"That makes a very serious offense, and the punishment, I fear, would be more than your health could stand. The only alternative is for you to part with your money. All of it."
Lanny was prepared for some anguish, some kind of Shylock scene. "Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter!" But Johannes sank back in his chair and resumed his dull tone. "I have been expecting that, Lanny. It is all right."
The man’s aspect and manner revealed even more than his words. Lanny knew how he loved his money; how hard he had worked for it, how many plans he had for the use of it. But here he was kissing it good-by, as casually as if he had been a darling of fortune whose interest was dancing, playing the piano, and listening to parlor Pinks discussing the expropriation of the expropriators!
What had happened to him to produce such a change? Had he been worked over with rubber hose, which leaves few marks? Had he seen his fellow Jews being compelled to lash one another’s faces with whips? Had he lain awake all night listening to the screams of men with camphor injected in their urinary ducts? Something of the sort must have happened.
IX
The visitor had to leave no uncertainty in his friend’s mind. He had to be as implacable as Minister-Prasident Goring himself. He said: "It means everything you have, Johannes—both here and abroad."
"I understand."
"They have had a man in your office and have all the records."
"I had become aware of that."
"I have gone into the situation carefully, and I’m afraid you will have to give up."
"If they will really let me go, and my family, they may have everything."
"I have the word of Minister-Prasident Goring, and I believe that he means what he says. He has explained in the clearest language that he has no interest in you or yours, and will be glad to be rid of you."
"I am sure that Minister-Prasident Goring is a man of honor, and I accept his promise."
"He wants your money to use for the upbuilding of National Socialism. From his point of view that is, of course, a worthy purpose."
"The money would be of no use to me in this place."
"Exactly, Johannes. We can go abroad and you and Robbie can start business, again. Irma will back you."
"Thank you, Lanny. I’ll get along, I am sure."
"I have had to agree, and you have to agree, not to say a word about the case to anybody. We’ll just get out and forget it."
"God knows I don’t want to talk about it, Lanny. What good would that do me?"
"All right, then. Papers will be brought for you to sign."
"I will sign them."
"Some papers must go to New York, you know. It should take a week or two. Irma and I will wait here, and take you and the others out with us."
"I will never be able to express my gratitude, Lanny."
"Don’t waste any energy on that. All we want is to have the family with us on the Riviera. We can have a good time without so much money. Are you being treated reasonably well?"
"I have no complaint."
"Is there anything I could send you—assuming I can get permission?"
"I have everything I need—everything unless perhaps some red ink."
Johannes said this without the flicker of an eyelash; and Lanny answered, without change of tone or expression: "I will see if it is possible to get some."
Rote Tinte! "Oh, the clever rascal!" Lanny thought. "His mind works like greased lightning." Johannes could sit there in the presence of a Schutzstaffel officer and two privates, and with all this pressure of terror and grief upon him—in the midst of having to make the most fateful decision of his life—he could think up a way to tell Lanny what he wished him to know, and without the slightest chance of his enemies' guessing what he had said!
For fifteen years Lanny and his old friend had been watching the experiment in the Soviet Union and arguing about it. Johannes, taking the negative, had delighted himself by collecting ironical stories, to be repeated to the credulous Lanny, and over Lanny’s shoulder to Johannes’s two misguided sons. One such story had to do with two German business men, one of whom was going to make a trip into the proletarian paradise, and promised his friend to write a full account of what he found there. "But," objected the friend, "you won’t dare to write the truth if it’s unfavorable." The other replied: "We’ll fix it this way. I’ll write you everything is fine, and if I write it in black ink it’s true, and if in red ink the opposite is true." So he went, and in- due course his friend received a letter in black ink, detailing the wonders of the proletarian paradise. "Everybody is happy, everybody is free, the markets are full of food, the shops well stocked with goods—in fact there is only one thing I cannot find, and that is red ink."
While Lanny and the Oberleutnant were driving to the hotel, the latter inquired: "What does he want red ink for?"
Lanny, who wasn’t slow-minded himself, explained: "He keeps a diary, and writes it in red ink to keep it separate from his other papers."
The officer replied: "One cannot keep a diary in prison. They will surely take it away from him."
X
It was the Oberleutnant’s duty to report to his superior, and mean while Lanny had to wait. He was deposited at his hotel a few minutes before two o’clock, and called his wife and told her: "I have seen our friend and he is all right. I think matters can be arranged. Take your time. "To his mother, his father, and Rick he sent telegrams. "Have seen our friend. Believe matters arranged." He decided against using code names; if the Gestapo was interested, let them know what he was saying, and to whom. He called Heinrich and reported: "I think that matters are being arranged, and I am grateful for the help of yourself and your friends. I have been asked to keep the matter confidential, so I cannot say any more." That was satisfactory to a perfect young bureaucrat.
The afternoon papers contained the story of the arrest of Johannes Robin, made public by the Prussian government. Eighty million Germans, minus the infants and a few malcontents, would learn that a Jewish Schieber had been caught trying to smuggle money out of the country on his yacht. Eighty million Germans, minus the infants and malcontents, would continue every day to believe statements issued on official authority, which statements would be carefully contrived fiction. It was a new kind of world to be living in, and for the present Lanny had but one desire, to get out of it.
Irma came home in the middle of the afternoon and he took her for a drive. He didn’t feel in any way bound by promises made to a bandit, so he told her the story, adding: "If you drop a hint of it to anybody here it may cost Johannes and his family their lives." Irma listened in wide-eyed horror. It was likе the things you read about the Borgias. He answered that there was nothing in history to compare it to, because never before had barbarians commanded the resources of modern science.
"Do you suppose Goring is taking that money for himself?" she asked.
"It’s all the same thing," he told her. "Goring is Germany, and Germany will be Goring, whether it wishes to or not. The Nazis will spend everything the Germans have."
"But the money abroad! What will he do about that?"
"They have a network of agents in other countries, and doubtless they will have more. Also, if things should go wrong, and Goring has to take a plane some day, it will be nice to have a nest-egg, and be able to spend a comfortable old age in Paris or Buenos Aires."