“Sometimes the poet roamed the hills alone; but at other times he was glad to have a friend with him, and they talked about the great events of those days. You remember those events, Miss Creston?”
“In a vague way.”
“They made the theme of great poetry, by Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and others in other lands. They have made the theme of fiction, also. Many a writer would have been glad to hear first-hand accounts of such events, from those who had actually witnessed them, and experienced the height of human effort and the depth of human suffering and despair. The writer of genius can imagine these things, but even he must have local color and the details of personality. You know how eagerly Shakespeare seized upon the stories of Holinshed’s chronicles, and the Italian tales of bloodshed and terror which he heard. Those things mean a lot to a writer. Am I taking too much of your time, Miss Creston?”
“Not at all. I am deeply interested.”
“I noticed that it is a fairly pleasant morning; a gray sky, but that is the best we can expect in March. Wordsworth learned to love such skies, and the mist on the little hills of his Lake Country. It occurs to me that you might like to take a stroll and enjoy a little fresh air. It would be good for you, and give me pleasure to escort you and talk to you as we stroll.”
The man of mystery had said his say, making careful use of parables, metaphors, historical allusions, and references to mythology, all taught him by the learned Lanny Budd. He waited for the lady to think it over, meantime keeping his eyes upon her, meeting her inquiring and perhaps, frightened glances. She had read much about what was going on in Naziland, and knew that the eternal spirit of the chainless mind must be at work here—some brave and devoted souls must be fighting the terror. By his strange indirect words this man had conveyed to her that he was one of these persons, and was desirous of narrating his experiences to an American writer. This might be dangerous, but also interesting, and in her soul there was a war between the lady of good society and the aspiring writer of fiction.
The visitor interrupted to remark: “It goes without saying that when a man of good manners goes walking with a lady, he permits her to choose the route, so that she may feel perfectly safe.”
So the writer of fiction won out in the internal contest. “I think I would enjoy a walk, Mr. Siebert,” she remarked. “Will you wait while I put on my things?”
XII
The man of the underground stood by the window, looking out, but occasionally turning his head to see if there were any signs that he was being spied upon. The lady from Baltimore appeared, wearing the same plaid coat and small mink hat as on her expeditions with Lanny Budd. They went out, and she chose to proceed in the direction of the Brandenburger Gate. They walked side by side and there was no one immediately in front of or behind them; the man drew a deep breath, and without any preliminaries, began:
“Miss Creston, I appreciate what it means for one in your position to receive a stranger and to trust him as you are doing. I am grateful, and assure you that you will find me a person worthy of your kindness. As I tried to tell you by that roundabout talk, I am one of those Germans who have refused to submit to the present dictatorship and are actively fighting it. May I tell you a little about my life?”
“That is what I came for, Mr. Siebert.”
“First, I am in Germany illegally, on forged passports, and the police are actively seeking me.”
“But then—how can you be walking on a frequented street?”
“I am taking that chance, for reasons which I will explain.”
“Wouldn’t it be wiser for us to walk on some quieter street than Unter den Linden?”
“It was my promise to let you choose the route, Miss Creston.”
“We will turn off at the first corner. I have no desire to subject you to needless risk.”
Still speaking in a low voice, and slowly, so as to make as few errors as possible in a language he only half knew, the man told about his childhood in a factory district near one of the canals; the search for knowledge in a Socialist workers’ school; the work of the trade unions and the co-operatives; the life of a sailor who would not give up his convictions and persisted in teaching his comrades in the strictly disciplined German merchant marine. He told about the war, in which he had been drafted onto a blockade-running vessel and taken prisoner by a British destroyer; his return to Germany, and the efforts to build a Socialist state, which had failed because the leaders lacked the courage to put down the militarists and great industrialists of their country; the struggles against the Communists on the one side and the Nazis on the other; the long agony of inflation and depression, and then the coming of Hitler—Monck named no names, but told of his experiences in concentration camps, and his two escapes. They were stories to make a gently nourished lady somewhat dizzy; he offered to spare her, but she said No—if some people could endure tortures, others ought to be able to hear about them.
XIII
A long walk and a long talk. Monck told the story of Trudi Schultz—not naming her, or giving any hint concerning a husband, or funds from America. He told about the millions of pamphlets which had been smuggled into Germany, telling the truth as to the Nazis and their régime; also the documents which had been brought out and published abroad. He told about various devoted comrades who had been caught and had been heard of no more. He told about Spain, and the International Brigade, and the heroism of young men who had come from every part of the earth to fight Fascism on the battlefield which Fascism had chosen. “You see, Miss Creston,” said the man of the underground, “this is a struggle which makes demands upon all who have consciences. When I read your stories, I said: ‘Here is a woman whose heart is with us, and when she knows the facts she will do her part.’”
“But what is my part, Mr. Siebert? What can a stranger do?”
“Right now I am in an especially dangerous position. I am being hunted day and night, and wherever I stay I bring deadly peril to my comrades. I cannot stop at any hotel or lodging house, because the fingerprints on my passports would give me away to the police. I must get out of the country without delay, and it is my hope to be your chauffeur and drive you into Holland.”
