WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1922
"What the devil is going on here?"
Helena stormed into the dining room as Meier tried to make a formal announcement: "Her Highness Prinzessin von -
I stood up. "Good morning, Helena."
She wore a big straw summer hat and underneath the brim her eyes were blazing. "What is happening in this house?"
"In this house? What do you mean? Will you have some breakfast? "
"At ten o'clock? I've had breakfast! Meier, get out!"
Looking relieved, Meier bowed and left the room.
The Meiers had been our first problem. Although we opened all the windows on the second floor, you could still smell the chloroform, so when we heard them moving about in the kitchen we decided to go right down and get it over with. I stayed behind Christoph and let him do the talking.
Frau Meier looked startled as she saw us coming through the pantry. Her husband was just putting on his gray jacket. "Guten Morgen, die Herren?"
"Will you sit down a moment, Frau Meier?"
"Herr Oberleutnant, is something wrong?"
"Yes. My brother is sick. Nervous exhaustion of some kind. Still from the Revolution, of course."
'Um Gottes Willen! He is in the hospital?"
"No, he's upstairs in bed. He's been given sleeping pills. We don't want him in the hospital. You understand? Mr. Ellis was a Sanitäter in the War. You remember he saved my life. Mr. Ellis will help me to care for Kaspar until he is better."
Frau Meier twisted a dishcloth in her liver-spotted hands. "But Herr Oberleutnant, we must call Dr. Goldschmidt, we must telephone Frau General- "
"On the contrary, Frau Meier. We are not going to call Dr. Goldschmidt, we are not going to worry my mother, we are not going to tell the milkman, or the baker's boy, or the servants of the Hansemanns next door. This is a private matter involving the honor of this house, and we are not going to tell anybody! Is that clear?"
The old woman began to cry.
"Is that entirely clear, Frau Meier?"
Her husband answered. "We understand. We only want to help."
"Meier, how old were you when you came with my father?"
"Fifteen, Herr Oberleutnant. I took care of his horses. The regiment was in the honor guard at Versailles, the winter our old king became the Kaiser. Anno '71. We paraded in front of the Palace of Versailles that day. Oh, those were different times, Herr Oberleutnant! "
"Yes," said Christoph. "Very different times. But times always change, Meier. There will be good times again. Right now we obey orders and keep our mouths shut. Understood?"
"Understood, Herr Oberleutnant." Meier could hardly keep from clicking his heels, but his wife was still wiping her eyes. "If the boy is sick his mother must be told, Herr Oberleutnant."
Christoph sighed. "Perhaps you're right, Frau Meier. Perhaps you're right about Mother, but I will handle the matter. I will telephone to Kolberg from the Bank. Now you can give us breakfast, please."
The first day wasn't so bad. I had taken my easel, my canvases, and most of my oil paint down to Falke's, but I still had enough equipment for sketching and I had my watercolors, so I made the time pass trying to copy faces from a book of photographs, and every hour or so I went into check on Kaspar. By the middle of the afternoon he was still dozing and I was getting sleepy and bored. And skeptical about the whole thing. How long are we going to keep him out? How long will I have to sit here like a psychiatric nurse? There must be some better way -
Christoph came home early, and Kaspar began to regain consciousness. "Oh my God," he whispered, "I never had such a hangover in my life. How long have I been asleep?" and then he fell asleep again.
"Let's get him to the toilet before he has an accident," said Christoph, so we did that, and it was awful, just like when it was me (limp as a rag doll, he kept muttering, "I'm so tired, please let me sleep") but we got him emptied out and back into bed. Then Christoph held down the arm while I gave him another injection. He moaned a little as he felt the needle. Christoph sat in the wicker armchair and stared silently at his brother. Christoph's eyes closed. Christoph's head fell to his chest.
What am I doing here?
Some time in the middle of the second afternoon the telephone rang. At the Villa Keith, Meier answers the telephone. He came to my room with raised eyebrows: a Fräulein Bauer wishes to speak with Mister Ellis? He seemed to think I might not want to speak with Fräulein Bauer, but I went down to the pantry.
"Hello? "
"Peter? This is Baby."
"Hello, Baby! "
Meier passed through the pantry into the kitchen, eyes front.
