When he awakened there were footsteps overhead, and he knew that it was daylight. He had been warned never to light his candle while these footsteps continued, and he must lie perfectly still when the cellar door was opened. He must never remove the box that closed the entrance to his cell; that would be done only by Anna or by Seidl. No one else would share the secret—that was the way to be sure it was kept. He prepared his mind for a stay, for Seidl had urged that it was the part of wisdom to wait until the Gestapo had had a chance to wear out their first impulse of determination, and to get a list of new victims to hunt.
He made himself a routine. He would keep his body in condition, for he knew that he might have to walk long distances and perhaps climb mountains; Seidl had said that it was hard to get a man smuggled on board a ship to Sweden, but they had an underground railway to Switzerland. A man can exercise all the important muscles of his body while lying on a bed, lifting his torso or his extended legs; he can turn over on his belly and keep his arm muscles in condition by lifting himself with them. And when he has got himself tired out, he can lie still and think about a journey he is going to take, and the obstacles he may find in his path, and how he is going to get past them. He can make up a hundred adventure stories, knowing that any one of them may come true. When he has had enough of labor and needs recreation, he can recall all the fine poetry he learned when he was a lad; or he can play over the piano music he knows, striking imaginary keys and hearing imaginary sounds.
XV
Still more fascinating, he can take the opportunity to try out some of the obscure powers of his own mind. What is the mind? An accident in an inconceivable immensity of matter? Some incidental product that rises, say, like a mist from a warm stream, and that carries the bright colors of a rainbow for a few minutes, then fades into nothingness forever? Or is it, as many philosophers have believed, something permanent and fundamental to the universe, that may even be the cause of the universe, the real reality, the Ding-an-sich? That idea of a universal consciousness, an ocean of mind, a level where all our minds are one and may communicate with one another and with God? “Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet!”
Lanny had talked a great deal with his wife about telepathy. What could it be? Surely not any physical agency, like radio; for distance appeared to make no difference. Lanny had decided that he did not possess this gift; but how could he be sure? Maybe it was because he had never taken time to develop it. Well, now he had all the time there was; he had little but time. Why not make a few experiments?
He had exchanged promises with Laurel that whoever died first would try to communicate with the other. But why wait for death? Why not see what the living could do? Lanny knew the difference in time between Berlin and New York, and he knew Laurel’s habits; when she would be falling asleep and her mind would be quiet, that would be the time to try to send her a message. He wouldn’t try to appear to her, for that would frighten her, just as he had been frightened as a lad when he had seen the figure of Rick standing by his bedside; Rick had been flying in World War I, and had crashed and been near to death, but not dead. The books on psychic research are full of such cases, and it doesn’t seem to make any difference if the two people are separated by half the earth. In Gurney’s Apparitions of the Living Lanny had read six or seven hundred cases; and if it could happen spontaneously, why might it not be willed to happen?
Anyhow, he would try. He was going out by Switzerland, therefore he would concentrate upon that country. He knew Geneva especially well, and he would try to have Laurel think of him as there. He fixed in his mind the great Palace of the League of Nations, a stone structure built on three sides of a square, with square pillars along the front, an unmistakable building with a great flight of steps leading up to it. It was a tomb of human hopes, a monument to human futility, charged with all the grief and anguish of a tragic time. Lanny would concentrate his mind upon it and try to convey it to his wife; when he got home he would wait and see if she mentioned it; if not, he would casually put a photograph of it before her and ask if she knew what it was and if it had any special significance to her.
XVI
The fugitive spent nine days and nights in this doghouse. On the second night his protector came, bringing a razor and advising him to remove his elegant little mustache; this must be done without delay, in order that the hair might grow out uniformly on his face and give him a proper unkempt appearance. On the third night he received an exchange of clothing; the fastidious son of Budd-Erling replaced his shorts with a ragged and stained nightshirt. His overshirt was too small for him and had a frayed collar; his suit was dingy and shapeless and had several patches. He was assured that this was a proper costume for a filing clerk after four years of war.
