At eight o’clock in the morning Freiherr Hugo Reiss, the Reichs Consul in San Francisco, stepped from his MercedesBenz 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,” Plerdehuf 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 deliberatons. 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.
“As soon as you have the picture.” Reiss said, “pass copies right on to our people at the airport and down at the harbor. He may have already come in. You know how long it takes them to get this sort of thing to us.” And of course if the general had already reached San Francisco, Berlin would be angry at the PSA consulate. The consulate should have been able to intercept him—before the order from Berlin had even been sent.
Pferdehuf said, “I’ll stamp-date the coded radiogram from Berlin, so if any question comes up later on, we can show exactly when we received it. Right to the hour.”
“Thank you,” Reiss said. The people in Berlin were past masters at transferring responsibility, and he was weary of being stuck. It had happened too many times. “Just to be on the safe side,” he said, “I think I’d better have you answer that message. Say, ‘Your instructions abysmally tardy. Person already reported in area. Possibility of successful intercept remote at this stage.’ Put something along those lines into shape and send it. Keep it good and vague. You understand.”
Pferdehuf nodded. “I’ll send it right off. And keep a record of the exact date and moment it was sent.” He shut the door after him.
You have to watch out, Reiss reflected, or all at once you find yourself consul to a bunch of niggers on an island off the coast of South Africa. And the next you know, you have a black mammy for a mistress, and ten or eleven little pickaninnies calling you daddy.
Reseating himself at his breakfast table he lit an Egyptian Simon Arzt Cigarette Number 70, carefully reclosing the metal tin.
It did not appear that he would be interrupted for a little while now, so from his briefcase he took the book he had been reading, opened to his placemark, made himself comfortable, and resumed where he had last been forced to stop.
. . . Had he actually walked streets of quiet cars, Sunday morning peace of the Tiergarten, so far away? Another life. Ice cream, a taste that could never have existed. Now they boiled nettles and were glad to get them. God, he cried out. Won’t they stop? The huge British tanks came on. Another building, it might have been an apartment house or a store, a school or office; he could not tell—the ruins toppled, slid into fragments. Below in the rubble another handful of survivors buried, without even the sound of death. Death had spread out everywhere equally, over the living, the hurt, the corpses layer after layer that already had begun to smell. The stinking, quivering corpse of Berlin, the eyeless turrets still upraised, disappearing without protest like this one, this nameless edifice that man had once put up with pride.
His arms, the boy noticed, were covered with the film of gray, the ash, partly inorganic, partly the burned sifting final produce of life. All mixed now, the boy knew, and wiped it from him. He did not think much further; he had another thought that captured his mind if there was thinking to be done over the screams and the hump hump of the shells. Hunger. For six days he had eaten nothing but the nettles, and now they were gone. The pasture of weeds had disappeared into a single vast crater of earth. Other dim, gaunt figures had appeared at the rim, like the boy, had stood silent and then drifted away. An old mother with a babushka tied about her gray head, basket—empty—under her arm. A onearmed man, his eyes empty as the basket. A girl. Faded now back into the litter of slashed trees in which the boy Eric hid.
And still the snake came on.
Would it ever end? the boy asked, addressing no one. And if it did, what then? Would they fill their bellies, these—
“Freiherr,” Pferdehuf’s voice came. “Sorry to interrupt you. Just one word.”
Reiss jumped, shut his book. “Certainly.”
How that man can write, he thought. Completely carried me away. Real. Fall of Berlin to the British, as vivid as if it had actually taken place. Brrr. He shivered.
Amazing, the power of fiction, even cheap popular fiction, to evoke. No wonder it’s banned within Reich territory; I’d ban it myself. Sorry 1 started it. But too late; must finish, now.
His secretary said, “Some seamen from a German ship. They’re required to report to you.”
“Yes,” Reiss said. He hopped to the door and out to the front office. There the three seamen wearing heavy gray sweaters, all with thick blond hair, strong faces, a trifle nervous. Reiss raised his right hand. “Heil Hitler.” He gave them a brief friendly smile.
“Heil Hitler,” they mumbled. They began showing him their papers.
As soon as he had certified their visit to the consulate, he hurried back into his private office.
Once more, alone, he reopened The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.
His eyes fell on a scene involving—Hitler. Now he found himself unable to stop; he began to read the scene out of sequence, the back of his neck burning.
The trial, he realized, of Hitler. After the close of the war. Hitler in the hands of the Allies, good God. Also Goebbels, Goring, all the rest of them. At Munich. Evidently Hitler was answering the American prosecutor.
. . . black, flaming, the spirit of old seemed for an instant once again to blaze up. The quivering, shambling body jerked taut; the head lifted. Out of the lips that ceaselessly drooled, a croaking half-bark, halfwhisper. “Deutsche, hier steh’ Ich.” Shudders among those who watched and listened, the earphones pressed tightly, strained faces of Russian, American, British and German alike. Yes, Karl thought. Here he stands once more . . . they have beaten us—and more. They have stripped this superman, shown him for what he is. Only—a
“Freiherr.”
Reiss realized that his secretary had entered the office. “I’m busy,” he said angrily. He slammed the book shut. “I’m trying to read this book, for God’s sake!”
It was hopeless. He knew it.
“Another coded radiogram is coming in from Berlin.” Pferdehuf said. “I caught a glimpse of it as they started decoding it. It deals with the political situation.”
“What did it say?” Reiss murmured, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and fingers.
“Doctor Goebbels has gone on the radio unexpectedly. A major speech.” The secretary was quite excited. “We’re supposed to take the text—they’re transmitting it out of code—and make sure it’s printed by the press, here.”
“Yes, yes,” Reiss said.
The moment his secretary had left once more. Reiss reopened the book. One more peek, despite my resolution . he thumbed the previous portion.
. . . in silence Karl contemplated the flag-draped casket. Here he lay, and now he was gone, really gone. Not even the demon-inspired powers could bring him back. The man—or was it after all Uebermensch?--whom Karl had blindly followed, worshiped . . . even to the brink of the grave. Adolf Hitler had passed beyond, but Karl clung to life. I will not follow him, Karl’s mind whispered. I will go on, alive. And rebuild. And we will all rebuild. We must.
How far, how terribly far, the Leader’s magic had carried him. And what was it, now that the last dot had been put on that incredible record, that journey from the isolated rustic town in Austria, up from rotting poverty in Vienna, from the nightmare ordeal of the trenches, through political intrigue, the founding of the Party, to the Chancellorship, to what for an instant had seemed near world domination?
Karl knew. Bluff. Adolf Hitler had lied to them. He had led them with empty words.
It is not too late. We see your bluff, Adolf Hitler. And we know you for what you are, at last. And the Nazi Party, the dreadful era of murder and megalomaniacal fantasy, for what it is. What it was.
Turning, Karl walked away from the silent casket . . .
Reiss shut the book and sat for a time. In spite of himself he was upset. More pressure should have been put on the Japs, he said to himself, to suppress this damn book. In fact, it’s obviously deliberate on their part. They could have arrested this—whatever his name is. Abendsen. They have plenty of power in the Middle West.
What upset him was this. The death of Adolf Hitler, the defeat and destruction of Hitler, the Partei, and Germany itself, as depicted in Abendsen’s book . . . it all was somehow grander, more in the old spirit than the actual world. The world of German hegemony.
How could that be? Reiss asked himself. Is it just this man’s writing ability?
They know a million tricks, those novelists. Take Doctor Goebbels; that’s how he started out, writing fiction. Appeals to the base lusts that hide in everyone no matter how respectable on the surface. Yes, the novelist knows humanity, how worthless they are, ruled by their testicles, swayed by cowardice, selling out every cause because of their greed—all he’s got to do is thump on the drum, and there’s his response. And he laughing, of course, behind his hand at the effect he gets.
Look how he played on my sentiments, Herr Reiss reflected, not on my intellect; and naturally he’s going to get paid for it—the money’s there. Obviously somebody put the Hundsfott up to it, instructed him what to write. They’ll write anything if they know they’ll get paid. Tell any bunch of lies, and then the public actually takes the smelly brew seriously when its dished out. Where was this published? Herr Reiss inspected the copy of the book. Omaha, Nebraska. Last outpost of the former plutocratic U.S. publishing industry, once located in downtown New York and supported by Jewish and Communist gold .
Maybe this Abendsen is a Jew.
They’re still at it, trying to poison us. This judisches Buch—He slammed the covers of the Grasshopper violently together. Actual name probably Abendstein. No doubt the SD has looked into it by now.
Beyond doubt, we ought to send somebody across into the RMS to pay Herr Abendstein a visit. I wonder if Kreuz vom Meere has gotten instructions to that effect. Probably hasn’t, with all the confusion in Berlin. Everybody too busy with domestic matters.
But this book, Reiss thought, is dangerous.
if Abendstein should be found dangling from the ceiling some fine morning, it would be a sobering notice to anyone who might be influenced by this book. We would have had the last word. Written the postscript.
It would take a white man, of course. I wonder what Skorzeny is doing these days.
Reiss pondered, reread the dust jacket of the book. The kike keeps himself barricaded. Up in this High Castle. Nobody’s fool. Whoever gets in and gets him won’t get back out.
Maybe it’s foolish. The book after all is in print. Too late now. And that’s Japanese-dominated territory . . . the little yellow men would raise a terrific fuss.
Nevertheless, if it was done adroitly . . . if it could be properly handled.
Freiherr Hugo Reiss made a notation on his pad. Broach subject with SS General Otto Skorzeny, or better yet Otto Ohlendorf at Amt III of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Didn’t Ohlendorf head Einsatzgruppe D.?
And then, all at once, without warning of any kind, he felt sick with rage. I thought this was over, he said to himself. Does it have to go on forever? The war ended years ago. And we thought it was finished then. But that Africa Fiasco, that crazy Seyss-Inquart carrying out Rosenberg’s schemes.
That Herr Hope is right, he thought. With his joke about our contact on Mars. Mars populated by Jews. We would see them there, too. Even with their two heads apiece, standing one foot high.
I have my routine duties, he decided. I don’t have time for any of these harebrained adventures, this sending of Einsatzkommandos after Abendsen. My hands are full greeting German sailors and answering coded radiograms; let someone higher up initiate a project of that sort—it’s their business.
Anyhow, he decided, if I instigated it and it backfired, one can imagine where I’d be: in Protective Custody in Eastern General Gouvernement, if not in a chamber being squirted with Zyklon B hydrogen cyanide gas.
Reaching out, he carefully scratched the notation on his pad out of existence, then burned the paper itself in the ceramic ashtray.
There was a knock, and his office door opened. His secretary entered with a large handful of papers. “Doctor Goebbels’ speech. In its entirety.” Pferdehuf put the sheets down on the desk. “You must read it. Quite good; one of his best.”
Lighting another Simon Arzt Number 70 cigarette, Reiss began to read Doctor Goebbels’ speech.
After two weeks of nearly constant work, Edfrank Custom Jewelry had produced its first finished batch. There the pieces lay, on two boards covered with black velvet, all of which went into a square wicker basket of Japanese origin. And Ed McCarthy and Frank Frink had made business cards. They had used an artgun eraser carved out to form their name; they printed in red from this, and then completed the cards with a children’s toy rotary printing set. The effect—they had used a high-quality Christmas-card colored heavy paper---was striking.
In every aspect of their work they had been professional. Surveying their jewelry, cards, and display, they could see no indication of the amateur. Why should there be? Frank Frink thought. We’re both pros; not in jewelry making, but in shopwork in general.
