Winter, page 47
‘Who did the Reichsführer want to release?’ said Inge always keen for the latest gossip.
Pauli had the shirt on and the cuff links done up. He began trying to get the stiff collar onto the back stud. The effort, with his arms twisted round his head, made him puff. He was terribly out of condition. He decided to take more exercise, starting next Monday. ‘Release? No one. I’m talking about when we’ve tried to get people out of prisons to send them to concentration camps. People the SS particularly dislike.’
Inge nodded gravely before lifting the dress above her head and letting it slide down over her, careful not to disarrange hair or make-up. ‘Is he taking Helena?’
‘Yes, I arranged the travel documents.’
Inge’s head emerged from the dress and she said, ‘She’s only twelve: thirteen in September.’
‘Lottie’s mother and everyone will want to see her. And the sea voyage will do her good. She’s not been too well, lately. She’s never really got over having her mother taken away.’
‘Poor child,’ said Inge. ‘How could Lottie have been so irresponsible. And the way Peter sits around moping all the time doesn’t help anyone.’
‘Peter works hard,’ said Pauli.
‘He’s in that apartment playing the piano half the night. He doesn’t eat properly, and his work is neglected. The other directors only keep him on the board because your Papa founded the company.’
Pauli corrected her. ‘They keep him on the board because Peter knows more about running those companies than all the others put together.’
‘He’s lucky they didn’t force him to resign when he married Lottie.’
Pauli laughed, sometimes his wife got carried away. ‘They’d hardly do that, darling. That’s years before Hitler came to power.’
‘Isn’t he frightened there might be a war?’ said Inge. ‘He’d be trapped in America.’
‘There’ll be no war,’ said Pauli. ‘Peter knows that: everyone knows that.’
‘The Poles will never give in about the corridor,’ said Inge. ‘I know what the Poles are like.’
‘Leave it to the Führer,’ said Pauli. ‘The Austrians gave way, the Czechs gave way. We occupied Memel. Who will help the Poles if they fight us?’
‘The British.’
For the fourth time he tried to do up the bow tie and again it was uneven. He tugged it undone again. ‘Don’t be silly, Inge. How can the British do anything? Look at the map and see for yourself.’
‘And France. France could attack the Western Front, as they did last time. Look at the map for yourself,’ she replied rudely, she hated to be treated as if a woman’s opinion was of no account.
‘Come here, Inge, and I’ll tell you a secret. A real secret this time.’ He went to the door and looked to make sure that the maid’s room was unoccupied. It was her evening off but you couldn’t be too careful. ‘Fritz just flew back from Moscow. He was a special plenipotentiary from the Führer, sent to keep an eye on that fool Ribbentrop. A pact will be signed: Stalin has agreed to everything. Poland will be split down the middle, one-half for Russia and one-half for us.’
‘A pact with Stalin?’ Inge almost dropped the earring she was holding.
‘You’re surprised, aren’t you. And think how surprised the French and the British will be. The Führer will announce it just before our troops move across the frontier. The Western powers will all be too terrified to do anything. They are worms! The Führer said that himself. “Our opponents are little worms,” he told the generals. “Close your hearts to pity. Proceed brutally.”’
‘What did he mean?’ said Inge.
‘I don’t know,’ said Pauli, ‘but he knows how to talk to the generals. Someone has to put some guts into them.’ He abandoned the bow tie and took the shoe horn to put his patent-leather shoes on. It was such a business dressing up, but Inge liked it.
‘With Stalin? A pact?’ said Inge. She simply couldn’t come to terms with the idea. Everyone knew that the Russians were bestial sub-humans and that Stalin was the devil incarnate.
‘Fritz said they were received in Moscow with open arms. Not just the usual diplomatic exchanges – such celebrations that he could hardly believe it. Drink, caviar, wonderful food. Parties going on until the morning, and the Russians embracing our people like long-lost brothers. Stalin toasted the Führer’s health. Fritz said the Russians were wonderful: it was just like being with old Nazi Party comrades.’
‘You didn’t tell Peter all this?’
‘Fritz only got back last night.’ He loosened the laces fully and slipped the shoes on.
‘Did you ask Fritz about time off in September?’
