioned his visit to San Simeon, and this was received with special interest, because Jacques Benoist-Méchin had for some time been Mr. Hearst’s private secretary—a fact which Lanny pretended he had not known. The Frenchman had been discharged rather suddenly, and for some reason didn’t have much that was good to say about his former employer. A self-willed and violent man!
It happened just as Lanny had planned; M. Benoist-Méchin repeated Lanny’s stories to his superiors, and one of them was Admiral Darlan, who promptly asked that the American be invited to call. When he asked: “Why didn’t you come to me first?” Lanny replied: “I was afraid you would be too busy, mon Amiral.” Said the blue-eyed and weather-beaten seadog: “I never let myself get too busy to see my friends.” He brought out his bottle of Pernod, and warmed himself to the task of asking questions about public sentiment in America, and the chances of Vichy’s getting any food and medical supplies; also about his former friends in Britain, and what significance was to be attached to the resignation of Lord Wickthorpe, and who else had been at the castle, and had anything been said as to the likelihood of the British government standing firm on the blockade of the Mediterranean ports of France?
There was at this time a clamor being raised by Herbert Hoover and others of his way of thinking, for America to send food to the needy in Europe. This pleased the Nazis and their friends, for the more food America would send, the more Hitler would be able to draw away for his own uses. He had vowed that everybody else in Europe would starve before any German starved; but of course he didn’t want anybody to starve, because if they did they could no longer work to produce the goods he needed.
As to the question of the British blockade, Vichy France wanted to bring phosphates and wheat from her North African colonies and exchange them for German coal, so that the people of the towns wouldn’t have to wear their overcoats to their homes and sit wrapped up in their bedclothes. Admiral Darlan was at the moment trying to make up his mind to send his Fleet to convey merchant ships against the British blockaders, and he would have paid a handsome price to know what the British would do about it. From Lanny Budd he was hoping to get the information for nothing, but of course he couldn’t get it without revealing what was in his own thoughts. That was why Lanny distributed information freely, and most of it correct … so that his questioners would want more next time. That was why he rarely sought anybody, but waited to be sought, why he rarely asked questions, but skirted around a subject and caused his interlocutor to bring it up.
By this technique a presidential agent learned that the statesmen and officials of Unoccupied France were a badly worried lot. They had surrendered their armies and the greater part of their land in the firm certainty that Britain was done for and would have to follow suit in a very short time. But seven months had passed and Britain was still holding out; and now the President of the United States had offered to throw the wealth of that vast country behind the British effort. A few days ago the President’s official emissary, Admiral Leahy, had arrived and taken up his residence a few blocks from the Hotel du Parc, where the old Marshal now had both his office and home. Leahy went almost every day to see the Chief of State and poison his mind with propaganda. As a result, the old gentleman grew more stubborn and more disobliging to the Germans, who were trying so hard to be decent and to get what they wanted without having to take it. Admiral Darlan wanted to give it to them, because his hatred of the British had become implacable since the episode of Oran, or as the French called it, Mers-el-Khébir, where the British had attacked Darlan’s Fleet and put several of his best units out of action.
Lanny didn’t go near the Hotel du Pare and didn’t seek to meet the old Marshal again. He had been told to keep away from Admiral Leahy, and was glad to do it, for he had to send a secret report in care of this Irish-Catholic officer, and knew that he would be guessing as to the identity of the mysterious “Zaharoff.” Let sleeping admirals lie! Lanny collected the information he wanted, and then, wrapping himself in his bedclothes and blowing frequently upon his fingers, he typed his report and saw it delivered by a messenger at the Admiral’s residence. Then he went back to sleep in his warm tweed overcoat.
III
One of the significant aspects of the conquest of France was the economic squeeze which the Germans were applying to the country. A scientific-minded people, the Germans had experts in every field to tell them how to accomplish their purposes with the leas
t pain and alarm to the victim. Their head financial wizard was Herr Doktor Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, who shortly before the war broke out had applied to Robbie Budd in the hope that Robbie might help him get a job in America—so discouraged was he by the impending bankruptcy of his Fatherland. But the Herr Doktor was still on the Führer’s job, and had devised the wondrous plan whereby the French were printing banknotes to the amount of four hundred million francs per day and turning them over to the Germans, supposedly for the upkeep of the German army of occupation; the Germans were using them to buy up the key industries of France, the steel mills, the munitions plants, the coal mines, the electrical and aluminum installations.