The display boards held a good variety. Cuff bracelets made of brass, copper, bronze, and even hot-forged black iron. Pendants, mostly of brass, with a little silver ornamentation. Earrings of silver. Pins of silver or brass. The silver had cost them a good deal; even silver solder had set them back. They had bought a few semiprecious stones, too, for mounting in the pins: baroque pearls, spinneis, jade, slivers of fire opal. And, if things went well, they would try gold and possibly five- or six-point diamonds.
It was gold that would make them a real profit. They had already begun searching into sources of scrap gold, melteddown antique pieces of no artistic value—much cheaper to buy than new gold. But even so, an enormous expense was involved. And yet, one gold pin sold would bring more than forty brass pins. They could get almost any price on the retail market for a really well-designed and executed gold pin . . . assuming, as Frink had pointed out, that their stuff went over at all.
At this point they had not yet tried to sell. They had solved what seemed to be their basic technical problems; they had their bench with motors, flex-cable machine, arbor of grinding and polishing wheels. They had in fact a complete range of finishing tools, ranging from the coarse wire brushes through brass brushes and Cratex wheels, to finer polishing buffs of cotton, linen, leather, chamois, which could be coated with compounds ranging from emery and pumice to the most delicate rouges. And of course they had their oxyacetylene welding outfit, their tanks, guages, hoses, tips, masks.
And superb jewelers’ tools. Pliers from Germany and France, micrometers, diamond drills, saws, tongs, tweezers, thirdhand structures for soldering, vises, polishing cloths, shears, hand-forged tiny hammers . . . rows of precision equipment. And their supplies of brazing rod of various gauge, sheet metal, pin backs, links, earring clipbacks. Well over half the two thousand dollars had been spent; they had in their Edfrank bank account only two hundred and fifty dollars, now. But they were set up legally; they even had their PSA permits. Nothing remained but to sell.
No retailer, Frink thought as he studied the displays, can give these a tougher inspection than we have. They certainly looked good, these few select pieces, each painstakingly gone over for bad welds, rough or sharp edges, spots of fire color . . . their quality control was excellent. The slightest dullness or wire brush scratch had been enough reason to return a piece to the shop. We can’t afford to show any crude or unfinished work; one unnoticed black speck on a silver necklace—and we’re finished.
On their list, Robert Childan’s store appeared first. But only Ed could go there; Childan would certainly remember Frank Frink.
“You got to do most of the actual selling,” Ed said, but he was resigned to approaching Childan himself; he had bought a good suit, new tie, white shirt, to make the right impression. Nonetheless, he looked ill-at-ease. “I know we’re good,” he said for the millionth time. “But—hell.”
Most of the pieces were abstract, whirls of wire, loops, designs which to some extent the molten metals had taken on their own. Some had a spider-web delicacy, an airiness; others had a massive, powerful, almost barbaric heaviness. There was an amazing range of shape, considering how few pieces lay on the velvet trays; and yet one store, Frink realized, could buy everything we have laid out here. We’ll see each store once—if we fail. But if we succeed, if we get them to carry our line, we’ll be going back to refill orders the rest of our lives.
Together, the two of them loaded the velvet board trays into the wicker basket. We could get back something on the metal, Frink said to himself, if worse comes to worst. And the tools and equipment; we can dispose of them at a loss, but at least we’ll get something.
This is the moment to consult the oracle. Ask, How will Ed make out on this first selling trip? But he was too nervous to. It might give a bad omen, and he did not feel capable of facing it. In any case, the die was cast: the pieces were made, the shop set up—whatever the I Ching might blab out at this point.
It can’t sell our jewelry for us . . . it can’t give us luck.
“I’ll tackle Childan’s place first,” Ed said. “We might as well get it over with. And then you can try a couple. You’re coming along, aren’t you? In the truck. I’ll park around the corner.”
As they got into their pickup truck with their wicker hamper, Frink thought, God knows how good a salesman Ed is, or I am. Childan can be sold, but it’s going to take a presentation, like they say.
If Juliana were here, he thought, she could stroll in there and do it without batting an eye; she’s pretty, she can talk to anybody on earth, and she’s a woman. After all, this is women’s jewelry. She could wear it into the store. Shutting his eyes, he tried to imagine how she would look with one of their bracelets on. Or one of their large silver necklaces. With her black hair and her pale skin, doleful, probing eyes
wearing a gray jersey sweater, a little bit too tight, the silver resting against her bare flesh, metal rising and falling as she breathed .
God, she was vivid in his mind, right now. Every piece they made, the strong, thin fingers picked up, examined; tossing her head back, holding the piece high. Juliana sorting, always a witness to what he had done.
Best for her, he decided, would be earrings. The bright dangly ones, especially the brass. With her hair held back by a clip or cut short so that her neck and ears could be seen. And we could take photos of her for advertising and display. He and Ed had discussed a catalog, so they could sell by mail to stores in other parts of the world. She would look terrific . . . her skin is nice, very healthy, no sagging or wrinkles, and a fine color. Would she do it, if I could locate her? No matter what she thinks of me; nothing to do with our personal life. This would be a strictly business matter.
Hell, I wouldn’t even take the pictures. We’d get a professional photographer to do it. That would please her. Her vanity probably as great as always. She always liked people to look at her, admire her; anybody. I guess most women are like that. They crave attention all the time. They’re very babyish that way.
He thought, Juliana could never stand being alone; she had to have me around all the time complimenting her. Little kids are that way; they feel if their parents aren’t watching what they do then what they do isn’t real. No doubt she’s got some guy noticing her right now. Telling her how pretty she is. Her legs. Her smooth, flat stomach .
“What’s the matter?” Ed said, glancing at him. “Losing your nerve?”
“No,” Frink said.
“I’m not just going to stand there,” Ed said. “I’ve got a few ideas of my own. And I’ll-tell you something else: I’m not scared. I’m not intimidated just because it’s a fancy place and I have to put on this fancy suit. I admit I don’t like to dress up. I admit I’m not comfortable. But that doesn’t matter a bit. I’m still going in there and really give it to that poophead.”
Good for you, Frink thought.
“Hell, if you could go in there like you did,” Ed said, “and give him that line about being a Jap admiral’s gentleman, I ought to be able to tell him the truth, that this is really good creative original handmade jewelry, that—“
“Handwrought,” Frink said.
“Yeah. Hand wrought. I mean, I’ll go in there and Iwon’t come back out until I’ve given him a run for his money. He ought to buy this. If he doesn’t he’s really nuts. I’ve looked around; there isn’t anything like ours for sale anywhere. God, when I think of him maybe looking at it and not buying it—it makes me so goddam mad I could start swinging.”
“Make sure you tell him it’s not plated,” Frink said. “That copper means solid copper and brass solid brass.”
“You let me work out my own approach,” Ed said, “Igot some really good ideas.”
Frink thought, What I can do is this. I can take a couple of pieces—Ed’ll never care—and box them up and send them to Juliana. So she’ll see what I’m doing. The postal authorities will trace her; I’ll send it registered to her last known address. What’ll she say when she opens the box? There’ll have to be a note from me explaining that I made it myself; that I’m a partner in a little new creative jewelry business. I’ll fire her imagination, give her an account that’ll make her want to know more, that’ll get her interested. I’ll talk about the gems and the metals. The places we’re selling to, the fancy stores .
“Isn’t it along here?” Ed said, slowing the truck. They were in heavy downtown traffic; buildings blotted out the sky. “I better park.”
“Another five blocks,” Frink said.
“Got one of those marijuana cigarettes?” Ed said. “One would calm me right about now.”
Frink passed him his package of T’ien-lais, the “Heavenly Music” brand he had learned to smoke at W-M Corporation.
I know she’s living with some guy, Frink said to himself. Sleeping with him. As if she was his wife. I know Juliana. She couldn’t survive any other way; I know how she gets around nightfall. When it gets cold and dark and everybody’s home sitting around the living room. She was never made for a solitary life. Me neither, he realized.
Maybe the guy’s a real nice guy. Some shy student she picked up. She’d be a good woman for some young guy who had never had the courage to approach a woman before. She’s not hard or cynical. It would do him a lot of good. I hope to hell she’s not with some older guy. That’s what I couldn’t stand. Some experienced mean guy with a toothpick sticking out of the side of his mouth, pushing her around.
He felt himself begin to breathe heavily. Image of some beefy hairy guy stepping down hard on Juliana, making her life miserable . . . I know she’d finally wind up killing herself, he thought. It’s in the cards for her, if she doesn’t find the right man—and that means a really gentle, sensitive, kindly student type who would be able to appreciate all those thoughts she has.
I was too rough for her, he thought. And I’m not so bad; there are a hell of a lot of guys worse than me. I could pretty well figure out what she was thinking, what she wanted, when she felt lonely or bad or depressed. I spent a lot of time worrying and fussing over her. But it wasn’t enough. She deserved more. She deserves a lot, he thought.
“I’m parking,” Ed said. He had found a place and was backing the truck, peering over his shoulder.
“Listen,” Frink said, “Can I send a couple of pieces to my wife?”
“I didn’t know you were married.” Intent on parking, Ed answered him reflexively. “Sure, as long as they’re not silver.”
Ed shut off the truck motor.
“We’re here,” he said. He puffed marijuana smoke, then stubbed the cigarette out on the dashboard, dropped the remains to the cab floor. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” Frank Frink said.
“Hey, look. There’s one of those Jap waka poems on the back of this cigarette package.” Ed read the poem aloud, over the traffic noises.
“Hearing a cuckoo cry,
I looked up in the direction
Whence the sound came:
What did I see?
Only the pale moon in the dawning sky.”
He handed the package of T’ien-lais back to Frink. “Keeriiist!” he said, then slapped Frink on the back, grinned, opened the truck door, picked up the wicker hamper and stepped from the truck. “I’ll let you put the dime in the meter,” he said, starting off down the sidewalk.
In an instant he had disappeared among the other pedestrians.
Juliana, Frink thought. Are you as alone as I am? He got out of the truck and put a dime in the parking meter.
Fear, he thought. This whole jewelry venture. What if it should fail? What if it should fail? That was how the oracle put it. Wailing, tears, beating the pot.
Man faces the darkening shadows of his life. His passage to the grave. If she were here it would not be so bad. Not bad at all.
I’m scared, he realized. Suppose Ed doesn’t sell a thing. Suppose they laugh at us.
What then?
On a sheet on the floor of the front room of her apartment, Juliana lay holding Joe Cinnadella against her. The room was warm and stuffy with midafternoon sunlight. Her body and the body of the man in her arms were damp with perspiration. A drop, rolling down Joe’s forehead, clung a moment to his cheekbone, then fell to her throat.
“You’re still dripping,” she murmured.
He said nothing. His breathing, long, slow, regular . . . like the ocean, she thought. We’re nothing but water inside.
“How was it?” she asked.
He mumbled that it had been okay.
I thought so, Juliana thought. I can tell. Now we both have to get up, pull ourselves together. Or is that bad? Sign of subconscious disapproval?
He stirred.
“Are you getting up?” She gripped him tight with both her arms. “Don’t. Not yet.”
“Don’t you have to get to the gym?”
I’m not going to the gym, Juliana said to herself. Don’t you know that? We will go somewhere; we won’t stay here too much longer. But it will be a place we haven’t been before. It’s time.
She felt him start to draw himself backward and up onto his knees, felt her hands slide along his damp, slippery back. Then she could hear him walking away, his bare feet against the floor. To the bathroom, no doubt. For his shower.
It’s over, she thought. Oh well. She sighed.
“I hear you,” Joe said from the bathroom. “Groaning. Always downcast, aren’t you? Worry, fear and suspicion, about me and everything else in the world—“ He emerged, briefly, dripping with soapy water, face beaming. “How would you like to take a trip?”
Her pulse quickened. “Where?”