“But where could you have got that idea, Mr. Siebert? I have no car!”
“You must understand that I have a movement behind me; I have friends who want to save me, and are willing to put up the money it would cost. I am in position to put into your hands enough to purchase a medium-priced car. It would be registered in your name and would be your property. When you reached Holland, or England, if you were willing to travel that far with me, the car would be yours.”
“Mr. Siebert, you take my breath away. I don’t know how to drive a car, and I could not afford the luxury of owning one.”
“Then you could sell it; that would be entirely up to you.”
Not once in this long walk had the woman looked at the man by her side, nor he at her. They had walked straight on, absorbed in their conversation—except when someone passed them and they stopped, perhaps in the middle of a sentence. Now the man took a glance and saw that the woman was biting her lips together.
“I know that this seems a mad proposal,” he went on; “but let me explain my plight. I have been in and out of the country a dozen times; but just now all my old haunts are being watched, and most of my old associates are dead or in jail.”
“Mr. Siebert,” she exclaimed, “this is a terrible thing you are asking!”
“I am not going to urge you, Miss Creston; it is a matter for your conscience to decide. I point out that the trouble I am in is not because of anything I have sought for myself. I might have lived freely and safely in Germany if I had been willing to abandon my faith in human decency, as so many others have done. Moreover, as it happens, I have information of vital importance to the outside world, if I can get it out. Germany is a jail, and it so happens that you possess the magic key. You are an American, and you belong to that class which is privileged to move
freely about the world and to be treated with respect.”
“You are mistaken, Mr. Siebert, if you think that I am a rich woman or anything near it.”
“Anyone who looks at you, or who hears you speak, will know that you are what is called a lady—that you do not smuggle goods, do not consort with Reds, and have the right to purchase a car and have a chauffeur to drive you about Europe. The guards at the border will be polite, and will ask what amount of German money you are taking out, and may possibly say that they are required to look into your purse. They will do no more than glance at your servant, and will take up his exit permit without comment.”
“And suppose it does not go that way? Suppose someone recognizes you?”
“In that case you will have a perfectly clear story. You had planned to buy a car and hire a driver, and a strange man appeared who represented himself as a chauffeur, and brought you letters of reference; I will furnish you with such letters—they will not be genuine, and it will be easy to believe that you accepted them and employed the man. I take it that you have not been meeting any Reds or anti-Nazis in Germany, and so your record is clear. The Nazis are not making much trouble for Americans; they are anxious that your country should keep out of the next war when it comes. It is my firm belief that your country will not be able to keep out, and so you will some day realize that in helping me to escape from the madman of Europe you were also helping your own people.”
XIV
This proved to be a long walk; so long that the woman’s strength gave out, and she wanted to sit on a bench in a park they were passing. But the bench was painted yellow and had a large black letter “J” on it, so the man had to explain and lead her farther on to where there was an “Aryan” bench. There they sat for a while and nobody paid any particular attention to them. Laurel Creston asked one question after another—questions she would not have bothered to ask unless she was thinking seriously of granting the man’s request. He had managed, with the help of the fine words Lanny Budd had taught him, to convince her completely that he was what he represented himself to be. It never even occurred to her that he might be a master criminal trying to escape from the German police—say a counterfeiter, or a jewel smuggler, to say nothing of the head of a gang that was going to burglarize the Siemens-Halske plant and steal a supercharger for a fighter plane!
Laurel Creston wanted to know how soon he desired to leave, and he told her that Sunday would be the best day for passing the border; there would be many pleasure cars out, and the guards would be kept busy. “We would leave at about nine in the morning, and be at the border by fifteen.”
“That doesn’t give me much time to make my arrangements, Mr. Siebert.”
“I cannot say about that, but you should not have to make many arrangements, since you could come back to Berlin very soon. You could invent some friend in England who was ill and whom you wished to visit and help; this friend could get well quickly and you could then return without exciting any comment.”
“But I would have to buy the car and get the necessary papers.”
“You could step into a taxicab and be driven to a dealer’s, and in ten minutes you would be the owner of a car and the document proving your ownership.”
“And the car license and all that?”
“The dealer would be happy to attend to that for an American lady, and to deliver the car wherever you ordered. I would take charge of it, and at nine o’clock on Sunday morning I would appear in front of the pension in a proper chauffeur’s uniform, and you would depart in state.”
“You have thought of everything, it appears!”
“One has to learn to do just that when one goes to war with the Gestapo. Sometimes there are slips, but I don’t think there will be in this case. Your own position is too secure.”
“And you mean that you brought me this extraordinary proposal solely on the basis of my stories that you had read?”
“You have no idea how much of yourself you have put into your stories, Miss Creston. I found there both a warm heart and a keen mind, two things which do not always come together. I perceived that the writer knows what parasitism is, and how it weakens and in the end destroys human character. I ventured the guess that such a writer would not be a lover of the Nazi dictatorship, and would certainly not betray the confidence placed in her.”
