Passenger to Frankfurt Read online

Oberammergau. But the German woman said scornfully:

  "You do not understand. We Germans have no need of a

  Jesus Christ 1 We have our Adolf Hitler here with us. He

  is greater than any Jesus that ever lived." She was quite

  a nice ordinary woman. But that is how she felt. Masses

  of people felt it. Hitler was a spell-binder. He spoke and

  they listened--and accepted the sadism, the gas chambers,

  the tortures of the Gestapo.'

  She shrugged her shoulders and then said in her normal

  voice, 'All the same, it's odd that you should have said

  what you did just now.'

  What was that?'

  'About the Old Man of the Mountain. The head of the

  Assassins.'

  'Are you telling me there is an Old Man of the Mountain

  here?'

  'No. Not an Old Man of the Mountain, but there might

  be an Old Woman of the Mountain.'

  'An Old Woman of the Mountain. What's she like?'

  'You'll see this evening.'

  'What are we doing this evening?'

  'Going into society,' said Renata.

  'It seems a long time since you've been Mary Arm.'

  'You'll have to wait till we're doing some air travel again.'

  'I suppose it's very bad for one's morale,' Stafford Nye

  said thoughtfully, 'living high up in the world.'

  'Are you talking socially?'

  'No. Geographically. If you live in a castle on a mountain

  peak overlooking the world below you, well, it makes you

  despise the ordinary folk, doesn't it? You're the top' one,

  you're the grand one. That's what Hitler felt in Berchtesgaden,

  that's what many people feel perhaps who climb mountains

  and look down on their fellow creatures in valleys below.'

  'You must be careful tonight,' Renata warned him. 'It's

  going to be ticklish.'

  'Any instructions?'

  'You're a disgruntled man. You're one that's against the

  Establishment, against the conventional world. You're a

  rebel, but a secret rebel. Can you do it?'

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  here by command, by appointment. However you liked to

  put it. Renata had been told to bring him here. He wondered

  why. He couldn't really think why, but he was quite ir

  of it. It was at him she was looking. She was appri n, him, summing him up. Was he what she wanted? Wa it',

  yes, he'd rather put it this way, was he what the cust ne:

  had ordered?

  I'll have to make quite sure that I know what it is she

  does want, he thought. I'll have to do my best, otherwise

  . . . Otherwise he could quite imagine that she might raise

  a fat ringed hand and say to one of the tall, muscular

  footmen: 'Take him and throw him over the battlements.'

  It's ridiculous, thought Stafford Nye. Such things can't happen nowadays. Where am I? What kind of a parade, a masquerade

  or a theatrical performance am I taking part in?

  'You have come very punctual to time, child.'

  It was a hoarse, asthmatic voice which had once had

  an undertone, he thought, of strength, possibly even of

  beauty. That was over now, Renata came forward, made a

  slight curtsy. She picked up the fat hand and dropped a

  courtesy kiss upon it.

  'Let me present to you Sir Stafford Nye. The Grafin Charlotte von Waldsausen.'

  The fat hand was extended towards him. He bent over

  it in the foreign style. Then she said something that surprised

  him.

  'I know your great-aunt,' she said,

  He looked astounded, and he saw immediately that she

  was amused by that, but he saw too, that she had expected

  him to be surprised by it. She laughed, a rather queer, grating

  laugh. Not attractive.

  'Shall we say, I used to know her. It is many, many

  years since I have seen her. We were in Switzerland together,

  at Lausanne, as girls. Matilda. Lady Matilda BaldwenWhite.'

  'What

  a wonderful piece of news to take home with. me,

  said Stafford Nye.

  'She is older than I am. She is in good health?'

  'For her age, in very good health. She lives in the country

  quietly. She has arthritis, rheumatism.'

  'Ah yes, all the ills of old age. She should have injections

  of procaine. That is what the doctors do here in this altitude.

  It is very satisfactory. Does she know that you are visiti'g

  me?> 'I imagine that she has not the least idea of it,' said S11'

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  Stafford Nye. 'She knew only that I was going to this festival of modern music.'

  'Which you enjoyed, I hope?'

  'Oh enormously. It is a fine Festival Opera Hall, is it not?'

  'One of the finest. Pah! It makes the old Bayreuth Festival

  Hall look like a comprehensive school! Do you know what

  it cost to build, that Opera House?'