“To some big city. How about north, to Denver? I’ll take you out; buy you ticket to a show, good restaurant, taxi, get you evening dress or what you need. Okay?”
She could hardly believe him, but she wanted to; she tried to.
“Will that Stude of yours make it?” Joe called.
“Sure,” she said.
“We’ll both get some nice clothes,” he said. “Enjoy ourselves, maybe for the first time in our lives. Keep you from cracking up.”
“Where’ll we get the money?”
Joe said, “I have it. Look in my suitcase.” He shut the bathroom door; the racket of water shut out any further words.
Opening the dresser, she got out his dented, stained little grip. Sure enough, in one corner she found an envelope; it contained Reichsbank bills, high value and good anywhere. Then we can go, she realized. Maybe he’s not just stringing me along. I just wish I could get inside him and see what’s there, she thought as she counted the money. .
Beneath the envelope she found a huge, cylindrical fountain pen, or at least it appeared to be that; it had a clip, anyhow. But it weighed so much. Gingerly, she lifted it out, unscrewed the cap. Yes, it had a gold point. But .
“What is this?” she asked Joe, when he reappeared from the shower.
He took it from her, returned it to the grip. How carefully he handled it . . . she noticed that, reflected on it, perplexed.
“More morbidity?” Joe said. He seemed lighthearted, more so than at any time since she had met him; with a yell of enthusiasm, he clasped her around the waist, then hoisted her up into his arms, rocking her, swinging her back and forth, peering down into her face, breathing his warm breath over her, squeezing her until she bleated.
“No,” she said. “I’m just—slow to change.” Still a little scared of you, she thought. So scared I can’t even say it, tell you about it.
“Out the window,” Joe cried, stalking across the room with her in his arms. “Here we go.”
“Please,” she said.
“Kidding. Listen—we’re going on a march, like the March on Rome. You remember that. The Duce led them, my Uncle Carlo for example. Now we have a little march, less important, not noted in the history books. Right?” Inclining his head, he kissed her on the mouth so hard that their teeth clashed. “How nice we both’ll look, in our new clothes. And you can explain to me exactly how to talk, deport myself; right? Teach me manners; right?”
“You talk okay,” Juliana said. “Better than me, even.”
“No.” He became abruptly somber. “I talk very bad. A real wop accent. Didn’t you notice it when you first met me in the cafe?”
“I guess so,” she said; it did not seem important to her.
“Only a woman knows the social conventions,” Joe said, carrying her back and dropping her to bounce frighteningly on the bed. “Without a woman we’d discuss racing cars and horses and tell dirty jokes; no civilization.”
You’re in a strange mood, Juliana thought. Restless and brooding, until you decide to move on; then you become hopped up. Do you really want me? You can ditch me, leave me here; it’s happened before. I would ditch you, she thought, if I were going on.
“Is that your pay?” she asked as he dressed. “You saved it up?” It was so much. Of course, there was a good deal of money in the East. “All the other truck drivers I’ve talked to never made so—“
“You say I’m a truck driver?” Joe broke in. “Listen; I rode that rig not to drive but keep off hijackers. Look like a truck driver, snoozing in the cab.” Flopping in a chair in the corner of the room he lay back, pretending sleep, his mouth open, body limp. “See?”
At first she did not see. And then she realized that in his hand was a knife, as thin as a kitchen potato skewer. Good grief, she thought. Where had it come from? Out of his sleeve; out of the air itself.
“That’s why the Volkswagen people hired me. Service record. We protected ourselves against Haselden, those commandos; he led them.” The black eyes glinted; he grinned sideways at Juliana. “Guess who got the Colonel, there at the end. When we caught them on the Nile—him and four of his Long Range Desert Group months after the Cairo campaign. They raided us for gasoline one night. I was on sentry duty. Haselden sneaked up, rubbed with black all over his face and body, even his hands; they had no wire that time, only grenades and submachine guns. All too noisy. He tried to break my larynx. I got him.” From the chair, Joe sprang up at her, laughing. “Let’s pack. You tell them at the gym you’re taking a few days off; phone them.”
His account simply did not convince her. Perhaps he had not been in North Africa at all, had not even fought in the war on the Axis side, had not even fought. What hijackers? she wondered. No truck that she knew of had come through Canon City from the East Coast with an armed professional ex-soldier as guard. Maybe he had not even lived in the U.S.A., had made everything up from the start; a line to snare her, to get her interested, to appear romantic.
Maybe he’s insane, she thought. Ironic . . . I may actually do what I’ve pretended many times to have done: use my judo in self-defense. To save my—virginity? My life, she thought. But more likely he is just some poor low-class wop laboring slob with delusions of glory; he wants to go on a grand spree, spend all his money, live it up—and then go back to his monotonous existence. And he needs a girl to do it.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll call the gym.” As she went toward the hall she thought, He’ll buy me expensive clothes and then take me to some luxurious hotel. Every man yearns to have a really well-dressed woman before he dies, even if he has to buy her the clothes himself. This binge is probably Joe Cinnadella’s lifelong ambition. And he is shrewd; I’ll bet he’s right in his analysis of me—I have a neurotic fear of the masculine. Frank knew it, too. That’s why he and I broke up; that’s why I still feel this anxiety now, this mistrust.
When she returned from the pay phone, she found Joe once more engrossed in the Grasshopper, scowling as he read, unaware of everything else.
“Weren’t you going to let me read that?” she asked.
“Maybe while I drive,” Joe said, without looking up.
“_You’re_ going to drive? But it’s my car!”
He said nothing; he merely went on reading.
At the cash register, Robert Childan looked up to see a lean, tall, dark-haired man entering the store. The man wore a slightly less-than-fashionable suit and carried a large wicker hamper. Salesman. Yet he did not have the cheerful smile; instead, he had a grim, morose look on his leathery face. More like a plumber or an electrician, Robert Childan thought.
When he had finished with his customer, Childan called to the man, “Who do you represent?”
“Edfrank Jewelry,” the man mumbled back. He had set his hamper down on one of the counters.
“Never heard of them.” Childan sauntered over as the man unfastened the top of the hamper and with much wasted motion opened it.
“Handwrought. Each unique. Each an original. Brass, copper, silver. Even hot-forged black iron.”
Childan glanced into the hamper. Metal on black velvet, peculiar. “No thanks. Not in my line.”
“This represents American artistry. Contemporary.”
Shaking his head no, Childan walked back to the cash register.
For a time the man stood fooling with his velvet display boards and hamper. He was neither taking the boards out nor putting them back; he seemed to have no idea what he was doing. His arms folded, Childan watched, thinking about various problems of the day. At two he had an appointment to show some early period cups. Then at three—another batch of items returning from the Cal labs, home from their authenticity test. He had been having more and more pieces examined, in the last couple of weeks. Ever since the nasty incident with the Colt .44.
“These are not plated,” the man with the wicker hamper said, holding up a cuff bracelet. “Solid copper.”
Childan nodded without answering. The man would hang around for a while, shuffle his samples about, but finally he would move on.
The telephone rang. Childan answered it. Customer inquiring about an ancient rocking chair, very valuable, which Childan was having mended for him. It had not been finished, and Childan had to tell a convincing story. Staring through the store window at the midday traffic, he soothed and reassured. At last the customer, somewhat appeased, rang off.
No doubt about it, he thought as he hung up the phone. The Colt .44 affair had shaken him considerably. He no longer viewed his stock with the same reverence. Bit of knowledge like that goes a long way. Akin to primal childhood awakening; facts of life. Shows, he ruminated, the link with ourearly years: not merely U.S. history involved, but our own personal. As if, he thought, question might arise as to authenticity of our birth certificate. Or our impression of Dad.
Maybe I don’t actually recall F.D.R. as example. Synthetic image distilled from hearing assorted talk. Myth implanted subtly in tissue of brain. Like, he thought, myth of Hepplewhite. Myth of Chippendale. Or rather more on lines of Abraham Lincoln ate here. Used this old silver knife, fork, spoon. You can’t see it, but the fact remains.
At the other counter, still fumbling with his displays and wicker hamper, the salesman said, “We can make pieces to order. Custom made. If any of your customers have their own ideas.” His voice had a strangled quality; he cleared his throat, gazing at Childan and then down at a piece of jewelry which he held. He did not know how to leave, evidently. Childan smiled and said nothing.
Not my responsibility. His, to get himself back out of here. Place saved or no.
Tough, such discomfort. But he doesn’t have to be salesman. We all suffer in this life. Look at me. Taking it all day from Japs such as Mr. Tagomi. By merest inflection manage to rub my nose in it, make my life miserable.
And then an idea occurred to him. Fellow’s obviously not experienced. Look at him. Maybe I can get some stuff on consignment. Worth a try.
“Hey,” Childan said.
The man glanced up swiftly, fastened his gaze.
Advancing toward him, his arms still folded, Childan said, “Looks like a quiet half hour, here. No promises, but you can lay some of those things out. Clear back those racks of ties.” He pointed.
Nodding, the man began to clear himself a space on the top of the counter. He reopened his hamper, once more fumbled with the velvet trays.
He’ll lay everything out, Childan knew. Arrange it painstakingly for the next hour. Fuss and adjust until he’s got it all set up. Hoping. Praying. Watching me out of the corner of his eye every second. To see if I’m taking any interest. Any at all.
“When you have it out,” Childan said, “if I’m not too busy I’ll take a look.”
The man worked feverishly, as if he had been stung.
Several customers entered the store then, and Childan greeted them. He turned his attention to them and their wishes, and forgot the salesman laboring over his display. The salesman, recognizing the situation, became stealthy in his movements; he made himself inconspicuous. Childan sold a shaving mug, almost sold a hand-hooked rug, took a deposit on an afghan. Time passed. At last the customers left. Once more the store was empty except for himself and the salesman.
The salesman had finished. His entire selection of jewelry lay arranged on the black velvet on the surface of the counter.
Going leisurely over, Robert Childan lit a Land-O-Smiles and stood rocking back and forth on his heels, humming beneath his breath. The salesman stood silently. Neither spoke.
At last Childan reached out and pointed at a pin. “I like that.”
The salesman said in a rapid voice, “That’s a good one. You won’t find any wire brush scratches. All rouge-finished. And it won’t tarnish. We have a plastic lacquer sprayed on them that’ll last for years. It’s the best industrial lacquer available.”
Childan nodded slightly.
“What we’ve done here,” the salesman said, “is to adapt tried and proven industrial techniques to jewelry making. As far as I know, nobody has ever done it before. No molds. All metal to metal. Welding and brazing.” He paused. “The backs are hand-soldered.”
Childan picked up two bracelets. Then a pin. Then another pin. He held them for a moment, then set them off to one side.
The salesman’s face twitched. Hope.
Examining the price tag on a necklace, Childan said, “Is this—“
“Retail. Your price is fifty percent of that. And i you buy say around a hundred dollars or so, we give you an additional two percent.”
One by one Childan laid several more pieces aside. With each additional one, the salesman became more agitated; he talked faster and faster, finally repeating himself, even saying meaningless foolish things, all in an undertone and very urgently. He really thinks he’s going to sell, Childan knew. By his own expression he showed nothing; he went on with the game of picking pieces.
“That’s an especially good one,” the salesman was rambling on, as Childan fished out a large pendant and then ceased. “I think you got our best. All our best.” The man laughed.
“You really have good taste.” His eyes darted. He was adding in his mind what Childan had chosen. The total of the sale.
Childan said, “Our policy, with untried merchandise, has to be consignment.”
For a few seconds the salesman did not understand. He stopped his talking, but he stared without comprehension.
Childan smiled at him.
“Consignment,” the salesman echoed at last.
“Would you prefer not to leave it?” Childan said.
