The evening before, Christoph had taken me for a long walk along the Kurfürstendamm, Berlin's busiest street.
It was Saturday night, and the sidewalks were crammed with people -all kinds of people: fat businessmen from the provinces, with shaved necks bulging over their celluloid collars; high school boys and university students wearing colored caps; army officers with riding boots and dress swords; people speaking English; people speaking Polish or Russian; prostitutes of all shapes and sizes, walking in pairs, walking alone, stopping to adjust their garters, standing in groups in the doorways.... New Orleans jazz came tootling out of a nightclub ablaze with blinking lights and huge posters showing naked girls. Crippled beggars were everywhere.
Christoph limped along beside me. "What do you think?"
"Well, it's interesting - and certainly different from Paris."
He shook his head. "You should have seen it before the war. We have a beautiful city, you will see. But this? Eine Schweinerei!"
We walked on, past the gigantic imitation Romanesque cathedral, a gray stone island in the middle of the traffic. Christoph pointed to an even uglier building just across the street. "Romanisches Cafe" according to the sign.
"This is where the writers and the newspaper people sit and talk and do their work," said Christoph.
We entered a glassed-in terrace and sat down at a table with a view of the sidewalk. The people at the other tables were talking with great animation or quietly reading newspapers attached to wooden holders, or drinking coffee. I didn't see anybody working.
A waiter came.
"Will you try a Berliner Weisse? It is a special white beer, with a little raspberry syrup."
I nodded.
"Zwei Weisse, mit."
"Jawohl, Herr Oberleutnant."
"Do you come here all the time?" I asked.
Christoph shook his head. "He's never seen me before, but they can always tell. Cigarette?" He settled back. "Peter, tomorrow we go out to the island. I want to tell you something about the Waldsteins, because you will be meeting them and everybody knows these things, so they will expect you know them too.
"In the first place, you know of course that they are Jews ... or perhaps it is more accurate to say they were Jews, because they became converted to the Evangelical Church at the time of Napoleon. So they do not think of themselves as Jews, you see, although everybody else does, and one does not talk about it in their presence.
"Why did they become Christians? Because this was a time of liberation, the French army brought the ideas of the French revolution into all these old German states, the idea that all men are equal, and with that came the idea that Jews should not be shut off into the ghetto, speaking a different language, consorting only with each other.... There was a feeling among the Jews themselves, some of them, that maybe they were not the Chosen People after all, maybe they were just like the other people in the towns they lived in, and they wanted to come out of the ghetto and take part in the life of the world.
"Well, in Berlin we never had a ghetto anyway, it was a new town, but the princes who became the kings of Prussia did not like Jews much and permitted very few families to live here. One of them was Mendelssohn. You have heard of Moses Mendelssohn?"
"Was that the composer?" I asked.
"No, it was his grandfather. He was a philosopher and a writer. He translated parts of the Old Testament from Hebrew into German, so the Jews could learn German. He remained a Jew, but he wanted to bring the other Jews into the German life. He was quite a famous man, although not so rich as his descendants became. Well, he had a lot of children and one of them married David Waldstein, a banker who was very rich, maybe the richest man in Berlin. Why were so many Jews bankers? Because in the first place it was one of the few things they were allowed to do - money lending - and it was not against their religion to charge - I don't know what you call that, Zinsen we say, when you charge somebody money to lend him money.
"Interest?"
"Yes, interest. I think somewhere in the Bible it forbids that, you remember about Jesus and the money changers in the Temple? I don't understand it exactly, but all over Europe not just in Germany, it was the Jews who did most of the money lending, that is, banking, even in the Middle Ages."
The beer came, foaming in big balloon glasses. We lifted them ceremoniously, we drank. It tasted just about the way you would expect beer with raspberry syrup to taste.
Christoph drained half his glass in one series of gulps, put it down, wiped his moustache with his napkin, and continued the story.
"All right, this David Waldstein decided to become baptized, become a Christian, and he had his children baptized as they were born. I suppose he wanted them to be part of the German life and you had to be a Christian. As I say, this was the time of Napoleon, Napoleon had beaten the Prussians and occupied Berlin, forced the Prussians to join his Russian campaign and then, after the retreat from Moscow, one of the Prussian generals took his corps out of Napoleon's army and joined the Allies. One of my ancestors was an officer in that corps and one of the Waldstein sons was a rider, too - though not an officer, of course. This same son - his name was Jacob Waldstein - became famous, he wrote poems and songs, he wrote several plays, he was a friend of Heine, he was a friend of Felix Mendelssohn, and he began a literary magazine with money that his brothers gave him. His brothers ran the Bank, and had many children and then their sons ran the Bank, - and their. daughters married into our aristocracy. Because now this family, and others like them, were becoming terribly rich.