The sound of Baby's almost comic Berlin patois relieved my depression just a little. Bärbel had sent her down to the nearest Kneipe, a corner bar in the Kaiser-Friedrichstrasse, to call me. Why hadn't I come to paint? Was I sore at them?
I tried to explain: somebody was sick, I had to help, I would be down there in a few days, I certainly wasn't angry at anybody - but how was Fritz?
Pause. I could hear the people in the bar shouting at each other. Fritz was still on a bender. That's why they wished I would come. If he had to give me lessons he might stop drinking. He's given Bärbel such a terrific Backpfeife
What's a Backpfeife?
When you slap somebody's cheek with your hand, and Bärbel's face is all swollen and blue and she won't go out -
Where's he getting the money for all this drinking?
Just guess! Oh, and your American lady came back and bought one of his little oils. Paid him twenty dollars, can you believe that? That's six thousand marks. Fritz has plenty of money, but he won't give us enough for food. I have to hang up now. We hope you come back soon, Peter.
I tried to time my sleep with Kaspar's so that I would be awake when the Amytal began to wear off, because then he would be conscious, it was easier to feed him, and sometimes we would talk a little. Hypnotic state, Kowalski's brother had advised. He will not sleep all the time, even on 200 milligrams per day. Some of the time he will be in a hypnotic state. I tried to remember what that feels like. 1918? 1919? They did it to me. They did it to find what cracked me up. I remembered a sense of lassitude, an absence of will, but I couldn't remember anything I'd said to them, as if I'd been asleep.
"I've been asleep," said Kaspar.
"Yes. Did you have dreams."
"Oh yes! Am I sick?"
"Yes, you're sick, but you're getting better. What did you dream about?"
He would mumble about his dreams, which didn't make more sense than anybody else's dreams - except the recurring one about the sailors who tore off his epaulets, and the shrieking women.
I sent Meier out for newspapers.
Our shady street was silent and empty, but the country seemed to be in turmoil. The provinces of Upper Silesia had voted to stay with Germany, but the Allies had turned them over to Poland anyway, and thousands of frightened German refugees were pouring across the border. Now the papers were full of speculation that the French were going to expand their occupation of the Rheinland and the Saarland. And whose fault was all of this? It was the fault of Chancellor Wirth's government in general, and of its foreign minister in particular. This is where the policy of "fulfillment" has brought us! It wasn't just the Nationalist papers, it was practically all of them now. The Center Party, Dr. Stresemann, demanded specific answers to specific questions about the government's policies in the Rheinland and the Saar, and Walther Rathenau, his back to the wall, gave a strong and rather nationalistic speech to the effect that Germany would never abandon the people now under French occupation.
"The picture of conditions in the Saar is not a pleasant one," Rathenau told the Reichstag. "But as Germans we can point with pride to the fact that in these difficult years of alien domination the population of the Saar has held together as never before, in order to preserve that which they regard as their most precious possession -their German nationality and culture!"
Christoph Keith called from the Bank to find out if Kaspar was asleep, and to tell me I had purchased contracts to deliver 3,000,000 marks in Amsterdam on September 21, 1922. And I owed the Waldsteins $9,000 I didn't have.
"All right," said Helena when Meier had closed the door. "I want to know what's going on here!" She took off the straw hat and touched her piled-up platinum hair and stared at me.
"What makes you think there's something
"Don't trifle with me, Peter, I will not have it! I understand that you and Christoph rushed back to town on Sunday evening, supposedly on Bank business that nobody at Havelblick knows anything about. On Monday I hear nothing from Christoph. I am busy, I assume Christoph is busy. On Tuesday I still hear nothing from Christoph, so I telephone the Bank, where I am told that Oberleutnant Keith is in a meeting. I ask that he telephone when the meeting is finished. He does not telephone. I telephone the Villa Keith, where I receive evasive answers from Meier, not only evasive but actually frightened. I am not allowed to speak with Mister Ellis, because Mister Ellis is asleep - at five in the afternoon! And now I find you here alone in the middle of the morning. You are alone, are you not?"
"Helena, please - "
"This has something to do with his brother, doesn't it?"
"Helena, you've got to ask Christoph these questions."'
'"Why? " I couldn't look into those eyes anymore.
"Will you not look at me, Peter?"
