A PIG LOSES MONEY ALL THE TIME
The musicians paused for a moment, and when they began to play the second movement, Lili's father suddenly stood up. Immediately the fifty or sixty guests in the big salon stood up too, some of them looking as surprised as I was.
"We don't give many Hauskonzerte," Lili had said. "It would look as if we are competing with the Mendelssohns. But there is some reason we have to give this one, somebody asked my father to introduce this new group in Berlin ... you have a tailcoat, don't you?"
I didn't have a set of tails, so I had to wear an old one of Bobby's, and it didn't fit. A whole evening of violin music is a lot of violin music. It had been a long day. I was thinking about other things, vaguely conscious that this was the last piece, watching the musicians sawing enthusiastically through the first movement, but when the Baron stood up I had to sneak a look at the program I was sharing with Lili.
Joseph Haydn, Violin Quartet in C major, "Kaiserquartett." As they played the movement, very slowly, I watched the faces around me and as I wondered at the different ways that strong emotion shows itself, I suddenly recognized the theme: "Deutschland über Alles."
The Russian nightclub where Bobby took us was in a basement: brick floor, wine racks along the walls, thick cigarette smoke, a black-haired woman who played the balalaika and sang sad songs. The headwaiter seemed delighted to see Bobby. The other customers glanced at our evening clothes. We had to pay, in American money, before they would bring us anything, but that was normal now; the prices rose between the time you ordered something and the time you finished it - even in the middle of the night.
They brought us black bread and caviar and cold vodka in crystal glasses.
We ate and drank and listened to the music, and when there was a pause I said: "May I ask a very personal question?"
"Bobby or me?"
"Both of you. Why did your father stand up this evening?"
Bobby began: "That theme, Haydn's theme from that quartet, it was made into the Deutschlandlied - "
"I know it. That's why I'm asking. Last night Adolf Hitler had all the people in that beer hall on their feet singing that song."
They looked at each other. "That's why Father stood up," said Lili. "I was so proud of him!"
Bobby said: "The Nationalists, the National Socialists, all those people on the far Right, they claim this is not our country. This is our country!"
"But why 'über Alles'? Why does Germany have to be over everybody else?"
"Oh, that's not what it means!" Lili exclaimed, and Bobby interrupted her. "It means, you know, to us, to the people, the people love their country above all else. 'über Alles.' That's what that means. You understand?"
When Lili went to the toilet, Bobby told me he was going to the United States.
"Does your family know?"
"Of course not."
"What will you do?"
"Join Kyra in Los Angeles. Will you sign the guarantee for me too? "
"Bobby, she's with the other man -"
"No. He has left her, married an American lady, the widow of a film producer."
"And Kyra has asked you to come?"
"Yes, she has. Will you help me?"
"What will you do out there?"
"No idea. Something will turn up. Or I will bring her back."
"Bobby ... Don't do it."
"I can't help it. When you love somebody, you love them. You don't love them because of; you love them despite. People think I don't know the bad things about her. I know them. It makes no difference. I'm not happy without her, and if she needs me I must go."
"Bobby, I only signed that paper because I was told your parents wanted me to do it. Now if I help you ... what will happen to me and Lili?"
"Why should my parents find out?"
"Bobby, have you checked whether you need that kind of a guarantee for a visitor's visa -"
"What is a visitor's visa?" asked Lili, as the Russian woman began to sing something that made all the other Russians join in.
The song ended in a roar of voices and loud applause, a small ensemble began to play an American foxtrot, and the woman who had led the singing came over to our table. Bobby and I rose as he made the introductions. I got the impression that she was surprised to see him, and us. Lili did not smile when she was introduced. Her face froze and she stood up. "Peter, I want to dance, please."
We danced. "That wasn't very polite," I said.
"I don't have to be polite to her."
"I thought a lady had to be polite to everyone."
"Perhaps in America."
"What are you so angry about?"
"We should not have come here."
"But you wanted to see it."
"Yes. Now I have seen it. Tell Bobby I am waiting in his car."
"Don't you like to dance with me?"
"Not here."
"What's wrong with this place? They're having such a good time -"
"And they all know Bobby. And we know why they all know Bobby! Tell him I will be in the car, Peter."
