Lanny had heard rumors of this episode, and said: “Do you really know that, Uncle Jesse?”
The other replied: “I was told it by the man to whom the proposal was made.”
VI
This Franco-Russian alliance was the most important thing in the world to Jesse Blackless: the criterion by which he judged all ideas, all nations and individuals. Now that Spain was gone, it represented the last contact of Russia with the western world, her last hope of a friendship in Europe. The Soviets wanted protection against Hitlerism, and were willing to promise protection in return; they had been willing to help Czechoslovakia, but the British Tories and the French Rightists had sold that small republic down the river. Now it was going to be a question of Poland; and what could Russia do for Poland when the Poles wouldn’t let them? Poland, in the view of the Red deputy, was not much more enlightened than Franco Spain; the country was governed by a clique of great landowners and military men. They wouldn’t admit Russian armies to Polish soil even to defend Poland against Germany, and France wouldn’t demand that they alter this policy; so what was the Soviet Union to do?
A complicated situation, which it was Lanny’s business to probe and investigate; everywhere he went, he questioned people of all classes and groups, and devised subtle ways of leading them to reveal their attitudes. Now he said: “I keep hearing rumors that the Soviet Union may make some sort of deal with Hitler that will leave them safe and out of the war.”
“You can put that down as propaganda of the reactionaries,” was the Red deputy’s prompt reply. “That’s the worst they can think of to say about us—that we have no more principles than themselves.”
“Have you never thought of the possibility, Uncle Jesse? The Soviets have been betrayed in about every way there is, and it might occur to them to play tit for tat.”
“But a deal of that sort would mean giving Hitler the green light to attack the West!”
“Of course; but then, I could name scores of reactionaries right here and in London who are working day and night to give Hitler the green light to attack Russia.”
“Jesus Christ, Lanny! Do you suppose the men in the Kremlin can’t see any farther than their noses? If Hitler were to smash the Maginot Line and take Paris, what chance would the Russians have after that? Hitler would go all the way to Spain, and set up his submarine bases and airplane bases there—and what chance would the British have to hold Gibraltar? Once Hitler had the Mediterranean he would have all the Balkans; he would drive to the Caucasus and take the oil, and the rest of Russia would wither up like fruit on a girdled tree.”
“I hope they see that clearly, Uncle Jesse.”
“Of course they see it. Put the idea out of your mind. Ideologically it’s monstrous. We are the opposite pole from Hitler in everything; we are internationalists, proletarians, modern men—while the Hitlerites are blood and soil worshipers, human sacrifice mystics out of the dark forests of Germany before the dawn of civilization.”
“I can tell you, Uncle Jesse, the Führer has some sort of proposal up his sleeve. He has just made a long speech, and for the first time he failed to denounce the Soviet Union. He may be coming to you with an offer any day.”
“We’ll give him a kick in the pants,” said the Red deputy—only he used less refined and elegant language.
VII
Herr von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of the German Reich, had paid an extensive visit in Paris a month or so ago. He had signed a solemn declaration of amity with the French, and had toasted it in innumerable bottles of Pommery-Greno, a brand of champagne about which the wits of Paris made jokes, it being the brand for which the Reichsminister had formerly been head salesman, and which he had married—that is to say, his wife was the daughter of this prosperous wine establishment. To celebrate his advancement in the world he had persuaded an aunt to adopt him and thus give him possession of the coveted “von.” The champagne was not of the best, but smart Paris had laid in a supply, by way of compliment to their distinguished and somewhat dangerous guest.
The ex-salesman had left behind him a staff of busy intriguers, supplied with unlimited funds. They whispered doubts concerning the good faith of Britain, the ex-salesman’s especial bête noir; Britain had always been ready to fight to the last Frenchman, and now she had made a deal with Mussolini, one of the implications of which was that Italy was to expand at the expense of France. Nobody was ever to expand at the expense of Britain! Otto Abetz, handsome and genial intellectual, friend of all the intellectuals of Paris, was tireless in his search for talent, and any writer who could be persuaded to realize the dangers which British intrigue offered to the French people could be certain of selling his writings—and certain of a publisher, too, for Abetz had a string of papers on his list, and paid them even more generously.
Among the Embassy staff was a Prussian nobleman, Graf Herzenberg, whose guest Lanny had been at his country place, the ChâTeau de Belcour. The Graf’s amie was the Austrian actress Lili Moldau, whose friendship Lanny and his mother had gained. Both this couple were tireless intriguers, and at an evening affair Lanny was one of a group who listened while Seine Hochgeboren explained the passionate interest which all Nazis took in the freedom of the Ukrainian people. In the process of splitting up the Czechoslovakian republic the Nazis had taken to calling the province of Ruthenia a new name; it was the Carpatho-Ukraine—and what an advancement toward European welfare it would be if these Ukrainians could be united to the rest of their brethren, now groaning in the chains of Bolshevism!