Stammering, the man finally said, “You mean I leave it and you pay me later on when—“
“You get two-thirds of the proceeds. When the pieces sell. That way you make much more. You have to wait, of course, but---“ Childan shrugged. “It’s up to you. I can give it some window display, possibly. And if it moves, then possibly later on, in a month or so, with the next order—well, we might see our way clear to buy some outright.”
The salesman had now spent well over an hour showing his wares, Childan realized. And he had everything out. All his displays disarranged and dismantled. Another hour’s work to get it back ready to take somewhere else. There was silence. Neither man spoke.
“Those pieces you put to one side—“ the salesman said in a low voice. “They’re the ones you want?”
“Yes. I’ll let .you leave them all.” Childan strolled over to his office in the rear of the store. “I’ll write up a tag. So you’ll have a record of what you’ve left with me.” As he came back with his tag book he added, “You understand that when merchandise is left on a consignment basis the store doesn’t assume liability in case of theft or damage.” He had a little mimeographed release for the salesman to sign. The store would never have to account for the items left. When the unsold portion was returned, if some could not be located—they must have been stolen, Childan declared to himself. There’s always theft going on in stores. Especially small items like jewelry.
There was no way that Robert Childan could lose. He did not have to pay for this man’s jewelry; he had no investment in this kind of inventory. If any of it sold he made a profit, and if it did not, he simply returned it all—or as much as could be found—to the salesman at some vague later date.
Childan made out the tag, listing the items. He signed it and gave a copy to the salesman. “You can give me a call,” he said, “in a month or so. To find out how it’s been doing.”
Taking the jewelry which he wanted he went off to the back of the store, leaving the salesman to gather .up his remaining stuff.
I didn’t think he’d go along with it, he thought. You never know. That’s why it’s always worth trying.
When he next looked up, he saw that the salesman was ready to leave. He had his wicker hamper under his arm and the counter was clear. The salesman was coming toward him, holding something out.
“Yes?” Childan said. He had been going over some correspondence.
“I want to leave our card.” The salesman put down an odd-looking little square of gray and red paper on Childan’s desk. “Edfrank Custom Jewelry. It has our address and phone number. In case you want to get in touch with us.”
Childan nodded, smiledsilently, and returned to his work.
When next he paused and looked up the store was empty. The salesman had gone.
Putting a nickel into the wall dispenser, Childan obtained a cup of hot instant tea which he sipped contemplatively.
I wonder if it will sell, he wondered. Very unlikely. But it is well made. And one never sees anything like it. He examined one of the pins. Quite striking design. Certainly not amateurs.
I’ll change the tags. Mark them up a lot higher. Push the handmade angle. And the uniqueness. Custom originals. Small sculptures. Wear a work of art. Exclusive creation on your lapel or wrist.
And there was another notion circulating and growing in the back of Robert Childan’s mind. With these, there’s no problem of authenticity. And that problem may someday wreck the historic American artifacts industry. Not today or tomorrow—but after that, who knows.
Better not to have all irons in one fire. That visit by that Jewish crook; that might be the harbinger. If I quietly build up a stock of nonhistoric objects, contemporary work with no historicity either real or imagined, I might find I have the edge over the competition. And as long as it isn’t costing me anything .
Leaning back his chair so that it rested against the wall he sipped his tea and pondered.
The Moment changes. One must be ready to change with it. Or otherwise left high and dry. Adapt.
The rule of survival, he thought. Keep eye peeled regarding situation around you. Learn its demands. And—meet them. Be there at the right time doing the right thing.
Be yinnish. The Oriental knows. The smart black yinnish eyes.
Suddenly he had a good idea; it made him sit upright instantly. Two birds, one stone. Ah. He hopped to his feet, excited. Carefully wrap best of jewelry pieces (removing tag, of course). Pin, pendant, or bracelet., Something nice, anyhow. Then—since have to leave shop, close up at two as it is—saunter over to Kasouras’ apartment building. Mr. Kasouras, Paul, will be at work. However, Mrs. Kasoura, Betty, will very likely be home.
Graft gift, this new original U.S. artwork. Compliments of myself personally, in order to obtain high-place reaction. This is how a new line is introduced. Isn’t it lovely? Whole selection back at store; drop in, etc. This one for you, Betty.
He trembled. Just she and I, midday in the apartment. Husband off at work. All on up and up, however; brilliant pretext.
Airtight!
Getting a small box plus wrapping paper and ribbon, Robert Childan began preparing a gift for Mrs. Kasoura. Dark, attractive woman, slender in her silk Oriental dress, high heels, and so on. Or maybe today blue cotton cooliestyle lounging pajamas, very light and comfortable and informal. Ah, he thought.
Or is this too bold? Husband Paul becoming irked. Scenting out and reacting badly. Perhaps go slower; take gift to him, to his office? Give much the same story, but to him. Then let him give gift to her; no suspicion. And, Robert Childan thought, then I give Betty a call on the phone tomorrow or next day to get her reaction.
Even more airtight!
When Frank Frink saw his business partner coming back up the sidewalk he could tell that it had not gone well.
“What happened?” he said, taking the wicker hamper from Ed and putting it in the truck. “Jesus Christ, you were gone an hour and a half. It took him that long to say no?”
Ed said, “He didn’t say no.” He looked tired. He got into the truck and sat.
“What’d he say, then?” Opening the hamper, Frink saw that a good many of the pieces were gone. Many of their best. “He took a lot. What’s the matter, then?”
“Consignment,” Ed said.
“You let him?” He could not believe it. “We talked it over—“
“I don’t know how come.”
“Christ,” Frink said.
“I’m sorry. He acted like he was going to buy it. He picked a lot out. I thought he was buying.”
They sat together silently in the truck for a long time.
It had been a terrible two weeks for Mr. Baynes. From his hotel room he had called the Trade Mission every day at noon to ask if the old gentleman had put in an appearance. The answer had been an unvarying no. Mr. Tagomi’s voice had become colder and more formal each day. As Mr. Baynes prepared to make his sixteenth call, he thought, Sooner or later they’ll tell me that Mr. Tagomi is out. That he isn’t accepting any more calls from me. And that will be that.
What has happened? Where is Mr. Yatabe?
He had a fairly good idea. The death of Martin Bormann had caused immediate consternation in Tokyo. Mr. Yatabe no doubt had been en route to San Francisco, a day or so offshore, when new instructions had reached him. Return to the Home Islands for further consultation.
Bad luck, Mr. Baynes realized. Possibly even fatal.
But he had to remain where he was, in San Francisco. Still trying to arrange the meeting for which he had come. Forty.. five minutes by Lufthansa rocket from Berlin, and now this. A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope. Falling into an interminable ennui. And meanwhile, the others are busy. They are not sitting helplessly waiting.
Mr. Baynes unfolded the midday edition of the Nippon Times and once more read the headlines.
DR. GOEBBELS NAMED REICHS CHANCELLOR
Surprise solution to leadership problem by Partei Committee. Radio speech viewed decisive. Berlin crowds cheer. Statement expected. Goring may be named Police Chief over Heydrich.
He reread the entire article. And then he put the paper once more away, took the phone, and gave the Trade Mission number.
“This is Mr. Baynes. May I have Mr. Tagomi?”
“A moment, sir.”
A very long moment.
“Mr. Tagomi here.”
Mr. Baynes took a deep breath and said, “Forgive this situation depressing to us both, sir—“
“Ah. Mr. Baynes.”
“Your hospitality to me sir, could not be exceeded. Someday I know you will have understanding of the reasons which cause me to defer our conference until the old gentleman—“
“Regretfully, he has not arrived.”
Mr. Baynes shut his eyes. “I thought maybe since yesterday—“
“Afraid not, sir.” The barest politeness. “If you will excuse me, Mr. Baynes. Pressing business.”
“Good day, sir.”
The phone clicked. Today Mr. Tagomi had rung off without even saying good-bye. Mr. Baynes slowly hung the receiver.
I must take action. Can wait no longer.
It had been made very clear to him by his superiors that he was not to contact the Abwehr under any circumstances. He was simply to wait until he had managed to make connections with the Japanese military representative; he was to confer with the Japanese, and then he was to return to Berlin. But no one had forseen that Bormann would die at this particular moment. Therefore—The orders had to be superseded. By more practical advice. His own, in this case, since there was no one else to consult.
In the PSA at least ten Abwehr persons were at work, but some of them—and possibly all—were known to the local SD and its competent senior regional chief, Bruno Kreuz vom Meere. Years ago he had met Bruno briefly at a Partei gathering. The man had had a certain infamous prestige in Police circles, inasmuch as it had been he, in 1943, who had uncovered the British-Czech plot on Reinhard Heydrich’s life, and therefore who might be said to have saved the Hangman from assassination. In any case, Bruno K.reuz vom Meere was already then ascending in authority within the SD. He was not a mere police bureaucrat.
He was, in fact, a rather dangerous man.
There was even a possibility that even with all the precautions taken, both on the part of the Abwehr in Berlin and the Tokkoka in Tokyo, the SD had learned of this attempted meeting in San Francisco in the offices of the Ranking Trade Mission. However, this was after all Japanese-administered land. The SD had no official authority to interfere. It could see to it that the German principal—himself in this case—was arrested as soon as he set foot again on Reich territory; but it could hardly take action against the Japanese principal, or against the existence of the meeting itself.
At least, so he hoped.
Was there any possibility that the SD had managed to detain the old Japanese gentleman somewhere along the route? It was a long way from Tokyo to San Francisco, especially for a person so elderly and frail that he could not attempt air travel.
What I must do, Mr. Baynes knew, is find out from those above me whether Mr. Yatabe is still coming. They would know. If the SD had intercepted him or if the Tokyo Government has recalled him—they would know that.
And if they have managed to get to the old gentleman, he realized, they certainly are going to get to me.
Yet the situation even in those circumstances was not hopeless. An idea had come to Mr. Baynes as he waited day after day alone in his room at the Abhirati Hotel.
It would be better to give my information to Mr. Tagomi than to return to Berlin empty-handed. At least that way there would be a chance, even if it is rather slight, that ultimately the proper people will be informed. But Mr. Tagomi could only listen; that was the fault in his idea. At best, he could hear, commit to memory, and as soon as possible take a business trip back to the Home Islands. Whereas Mr. Yatabe stood at policy level. He could both hear—and speak.
Still, it was better than nothing. The time was growing too short. To begin all over, to arrange painstakingly, cautiously, over a period of months once again the delicate contact between a faction in Germany and a faction in Japan .
It certainly would surprise Mr. Tagomi, he thought acidly. To suddenly find knowledge of that kind resting on his shoulders. A long way from facts about injection molds...
Possibly he might have a nervous breakdown. Either blurt out the information to someone around him, or withdraw; pretend, even to himself, that he had not heard it. Simply refuse to believe me. Rise to his feet, bow and excuse himself from the room, the moment I begin.
Indiscreet. He could regard it that way. He is not supposed to hear such matters.
So easy, Mr. Baynes thought. The way out is so immediate, so available, to him. He thought, I wish it was for me.
And yet in the final anaylsis it is not possible even for Mr. Tagomi. We are no different. He can close his ears to the news as it comes from me, comes in the form of words. But later. When it is not a matter of words. If! can make that clear to him now. Or to whomever I finally speak—
Leaving his hotel room, Mr. Baynes descended by elevator to the lobby. Outside on the sidewalk, he had the doorman call a pedecab for him, and soon he was on his way up Market Street, the Chinese driver pumping away energetically.
“There,” he said to the driver, when he made out the sign which he was watching for. “Pull over to the curb.”