They had numerous commissions investigating and negotiating, and the Vichy Government had a commission in Paris to deal with them; whenever some member of this latter commission was stubborn and wouldn’t do what the Germans wanted, they would have him removed and a more pliant tool appointed. This was like squeezing blood, not out of a stone, not out of a turnip, but out of a living creature, and the cries and struggles of the squeezed were pitiful. It was a part of Lanny’s job to investigate these matters, and he went about in fashionable society hearing the gossip, and smiling secretly in his soul—for some of these refugees were the serene and masterful gentlemen whom he had met at the home of Schneider the armaments king. Lanny had heard them repeat the formula so popular with the “two hundred families” who ruled France: “Better Hitler than Blum!” Now they had their Hitler, and he was wringing the financial blood out of them.
Benoist-Méchin, knowing the German language well, was serving as a sort of liaison official with the Germans who came to Vichy. He knew them all, and called many his friends, and at Lanny’s request he invited to lunch a certain Doktor Jacckl, one of Schacht’s leading assistants. He was one of those shaven-headed bulky Prussians with necks like their well-stuffed sausages, and Lanny had met him at the home of Doktor Goebbels, and again at Heinrich Jung’s. The Prussian remembered it, for who could forget an American who was known to be a personal friend of the Führer’s.
He was a jovial pirate, and Lanny imparted information concerning London and New York and Washington, and explained the excruciating embarrassment under which he suffered because his father’s plant had been practically commandeered by the Roosevelt conspirators and compelled to make planes for the British. Doktor Jacckl said it was indeed a shocking thing, the disregard for property rights that was spreading over the world; it all came from Moscow, the center of political and moral infection, and National Socialism offered humanity’s only hope of immunization. Herr Benoist-Méchin could testify that the Germans were scrupulous to paying for everything they took; and Herr Benoist-Méchin spoke up promptly, like a perfect stooge. “Ja freilich!”
IV
Toward the end of the dejeuner à la fourchette Lanny said: “I wonder if you know my old friend Kurt Meissner?” The Herr Doktor replied that of course he did; this great Musiker was one of the jewels in the Nazi crown. He didn’t say anything about the services which Kurt had rendered as an agent of the Generalstab, in hiring men like Benoist-Méchin and preparing France for conquest. Lanny explained: “The last time I saw him was in Paris in June, when the Führer invited us to join him on his visit to the Invalides—you may remember that he went to inspect the tomb of Napoleon.”
“I remember it very well, Herr Budd.”
“I would like to get in touch with Kurt again. He goes to Stubendorf for the holidays, but it is about time he was back in Paris. I wonder if you can tell me the proper official to whom I should apply for permission to write him and let him know that I am here?”
“I shouldn’t think there would be any trouble in arranging that, Herr Budd. The restrictions on mail across the border are a necessary military precaution, but they do not apply to persons such as yourself.”
“What I want is to tell Kurt my address here, and that I have information which would be of importance to him. That is all I need to say, and the letter can be inspected by the proper official. You will understand that it is not a matter I should want to have generally discussed.”
“Selbsverständlich, mein Herr,” said the Nazi, and added: “If that is all you desire, I can help you to save delay. I am flying to Paris tomorrow, and will be glad to call Kurt Meissner and give him your message.”
“Thank you ever so much, Herr Doktor. It will be a great favor. You will find him at the Crillon, I believe; and if he has not yet returned to Paris, you might be so kind as to leave a memo for him.”
V
So it came about that, several days later, Lanny found a note at his lodging—Kurt had been there to look for him. Kurt was at one of the hotels, for of course there were always accommodations for an important Nazi. Half an hour later Lanny was in his room and they embraced with old-time warmth. Boyhood feelings are hard to eradicate from the heart, and even though Lanny despised what Kurt was doing, he couldn’t entirely forget the happy old times at Stubendorf.
A man is what his heredity and environment have made him. Kurt had been brought up under the stern Prussian system; his father had been a trusted employe of a high-up nobleman, and Kurt and his brothers had been drilled and disciplined in the sternest army regime in the world. Kurt’s first wife and child had been victims of World War I, and Kurt had learned to hate the French just as the French hated him. When, after the defeat, his superiors in the Wehrmacht had ordered him to use his knowledge of France and his skill as a musician to reverse the results of Versailles, Kurt had obeyed without question.