"This was the industrial revolution now, it came late to Germany, it was railroads and coal mines and steel mills, and to build railroads, to build steel mills, you must raise money. And who knows how to raise money? Not our Junkers, our old landholders, descended from Teutonic Knights. Not the king's army officers. Not the king's ministers and privy councillors. No, they don't know anything about money, because that is nothing for gentlemen, that is what the English call being in trade, absolutely forbidden to the gentlemen who run the country. Who knows how to raise money, lots of money, public issues of stocks and bonds, here and in Paris, in London, in New York. Who knows are Mendelssohns and Waldsteins, and Oppenheims and the others, of course, the Rothschilds in Frankfurt and Vienna and London are the most famous, then Bleichröder, Fürstenberg, lots of others ... not all Jewish, you understand, the whole upper bourgeoisie suddenly bloomed, the money poured in, they built themselves palaces here in Berlin and out in the country, and their daughters married people who already had palaces but could not pay to keep them. People with old titles. And then, the next thing, they wanted titles themselves. They paid for hospitals, they gave art collections to museums, the Waldsteins had their journal, the government liked to have the support of such people, they were in fact extremely loyal subjects of the king - who was by now also an emperor, the Kaiser. And Bismarck, the man who made his king a Kaiser ... Bismarck found these families useful. And he gave them - some of them - the titles they wanted. Waldsteins were the first."
"Christoph," I said, "for a hussar officer and an airplane pilot, you know a lot of history."
That seemed to please him. He nodded and paused to sip some beer. "I have told you, I don't want to be an officer, I like books, I like books much more than horses - or aeroplanes - and I would like to go back to the University, but just now it is not possible."
"Well, go on with the Waldsteins. How did you get involved with them?"
"It was not really me, it was my father. In Germany, you know, before the War everybody must do military service, one or two years in the army, and then they stay in the reserve. You do your service in some regiment, and then all your life you go to summer manoeuvres with that regiment. For German men, this is - I should say was - one of the most important things. Your regiment, your reserve rank, . . . it is hard to explain to an American, but in those years, after we beat the French in 1870, before 1914, this thing about the army was ... well, it was just very important.
"So now the Waldsteins - two of them in the bank, not old Jacob the poet - they were the Freiherrn von Waldstein - Barons von Waldstein - and they had sons. To what regiment would the sons be sent for their service. Very ticklish problem. Everybody wants to be in the cavalry, but cavalry people need lots of horses and a man to care for them, in other words you can't be in the cavalry if you don't have money. Well, the Waldsteins had plenty of money. Then everybody wants to be in the Guard regiments. Guard Grenadiers, although infantry, is better than line cavalry, more cachet, the French say. ... You think this is all nonsense, don't you?"
"It's a different world, but it's interesting."
"It is a vanished world, I only tell you to explain the Waldsteins. One of the aunts - that is, a sister of the bankers and niece of the poet- was married to Lieutenant General Count Wachenfels, member of the General Staff, commander of light cavalry. He spoke to my father. My father then was adjutant of the Black Hussars."
"That's the hussars with the skull and ..."
"Yes. This must have been in the 1880s, I don't know exactly when, but the Waldsteins served with the regiment, I think maybe my father saw to it that they were not so badly treated as they might have been. And my father and mother accepted invitations, to the big houses - Pariser Platz, Schloss Havelblick ... and - as my brothers and I grew up - we were sent to the same Gymnasium, the same high school, as the youngest Waldstein boys, that is AIfred and Max and Bobby. That is how we came to know them - Oh my God, look who is coming now -in the Romanisches Cafe, of all places!"
I had also noticed the group just coming in, well-dressed men and women, shouting and laughing, sounding as if they had already had a few drinks; they might have come from one of the nightclubs. They were just settling around a large table at the other side of the room when one of the men, still standing, glanced across at us. He looked surprised, said something to one of the women, and strode toward our table.
Christoph Keith immediately stood up, so I stood up too. The man approaching was tall, as tall as Keith but heavier, a swollen chest, strange melancholy blue eyes in a pale fleshy face, and dark blond hair slicked back from his broad forehead. He wore a double-breasted blue business suit with some kind of military decoration in his lapel. He seemed to be a little older - perhaps in his thirties.
They shook hands, grinning. I was introduced...Mr. Ellis, aus Amerika... Hauptmann Somebody-Ring, I thought ... famous flier, squadron commander... and again the story about the burning plane at Verdun.
"Will you join us for a drink? I am introducing Ellis to Berliner Weisse."
"Thank you, I will just sit with you for a moment. I am with all these Swedish friends of my wife...." They were talking German, but I could understand most of what was said. They apparently had not seen each other for years, but had heard stories. No Hauptmann Ring wasn't flying for the Swedes anymore, if he was going to fly at all, it would be for Germany, in German airplanes. The waiter came and Ring ordered Cognac. And these swine who signed the Versailles Treaty have agreed that we'll never have airplanes again. What do you think of that?