The pedecab stopped by a fire hydrant. Mr. Baynes paid the driver and sent him off. No one seemed to have followed. Mr. Baynes set off along the sidewalk on foot. A moment later, along with several other shoppers, he entered the big downtown Fuga Department Store.
There were shoppers everywhere. Counter after counter. Salesgirls, mostly white, with a sprinkling of Japanese as department managers. The din was terrific.
After some confusion Mr. Baynes located the men’s clothing department. He stopped at the racks of men’s trousers and began to inspect them. Presently a clerk, a young white, came over, greeting him.
Mr. Baynes said, “I have returned for the pair of dark brown wool slacks which I was looking at yesterday.” Meeting the clerk’s gaze he said, “You’re not the man I spoke to. He was taller. Red mustache. Rather thin. On his jacket he had the name Larry.”
The clerk said, “He is presently out to lunch. But will return.”
“I’ll go into a dressing room and try these on,” Mr. Baynes said, taking a pair of slacks from the rack.
“Certainly, sir.” The clerk indicated a vacant dressing room, and then went off to wait on someone else.
Mr. Baynes entered the dressing room and shut the door. He seated himself on one of the two chairs and waited.
After a few minutes there was a knock. The door of the dressing room opened and a short middle-aged Japanese entered. “You are from out of state, sir?” he said to Mr. Baynes. “And I am to okay your credit? Let me see your. identification.” He shut the door behind him.
Mr. Baynes got out his wallet. The Japanese seated himself with the wallet and began inspecting the contents. He halted at a photo of a girl. “Very pretty.”
“My daughter. Martha.”
“I, too, have a daughter named Martha,” the Japanese said. “She at present is in Chicago studying piano.”
“My daughter,” Mr. Baynes said, “is about to be married.”
The Japanese returned the wallet and waited expectantly.
Mr. Baynes said, “I have been here two weeks and Mr. Yatabe has not shown up. I want to find out if he is still coming. And if not, what I should do.”
“Return tomorrow afternoon,” the Japanese said. He rose, and Mr. Baynes also rose. “Good day.”
“Good day,” Mr. Baynes said. He left the dressing room, hung the pair of slacks back up on the rack, and left the Fuga Department Store.
That did not take very long, he thought as he moved along the busy downtown sidewalk with the other pedestrians. Can he actually get the information by then? Contact Berlin, relay my questions, do all the coding and decoding—every step involved?
Apparently so.
Now I wish I had approached the agent sooner. I would have saved myself much worry and distress. And evidently no major risk was involved; it all appeared to go off smoothly. It took in fact only five or six minutes.
Mr. Baynes wandered on, looking into store windows. He felt much better now. Presently he found himself viewing display photos of honky-tonk cabarets, grimy flyspecked utterly white nudes whose breasts hung like half-inflated volleyballs. That sight amused him and he loitered, people pushing past him on their various errands up and down Market Street.
At least he had done something, at last.
What a relief!
Propped comfortably against the car door, Juliana read. Beside her, his elbow out the window, Joe drove with one hand lightly on the wheel, a cigarette stuck to his lower lip; he was a good driver, and they had covered a good deal of the distance from Canon City already.
The car radio played mushy beer-garden folk music, an accordion band doing one of the countless polkas or schottishes; she had never been able to tell them one from another.
“Kitsch,” Joe said, when the music ended. “Listen, I know a lot about music; I’ll tell you who a great conductor was. You probably don’t remember him. Arturo Toscanini.”
“No,” she said, still reading.
“He was Italian. But the Nazis wouldn’t let him conduct after the war, because of his politics. He’s dead, now. I don’t like that von Karajan, permanent conductor of the New York Philharmonic. We had to go to concerts by him, our work dorm. What I like, being a wop—you can guess.” He glanced at her. “You like that book?” he said.
“It’s engrossing.”
“I like Verdi and Puccini. All we get in New York is heavy German bombastic Wagner and Orff, and we have to go every week to one of those corny U.S. Nazi Party dramatic spectacles at Madison Square Garden, with the flags and drums and trumpets and the flickering flame. History of the Gothic tribes or other educational crap, chanted instead of spoken, so as to be called ‘art.’ Did you ever see New York before the war?”
“Yes,” she said, trying to read.
“Didn’t they have swell theater in those days? That’s what I heard. Now it’s the same as the movie industry; it’s all a cartel in Berlin. In the thirteen years I’ve been in New York not one good new musical or play ever opened, only those—“
“Let me read,” Juliana said.
“And the same with the book business,” Joe said, unperturbed. “It’s all a cartel operating out of Munich. All they do in New York is print; just big printing presses—but before the war, New York was the center of the world’s publishing industry, or so they say.”
Putting her fingers in her ears, she concentrated on the page open in her lap, shutting his voice out. She had arrived at a section in The Grasshopper which described the fabulous television, and it enthralled her; especially the part about the inexpensive little sets for backward people in Africa and Asia.
. . . Only Yankee know-how and the mass-production system—Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, the magic names !--could have done the trick, sent that ceaseless and almost witlessly noble flood of cheap one-dollar (the China Dollar, the trade dollar) television kits to every village and backwater of the Orient. And when the kit had been assembled by some gaunt, feverishminded youth in the village, starved for a chance, for that which the generous Americans held out to him, that tinny little instrument with its built-in power supply no larger than a marble began to receive. And what did it receive? Crouching before the screen, the youths of the village—and often the elders as well—saw words. Instructions. How to read, first. Then the rest. How to dig a deeper well. Plow a deeper furrow. How to purify their water, heal their sick. Overhead, the American artificial moon wheeled, distributing the signal, carrying it everywhere . . . to all the waiting, avid masses of the East.
“Are you reading straight through?” Joe asked. “Or skipping around in it?”
She said, “This is wonderful; he has us sending food and education to all the Asiatics, millions of them.”
“Welfare work on a worldwide scale,” Joe said.
“Yes. The New Deal under Tugwell; they raise the level of the masses—listen.” She read aloud to Joe:
. . . What had China been? Yearning, one needful commingled entity looking toward the West, its great democratic President, Chiang Kai-shek, who had led the Chinese people through the years of war, now into the years of peace, into the Decade of Rebuilding. But for China it was not a rebuilding, for that almost supernaturally vast flat land had never been built, lay still slumbering in the ancient dream. Arousing; yes, the entity, the giant, had to partake at last of full consciousness, had to waken into the modern world with its jet airplanes and atomic power, its autobahns and factories and medicines. And from whence would come the crack of thunder which would rouse the giant? Chiang had known that, even during the struggle to defeat Japan. It would come from the United States. And, by 1950, American technicians and engineers, teachers, doctors, agronomists, swarming like some new life form into each province, each—
Interrupting, Joe said, “You know what he’s done, don’t you? He’s taken the best about Nazism, the socialist part, the Todt Organization and the economic advances we got through Speer, and who’s he giving the credit to? The New Deal. And he’s left out the bad part, the SS part, the racial extermination and segregation. It’s a utopia! You imagine if the Allies had won, the New Deal would have been able to revive the economy and make those socialist welfare improvements, like he says? Hell no; he’s talking about a form of state syndicalism, the corporate state, like we developed under the Duce. He’s saying, You would have had all the good and none of—“
“Let me read,” she said fiercely.
He shrugged. But he did cease babbling. She read on at once, but to herself.
. . . And these markets, the countless millions of China, set the factories in Detroit and Chicago to humming; that vast mouth could never be filled, those people could not in a hundred years be given enough trucks or bricks or steel ingots or clothing or typewriters or canned peas or clocks or radios or nosedrops. The American workman, by 1960, had the highest standard of living in the world, and all due to what they genteelly called “the most favored nation” clause in every commercial transaction with the East. The U.S. no longer occupied Japan, and she had never occupied China; and yet the fact could not be disputed: Canton and Tokyo and Shanghai did not buy from the British; they bought American. And with each sale, the workingman in Baltimore or Los Angeles or Atlanta saw a little more prosperity.
It seemed to the planners, the men of vision in the White House, that they had almost achieved their goal. The exploring rocket ships would soon nose cautiously out into the void from a world that had at last seen an end to its age-old griefs: hunger, plague, war, ignorance. In the British Empire, equal measures toward social and economic progress had brought similar relief to the masses in India, Burma, Africa, the Middle East. The factories of the Ruhr, Manchester, of the Saar, the oil of Baku, all flowed and interacted in intricate but effective harmony; the populations of Europe basked in what appeared .
“I think they should be the rulers,” Juliana said, pausing. “They always were the best. The British.” -
Joe said nothing to that, although she waited. At last she went on reading.
. . . Realization of Napoleon’s vision: rational homogeneity of the diverse ethnic strains which had squabbled and balkanized Europe since the collapse of Rome. Vision, too, of Charlemagne: united Christendom, totally at peace not only with itself but with the balance of the world. And yet—there still remained one annoying sore.
Singapore.
The Malay States held a large Chinese population, mostly of the enterprising business class, and these thrifty, industrious bourgeois saw in American administration of China a more equitable treatment of what was called “the native.” Under British rule, the darker races were excluded from the country clubs, the hotels, the better restaurants; they found themselves, as in archaic times, confined to particular sections of the train and bus and—perhaps worst of all—limited to their choice of residence within each city. These “natives” discerned, and noted in their table conversations and newspapers, that in the U.S .A. the color problem had by 1950 been solved. Whites and Negroes lived and worked and ate shoulder by shoulder, even in the Deep South; World War Two had ended discrimination.
“Is there trouble?” Juliana asked Joe.
He grunted, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Tell me what happens,” she said. “I know! won’t get to finish it; we’ll be in Denver pretty soon. Do America and Britain get into a war, and one emerges as ruler of the world?”
Presently Joe said, “In some ways it’s not a bad book. He woiks all the details out; the U.S. has the Pacific, about like our East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They divide Russia. It works for around ten years. Then there’s trouble—naturally.”
“Why naturally?”
“Human nature.” Joe added, “Nature of states. Suspicion, fear, greed. Churchill thinks the U.S.A. is undermining British rule in South Asia by appealing to the large Chinese populations, who naturally are pro-U.S.A., due to Chiang Kai-shek. The British start setting up’ ‘—he grinned at her briefly—“what are called ‘detention preserves.’ Concentration camps, in other words. For thousands of maybe disloyal Chinese. They’re accused of sabotage and propaganda. Churchill is so—“
“You mean he’s still in power? Wouldn’t he be around ninety?”
Joe said, “That’s where the British system has it over the American. Every eight years the U.S. boots out its leaders, no matter how qualified—but Churchill just stays on. The U.S. doesn’t have any leadership like him, after Tugwell. Just nonentities. And the older he gets, the more autocratic and rigid he gets—Churchill, I mean. Until by 1960, he’s like some old warlord out of Central Asia; nobody can cross him. He’s been in power twenty years.”
“Good God,” she said, leafing through the last part of the book, searching for verification of what Joe was saying.
“On that I agree,” Joe said. “Churchill was the one good leader the British had during the war; if they’d retained him they’d have been better off. I tell you; a state is no better than its leader. Fuhrerprinzip—Principle of Leadership, like the Nazis say. They’re right. Even this Abendsen has to face that. Sure, the U.S.A. expands- economically after winning the war over Japan, because it’s got that huge market in Asia that it’s wrested from the Japs. But that’s not enough; that’s got no spirituality. Not that the British have. They’re both plutocracies, rule by the rich. If they had won, all they’d have thought about was making more money, that upper class. Abendsen, he’s wrong; there would be no social reform, no welfare public works plans—the Anglo-Saxon plutocrats wouldn’t have permitted it.”
Juliana thought, Spoken like a devout Fascist.