‘Our vacation on the Obersalzberg?’ He stood up and stamped, first one foot, then the other.
‘If we leave it too late, the Führer won’t be there. It’s so much more exciting when he’s there.’
She meant, of course, that she wanted another of those invitations to tea. Usually Bormann would arrange for the Winters to be included, but last year Bormann had taken Pauli aside and asked him about buying his house. He said the Führer wanted to acquire the whole hillside, which was now being referred to as the Führergebiet. The process had been going on since 1933. Bormann was ruthless: some of the houses had been obtained by threats, and others had been seized. Inge was appalled at the idea of losing their holiday home. She had decided to take the Führer aside and talk to him about it, and Pauli dreaded the thought of such a conversation. Inge sometimes went too far. And on the subject of their country house – and its proximity to the Führer’s Berghof – Inge felt passionate. How would she ever be able to tell Lisl that they no longer had that wonderful status symbol?
‘I can’t see how I’ll get my desk cleared, darling. The Führer has sent this damned note about euthanasia to Philip Bouhler – head of Chancellery – and it’s landed on my desk.’
‘Why your desk, darling?’ She lifted her skirt very high to adjust her suspender belt. Pauli watched her. She saw him looking at her and smiled.
‘Fritz was with Reichsführer Himmler. He offered to take it over. And when Fritz takes on some task, I do it.’
‘How tiresome.’ She stroked her silk stockings and straightened the seams.
‘There’s no one to help.’
‘It can’t take the whole month, Pauli. If we could get away by Saturday September 9…’ She let the new dress fall properly, and it looked fine. She twisted her head to see the back in the mirror.
Speaking to Inge’s reflection, Pauli said, ‘Darling, be reasonable. The Führer’s ordered that all the chronically insane and incurables in Germany must be put to death. And it’s to be done by SS doctors. Can you imagine how much work that’s going to make for me?’
‘Not a whole month.’ She went to him and kissed him on the tip of his nose – or, rather, almost kissed him, so she didn’t leave her lipstick mark. Then she effortlessly did up his bow tie.
Pauli was indignant. His wife didn’t seem to understand how hard he worked. He reached for his jacket. ‘Just for a start: I’m going to have to draw up some sort of legal definition of what is incurable, and what is insane.’
‘Surely it should be obvious,’ said Inge petulantly.
‘It’s no good my telling the doctors that it should be obvious,’ said Pauli. He shook his cuffs out of his jacket and then straightened up to look at himself in the mirror. He could do with a new dinner suit: a bigger one. ‘They’ll want me to put a definition in writing. How do I do that? I’ve had no medical training.’
‘I didn’t think of that,’ said Inge.
‘No, exactly,’ said Pauli somewhat mollified. ‘People say these things without realizing what’s involved at the administration end. Incurable – what’s that mean? Someone might have a pain in the ass that’s incurable: does that mean I get Fritz to sign an order for the man to die, just because some doctor says he can’t cure it? And there is the task of setting up euthanasia centres. The first one will be at Schloss Hartheim, near Linz, but one won’t be enough. It will be a lot of work finding suitable buildings and equipping them. Someone will have to do a lot of travelling. I just hope it won’t be me. Then we’ll have to explain it carefully to the SS doctors, so they don’t start complaining. These damned doctors stick together. Suppose they all said they didn’t want to do it?’
‘Poor darling,’ said Inge, going to him to put an arm round his waist and hug him. ‘The doctors won’t mind doing it if it’s what the Führer wants.’ She could see he’d become agitated and decided to return to the subject of his annual leave after dinner. He would be in a better mood after dinner. Perhaps she’d wait till they were in bed.
Pauli grunted and studied himself in the mirror.
‘So how long will Peter be gone?’ she said to change the subject.
‘He’ll have to go to California and see Lottie’s mother. And Mama has made him promise to make the rounds of all the Rensselaer family. She feels guilty about not going back herself, I suppose. Papa insists that Peter take a good long rest, because he hasn’t had a break for so long. I doubt if he’ll be back much before Christmas.’
‘Do you think he’ll really get her out of prison?’