What could I do? I just shook my head and repeated that she would have to ask Christoph, so she stood up, walked out of the dining room and started up the stairs.
"
What is the meaning of this?" shouted Christoph, slamming the living room door.
It didn't take him long to get home. I didn't think it would.
When Helena came racing down the stairs she was calling for Meier, and Meier was there before she reached the bottom step.
"I want you to call Herr Oberleutnant at the Bank and I want you to give him this message: the Princess Hohenstein is here with Mister Ellis. The Princess Hohenstein wishes Oberleutnant Keith to come home at once. If Oberleutnant Keith is not home within one hour - one hour, Meier! -then the Princess Hohenstein is taking a taxi to Police Headquarters Alexanderplatz. You understand that message, Meier?"
"Oh, Your Highness!" Overwhelmed, almost sagging with relief, Meier waddled toward the pantry as fast as he could get there.
"You have a very loyal friend in Peter," said Helena to Christoph, putting out her fourth cigarette. "He insists that all questions about Kaspar must be directed to you, and as you will not return my calls I had no choice but to send for you. Now I want you to tell me why Kaspar is lying in his bed, asleep with his eyes open, and why there is a hypodermic needle in the bathroom."
Christoph stood there, leaning on his cane and looking at the carpet. He shook his head. "I can't, my dear."
"Why can't you?"
He shook his head again. "Just can't."
They stared at each other. I couldn't look at them. I looked at the walls, at all the grinning death's heads on the caps of all those hussars in their faded photographs, but finally the pressure became too much for me. "Better tell her," I said.
"Peter! You know why she must not be involved."
"She's involved already, and it isn't going to work, your way."
"What isn't going to work?" demanded Helena.
"Peter, I forbid you - "
"You can't forbid him anything!" Helena was shouting now.
My heart was beating in my throat. "Christoph, we can't just sit here and wait for a man to be killed."
"Wait for what man to be killed?" Helena leapt to her feet, stepped across the room and threw her arms around Christoph. "What man?" she whispered, her face pressed against his chest. She was crying. I just couldn't stay there anymore. I walked out of the room and closed the door.
We hadn't tried to shave Kaspar, so he had the beginnings of a scruffy blond beard, really just pale stubble fuzzing the bottom half of his narrow face. We hadn't tried to wash him either, and he smelled. It was all we could do to feed him black bread and vegetable soup and mashed potatoes and carefully cut - up sausages. Things like that. And to take him to the toilet twice a day. I didn't see how we could keep this up much longer.
"You hungry, Kaspar?" Shakes his head. Sighs. "Tired. Always so tired. "Long pause. I am sitting in the wicker armchair.
"From the medicine?" Kaspar points to his arm. We gave him the shot very early this morning. Is it wearing off already? Could he be building up resistance? Does he remember that we chloroformed him?
"Why medicine?" asks Kaspar.
"You were excited," I used the word aufgeregt. Shakes his head: "Nicht aufgeregt. Traurig." Sad. Why sad? Closes his eyes and shakes his head.
"Because of the car, Kaspar? The Austro-Daimler?" Eyes remain closed, but there is a racking sob.
"They are angry at you about the Austro-Daimler, aren't they?" Silence. I repeat the question. Kaspar nods.
"Tillessen is angry." Kaspar nods again.
"Who else is angry?"
"Kern."
"Who is Kern?" Kaspar opens his eyes, stares at me. I can see him struggling with the memory, so I try to help him.
"Kern thinks I took the car, doesn't he? Because Tillessen told him I'm an American agent. But you know I'm not an American agent, I'm Christoph's friend who pulled Christoph out of the burning airplane."
Kaspar nods again.
"But Tillessen - and Kern - they won't believe you."
"They won't believe me."
"Why would the Americans want that Austro-Daimler?" Kaspar doesn't know. Neither do I.
"What does Kern want with the Austro-Daimler?"
"Have to get another car now! " Kaspar's eyes widen.
"Why? Why do they have to get another car now?"
"Geheimsache," - says Kaspar. Secret matter.
"But you know, don't you?" Kaspar shakes his head.
"But Kern knows."
"Kern knows."
"Because Kern is the leader." Am I learning something or am I just putting words into his mouth? I try a long leap: "I thought Captain Ehrhardt was the leader."