That would be at the expense of Russia, of course; and the elegant ladies and gentlemen who danced in the ballroom of the Duc de Belleaumont guzzled his elaborate buffet supper, washed it down with Pommery-Greno, and listened with delight to the idea that France should break off with the hated Reds and give her assent to the Nazis’ setting up an “independent” Ukraine, under Nazi protection. It would probably not require a war, the Graf suavely explained, for the Bolsheviks knew well the German strength and their own impotence. All it needed was the friendly neutrality of France, and afterwards the two great peoples might divide the hegemony of the Continent, Germany taking the east as its sphere of influence and France the west—of course in a benevolent and constructive way. Britain had so much land overseas—surely Britain did not have to meddle in Europe!
This would mean peace for a hundred years, perhaps for a thousand, declared the Graf. “The desire for an understanding with France has become almost an obsession with the Führer—he talks about it to everyone who comes to Berchtesgaden. Herr Budd, who has been a guest there many times, can tell you that.”
So once more Lanny had to say: “Yes, indeed, lieber Graf”—avoiding formality. He knew most of these guests, and some had been his guests in this same drawing-room—it being the palace which Irma Barnes had rented a few years ago to launch her career as salonnière. Strange things went on in this modern world, where you swapped partners as if marriage were a quadrille; and equally strange things went on in the diplomatic world, where you swapped allies as freely.
VIII
Having a brief chat with die schöne Lili, the son of Budd-Erling remarked: “I have never had a chance to return Seine Hochgeboren’s hospitality to me in a time of danger. Just now my sister is dancing at the Chanteclair, and she’s worth while, I believe. Would you let me take you both there some evening?”
An actress who might have to go back to her profession some day couldn’t afford to look down her nose at it, and Lili said that she had heard about Marceline, and would be delighted to see her performance. She would consult with the Graf and they would choose some evening when they had a dull dinner date and could get away between nine and ten o’clock. She would phone Lanny. He said: “Don’t delay, because I have to leave for Berlin with my father in a few days; he has promised to see Marshal Göring before the Marshal leaves for Italy.”
They talked about Der Dicke—not by that disrespectful name, of course. He was much less so, for he had
been dieting and had taken off no less than forty-two pounds—so he had told Robbie over the telephone. But it had weakened his heart, and he had been ordered away to Italy for a rest. Robbie had wondered if it was so, or if the chief of the German Air Force could be trying to get him away from the French. Impossible to guess, and of course Lanny didn’t try to guess in the presence of this Nazi enchantress. Instead, he remarked that Hermann Göring was worth several thousand airplanes to the Reich, and they must all take care of him. If necessary, the Budds would travel to Italy for their meeting.
Evidently Herzenberg considered the matter important, for Lili phoned the next morning; they had the evening free, and she wanted Lanny to come to dinner at her apartment, and later they would go to the night club. The Graf’s oldest son, Oskar, an SS Leutnant, had recently become an attaché of the legation, and they would take him along, if Lanny had no objection. Lanny said, of course, he would be pleased to meet the Graf’s son.
To his father he said: “They must be wanting to find out about your business. What shall I tell them?”
Robbie answered: “Tell them the truth. I am a businessman and I am here to sell planes. Presently I’m going to Germany and sell some there if I can. Don’t say anything about my dissatisfaction with Göring, of course.”
IX
But it wasn’t that: it was another effort to enlist Lanny’s services in the cause of Franco-German understanding. A cozy dinner for four: the Graf, a shaven-headed Prussian of the top caste, wearing a monocle and surveying the world with a condescending air—though he was careful not to use it with the son of Budd-Erling; his Titian-haired mistress, trained for a decade in the state theater of Vienna, and still playing the ingénue in private life; and the next generation, a yellow-haired and arrogant young aristocrat with a dueling scar on his left cheek, here to learn the technique of approaching a tiptop leisure-class secret agent. While Lili’s maidservant ladled out the consommé, Lili ladled out the flattery; she revealed that she knew everything about the Budd family, and about Marcel Detaze and his paintings and his beautiful wife; she knew about Lanny’s high repute as an authority on old masters, and the social triumphs he had won in Munich and Berlin. Then while the servant revealed the contents of steaming casseroles—double lamb chops with petits pois at one end and champignons at the other—the Graf talked confidentially concerning Germany’s position at the moment. No real secrets, of course, but things that looked exactly like them.
Just now the situation in Central Europe was most delicate, a balance that might be upset by the weight of a hair. The wretched imbecile Czechs, instead of abiding by their agreement with the Führer, were waging ideological war on him, threatening the excellent government which Father Tiso had set up in Slovakia with the Führer’s approval. The irresponsible British press was inciting them, regardless of the consequences to the peace of the world. Even now, with Madrid about to fall, the French demagogues were still denouncing Franco, and holding the menace of the Russian alliance over all Europe. It was the Jewish bankers of Paris—“but I don’t need to tell you things like that, Herr Budd, for you have lived here most of your life and understand the situation much better than we do.”
And so on. What the Graf wished tactfully to suggest was that if Herr Budd could make it convenient to remain in Paris for a while, or to return after accompanying his father to Germany, his aid in advising the Embassy staff and promoting friendly feelings between the two peoples would earn the everlasting gratitude not merely of the Graf but of the Führer and all his friends in Germany. “I am hesitant about suggesting any reward to one in your high position, Herr Budd, but this you can be sure of—if there is anything in our possession that you desire, you have only to suggest it.”