Evidently Joe perceived by her expression what she was thinking; he turned toward her, slowing the car, one eye on her, one on the cars ahead. “Listen, I’m not an intellectual—Fascism has no need of that. What is wanted is the deed. Theory derives from action. What our corporate state demands from us is comprehension of the social forces-of history. You see? I tell you; I know, Juliana.” His tone was earnest, almost beseeching. “Those old rotten money-run empires, Britain and France and U.S.A., although the latter actually a sort of bastard sideshoot, not strictly empire, but money-oriented even so. They had no soul, so naturally no future. No growth. Nazis a bunch of street thugs; I agree. You agree? Right?”
She had to smile; his Italian mannerisms had overpowered him in his attempt to drive and make his speech simultaneously.
“Abendsen talks like it’s big issue as to whether U.S. or Britain ultimately wins out. Bull! Has no merit, no history to it. Six of one, dozen of other. You ever read what the Duce wrote? Inspired. Beautiful man. Beautiful writing. Explains the underlying actuality of every event. Real issue in war was: old versus new. Money—that’s why Nazis dragged Jewish question mistakenly into it—versus communal mass spirit, what Nazis call Gemeinschaft—folkness. Like Soviet. Commune. Right? Only, Communists sneaked in Pan-Slavic Peter the Great empire ambitions along with it, made social reform means for imperial ambitions.”
Juliana thought, Like Mussolini did. Exactly.
“Nazi thuggery a tragedy,” Joe stuttered away as he passed a slow-moving truck. “But change’s always harsh on the loser. Nothing new. Look at previous revolutions such as French. Or Cromwell against Irish. Too much philosophy in Germanic temperament; too much theater, too. All those rallies. You never find true Fascist talking, only doing—like me. Right?”
Laughing, she said, “God, you’ve been talking a mile a minute.”
He shouted excitedly, “I’m explaining Fascist theory of action!”
She couldn’t answer; it was too funny.
But the man beside her did not think it was funny; he glowered at her, his face red. Veins in his forehead became distended and he began once more to shake. And again he passed his fingers clutchingly along his scalp, forward and back, not speaking, only staring at her.
“Don’t get sore at me,” she said.
For a moment she thought he was going to hit her; he drew his arm back . . . but then he grunted, reached and turned up the car radio.
They drove on. Band music from the radio, static. Once more she tried to concentrate on the book.
“You’re right,” Joe said after a long time.
“About what?”
“Two-bit empire. Clown for a leader. No wonder we got nothing out of the war.”
She patted his arm.
“Juliana, it’s all darkness,” Joe said. “Nothing is true or certain. Right?”
“Maybe so,” she said absently, continuing to try to read.
“Britain wins,” Joe said, indicating the book. “I save you the trouble. U.S. dwindles, Britain keeps needling and poking and expanding, keeps the initiative. So put it away.”
“I hope we have fun in Denver,” she said, closing the book. “You need to relax. I want you to.” If you don’t, she thought, you’re going to fly apart in a million pieces. Like a bursting spring. And what happens tome, then? How do I get back? And—do I just leave you?
I want the good time you promised me, she thought. I don’t want to be cheated; I’ve been cheated too much in my life before, by too many people.
“We’ll have it,” Joe said. “Listen.” He studied her with a queer, introspective expression. “You take to that. Grasshopper book so much; I wonder—do you suppose a man who writes a best seller, an author like that Abendsen do people write letters to him? I bet lots of people praise his book by letters to him, maybe even visit.”
All at once she understood. “Joe—it’s only another hundred miles!”
His eyes shone; he smiled at her, happy again, no longer flushed or troubled.
“We could!” she said. “You drive so good—it’d be nothing to go on up there, would it?”
Slowly, Joe said, “Well, I doubt a famous man lets visitors drop in. Probably so many of them.”
“Why not try? Joe—“ She grabbed his shoulder, squeezed him excitedly. “All he could do is send us away. Please.”
With great deliberation, Joe said, “When we’ve gone shopping and got new clothes, all spruced up. . . that’s important, to make a good impression. And maybe even rent a new car up in Cheyenne. Bet you can do that.”
“Yes,” she said. “And you need a haircut. And let me pick your clothes; please, Joe. I used to pick Frank’s clothes for him; a man can never buy his own clothes.”
“You got good taste in clothes,” Joe said, once more turning toward the road ahead, gazing out somberly. “In other ways, too. Better if you call him. Contact him.”
“I’ll get my hair done,” she said.
‘ “Good.” ‘ ‘
“I’m not scared at all to walk up and ring the bell,” Juliana said. “I mean, you live only once. Why should we be intimidated? He’s just a man like the rest of us. In fact, he probably would be pleased to know somebody drove so far just to tell him how much they liked his book. We can get an autograph on the book, on the inside where they do that. Isn’t that so? We better buy a new copy; this one is all stained. It wouldn’t look good.”
“Anything you want,” Joe said. “I’ll let you decide all the details; I know you can do it. Pretty girl always gets everyone; when he sees what a knockout you are he’ll open the door wide. But listen; no monkey business.”
“What do you mean?”
“You say we’re married. I don’t want you getting mixed up with him—you know. That would be dreadful. Wreck everyone’s existence; some reward for him to let visitors in, some irony. So watch it, Juliana.”
“You can argue with him,” Juliana said. “That part about Italy losing the war by betraying them; tell him what you told me.”
Joe nodded. “That’s so. We can discuss the whole subject.”
They drove swiftly on.
At seven o’clock the following morning, PSA reckoning, Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi rose from bed, started toward the bathroom, then changed his mind and went directly to the oracle.
Seated cross-legged on the floor of his living room he began manipulating the forty-nine yarrow stalks. He had a deep sense of the urgency of his questioning, and he worked at a feverish pace until at last he had the six lines before him.
Shock! Hexagram Fifty-one!
God appears in the sign of the Arousing. Thunder and lightning. Sounds—he involuntarily put his fingers up to cover his ears. Ha-ha! Ho-ho! Great burst that made him wince and blink. Lizard scurries and tiger roars, and out comes God Himself!
What does it mean? He peered about his living room. Arrival of—what? He hopped to his feet and stood panting, waiting.
Nothing. Heart pounding. Respiration and all somatic processes, including all manner of diencephalic-controlled autonomic responses to crisis: adrenalin, greater heartbeat, pulse rate, glands pouring, throat paralyzed, eyes staring, bowels loose, et al. Stomach queasy and sex instinct suppressed.
And yet, nothing to see; nothing for body to do. Run? All in preparation for panic flight. But where to and why? Mr. Tagomi asked himself. No clue. Therefore impossible. Dilemma of civilized man; body mobilized, but danger obscure.
He went to the bathroom and began lathering his face to shave.
The telephone rang.
“Shock,” he said aloud, putting down his razor. “Be prepared.” He walked rapidly from the bathroom, back into the living room. “I am prepared,” he said, and lifted the receiver. “Tagomi, here.” His voice squeaked and he cleared his throat.
A pause. And then a faint, dry, rustling voice, almost like old leaves far off, said, “Sir. This is Shinjiro Yatabe. I have arrived in San Francisco.”
“Greetings from the Ranking Trade Mission,” Mr. Tagomi said. “How glad I am. You are in good health and relaxed?”
“Yes, Mr. Tagomi. When may I meet you?”
“Quite soon. In half an hour.” Mr. Tagomi peered at the bedroom clock, trying to read it. “A third party: Mr. Baynes. I must contact him. Possibly delay, but—“
“Shall we say two hours, sir?” Mr. Yatabe said.
“Yes,” Mr. Tagomi said, bowing.
“At your office in the Nippon Times Building.”
Mr. Tagomi bowed once more.
Click. Mr. Yatabe had rung off.
Pleased Mr. Baynes, Mr. Tagomi thought. Delight on order of cat tossed piece of salmon, for instance fatty nice tail. He jiggled the hook, then dialed speedily the Adhirati Hotel.
“Ordeal concluded,” he said, when Mr. Baynes’ sleepy voice came on the wire.
At once the voice ceased to be sleepy. “He’s here?”
“My office,” Mr. Tagomi said. “Ten-twenty. Goodbye.” He hung up and ran back to the bathroom to finish shaving. No time for breakfast; have Mr. Ramsey scuttle about after office arrival completed. All three of us perhaps can indulge simultaneously—in his mind as he shaved he planned a fine breakfast for them all.
In his pajamas, Mr. Baynes stood at the phone, rubbing his forehead and thinking. A shame I broke down and made contact with that agent, he thought. If I had waited only one day more . .
But probably no harm’s been done. Yet he was supposed to return to the department store today. Suppose I don’t show up? It may start a chain reaction; they’ll think I’ve been murdered or some such thing. An attempt will be made to trace me.
It doesn’t matter. Because he’s here. At last. The waiting is over.
Mr. Baynes hurried to the bathroom and prepared to shave.
I have no doubt that Mr. Tagomi will recognize him the moment he meets him, he decided. We can drop the “Mr. Yatabe” cover, now. In fact, we can drop all covers, all pretenses.
As soon as he had shaved, Mr. Baynes hopped into the shower. As water roared around him he sang at the top of his lungs:
“Wer reitet so spat,
Durch Nacht und den Wind?
Es ist der Vater
Mit seinem Kind.”
It is probably too late now for the SD to do anything, he thought. Even if they find out. So perhaps I can cease worrying; at least, the trivial worry. The finite, private worry about my own particular skin.
But as to the rest—we can just begin.
For the Reichs Consul in San Francisco, Freiherr Hugo Reiss, the first business of this particular day was unexpected and distressing. When he arrived at his office he found a visitor waiting already, a large, heavy-jawed, middle-aged man with pocked skin and disapproving scowl that drew his black, tangled eyebrows together. The man rose and made a Partei salute, at the same time murmuring, “Heil.”
Reiss said, “Heil.” He groaned inwardly, but maintained a businesslike formal smile. “Herr Kreuz vom Meere. I am surprised. Won’t you come in?” He unlocked his inner office, wondering where his vice-consul was, and who had let the SD chief in. Anyhow, here the man was. There was nothing to be done.
Following along after him, his hands in the pockets of his dark wool overcoat, Kreuz vom Meere said, “Listen, Freiherr. We located this Abwehr fellow. This Rudolf Wegener. He showed up at an old Abwehr drop we have under surveillance.” Kreuz vom Meere chuckled, showing enormous gold teeth. “And we trailed him back to his hotel.”
“Fine,” Reiss said, noticing that his mail was on his desk. So Pferdehuf was around somewhere. No doubt he had left the office locked to keep the SD chief from a little informal snooping.
“This is important,” Kruez vom Meere said. “I notified Kaltenbrunner about it. Top priority. You’ll probably be getting word from Berlin any time now. Unless those Un ratfressers back home get it all mixed up.” He seated himself on the consul’s desk, took a wad of folded paper from his coat pocket, unfolded the paper laboriously, his lips moving. “Cover name is Baynes. Posing as a Swedish industrialist or salesman or something connected with manufacturing. Receivedphone call this morning at eight-ten from Japanese official regarding appointment at ten-twenty in the Jap’s office. We’re presently trying to trace the call. Probably will have it traced in another half hour. They’ll notify me here.”
“I see,” Reiss said.
“Now, we may pick up this fellow,” Kreuz vom Meere continued. “If we do, we’ll naturally send him back to the Reich aboard the next Lufthansa plane. However, the Japs or Sacramento may protest and try to block it. They’ll protest to you, if they do. In fact, they may bring enormous pressure to bear. And they’ll run a truckload of those Tokkoka toughs to the airport.”
“You can’t keep them from finding out?”
“Too late. He’s on his way to this appointment. We may have to pick him up right there on the spot. Run in, grab him, run out.”