We almost got too close before we realized what was going on. All three of us were crowded into Bobby's open two-seater Bugatti, bundled up against the raw November dawn. Since Lili had a chance to be out tonight, she was making the most of it.
She had persuaded Bobby to take us to several other all-night places, and now I didn't know exactly where we were, heading for the Villa Keith in Grunewald, cutting through some very different neighborhoods where people were already going to work.
"Look at that," said Bobby, pointing. A large crowd had gathered in front of a bakery, men and women with gray faces and gray clothes who carried wicker baskets and metal buckets and shopping nets crammed full of paper money, so many people that they spilled over the sidewalk and filled most of the street.
Inside the bakery a light went on, the door opened, a white-dressed baker came out, averted his eyes from the crowd, hung up a sign, went back in again and closed the door. The light went out. A woman screamed. Men shouted.
"Don't try to drive by there!" I said, suddenly conscious of how we looked: the glistening chrome radiator of the Bugatti, the gleaming blue paint, our white silk evening scarves, and Lili sitting on my lap with a little fox stole wrapped around her ears.
Bobby, shifting gears, began to turn the car around and Lili moved her body to look over my shoulder just as the plate glass window of the bakery crashed to the pavement.
"They're throwing things at us!" shouted Lili, amazed, but we were roaring out of range.
On Sunday, November 11, two trucks full of Bavarian Landespolizei arrived at the house of one Ernst Hanfstängl (Harvard '09) in Uffing, a little town near Munich, where they found Adolf Hitler, dressed in pajamas. They arrested Hitler and locked him into the Fortress of Landsberg am Lech to await trial for high treason.
On Monday, November 12, Dr. Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht was appointed Reich Currency Commissioner and President of the new Rentenbank.
"Why is he called Horace Greeley?" I asked Christoph on the telephone.
"His father was a German immigrant in New York and apparently admired this Mr. Greeley, whoever he was."
I explained who Horace Greeley was.
"He said, 'Go West, young man'? How curious. Herr Schacht, Senior went east, came home to Germany. The son, Hjalmar Schacht, worked for the Dresdner Bank, then became one of the top men at the Darmstädter und National Bank - we call them 'Danatbank.' He's considered very clever and very conservative. Believes in gold and a balanced budget. The Barons don't like him, but they think he's the right man."
"Is he tough enough?"
"We shall see. They say he's a cold fish, but he will have to perform miracles: persuade people to accept these Rentenmarks that are coming on Thursday; persuade the government to balance its budget -- which means discharging thousands of civil servants -- persuade the Reichsbank to stop discounting every bank loan and every piece of private money that's been printed in this country; and persuade the Allies to reduce their reparation demands. I'm just glad that Strassburger's not in the job!"
"Christoph, what did Dr. Strassburger do about my stocks on Friday afternoon? When there was all the excitement about the Putsch."
"Nothing."
"Nothing? "
"You've still got them. Strassburger said in the first place we never sell in a panic, and in the second place, what would you do with the money? You would have received something like ... let me see. .." Pause while he was apparently making a calculation. "You would have received something .over three billiarde marks, that is three thousand billions in English terms, three quadrillion in American terms. You understand what that means?"
"No. I'm lost."
"We are all a little lost, but write down three with fifteen zeros behind it."
I did. I wrote it in my ledger: 3,000,000,000,000,000 marks. "What's that in dollars?"
"When? Friday afternoon? This morning? This afternoon? On Thursday, when the Rentenmark begins to circulate? Or at the end of the month when you would settle your account?"
"Well, what about this morning? If you sold my stocks this morning, how many dollars could I buy with three quadrillion marks or whatever they are?"
"That will take a few minutes to tell you, because we must get all the stock prices first and then the exact Kurs
"Christoph, I'm sorry to be so much trouble -"
"Nonsense, this is our job. I will telephone in a few minutes."
I drank my coffee and looked at newspaper photographs from Munich: six members of the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler, festooned with rifles and sidearms and ammunition bandoliers, arresting one civilian, a Socialist city councilman; General Erich Ludendorff, with a moustache and three chins, glaring at embarrassed Bavarian police officers; Ernst Röhm with a swastika on his arm and a white scar across his dark cat's face, surrendering the War Ministry to a helmeted Reichswehr lieutenant ...
Christoph called back: If I sold my stocks right now and paid my debt to Waldstein & Co. I should clear about four thousand dollars.