  She mentioned a sum in millions of marks. It quite took

  Stafford Nye's breath away, but he was under no necessity

  to conceal that. She. was pleased with the effect it made

  upon him.

  'With money,' she said, 'if one knows, if one has the

  ability, if one has the discrimination, what is there that

  money cannot do? It can give one the best.'

  She said the last two words with a rich enjoyment, a

  kind of smacking of the lips which he found both unpleasant

  and at the same time slightly sinister.

  'I see that here,' he said, as he looked round the walls.

  'You are fond of art? Yes, I see you arks. There, on the

  east wall is the finest Cezanne in the world today. Some

  say that the--ah, I forget the name of it at the moment,

  the one in the Metropolitan in New York--is finer. That

  is not true. The best Matisse, the best Cezanne, the best of

  all that great school of art are here. Here in my mountain

  eyrie.'

  'It is wonderful,' said Sir Stafford. 'Quite wonderful.'

  Drinks were being handed round. The Old Woman of

  the Mountain, Sir Stafford Nye noticed, did not drink anything.

  It was possible, he thought, that she feared to take

  any risks over her blood pressure with that vast weight.

  'And where did you meet this child?' asked the mountainous

  Dragon.

  Was it a trap? He did not know, but he made his decision.

  ^'At the American Embassy, in London.'

  Ah yes, so I heard. And how is--ah, I forget her name

  now--ah yes, Milly Jean, our southern heiress? Attractive, did you think?'

  Most charming. She has a great success in London.'

  And poor duU Sam Cortman, the United States Ambassador?'

  A very sound man, I'm sure,' said Stafford Nye politely.

  Me chuckled.

  'Aha, you're tactful, are you not? Ah well, he does weU

  An0^ -Re does what he is told as a good Politician should. '"la it is enjoyable to be Ambassador in London. She could

  I>TP 97 D

  do that for him, Milly Jean. Ah, she could get him an

  Embassy anywhere in the world, with that well-stuffed purse

  of hers. Her father owns half the oil in Texas, he owns land

  goldfields, everything. A coarse, singularly ugly man_But

  what does she look like? A gentle little aristocrat. Not blatant,

  not rich. That is very clever of her, is it not?'

  'Sometimes it presents no difficultie
s,' said Sir StaPord

  Nye.

  'And you? You are not rich?'

  'I wish I was.'

  "The Foreign Office nowadays, it is not, shall we say,

  very rewarding?'

  'Oh well, I would not put it like thai . . . After all, one

  goes places, one meets amusing people, one sees the world,

  one sees something of what goes on.'

  'Something, yes. But not everything.'

  That would be very difficult.'

  'Have you ever wished to see what--how shall I put it--

  what goes on behind the scenes in life?'

  'One has an idea sometimes.' He made his voice noncommittal.

  'I have heard it said that that is true of you, that you

  have sometimes ideas about things. Not perhaps the conventional

  ideas?'

  There have been times when I've been made to feel

  the bad boy of the family," said Stafford Nye and laughed.

  Old Charlotte chuckled.

  'You don't mind admitting things now and again, do you?'

  'Why pretend? People always know what you're concealing.'

  She looked at him.

  'What do you want out of life, young man?'

  He shrugged his shoulders. Here again, he had to play

  things by ear.

  'Nothing,' he said.

  'Come now, come now, am I to believe that?'

  'Yes, you can believe it. I am not ambitious. Do I loo>

  ambitious?'

  'No, I will admit that.'

  'I ask only to be amused, to live comfortably, to eat, to

  drink in moderation, to have friends who amuse me.

  The old woman leant forward. Her eyes snapped open and shut three or four times. Then she spoke in ,1 ra1"6 different voice. It was like a whistling note.

  'Can you hate? Are you capable of hating?'

  To hate is a waste of time.'

  98

  I see. I see. There are no lines of discontent in your face.

  That is true enough. AU the same, I think you are ready to take a certain path which will lead you to a certain

  t place, and you will go along it smiling, as though you did I not care, but all the same, in the end, if you find the right

  advisers, the right helpers, you might attain what you want,

  if you are capable of wanting.'

  'As to that,' said Stafford Nye, 'who isn't?' He shook his

  head at her very gently. 'You see too much,' he said. 'Much

  too much.'

  Footmen threw open a door.

  'Dinner is served.'