“I don’t like that,” Reiss said. “Suppose his appointment is with some extremely high-place Jap officials? There may be an Emperor’s personal representative in San Francisco, right now. I heard a rumor the other day—“
Kreuz vom Meere interrupted. “It doesn’t matter. He’s a German national. Subject to Reichs law.”
And we know what Reichs law is, Reiss thought.
“I have a Kommando squad ready,” Kreuz vom Meere went on. “Five good men.” He chuckled. “They look like violinists. Nice ascetic faces. Soulful. Maybe like divinity students. They’ll get in. The Japs’ll think they’re a string quartet—“
“Quintet,” Reiss said.
“Yes. They’ll walk right up to the door—they’re dressed just right.” He surveyed the consul. “Pretty much as you are.”
Thank you, Reiss thought.
“Right in plain sight. Broad daylight. Up to this Wegener. Gather around him. Appear to be conferring. Message of importance.” Kreuz vom Meere droned on, while the consul began opening his maiL “No violence. Just, ‘Herr Wegener. Come with us, please. You understand.’ And between the vertebrae of his spine a little shaft. Pump. Upper ganglia paralyzed.”
Reiss nodded.
“Are you listening?”
“Ganz bestimmt.”
“Then out again. To the car. Back to my office. Japs make a lot of racket. But polite to the last.” Kreuz vom Meere lumbered from the desk to pantomime a Japanese bowing.
‘Most vulgar to deceive us, Herr Kruez vom Meere. However, good-bye, Herr Wegener—‘
“Baynes,” Reiss said. “Isn’t he using his cover name?”
“Baynes. ‘So sorry to see you go. Plenty more talk maybe next time.’ “ The phone on Reiss’ desk rang, and Kreuz vom Meere ceased his prank. “That may be for me.” He started to answer it; but Reiss stepped to it and took it himself.
“Reiss, here.”
An unfamiliar voice said, “Consul, this is the Ausland Fernsprechamt at Nova Scotia. Transatlantic telephone call for you from Berlin, urgent.”
“All right,” Reiss said.
“Just a moment, Consul.” Faint static, crackles. Then another voice, a woman operator. “Kanzlei.”
“Yes, this is Ausland Fernsprechamt at Nova Scotia. Call for the Reichs Consul H. Reiss, San Francisco; I have the consul on the line.”
“Hold on.” A long pause, during which Reiss continued, with one hand, to inspect his mail. Kreuz vom Meere watched slackly. “Herr Konsul, sorry to take your time.” A man’s voice. The blood in Reiss’ veins instantly stopped its motion. Baritone, cultivated, rolling-out-smooth voice familiar to Reiss. “This is Doktor Goebbels.”
“Yes, Kanzler.” Across from Reiss, Kreuz vom Meere slowly showed a smile. The slack jaw ceased to hang.
“General Heydrich has just asked me to call you. There is an agent of the Abwehr there in San Francisco. His name is Rudolf Wegener. You are to cooperate fully with the police regarding him. There isn’t time to give you details. Simply put your office at their disposal. Ich danke Ihnen sehr dabei.”
“I understand, Herr Kanzler,” Reiss said.
“Good day, Konsul.” The Reichskanzler rang off.
Kreuz vom Meere watched intently as Reiss hung up the phone. “Was I right?”
Reiss shrugged. “No dispute, there.”
“Write out an authorization for us to return this Wegener to Germany forcibly.”
Picking up his pen, Reiss wrote out the authorization, signed it, handed it to the SD chief.
“Thank you,” Kreuz vorn Meere said. “Now, when the Jap authorities call you and complain—“
“If they do.”
Kreuz vom Meere eyed him. “They will. They’ll be here within fifteen minutes of the time we pick this Wegener up.” He had lost his joking, clowning manner.
“No string quintet violinists,” Reiss said.
Kreuz vom Meere did not answer. “We’ll have him sometime this morning, so be ready. You can tell the Japs that he’s a homosexual or a forger, or something like that. Wanted for a major crime back home. Don’t tell them he’s wanted for political crimes. You know they don’t recognize ninety percent of National Socialist law.”
“I know that,” Reiss said. “I know what to do.” He felt irritable and put upon. Went over my head, he said to himself. As usual. Contacted the Chancery. The bastards.
His hands were shaking. Call from Doctor Goebbels; did that do it? Awed by the mighty? Or is it resentment, feeling of being hemmed in. . . goddam these police, he thought. They get stronger all the time. They’ve got Goebbels working for them already; they’re running the Reich.
But what can I do? What can anybody do?
Resignedly he thought, Better cooperate. No time to be on the wrong side of this man; he can probably get whatever he wants back home, and that might include the dismissal of everybody hostile to him.
“I can see,” he said aloud, “that you did not exaggerate the importance of this matter, Herr Polizeifuhrer. Obviously, the security of Germany herself hangs on your quick detection of this spy or traitor or whatever he is.” Inwardly, he cringed to hear his choice of words.
However, Kreuz vom Meere looked pleased. “Thank you, Consul.”
“You may have saved us all.”
Gloomily Kreuz vom Meere said, “Well, we haven’t picked him up. Let’s wait for that. I wish that call would come.”
I’ll handle the Japanese,” Reiss said. “I’ve had a good deal of experience, as you know. Their complaints—“
“Don’t ramble on,” Kreuz vom Meere interrupted. “I have to think.” Evidently the call from the Chancery had bothered him; he, too, felt under pressure now.
Possibly this fellow will get away, and it will cost you your job. Consul Hugo Reiss thought. My job, your job—we both could find ourselves out on the street any time. No more security for you than for me.
In fact, he thought, it might be worth seeing how a little foot-dragging here and there could possibly stajl your activities, Herr Polizeifuhrer. Something negative that could never be pinned down. For instance, when the Japanese come in here to complain, I might manage to drop a hint as to the Lufthansa flight on which this fellow is to be dragged away . . . or barring that, needle them into a bit more outrage by, say, just the trace of a contemptuous smirk—suggesting that the Reich is amused by them, doesn’t take little yellow men seriously. It’s easy to sting them. And if they get angry enough, they might carry it directly to Goebbels.
All sorts of possibilities. The SD can’t really get this fellow out of the PSA without my active cooperation. If I can only hit on precisely the right twist .
I hate people who go over my head, Freiherr Reiss said to himself. It makes me too damn uncomfortable. It makes me so nervous that I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep I can’t do my job. So lowe it to Germany to correct this problem. I’d be a lot more comfortable at night and in the daytime, too, for that matter, if this low-class Bavarian thug were back home writing up reports in some obscure Gau police station.
The trouble is, there’s not the time. While I’m trying to decide how to—
The phone rang.
This time Kreuz vom Meere reached out to take it and Consul Reiss did not bar the way. “Hello,” Kreuz vom Meere said into the receiver. A moment of silence as he listened.
Already? Reiss thought.
But the SD chief was holding out the phone. “For you.”
Secretly relaxing with relief, Reiss took the phone.
“It’s some schoolteacher,” Kreuz vom Meere said. “Wants to know if you can give them scenic posters of Austria for their class.”
Toward eleven o’clock in the morning, Robert Childan shut up his store and set off, on foot, for Mr. Paul Kasoura’s business office.
Fortunately, Paul was not busy. He greeted Childan politely and offered him tea.
“I will not bother you long,” Childan said after they had both begun sipping. Paul’s office, although small, was mod. em and simply furnished. On the wall one single superb print: Mokkei’s Tiger, a late-thirteenth-century masterpiece.
“I’m always happy to see you, Robert,” Paul said, in a tone that held—Childan thought—perhaps a trace of aloofness.
Or perhaps it was his imagination. Childan glanced cautiously over his teacup. The man certainly looked friendly. And yet—Childan sensed a change.
“Your wife,” Childan said, “was disappointed by my crude gift. I possibly insulted. However, with something new and untried, as I explained to you when I grafted it to you, no proper or final evaluation can be made—at least not by someone in the purely business end. Certainly, you and Betty are in a better position to judge than I.”
Paul said, “She was not disappointed, Robert. I did not give the piece of jewelry to her.” Reaching into his desk, he brought out the small white box. “It has not left this office.”
He knows, Childan thought. Smart man. Never even told her. So that’s that. Now, Childan realized; let’s hope he’s not going to rave at me. Some kind of accusation about my trying to seduce his wife.
He could ruin me, Childan said to himself. Carefully he continued sipping his tea, his face impassive.
“Oh?” he said mildly. “Interesting.”
Paul opened the box, brought out the pin and began inspecting it. He held it to the light, turned it over and around.
“I took the liberty of showing this to a number of business acquaintances,” Paul said, “individuals who share my taste for American historic objects or for artifacts of general artistic, esthetic merit.” He eyed Robert Childan. “None of course had ever seen such as this before. As you explained, no such contemporary work hithertofore has been known. I think, too, you informed that you are sole representative.”
“Yes, that is so,” Childan said.
“You wish to hear their reaction?”
Childan bowed.
“These persons,” Paul said, “laughed.”
Childan was silent.
“Yet I, too, laughed behind my hand, invisible to you,” Paul said, “the other day when you appeared and showed me this thing. Naturally to protect your sangfroid, I concealed that amusement; as you no doubt recall, I remained more or less noncommittal in my apparent reaction.”
Childan nodded.
Studying the pin, Paul went on. “One can easily understand this reaction. Here is a piece of metal which has been melted until it has become shapeless. It represents nothing. Nor does it have design, of any intentional sort. It is merely amorphous. One might say, it is mere content, deprived of form.”
Childan nodded.
“Yet,” Paul said, “I have for several days now inspected it, and for no logical reason Ifeel a certain emotional fondness. Why is that? I may ask. I do not even now project into this blob, as in psychological German tests, my own psyche. I still see no shapes or forms. But it somehow partakes of Tao. You see?” He motioned Childan over. “It is balanced. The forces within this piece are stabilized. At rest. So to speak, this object has made its peace with the universe. It has separated from it and hence has managed to come to homeostasis.”
Childan nodded, studied the piece. But Paul had lost him.
“It does not have wabi,” Paul said, “nor could it ever. But—“ He touched the pin with his nail. “Robert, this object has wu.”
“I believe you are right,” Childan said, trying to recall what wu was; it was not a Japanese word—it was Chinese. Wisdom, he decided. Or comprehension. Anyhow, it was highly good.
“The hands of the artificer,” Paul said, “had wu, and allowed that wu to flow into this piece. Possibly he himself knows only that this piece satisfies. It is complete, Robert. By contemplating it, we gain more wu ourselves. We experience the tranquility associated not with art but with holy things. I recall a shrine in Hiroshima wherein a shinbone of some medieval saint could be examined. However, this is an artifact and that was a relic. This is alive in the now, whereas that merely remained. By this meditation, conducted by myself at great length since you were last here, I have come to identify the value which this has in opposition to historicity. I am deeply moved, as you may see.”
“Yes,” Childan said.
“To have no historicity, and also no artistic, esthetic worth, and yet to partake of some ethereal value—that is a marvel. Just precisely because this a miserable, small, worthless-looking blob; that, Robert, contributes to its possessing wu. For it is a fact that wu is customarily found in least imposing places, as in the Christian aphorism, ‘stones rejected by the builder.’ One experiences awareness of wu in such trash as an old stick, or a rusty beer can by the side of the road. However, in those cases, the wu is within the viewer. It is a religious experience. Here, an artificer has put wu into the object, rather than merely witnessed the wu inherent in it.” He glanced up. “Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes,” Childan said.
“In other words, an entire new world is pointed to, by this. The name for it is neither art, for it has no form, nor religion. What is it? I have pondered this pin unceasingly, yet cannot fathom it. We evidently lack the word for an object like this. So you are right, Robert. It is authentically a new thing on the face of the world.”