Kaspar looks puzzled. "Of course. Captain Ehrhardt."
"But he's down in Munich and Kern's up here?"
"Kern's up here."
"Who else is up here"
"Fischer is up here."
"Which Fischer is that?"
"Hermann Fischer, of course!"
"The one who was in the Brigade?"
"Of course! " Something clicked. "Are Kern and Fischer the men Tillessen wanted to put up in this house?"
"Old comrades."
"Old comrades on a secret mission."
"Old comrades on a secret mission." Hypnotic state.
"But Christoph would not let them come here." Kaspar sighs.
"And then their Austro-Daimler disappears." Kaspar sobs.
"And they are angry, and won't tell you what the mission is." Kaspar turns his head away and puts his hands over his ears.
"Your brother works for the Jews and his friend is an American agent so they don't trust you anymore, your old comrades!" Kaspar's head is pressed between his hands, his face is buried in the pillow, his shoulders are shaking. I decided to give him another 200 milligrams, to put him back to sleep. If he really doesn't know, then he's out of it, isn't he? He knows Tillessen's brother killed Matthias Erzberger. He knows that the O.C. kills people. He must know they're going to kill somebody. Suppose Christoph is wrong, and they're really after somebody else? The leader of this government is Chancellor Wirth.
"What man?" Helena had asked, but it wasn't a question. If Helena knows and Christoph knows, how can Kaspar - after all those nights of drinking and talking and planning - how can Kaspar not know?
When I returned to the living room, I found Helena alone. She was smoking another cigarette and staring out into the garden. When she turned, I saw that her eyes were red and swollen. This was a new and different Helena.
"Christoph's gone back to the Bank, but he made me promise I would not go to the police. Oh, Peter, I just don't know what to do!"
I sat down and told her what I had extracted from Kaspar.
"Helena, I think that Christoph is all wrong about this. If these people kill somebody important - whether it's Rathenau or Wirth or whoever - and there is a serious investigation, we're never going to keep Kaspar out of it this way. If they catch any of the others, they'll implicate him. Even if he doesn't know exactly who the target is, will that be a good defense?"
Helena looked out of the window and shook her head.
"And even if that is a defense, how would he establish it? How do you prove you didn't know something? And what about the rest of us? We go out and smash a car because we think it's going to be used in a murder. Doesn't that implicate us in some way? If they find themselves another car and actually commit the murder? I'm not a lawyer, but these are legal questions. You know what we would do at home, if we got into a mess like this? We'd go and see a lawyer."
PROLOGUE - THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
I. HOW I GOT THERE
1. PARIS 1922
2. VERDUN 1916
3. IT'S STEALING MONEY, ISN'T IT
4. WHERE WERE YOU IN 1919?
5. RELIABLE TROOPS
6. AN ISLAND
7. BISMARCK FOUND THEM USEFUL
8. INTRODUCTIONS
9. THE LITTLE HOUSE
10. INDIAN CROSSES
11. ANOTHER PART OF TOWN
12. A VIEW OF THE GENDARMENMARKT
13. TWO FOR TEA
14. ON THE TOWN
15. A VIEW OF THE HAVEL
16. REIGEN
II. WHAT HAPPENED
17. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
18. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1922
>19. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1922
20. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1922
21. SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1922
22. WHAT HAPPENED?
III. THE WITCHES' SABBATH
23. SILENCE WITH VOICES
24. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
25. SAME SONGS, DIFFERENT SINGERS
26. THEY'RE ONLY GOING TO HIRE HIS VOICE
27. INFLATION WORKS IN DIFFERENT WAYS
28. SMALL CHANGE
29. WHY NOT PAINT LILI?
30. COLD WIND IN MAY
31. ROLLING THUNDER
32. WALDSTEIN'S VOICE
33. THE MATTER OF A DOWRY
34. A RUSSIAN WORD AND A GERMAN WORD
35. THE MARCH ON BERLIN
36. A PIG LOSES MONEY ALL THE TIME
37. THE ARTISTS' BALL
IV. STRIKE TWELVE ZEROs
38. AMYTAL DREAMS
39. LETTERS
40. PROFESSOR JAFFA'S PROGNOSIS
41. THE OTHER SUBJECT
42. ROLLING HOME