He was leaning forward, a burly form leaning forward in the spindly iron chair, his elbows on the table, talking rapidly, working himself up so that his face was becoming flushed.
War criminals! Turning German officers over to the courts for trials, criminals. Criminals! U-boat watch officers who did nothing but their duty, sitting in prison because these old women who claim to represent the German people are scared of the Allies.
The Cognac came. He drank it with one gulp and slammed the glass down on the marble. You realize if our Rittmeister had lived, he would be in jail now? The face was getting redder.
(I didn't want to ask which Rittmeister, because I didn't want to show that I understood him.)
And now this Rathenau, this Jew with his Rapallo Treaty! Can you imagine a treaty with the Bolsheviks?
Christoph Keith interrupted him: Rapallo might not be such a bad idea. It set the French back on their tails.
The other only snorted.
Christoph lighted another cigarette. "I thought you wanted to fly airplanes- German airplanes."
"We're not allowed to have airplanes! They blew ours up with dynamite! Aschaffenburg. Saw it with my own eyes, a line of beautiful new D-IV's, hardly been flown, I cried -"
Christoph interrupted again. "Ever been in Russia? I have, with the horses. A very big country, thousands and thousands of kilometers, empty steppes, few roads, fewer railroads ... and no Allied Control Commissions!"
Hauptmann Ring stared at him with hooded eyes.
"I hear this Rapallo Treaty was a fluke," said Christoph. "Not Rathenau's idea at all. Rathenau wants to work with France and England. I hear it was all arranged by Ago von Maltzan. Remember him? He's in the Russian bureau at the Foreign Ministry. Maltzan working with Chicherin, Maltzan persuading Rathenau ... and the idea didn't start in the Wilhelmstrasse; it came from the Bendlerstrasse."
"Von Seeckt?"
Christoph blew a smoke ring toward the distant ceiling. "Thousands of kilometers, old boy. The steppes look like the ocean. Von Seeckt has seen them. He understands. Who's going to know what a few German civilians are doing with some old tanks and some old airplanes, far away beyond the horizon?"
"You think for one minute that Lenin and Trotsky -"
"Why not? We brought Lenin back from Switzerland, didn't we? It was the Allies who invaded him. It was the Allies who cut him off from the world. Lenin needs tractors. We make excellent tractors. Yes, I think they'll let us do some training."
The other looked at him quietly. "That's very interesting. I will see if our people agree with you. In any case, our Israelite banking fraternity remains as well informed as always."
"I think you know this doesn't come from banking sources."
"But it has reached them now, has it not?"
"I work for them, yes." Christoph's tone had changed.
"One hears your job is to keep Bobby Waldstein from catching a social disease."
"Maybe I have some other duties too."
"If your predictions are correct, would you come across the steppes with us?"
Christoph stuck out his leg, and tapped it with his cane: "Can't kick the pedals anymore, Herr Kommandant. Sorry."
"Yes, l'm sure you're sorry." He scraped his chair back and stood up. We did too.
"Also," he said, shaking hands with Christoph. "One always watches with interest what happens to the old comrades. I never imagined Keith as a banker, but better an employed banker than an unemployed pilot, I would say!"
He gave me a huge moist paw, said in English, "Good evening, sir, a very great pleasure!" and walked back to his table, where the conversation stopped and the faces turned to inspect us.
"What have you got there?" asked Christoph as we sat down again. He reached across and grabbed the round cardboard coaster which had an advertisement for Spatenbräu Beer on one side, and my pencil sketch of Hauptmann Ring on the other.
"Why, Peter, that's excellent! I didn't notice you were doing that, it looks exactly like him,"
"He has an interesting face - a bit like a Roman emperor."
"Better not let him hear you describe him as a Roman, he thinks of himself as the typical Germanic warrior.... But why do you write 'Hauptmann Ring' down here?"
"Isn't that his name?"
Christoph stared at me and then began to laugh. He leaned back in his chair and roared with laughter, so hard that the other patrons - especially those at the big table - turned to look at us.
"Hauptmann Ring! That's very good! The name is Hauptmann Goering, last commander of Richthofen's Jagdstaffel, holder of the Order pour-le-merite, one of our famous aces - and, as you heard, one of the noisiest, most bitter enemies of Versailles, of the German government that signed at Versailles."
"Was he in a Freikorps, too?"
"No. He's been up in Sweden, earning his living flying mail and supplies and perhaps a few passengers to isolated fishing towns, logging towns ...what do you call that?"
"A bush pilot?"
"Exactly so, a bush pilot, but then he took a Swedish countess away from her husband and her children - that must be the lady there beside him - and I suppose they had to get out. I understand he's living from her money, but he'll have to find work here."
"I guess he can't fly airplanes here," I said.
"No," said Christoph, looking across the crowded, smoky room. "Today he can't fly airplanes here. But I'll tell you something: he'll never rest until he can. And there are hundreds like him. Thousands!"
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