For seven years he had been Beauty Budd’s lover and Lanny’s friend and almost stepfather; he had lived at Bienvenu, and had used the Budd family’s social connections as a means of getting introductions and information. After Hitler had come into power he was sent back to France to use these talents and opportunities in the service of Nazism. Now, in the days of triumph, he was still obeying orders, and feeling himself completely vindicated in his life’s course. “Hitler hat inrmer recht!”
It had taken Lanny a long time to wake up to the meaning of these intricate and subtle deceptions, but in the end he had come to understand clearly that you couldn’t be friends with a Nazi; a Nazi was the enemy of every non-Nazi in the world. Even if you, a non-German, adopted the hateful creed, you didn’t really get anywhere; the true Herrenvolk would use you, but in their hearts they would despise you as a traitor to your own kind and a dupe of the Nazi Weltbetrag. The Nazis had chosen Loki, god of lies, for their Nordic deity, and all other peoples had to learn to live under his scepter.
Lanny had heard long ago the German saving: “When you are with the wolves you must howl with them,” and when he was in Naziland he howled in the most reserved and dignified manner. He made speeches about National-Socialist achievements and destiny which sounded to the Nazis almost inspired; and when he met Kurt he embraced him, and looked with utter devotion into those long and heavily lined features. He listened to Kurt’s latest composition and sang its praise, he played four-hand piano compositions with an eminent virtuoso, and he poured out news about Britain and America, proclaiming how many Nazi sympathizers there were in those benighted lands, and how diligently he himself was working to spread an understanding of the great Führer and his benevolent intentions toward the world he was taking in charge.
VI
Kurt had flown from Paris because of his certainty that Lanny wouldn’t bring him to Vichy for nothing. Alone in the hotel room over a dinner served at Wehrmacht expense Lanny gave first the human and personal news from Bienvenu and Wickthorpe and Newcastle. Kurt hadn’t quarreled with Beauty when he had left her to marry a proper German Mädchen, and he always paid tribute to Beauty’s kindness and generosity. He knew that Irma Barnes was a near-Fascist, and had no idea that it was this fact which had wrecked Lanny’s marriage. Kurt knew Robbie Budd well and admired him; understanding Robbie’s reactionary views, he was prepared to believe that Robbie was still among the Roosevelt-haters and diligently sabotaging
Roosevelt efforts to force him into making fighter planes for the Royal Air Force. Had Kurt heard that the Budd-Erling had been found unsatisfactory by the British, and that their flyers refused to trust their lives to it? Yes, Kurt had heard that; it was Kurt’s role to hear of everything—didn’t he have at his disposal the most wonderful intelligence service in the world? Lanny could reveal just why Budd-Erling was behind and going to stay behind. That was good news indeed for the Luftwaffe, and worth a flight from Paris by one of the Wehrmacht’s trusted agents.
But that was only a curtain raiser. This son of Budd-Erling, in the course of his picture-selling business—something that Kurt looked upon with concealed disdain—had been traveling all over the United States, talking with people of all classes, and had the most interesting account to give of the firmly rooted determination for peace which he had encountered everywhere, north, south, east, and west. Among influential and powerful persons there was rapidly spreading the conviction that Roosevelt was mentally irresponsible and must at all costs be prevented from carrying on his war-mongering campaign. Lanny told about the country-club conversations in Newcastle and Baltimore, and about the cowboy Rough Riders of Hollywood; also about the guests of San Simeon, and the things they had said on election night. He told about his intimate talks with Hearst, and didn’t have to conform exactly to the facts; where the isolationist publisher had been reserved, Lanny could make him bold and defiant in voicing his admiration for the Führer.
As for the “junta,” Lanny wasn’t free to name the rebellious persons, but that was unnecessary, for this was a story which Kurt would have no difficulty in believing. Had not Hitler’s own followers made plans to depose him a year or so after he took power, and had he not been obliged to slaughter some twelve hundred of them in a dreadful blood purge? A Nazi secret agent wouldn’t see any reason for expecting America to be free from similar convulsions, and would be sure that persons who thought otherwise were the crudest of dupes.