  The proceedings were properly formal. They had indeed

  iatnost a royal tinge about them. The big doors at the far teKl of the room were flung open, showing through to a ^ghtly lighted ceremonial dining-room, with a painted ceil^R

  and three enormous chandeliers. Two middle-aged women

  l^proached the Grafin, one on either side. They wore evening

  dress, their grey hair was carefully piled on their heads,

  each wore a diamond brooch. To Sir Stafford Nye, all the

  same, they brought a faint flavour of wardresses. They were,

  he thought, not so much security guards as perhaps high-class

  nursing attendants in charge of the health, the toilet and other

  intimate details of the Grafin Charlotte's existence. After

  napectful bows, each one of them slipped an arm below Ac shoulder and elbow of the sitting woman. With the ease of

  long practice aided by the effort which was obviously as much aa, she could make, they raised her to her feet in a dignified

  fiuhion. ^j 'We will go in to dinner now,' said Charlotte.

  With her two female attendants, she led the way. On

  her feet she looked even more a mass of wobbling jelly,

  yet she was still formidable. You could not dispose of her

  in your mind as just a fat old woman. She was somebody,

  knew she was somebody, intended to be somebody. Behind

  the three of them he Ttod Renata foUowed.

  As they entered through the portals of the dining-room, he felt it was almost more a banquet hall than a dining- room. There was a bodyguard here. Tall, fair-haired, handsome

  young men. They wore some kind of uniform. As Charotte

  entered there was a clash as one and all drew their vfwsh- They crossed them overhead to make a passageway, d Charlotte, steadying herself, passed along that passageay,

  released by her attendants and making her progress solo

  a vast carved chair with gold fittings and upholstered in

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  golden brocade at the head of the long table. It wa

  like a wedding procession, Stafford Nye thought. ,'. ' I or military one. In this case surely, military, strictly mi -;.rybut

  lacking a bridegroom.

  They were all young men of super physique, t -� them,

  he thought, was older than thirty. They he-.u (,ood

  looks, their health was evident. They did not smi'e, ihey

  were entirely serious, they were--he thought of a word or

  it--yes, dedicated. Perhaps not so much a military proces^a

  as a religious one. The servitors appeared, old-fashioned

  servitors belonging, he thought, to the Schloss's past, to a time

  before the 1939 war. It was like a super production of a

  period historic play. And queening over it, sitting in the chair

  or the throne or whatever you liked to call it, at the head

  of the table, was not a queen or an empress but an old

  woman noticeable mainly for her avoirdupois weight and her

  extraordinary and intense ugliness. Who was she? What was

  she doing here? Why?

  Why all this masquerade, why this bodyguard, a security

  bodyguard perhaps? Other diners came to the table. They

  bowed to the monstrosity on the presiding throne and took

  their places. They wore ordinary evening dress. No introductions

  were made.

  Stafford Nye, after long years of sizing up people, assessed

  them. Different types. A great many different types. Lawyers,

  he was certain. Several lawyers. Possibly accountants or

  financiers; one or two army officers in plain clothes. They

  were of the Household, he thought, but they were also in the

  old-fashioned feudal sense of the term those who 'sat below

  the salt'.

  Food came. A vast boar's head pickled in aspic, ven.i<"n. a cool refreshing lemon sorbet, a magnificent edifice

  pastry--a super millefeuille that seemed of unbelievable afectionery

  richness.

  The vast woman ate, ate greedily, hungrily, enjo' ,?_

  food. From outside came a new sound. The sounc r '"_ powerful engine of a super sports ear. It passed the i'11'' in a white flash. There came a cry inside the room hov the bodyguard. A great cry of 'Heil! Heil! Heil Franz!

  The bodyguard of young men moved with the ease of

  military manoeuvre known by heart. Everyone had '"'se to their feet. Only the old woman sat without moving, re head lifted high, on her dais. And, so Stafford Nye thougtii.

  a new excitement now permeated the room. .j

  The other guests, or the other members of the ho'-'sehol

  whatever they were, disappeared in a way that somehow

  reminded Stafford of lizards disappearing into the cracks of

  wall. The golden-haired boys formed a new figure, their

  Words flew out, they saluted their patroness, she bowed her

  head in acknowledgment, their swords were sheathed and

  they turned, permission given, to march out through the door

  of the room. Her eyes followed them, then went first to

  Renata, and then to Stafford Nye.
>
  'What do you think of them?' she said. 'My boys, my

  youth corps, my children. Yes, my children. Have you a

  word that can describe them?'