‘I didn’t think so at first. But you know what Peter is like: he’s been writing to Grandad and Uncle Glenn. Uncle Glenn has good contacts in the State Department. They both seemed quite hopeful, but they say they can’t do anything without more details. They insist he go in person. They say that a personal approach to the right people in Washington would make a lot of difference.’
‘And Peter speaks good English.’
‘Oh, yes, no problem there, completely fluent. Much better than mine.’ He smiled as he remembered something. ‘Grandad used to dislike Peter. I remember Peter kicking him when we were tiny. But now the old man has decided that Peter is the one he likes. I’m the bad Nazi.’ He chuckled at the thought of it. ‘Bad Nazi. He actually said “bad Nazi”.’
‘Peter told you that?’
‘Peter’s mail is intercepted, Inge darling. All of it is opened. Anyone with a wife in prison for crimes against the state can’t write letters to overseas addresses without our seeing what it’s about.’
‘Did you arrange that?’ She held up to herself first the earrings and then the gold necklace. One or the other, she decided, not both.
‘No, a wretch named Steiner, an old cop, arranged that I saw the interceptions. He’s the one who arrested Lottie. He does me a favour every now and again, but he makes sure that for every favour he does for me, I do two or three for him. I thought I’d got rid of him when I went into Fritz’s new department, but he still comes and finds me.’
She decided on the necklace. Gold always looked good: it was rich but discreetly so. ‘What sort of favours?’ She looked at Pauli. He seemed to be ready, too. For once they’d arrive at the restaurant on time. They were going to Medvedj, her favourite Russian restaurant; it seemed an appropriate choice after hearing Pauli’s amazing news.
‘Nothing that takes me more than a moment. I shouldn’t complain, I suppose. Signatures on protective-custody orders and that sort of thing. Usually things he couldn’t get past his own superior. He waits an opportunity and then brings them up to me.’ He shrugged. ‘They settle old scores that way. People they don’t like disappear.’
‘You should send him after Brand,’ said Inge flippantly. She twirled to let Pauli admire the lovely new dress he’d bought her.
‘Yes,’ said Pauli. ‘I should send him after Brand.’
1940
The sound stage
‘Folks around these parts said I was nuts…’ said Mrs Nita Danziger. She let the sentence tail away. She obviously wasn’t nuts, there was no need to say so. She’d been relating the story of returning alone to California from Berlin after the Wall Street crash had impoverished her. ‘Simon’s stockbroker advised me to do exactly the opposite. He said to sell my shares in the movie company and hold on to the house. My lawyers said the same thing. But I’d had enough of their advice by that time. From here on I play things my way, I told them, and…’
‘And you did,’ said Glenn Rensselaer. Like so many people talking to Nita Danziger, he felt the need to finish her sentences for her. ‘But you’re still living here,’ he said. He moved his shoulders to get some air on his body: his lightweight clothes were sticking to him. He’d never get used to this sort of weather. Her ‘ranch house’ was on a hill, but on windless days like this the thermometer soared.
She smiled and got up to close the flyscreen and wedge open the door so that there would be a movement of air. There were two large electric fans going, but her visitor was obviously uncomfortable. It was September, the first heavy rainstorms had come out of the Pacific Ocean and passed, leaving clear skies and hot sunshine. Nita Danziger seemed unaffected by the heat. She was dressed in a brown shirt and an English wool sweater with pearls. Her hair was perfectly arranged, as if she’d just come from the hairdresser. ‘Sure I bought the old place back again. I paid nearly double for it, but it was worth it. This house holds a million memories for me. Memories like that…’
For a few minutes they didn’t speak. They’d known each other a long time. Her late husband – Simon Danziger – had known Glenn’s father for ages, but for a very long time there had been an insurmountable barrier between them. The Danzigers had set their minds on Lottie’s marrying a Jewish boy. They blamed Glenn for encouraging the marriage with Peter Winter. Now Nita, although only a stepmother, and despite her affection for Peter, still felt bitter about the tragedy that had come of that marriage. Perhaps that’s why she persisted in calling him ‘Mr’.
‘Your hunch was right,’ said Glenn.
‘I’ve always been crazy about movies, Mr Rensselaer. And those young fellows at the studios were making the kind of movies I like. My lawyer called them “trashy” and maybe he was right but folks have a right to see trashy movies if they like them. And I like them.’