“I admired the skill with which you managed to convey your ideas to me in that pension, without saying a word that anyone there could understand.”
“Naturally, I had thought that out carefully, and prepared it with some books before me. Let me ask if you really know that sonnet of Byron’s.”
“What I know better is a longer poem, called ‘The Prisoner of Chillon.’ It is about a man who fought for the freedom of Switzerland and was confined in a dungeon.”
“Bonnivard was his name.”
“Yes. I am not sure that I can recall the sonnet.”
“I learned it for this occasion. Let me recite it for you—and point out in advance that there are literally hundreds of thousands of men and women—nobody but the Gestapo knows how many—who are confined in dungeons throughout Germany at this moment, and for no crime except that they have refused to bow to the will of an ignorant and fanatical despot. Let me repeat Byron’s lines, which apply to the present situation without the change of a single word.”
“Please do,” said the woman, and Monck recited:
Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art:
For there thy habitation is the heart—
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned—
To fetters, and the damp vault’s dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom’s fame finds wings on every wind.
Chillon! thy prison is a holy place
And thy sad floor an altar—for ’twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard!—May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.
9
Time Gallops Withal
I
Lanny Budd had learned by long practice not to let himself worry when it wouldn’t do any good. He went to see an American movie that Friday evening, and then he went to sleep, and if he had any nightmares he didn’t know it. In the morning, his hands did tremble a little as he opened a letter signed Braun. It told him: “The lady is going to help me find a good Defregger.” Lanny thought: “All right, she has fallen for it”—just as Lanny had fallen in so many cases, beginning when he was only fourteen, and his Red uncle had taken him to visit the Italian syndicalist, Barbara Pugliese. He had got into a lot of trouble, off and on ever since, trying to help people who were battling for a new kind of freedom, in the field of economics. It wouldn’t be so bad in Laurel Creston’s case, he told himself, for she wasn’t a presidential agent, and surely hadn’t anything more important to do than to learn to understand the struggle against the Nazi-Fascist counterrevolution, and to write about it.
Lanny burned the note, according to his practice, and sent the ashes down into the sewer. Then he put his mind on the screaming Nazi press; he saw that Hitler was going to war again—at any rate, he was going to have his way, and let the other nations of Europe make it a fight if they chose. This Saturday, the 11th of March, the scoundrelly Czechs were terrorizing Germans all over their domains—at least, that was what you believed if you were a German and read Hitler’s newspapers or listened to Hitler’s radio. Lanny decided that he had got about enough material and was ready to take it out; but it wouldn’t do for him to go just at the moment when the supercharger was going, so he looked up a concert for the afternoon and listened to a Bruckner symphony.
This was the night when the burglary was supposed to be committed, and Lanny wanted to have an air-tight alibi; so
he called Oberst Furtwaengler, of Der Dicke’s staff, apologized for having neglected him, and invited him and his very dull provincial wife to a performance of Die Fledermaus; then he took them to a night club where they watched grotesquely depraved dancing. The SS officer and his lady drank enough champagne so that they didn’t want to go home, and Lanny took them to still another “spot”—it was the fashion to go the rounds like that, and at four o’clock in the morning he drove them home, and made jokes about the time, so as to be sure it was firmly fixed in their minds. They lived some distance out in the suburbs, and thought it was an imposition for him to have to drive back to the Adlon so late, so they invited him to occupy their spare room. Beat that for an alibi if you could!
Lanny lay in a strange bed and counted sheep, doing his best not to think about what Monck was supposed to be doing at that hour. He and his fellow-conspirators would have the supercharger and be taking it to pieces with wrenches, or an acetylene torch, or whatever might be required. The frame, or box, or whatever the device was contained in, would be cut into two or more flat sections and welded under the chassis of the car where they would be inconspicuous. The pipes and whatever else was inside, would be cut to proper lengths and wrapped up in bundles to look like tool kits; they would be hidden under the back seat, and on top of them would be Miss Creston and some of her suitcases and hatboxes. The border guards would hardly move all that—at least, not unless an alarm had been sent out and everything in Germany was being turned upside down.
II
On Sunday morning the Oberst and his lady had hangovers, and Lanny pretended to have one, too. He read the morning papers and now and then turned on the radio—for if an alarm was given, it might possibly be a public one; however, Lanny didn’t hear anything. His hosts urged him to stay, and it was a safe way to spend Sunday morning. He had known this couple for some five or six years and had always made himself agreeable, so if they had ever had any suspicions of him, these had long ago been dissipated. He was an art expert who possessed the Führer’s favor and had made a lot of money for General Göring by selling paintings which Göring had bought for a song from wealthy Jews. The Reichsmarschall had authorized him to sell the rest of these treasures for whatever he could get, and had naturally expected that the expert would make a quick clean-up; but Lanny hadn’t behaved that way—he had been extremely conscientious and had insisted upon getting good prices, thus earning his commissions many times over. Both the great man and his aide appreciated this, and it hadn’t occurred to either of them that by these tactics Lanny was providing himself with an excuse for coming into Germany several times a year and enjoying the honor of intimacy with the Nazi Number Two.