There was the problem of his watch, an object altogether beyond the imagining of a white-collar subordinate. Seidl wouldn’t dare to offer it for sale, he said, but he had a safe hiding place, and after the war was won, the American comrade could come and get it. “The war will be won?” he asked in a tone of concern, and Lanny had no hesitation in assuring him that such was the case. It gave the P.A. something of a thrill to be able to speak frankly, and to realize that, once he had got out of Axisland, he would be able to say what he thought and to set himself straight with the world. It could do no harm to tell this faithful old German about America’s gigantic military preparations—something which Dr. Goebbels’ propaganda machine had carefully kept from his knowledge.
And what was President Roosevelt going to do with the victory when it was won? On that too Lanny could speak openly; he could say that he knew the President, and had his personal assurance that after the war the people of Germany would have a chance to choose the kind of government they wanted. “And what if they want a Social-Democratic government?” asked this veteran of the class struggle. Lanny could assure him that that wouldn’t frighten the President in the least. He was no friend of the economic royalists at home, and certainly would not worry about the expropriation of the cartel masters, who had been the paymasters of Hitler and his gang and were more responsible for this war than any other group. Those were wonderful words to Genosse Seidl, and he promised that when Lanny was safely out of the way he would cause them to be widely circulated.
The next night he came again, bringing an overcoat and a pair of shoes in keeping with the rest of the costume. He also brought news—being a former Nazi block warden he got inside information—that a police alarm had been sent out for an American spy by the name of Lanning Prescott Budd, and that a house-to-house search was being made for him. Lanny said, “Das bin ich,” and the other replied, “I’d better not come again for a while. I might be held up and asked where I was going.” He assured Lanny that all the clothing had been burned, even the priceless shoes; the billfold had been burned, and Lanny’s money was now tucked out of sight under one of the boxes of the doghouse. He was studying to disimprove his German, and practiced a while on this elderly watchmaker.
After that for nearly a week the much-wanted man lay in darkness, doing his exercises both physical and psychological. He shivered whenever the cellar door was opened during the daytime; but it was only workingmen, under the direction of Genossin Anna, who appeared to be boss of the establishment. He had a bowl of hot soup with meat in it every evening, and on the whole he found the experience amusing. He set a burned matchstick aside in a pile each day, that being the orthodox way for a dungeon inmate to keep track of time.
When the morning and evening were of the ninth day, Genosse Seidl came again. “I have all the papers, and you are going tonight.” By the light of the candle he showed the documents; an identification card, a permit to travel, an exit permit, and a food card, all in the name of Hans Schultz; all forged, but good enough to stand an examination by flashlight on a roadside. They had all been carefully rubbed by sweaty working-class hands, so as not to appear too new, and Lanny stowed them in the pocket of a dingy white-collar-class jacket. He had grown
a brown underbrush on the lower side of his face, and had accumulated dust and grime on the rest of his exposed skin. The old man said he looked all right and would get by if he didn’t talk too much.
“You are going in a farm cart,” he explained. “You will have to get out and walk around places where there is apt to be a roadblock. The farm people who will drive you are comrades and have done it before. The father of the family has been paid. I have brought you a needle and thread, and we’ll sew most of your money in the lining of your coat.” And so on for various details, which Lanny repeated until the old man was satisfied. Then they put out the candle, and Lanny said good-by to his doghouse and groped his way up the stairs. He exchanged a warm handclasp with his hostess and then followed his guide out into the dark street.
BOOK FIVE
Moving Accidents by Flood and Field
13
Hard Liberty
I
From the point of view of the European peasant, war has not always been a calamity. To be sure, it takes the able-bodied men; but for the old, and the women and children, there are compensations. So long as they are behind the front, they have the land, and the products of the land which cannot be dispensed with. There is always plenty of demand; and if the government takes to printing too much paper, the peasant can refuse to take it and resort to the ancient system of barter, loading up his house with cuckoo clocks and rugs and ornaments and even fur coats. If the government resorts to price fixing, there is always somebody around the corner ready to exchange the coat off his back for a sack of potatoes; and if the government goes so far as confiscation, the peasant can bury his food in the forest and stop working so hard.