  'I think so,' said Stafford Nye. 'Magnificent.' He spoke

  Itfher as to Royalty. 'Magnificent, ma'am.' i ..''Ahl' She bowed her head. She smiled, the wrinkles multilying

  all over her face. It made her look exactly like a

  locodile.

  'A terrible woman, he thought, a terrible woman, imossible,

  dramatic. Was any of this happening? He couldn't

  Clieve it was. What could this be but yet another festival

  ilftil in which a production was being given.

  The doors clashed open again. The yellow-haired band at the young supermen marched as before through it. This (iflBe they did not wield swords, instead they sang. Sang >Ah unusual beauty of tone and voice.

  if After a good many years of pop music Stafford Nye felt

  M incredulous pleasure. Trained voices, these. Not raucous

  houting. Trained by masters of the singing art. Not allowed

  to strain their vocal cords, to be off key. They might be

  the new Heroes of a New World, but what they sang was

  not new music. It was music he had heard before. An arrangement

  of the Preislied, there must be a concealed orchestra

  somewhere, he thought, in a gallery round the top of the

  room. It was an arrangement or adaptation of various Wag- nenan themes. It passed from the Preislied to the distant ^hoes of the Rhine music.

  The Elite Corps made once more a double lane where wnebody was expected to make an entrance. It was not

  e old Empress this time. She sat on her dais awaiting

  whoever was coming.

  And at last he came. The music changed as he came. It

  hea^0^131^ motif which ^ n(yw Stafford Nye had got by

  caU The melody of the Young Siegfried. Siegfried's horn

  ucw nslng up.in its Y0^ and its triumph, its mastery of a

  U.CW 1 JVW.MA CUJU 1U� HJHAlJLlj-'lAi J

  w world which the young Siegfried came to ^nrough the doorway, marching up bel

  101

  conquer.

  between the lines

  of what were clearly his followers, came one of the handsomest

  young men Stafford Nye had ever seen. Golden- haired, blue-eyed, perfectly proportioned, conjured up as it

  were by the wave of a magician's wand, he came forth out of

  the world of myth. Myth, heroes, resurrection, rebirth, it was

  all there. His beauty, his strength, his incredible assurance and

  arrogance.

  He strode through the double lines of his bodyguard

  until he stood before the hideous mountain of womanhood

  that sat there on her throne; he knelt on one knee, n sed

  her hand to his lips, and then rising to his feet, he threv ap

  one arm in salutation and uttered the cry that Stafford

  Nye had heard from the others. 'Heil!' His German was not

  very clear, but Stafford Nye thought he distinguished the

  syllables 'Heil to the great mother!'

  Then the handsome young hero looked from one side to

  the other. There was some faint recognition, though ac uninterested one, of Renata, but when his gaze turned to

  Stafford Nye, there was definite interest and appraisal. Caution,

  thought Stafford Nye. Caution! He must play his part

  right now. Play the part that was expected of him. Only--

  what the hell was that part? What was he doing here? What

  were he or the girl supposed to be doing here? Why had they come?

  The hero spoke.

  'So,' he said, 'we have guests!' And he added, smiling

  with the arrogance of a young man who knows that he is

  vastly superior to any other person in the world. 'Welcome,

  guests, welcome to you both.'

  Somewhere in the depths of the Schtoss a great bell

  began tolling. It had no funereal sound about it, but it had

  a disciplinary air. The feeling of a monastery summoned to some holy office.

  'We must sleep now,' said old Charlotte. 'Sleep. We will

  meet again tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock.'

  She looked towards Renata and Sir Stafford Nye.

  'You will be shown to your rooms. I hope you "ill &ee^ well.'

  It was the Royal dismissal.

  Stafford Nye saw Renata's arm fly up in the Fasc salute

  but it was addressed not to Charlotte, but to thi 'yw haired boy. He thought she said: 'Heil Franz jo! 1'" n copied her gesture and he, too, said 'Heill'

  Charlotte spoke to them.

  'Would it please you tomorrow morning to start the day with a ride through the forest?'

  'I should like it of all things,' said Stafford Nyei

  And you, child?'

  'Yes, I too.'

  'Very good then. It shall be arranged. Good night to you

  both. I am glad to welcome you here. Franz Joseph--