Very handsome indeed; and Lanny said: “Be sure that I appreciate your kindness, mein lieber Graf. What you suggest is much the same as Reichsmarschall Göring has suggested to me on more than one occasion, and as the Führer suggested to me at the Berghof. I explained to them both that if I were to accept employment, however politely disguised, I should be limiting my ability to be of use to them; in the first place, they would expect more of me than I should be able to perform, and in the second, the secret would soon become known, and I should lose the ability, which I now enjoy, to meet influential persons wherever I travel and to share their confidences. My profession of art expert brings me all that I need, and I am happier as a free lance, able to say what I think. Marshal Göring has been kind enough to let me market some of his paintings which he wanted to get rid of, and that gives me an excuse to visit him now and then, and tell him whatever I have learned that may be helpful. I’ll be happy to tell them to you, so far as it’s in my power. It so happens that in the Château de Belcour are some French historical paintings in which you probably have no special interest, and the Duc de Belcour has given me an intimation that he might consider putting a price upon them. If you, as the tenant, would consent to release them, I might be able to interest some of my clients in the States, or the Reichsmarschall might like to have them for a collection illustrating various periods in the history of Europe.”
“Why certainly, Herr Budd, I wouldn’t stand in the way. I might even consider purchasing one of the paintings myself and presenting it to the Reichsmarschall’s collection.”
So it was settled, in the most elegant way imaginable. The Graf considered this suave American as good as hired—and at a very cheap price. They could go on to discuss Germany’s problems, her hopes and fears; and afterwards, having earned the right to some recreation, they could go off to a night club with four faces wreathed in smiles.
X
The Chanteclair was a place of bright lights and glamour. When the Graf’s limousine drew up before the marquee, its door was opened by a magnifico in purple and gold, and the doors of the establishment were opened by a boy in a sky-blue uniform with four rows of brass buttons. Lanny of course had telephoned to reserve a table and had told Marceline whom he was bringing, so everything would be done in state, A sort of assistant to the master of ceremonies met them in the crowded lobby, a polyglot personage of many bows. “Bon soir, Ihre Hochgeboren,” and then: “Good evening, Mister Budd.”
The painted ladies of the evening, young, undernourished, and infinitely pitiful, swarmed in that lobby, and an unattached gentleman would have difficulty in getting through without forming an attachment; but escorted as the Graf’s party was, its members escaped molestation. The M.C. himself met them at their table; he knew the proper way of addressing all four of the party, and when he returned to his podium, the spotlight was turned upon the eminent guests, and as he introduced them over the loudspeaker, each arose and “took a bow.” Members of an embassy were expected to show themselves in public, and the applause which greeted their names was an indication of the attitude the money-spending and pleasure-seeking part of Paris took toward their country. The sight of three men with only one woman was an abnormal one, and the painted ladies gazed hungrily as they passed; ordinarily they would have introduced themselves, but in this case there must have been some secret sign which warned them away.
Lanny ordered Pommery-Greno, which was like raising the swastika above their table. They sat watching the floor show, in which a couple of comedians cracked jokes at the expense of the politicians of the day: very slangy and full of esoteric references which Lanny had to explain to his guests. Then came Marceline’s turn; a burst of music and she came tripping in, clad in rather scanty white veils, and pursued by her dancing partner, a youth whom she had picked in the casino at Nice and had been training for nearly a year. Marceline herself was only twenty-one, exulting in her youth, freedom, success, and the money it was bringing.
Lanny himself had loved dancing from childhood, and had had many teachers. He had begun teaching his half-sister when he had had to hold her up by her tiny hands. Later, as a child, she had joined Isadora Duncan’s troop of dancing children on the Riviera, and had watched that great artist and listened to all the world
singing her praises. For ten years now she had been dreaming of doing what Isadora had done; the previous summer, when she had divorced her Italian husband and launched herself on a career, it had been first Isadora and then Irene Castle, both Americans, that she had desired to emulate. Lanny had said: “Nobody ever saw either of them do a sex-dance. They were youth, gaiety, springtime. Let the men supply the sex with their imaginations, if they wish—and they will. But you be the nymph whom they cannot catch, the dream they can never realize.”
“But will that go in Paris, Lanny?” Marceline had clamored.
“It will if you do it well enough. All the others know how to be seductive, they know everything there is to know, and your only chance is to be different.”
She had made a success in Cannes, because all her friends had come to the Coque d’Or to support her. She was the daughter of one of France’s great painters, a man who had given his life for his country. It was the sort of story that is easy to write about and talk about: a soldier in a blimn on fire and having his face burned off; wearing a white silk mask, and painting on canvas his grief and hatred of the enemy; and finally, when la patrie was in the last of her desperate hours, going back into battle and dying at the Marne. Who could forget such a story? Surely not the press agents! There had been times when there was happiness in France, and Marcel had seen it and painted it; and here came his daughter to reincarnate it in her person.