The market gardeners of the suburbs of Berlin were having that sort of easy time. They drove in their wagons to the public markets and sold a part of their products as the law required; but meantime a member of the family would disappear with a couple of dressed chickens under her shawl and meet a black marketeer in an alley behind a Bierstube; that might go on all day long, and when the cart came home it would look like a junk dealer’s.
By nightfall most of these carts would have departed; but one might delay, because the driver had got drunk, or had gone to a cinema or someplace of less innocent entertainment. Lanny couldn’t see where he was being taken, but his guide told him it was to a market square; and presently there was a tiny blue light, shaded as the law required, and he saw a cart, with a stoutish woman sitting in the driver’s seat and a boy of twelve or so beside her. “Frau Mühlen,” said Seidl, and then, “Genosse Dreissig.” The woman replied, “Bitte einsteigen,” and Lanny climbed quickly into the cart. At the front, under the driver’s seat, he found a pile of sacks and a horse blanket; he was told to lie on the sacks and cover himself with the blanket, and he did so. All arrangements had been made in advance and there was nothing to be said. The old watchmaker gave the traveler a “Viel Glück,” and Lanny, who had been told not to talk, returned a “Vielen Dank.”
Pretty soon he wasn’t going to be able to talk, on account of the jolting. The marketplace was paved with cobblestones and in the course of a century the paving had developed waves. The horse began to trot—horses always know when they are headed toward home and bed. Lanny found that he had to let his jaw hang loose to keep his teeth from rattling. Apparently the cart had no springs, and when it crossed a railroad or streetcar track Lanny went a couple inches into the air and came down with his full weight. But it was all right, he was headed south, and when he got to Switzerland he would go to the best hotel and get the softest of mattresses—so he told himself.
He wondered about these people to whom his fate was entrusted. He had been told but one sentence, and it wasn’t ethical to ask more. This was the underground, and every person who had anything to do with it was risking his or her life. Monck had told Lanny that the Nazis had succeeded pretty well in exterminating it; but apparently it was reviving again, no doubt under the influence of Stalingrad, and Tunisia, and Sicily, and Salerno. The dumbest person in Naziland could not have failed to be impressed when Hitler declared three days of national mourning for the huge army lost in the snows of Russia in January of this year. Only the dumbest could have failed to note that the Americans had landed and advanced wherever they attempted it. How long would it be before they set out to cross the Channel? Surely not later than next spring!
Lanny knew that an advance guard of Americans were already in Germany: many kinds of Americans who could pass for Germans—students, teachers, traveling salesmen, technicians, most of them of German descent. They were being smuggled in, well provided with German money and sometimes with radio-receiving and sending sets. They were getting information of a hundred sorts, and finding ways to get it out. They were building up a resistance, and it might well be that they had established this underground railroad on which Lanny was traveling. He had no way to know, and the railroaders themselves might not know; to them he was just “Comrade Thirty.” All Seidl had said was, “You will be passed along.”
II
The cart came to a halt, and Frau Mühlen said in a low voice, “There are lights ahead. Get out quick.” Lanny needed no second warning; he was up and out of the cart in two jumps. “Go one block off the road to the right. Then go six blocks forward, and one block to the left, back to the road. There is an inn called ‘Die Weisse Gans.’ We will wait there. If you miss it you can ask the way of anyone but the police.”
Lanny said, “Danke,” and disappeared into the darkness. He understood that there must be a roadblock—the police perhaps searching for him. He had grown used to groping his way in the dark, finding a pavement and staying on it. There was always some light from the sky, and you saw better out of the corners of your eyes, in quick glances. Covering your head up with gunny sacks for a half hour was an excellent mode of preparation, giving your pupils a chance to expand to the utmost.