Authentic, Childan thought. Yes, it certainly is. I catch that notion. But as to the rest—
“Having meditated to this avail,” Paul continued, “I next called back in here the self same business acquaintances. I took it upon myself, as I have done with you just now, to deliver an expostulation devoid of tact. This subject carries authority which compels an abandonment of propriety, so great is the necessity of delivering the awareness itself. I required that these individuals listen.”
Childan knew that for a Japanese such as Paul to fOrce his ideas on other persons was an almost incredible situation.
‘The result,” Paul said, “was sanguine. They were able to adopt under such duress my viewpoint; they perceived what I had delineated. So it was worth it. Having done that, I rested. Nothing more, Robert. I am exhausted.” He laid the pin back in the box. “Responsibility with me has ended. Discharged.” He pushed the box to Childan.
“Sir, it’s yours,” Childan said, feeling apprehensive; the situation did not fit any model he had ever experienced. A high-placed Japanese lauding to the skies a gift grafted to him—and then returning it. Childan felt his knees wobble. He did not have any idea what to do; he stood plucking at his sleeve, his face flushing.
Calmly, even harshly, Paul said, “Robert, you must face reality with more courage.”
Blanching, Childan stammered, “I’m confused by—“
Paul stood up, facing him. “Take heed. The task is yours. You are the sole agent for this piece and others of its ilk. Also you are a professional. Withdraw for a period into isolation. Meditate, possibly consult the Book of Changes. Then study your window displays, your ads, your system of merchandising.”
Childan gaped at him.
“You will see your way,” Paul said. “How you must go about putting these objects over in a big fashion.”
Childan felt stunned. The man’s telling me I’m obliged to assume moral responsibility for the Edfrank jewelry! Crackpot neurotic Japanese world view: nothing less than numberone spiritual and business relationship with the jewelry tolerable in the eyes of Paul Kasoura.
And the worst part of it was that Paul certainly spoke with authority, right out of dead center of Japanese culture and tradition.
Obligation, he thought bitterly. It could stick with him the rest of his life, once incurred. Right to the grave itself. Paul had—to his own satisfaction, anyhow—discharged his. But Childan’s; ah, that regrettably had the earmark of being unending.
They’re out of their minds, Childan said to himself. Example: they won’t help a hurt man up from the gutter due to the obligation it imposes. What do you call that? I say that’s typical; just what you’d expect from a race that when told to duplicate a British destroyer managed even to copy the patches on the boiler as well as—
Paul was eying him intently. Fortunately, long habit had caused Childan to suppress any show of authentic feelings automatically. He assumed a bland, sober expression, persona that correctly matched the nature of the situation. He could sense it there, the mask.
This is dreadful, Childan realized. A catastrophe. Better Paul had thought I was trying to seduce his wife.
Betty. There was no chance now that she would see the piece, that his original plan would come off. Wu was incompatible with sexuality; it was, as Paul said. solemn and holy, like a relic.
“I gave each of these individuals one of your cards,” Paul said.
“Pardon?” Childan said, preoccupied.
“Your business cards. So that they could come in and inspect other examples.”
“I see,” Childan said.
“There is one more thing,” Paul said. “One of these individuals wishes to discuss this entire subject with you at his location. I have written out his name and address.” Paul handed Childan a folded square of paper. “He wants his business colleagues to hear.” Paul added, “He is an importer. He imports and exports on a mass basis. Especially to South America. Radios, cameras, binoculars, tape recorders, the like.”
Childan gazed down at the paper.
“He deals, of course, in immense quantity.” Paul said. “Perhaps tens of thousands of each item. His company controls various enterprises that manufacture for him at low overhead, all located in the Orient where there is cheaper labor.”
“Why is he—“ Childan began.
Paul said, “Pieces such as this. . .” He picked up the pin once more, briefly. Closing the lid, he returned the box to Childan. “. . . can be mass-produced. Either in base metal or plastic. From a mold. In any quantity desired.”
After a time Childan said, “What about wu? Will that remain in the pieces?”
Paul said nothing.
“You advise me to see him?” Childan said.
“Yes,” Paul said.
“Why?”
“Charms,” Paul said.
Childan stared.
“Good-luck charms. To be worn. By relatively poor people. A line of amulets to be peddled all over Latin America and the Orient. Most of the masses still believe in magic, you know. Spells. Potions. It’s a big business, I am told.” Paul’s face was wooden, his voice toneless.
“It sounds,” Childan said slowly, “as if there would be a good deal of money in it.”
Paul nodded.
“Was this your idea?” Childan said.
“No,” Paul said. He was silent, then.
Your employer, Childan thought. You showed the piece to your superior, who knows this importer. Your superior—or some influential person over your head, someone who has power over you, someone rich and big—contacted this importer.
That’s why you’re giving it back to me, Childan realized. You want no part of this. But you know what I know: that I will go to this address and see this man. I have to. I have no choice. I will lease the designs, or sell them on a percentage basis; some deal will be made between me and this party.
Clearly out of your hands. Entirely. Bad taste on your part to presume to stop me or argue with me.
“There is a chance here for you,” Paul said, “to become extremely wealthy.” He continued to gaze stoically ahead.
“The idea strikes me as bizarre,” Childan said. “Making good-luck charms out of such art objects; I can’t imagine it.”
“For it is not your natural line of business. You are devoted to the savored esoteric. Myself, I am the same. And so are those individuals who will shortly visit your store, those whom I mentioned.”
Childan said, “What would you do if you were me?”
“Don’t underevaluate the possibility suggested by the esteemed importer. He is a shrewd personage. You and I—we have no awareness of the vast number of uneducated. They can obtain from mold-produced identical objects a joy which would be denied to us. We must suppose that we have the only one of a kind, or at least something rare, possessed by a very few. And, of course, something truly authentic. Not a model or replica.” He continued to gaze past Childan, at empty space. “Not something cast by the tens of thousands.”
Has he stumbled onto correct notion, Childan wondered, that certain of the historic objects in stores such as mine (not to mention many items in his personal collection) are imitations? There seems a trace of hint in his words. As if in ironic undertone he is telling me a message quite different from what appears. Ambiguity, as one trips over in the oracle . . . quality, as they say, of the Oriental mind.
Childan thought, He’s actually saying: Which are you Robert? He whom the oracle calls “the inferior man,” or that other for whom all the good advice is meant? Must decide, here. You may trot on one way or the other, but not both. Moment of choice now.
And which way will the superior man go? Robert Childan inquired of himself. At least according to Paul Kasoura. And what we have before us here isn’t a many-thousand-year-old compilation of divinely inspired wisdom; this is merely the opinion of one mortal—one young Japanese businessman.
Yet, there’s a kernel to it. Wu, as Paul would say. The wu of this situation is this: whatever our personal dislikes, there can be no doubt, the reality lies in the importer’s direction. Too bad for what we had intended; we must adapt, as the oracle states.
And after all, the originals can still be sold in my shop. To connoisseurs, as for example Paul’s friends.
“You wrestle with yourself,” Paul observed. “No doubt it is in such a situation that one prefers to be alone.” He had started toward the office door.
“I have already decided.”
Paul’s eyes flickered.
Bowing, Childan said, “I will follow your advice. Now I will leave to visit the importer.” He held up the folded slip of paper.
Oddly, Paul did not seem pleased; he merely grunted and returned to his desk. They contain their emotions to the last, Childan reflected. -
“Many thanks for your business help,” Childan said as he made ready to depart. “Someday I will if possible reciprocate. I will remember.”
But still the young Japanese showed no reaction. Too true, Childan thought, what we used to say: they are inscrutable.
Accompanying him to the door, Paul seemed deep in thought. All at once he blurted, “American artisans made this piece hand by hand, correct? Labor of their personal bodies?”
“Yes, from initial design to final polish.”
“Sir! Will these artisans play along? I would imagine they dreamed otherwise for their work.”
“I’d hazard they could be persuaded,” Childan said; the problem, to him, appeared minor.
“Yes,” Paul said. “I suppose so.”
Something in his tone made Robert Childan take sudden note. A nebulous and peculiar emphasis, there. And then it swept over Childan. Without a doubt he had split the ambiguity—he saw.
Of course. Whole affair a cruel dismissal of American efforts, taking place before his eyes. Cynicism, but God forbid, he had swallowed hook, line and sinker. Got me to agree, step by step, led me along the garden path to this conclusion: products of American hands good for nothing but to be models for junky good-luck charms.
This was how the Japanese ruled, not crudely but with subtlety, ingenuity, timeless cunning.
Christ! We’re barbarians compared to them, Childan realized. We’re no more than boobs against such pitiless reasoning. Paul did not say—did not tell me—that our art was worthless; he got me to say it for him. And, as a final irony, he regretted my utterance. Faint, civilized gesture of sorrow as he heard the truth out of me.
He’s broken me, Childan almost said aloud—fortunately, however, he managed to keep it only a thought; as before, he held it in his interior world, apart and secret, for himself alone. Humiliated me and my race. And I’m helpless. There’s no avenging this; we are defeated and our defeats are like this, so tenuous, so delicate, that we’re hardly able to perceive them. In fact, we have to rise a notch in our evolution to know it ever happened.
What more proof could be presented, as to the Japanese fitness to rule? He felt like laughing, possibly with appreciation. Yes, he thought, that’s what it is, as when one hears a choice anecdote. I’ve got to recall it, savor it later on, even relate it. But to whom? Problem, there. Too personal for narration.
In the corner of Paul’s office a wastebasket. Into it! Robert Childan said to himself, with this blob, this wu-ridden piece of jewelry.
Could I do it? Toss it away? End the situation before Paul’s eyes?
Can’t even toss it away, he discovered as he gripped the piece. Must not—if you anticipate facing your Japanese fellowman again.
Dan-rn them, I can’t free myself of their influence, can’t give in to impulse. All spontaneity crushed . . . Paul scrutinized him, needing to say nothing; the man’s very presence enough. Got my conscience snared, has run an invisible string from this blob in my hands up my arm to my soul.
Guess I’ve lived around them too long. Too late now to flee, to get back among whites and white ways.
Robert Childan said, “Paul—“ His voice, he noted, croaked in sickly escape; no control, no modulation.
“Yes, Robert.”
“Paul, I . . . am . . . humiliated.”
The room reeled.
“Why so, Robert?” Tones of concern, but detached. Above involvement.
“Paul. One moment.” He fingered the bit of jewelry; it had become slimy with sweat. “I—am proud of this work. There can be no consideration of trashy good-luck charms. I reject.”
Once more he could not make out the young Japanese man’s reaction, only the listening ear, the mere awareness.
“Thank you, however,” Robert Childan said.
Paul bowed.
Robert Childan bowed.
“The men who made this,” Childan said, “are American proud artists. Myself included. To suggest trashy good-luck charms therefore insults us and I ask for apology.”
incredible prolonged silence.
Paul surveyed him. One eyebrow lifted slightly and his thin lips twitched. A smile?
“I demand,” Childan said. That was all; he could carry it no further. He now merely waited.
Nothing occurred.
Please, he thought. Help me.
Paul said, “Forgive my arrogant imposition.” He held out his hand.
“All right,” Robert Childan said.
They shook hands.
Calmness descended in Childan’s heart. I have lived through and out, he knew. All over. Grace of God; it existed at the exact moment for me. Another time—otherwise. Could I ever dare once more, press my luck? Probably not.
He felt melancholy. Brief instant, as if I rose to the surface and saw unencumbered.
Life is short, he thought. Art, or something not life, is long, stretching out endless, like concrete worm. Flat, white, unsmoothed by any passage over or across it Here I stand But no longer. Taking the small box, he put the Edfrank jewelry piece away in his coat pocket.