‘So you sold the house and bought more movie shares.’
‘They were so cheap. One of the partners took a beating in the crash, the way so many of us did. He preferred to sell his holding to me….’
‘You did everything right, Mrs Danziger.’
‘There were some tough decisions. Remember that trip on the Graf Zeppelin? That day we sat talking? I’m glad I didn’t know what I was about to go through.’ She tried to pour coffee for him, but the pot was empty. ‘More coffee?’
‘No thanks, Mrs Danziger.’
‘I guess you didn’t visit with me to hear all this old family history. You came to see Peter.’
‘It’s good to see you again,’ said Glenn. He’d called on Mrs Danziger before going to see Peter. There was something he wanted to find out.
‘Like I told you on the phone, he’s settled down real well now, but it hasn’t been easy for him.’
‘It’s a year since he left Berlin.’
‘No one could have figured on little Helena’s being sick.’
‘Has the war made a difference to him?’ asked Glenn.
‘The war with England? Sure. It shook us all, didn’t it? But now that France has surrendered they say it will soon be possible to get to Germany via Portugal.’
‘The British navy have a blockade,’ said Glenn.
‘Peter went through all that with the German consul. He said it wasn’t something Peter should try along with a sick little girl.’
‘I’d say that’s good advice,’ said Glenn.
‘The German consul said he should wait until the British surrender, too.’
Glenn would not be drawn into that kind of speculation. He said, ‘I’m hoping that Peter will stay on here. Do you know his plans?’
‘He’s reconciled to staying here through Christmas. The doctor said Helena wouldn’t be fit to travel before then.’
‘You see,’ said Glenn, having decided to enlist Mrs Danziger’s aid. ‘I’m hoping he’ll stay longer than that. Lottie will be released from prison in 1942, and the American ambassador in Berlin has been told – unofficially – that she’ll certainly be deported. Where will that leave Peter? He’s a German citizen: I can’t imagine the Nazis will let him go with her. They might even draft him into the navy; he still has a reserve commission, I guess.’
‘He worries about Lottie. He worries about her all the time.’
‘He must stay here in America,’ said Glenn. ‘Even if Peter goes back to Berlin, he won’t be with Lottie.’
‘That’s easy to say, Mr Rensselaer. But it’s only natural that Peter should want to be near her. He loves her to distraction. It’s pitiful to see him sometimes. It’s only work that’s helped him through the last few months.’
‘I need to know if he expresses any opinion about the Nazis. Don’t think I’m snooping on him. But if I’m to help him I need to know his state of mind. Does he feel he should be back in Germany fighting the British? That’s what I need to know.’
‘He doesn’t like Hitler and the Nazis. That’s something I am sure about.’
‘Are you, Mrs Danziger?’
‘Yes, I am sure.’ He’d never heard her so resolute. She stood up to adjust the fan. ‘I’m a Jew, Mr Rensselaer. I’ll do anything you suggest that might prevent my little Helena from going back to Nazi Germany.’
Glenn Rensselaer looked at his watch. ‘Peter is giving me a tour of the studio so I mustn’t be late.’
‘Peter Winter is a fine man, Mr Rensselaer.’
‘I know.’ He indicated the parcel he’d been carrying. ‘I brought a little gift for Helena. She probably has enough dolls already, but…’
‘No little girls have enough dolls,’ said Nita Danziger. ‘I’ll get her.’
While Mrs Danziger went to get Peter’s daughter, Glenn looked round the room. It never changed. After buying the house for a second time, she’d restored it to exactly what it had been like before. There was a certain absurdity in such dedication, for the house had never been tastefully arranged or even very comfortable. It was a gloomy place, built for a silent-movie star back in the days when any Hollywood star living out here in Ventura County was considered an eccentric recluse. The house had a Western motif: leather bar-stools, like saddles, arranged down a long counter that was said to have come from an authentic cowboy bar in Deadwood City, or some such remote place that the movies had invested with a mythological significance. On the walls were paintings depicting scenes from the Old West and half a dozen dusty decapitated heads of longhorn steers. They glowered myopically across the room, as if resenting the prospect of being castrated and cut into steaks.