He made his way, not too slowly; he mistook alleyways for streets, and came out to the road too soon; he saw the flashlights and retraced his steps and went farther. “Bitte, wo ist Die Weisse Gans?” was a natural question to ask when he heard footsteps passing; so he found the place, even though he couldn’t see the sign for which it was named. The cart was waiting, and he followed it a short distance and then climbed in. It was, he reflected, a convenience that only die Polizei were permitted to use electric torches in the open; that gave the smugglers ample warning, and they made use of it.
They turned in to the small farm, and an elderly man came out to welcome them; he carried no lantern, which might be because they were in the Berlin Gebiet, or else he had no kerosene. Evidently he expected the passenger, for he asked no questions, save, “Rauchen Sie?” Lanny gave his word that he was a non-smoker and would strike no match. Then the man said, “You may stay in the hay.” That sounded fine to a traveler whose bones ached.
There was a small stable, and a loft with a winter’s supply of fodder; Lanny climbed up a ladder and settled himself in a corner, spreading enough hay to hide everything but his nose. “Hier sind Sie sicher,” said the old man—here you are safe. Lanny took his word for it and went fast asleep. The rats came, but apparently decided that he was not edible. The war was fine for them, for it took all the chemicals for explosives, and there was no longer any poison to interfere with the conviction of rats that they are the Herrenrasse, and destined to fill the world solid with their species.
Lanny spent the next day quite contentedly in that hiding place, finding it much better than a doghouse. He listened to the barnyard sounds, which began at the first streak of dawn. The rooster crowed, the hens cackled, and the birds sang, as cheerfully as if there were no war. Several of the hens flapped their way up and inspected the intruder, then flapped their way down again. The farmer’s grandson brought him a plate of food and a glass of milk—the latter something usually reserved for young children and black marketeers in the Hauptstadt. The boy would no doubt have liked to question this mysterious caller, but he had been forbidden th
e pleasure. Lanny contented himself with “Vielen Dank,” and then “Wasser.” He stayed quietly in his loft, along with the pigeons, the swallows, and the bats.
III
With darkness came a heavy truck, with lights that were dimmed but that seemed extraordinarily bright. They went out quickly and Lanny was summoned. The truck carried a load of boxes—Lanny never knew what was in them. They were covered with a tarpaulin laced down with strong rope. The driver, elderly but vigorous, loosened some of these ropes and lifted the tarpaulin. A ladder was brought and two empty boxes about the size of soap boxes were laid on top of the load, about three feet apart. Lanny perceived that he was expected to lie between them and be laced over. He was dubious about it, until he saw the driver putting a strip of lumber on each side of the load to hold the tarpaulin away and allow circulation of air. “There is also air between the boxes,” said the man, and Lanny had to take his word for it; he couldn’t refuse to go.
He climbed up and took his place, with a blanket under him and his overcoat for a pillow. The cover was put over him and laced down. He realized that he was safe from observation, for a person would have to climb to the top of the load in order to see the projection which his body made. But it was darned uncomfortable, there being barely room for him to turn over. He had the choice of lying on his back and having his backbone bumped, or lying on his side and having his ribs bumped, or lying on his belly and having his whole front bumped. All trucks have springs, but they are meant to save the cargo, not the passenger.
Soon they were speeding, as Lanny could tell by the engine; he could guess that they were on the four-lane Autobahn that runs between Berlin and Munich. One of Adi’s boasts, and one of his worst blunders, for he was short on oil and rubber, whereas he had unlimited coal, and he had neglected the railroads which could use it. Lanny knew this highway well, having motored over it many times in the old happy days. Then his running time had been eight hours, but now his sense of time was hopelessly out of kilter. He had read that to God a thousand years are as a day; now it was turned around, and a day would be as a thousand years.