"Gosh, I felt a lot richer than that!"
He didn't say anything for a moment, and when he spoke there was a caustic tone in his voice. "I think most people in Germany would consider you quite rich. Four thousand dollars would buy half of Berlin this morning!"
'Christoph you all have taken very good care of me! I'm not complaining, I'm asking for advice."
"Yes. Well, the problem is, my boy, we don't quite know what to do ourselves. We really don't. The thing is balanced on the knife's edge now. What can Schacht do? What will the Reichsbank do -- because they are entirely independent of the cabinet and of Schacht and of his new Rentenbank, you know. The quotation I just gave you is based on the official Berlin Kurs this morning: 630 milliards , or billions in American terms - that is, 630 with nine zeros - 630 billion marks to one dollar, but many people think the mark will fall into the trillions - American trillions, twelve zeros - by the end of the month -"
"Trillions of marks to the dollar? That would mean I would get much less than four thousand dollars?"
"Depends on what we can get for your stocks then - in marks. We certainly don't want to sell your stocks now, put you into marks, and then watch the mark keep dropping in relation to the dollar."
"Christoph, I just can't make up my mind about this. Could I come over and talk with Dr. Strassburger?"
I had to wait while Christoph called Strassburger's office on another line.
"No, I'm sorry, he's in meetings with the Disconto-Gesellschaft all day, then apparently Schacht wants to see him tomorrow, they think perhaps he can see you late tomorrow afternoon -"
"Well ... Christoph, I think I'll sit tight until I can talk to Dr. Strassburger."
"Very well. Peter, there is another matter, much more pleasant."
" You know what we say on Wall Street?" asked Whitney Wood. "We say a Bull makes money some of the time, and a Bear makes money some of the time, but a Pig loses money all of the time! "
"Whitney! " Miss Boatwright turned so I had to stop painting. "You're not calling Peter a pig!"
'No, I'm not, my dear. I'm giving an allegorical answer to his request for investment advice."
"That's right, Miss Boatwright, I just asked his opinion as to what I should do and could you please turn toward the window again, because the light on your face -"
She did as I asked but her expression still wasn't right. The usual serenity wasn't there.
"I think it's bad enough that the Germans talk about money all the time, but at least they have an excuse. I really don't think the two of you have any excuse, and I'm frankly tired of the subject."
"Well, he's got a problem and he needs some advice and my advice is get into dollars and stay in dollars until this situation has clarified itself -"
"I can't get in to see Dr. Strassburger --"
"I'm not surprised to hear it. These fellows have their hands full this week."
Whitney Wood had not even taken off his overcoat. His suitcases were out in his taxi. He was on his way to London, to attend another meeting with General Dawes. I had never heard of General Dawes, who was setting up still another commission to decide how much reparations the Germans were to pay and how they were to pay it, but Dawes was a friend of Whitney Wood's and had sent for him, again.
"Goodbye, Mr. Wood, and thank you for the advice. I think I'd better take it. I'll give them the instructions tomorrow."
"Yeah, I wouldn't wait much longer, boy. Things are moving fast, and nobody knows in what direction." He shook hands and turned toward Miss Boatwright, who stood up.
"I'll take you to the door," she said and went out into the hall with him.
When she returned to her chair by the window she looked so sad that I changed brushes and mixed some white paint and worked on the collar of her dress.
"He thinks he'll be back in two weeks," she said.
"Oh, that's good, Miss Boatwright."
"This summons from General Dawes was rather unexpected. We had tickets for the Philharmonic tonight. Furtwängler is conducting. Would thee care to be my escort, Peter?"
"Oh thank you, Miss Boatwright, I'd love to, but I can't. You know my friend Keith has a friend, a sculptor by the name of Kowalski, and this Kowalski has given us some tickets to the Artists' Ball at the Kunstgewerbeschule-whatever that is . Apparently they wear costumes and masks -"
"Oh, what fun!" said Miss Boatwright. "I assume thee is taking Lili?"
"Yes, Helena persuaded her mother somehow, but I've got to have her home by midnight, like Cinderella, because I kept her out all night on Friday, even though Bobby was with us the whole time. Don't you think the Waldsteins are being a little -- I mean she is eighteen, Miss Boatwright...."
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