He gave an order, and in a few minutes Johannes was brought in. Apparently he had been told what was going to happen; he had got a shave, and appeared interested in life again. The odds and ends of property which he had had upon his person were restored to him; he signed a receipt, bade a courteous Lebewohl to his jailers, and walked briskly out to the car.
Lanny had the painful duty of knocking this newborn happiness flat. "Painful news, my friend. Freddi has been missing for two weeks, and we have no idea what has become of him." The poor father sat in the car with tears streaming down his cheeks while Lanny told about the last meeting with Freddi, the arrangements which had been made, and the dead silence which had fallen. Lanny couldn’t bear to look at him—and had a good excuse, having to drive through busy traffic.
He explained his decisions, and the heartbroken father replied: "You did what was best. I shall never be able to tell you how grateful I am."
"I’m only guessing," Lanny continued; "but I think the chances are that Göring has Freddi and intends to keep him until the scandal will no longer be news. Our only chance is to comply strictly with the terms of the understanding. It seems to me the part of wisdom for us to tell no more than we have to, even to the family. The less they know, the less trouble they will have in keeping secrets."
"You are right," agreed the other.
"I think we should say we feel certain that Freddi is a hostage, and that, since he is some day to be released, he is not apt to be mistreated. That will make it easier for them all to get over the shock."
"I will tell them that I have had an intimation to that effect," said Johannes. "Anything to get Rahel quieted down. Otherwise she might insist upon staying. We must take her at all hazards, for she can do nothing here."
When they got to the hotel they found that Mama had already imparted the news, Irma had confirmed it, and the young wife had had her first spell of weeping. It wasn’t so bad, for she had made up her mind for some days that the worst must have happened. Her father-in-law’s kind "intimation" helped a little; also Lanny’s promise to keep up the search. The determination of the others to get her and her child out of Naziland was not to be resisted.
It wasn’t exactly a fashionable autoload which departed from under the marquee of the Adlon Hotel. The magnificent uniformed personage who opened the car doors was used to seeing independent young Americans driving themselves, but rarely had he seen three dark-eyed Jews and a child crowded into the back seat of a Mercedes limousine about to depart for foreign lands. Both Lanny and Irma were determined to finish this job, and not let their periled friends out of sight until they were safe. In the breast pocket of Lanny’s tan linen suit were stowed not merely the passports of himself and wife, but a packet of documents which had been delivered by messenger from the headquarters of Minister-Präsident Göring, including four passports and four exit permits, each with a photograph of the person concerned. Lanny realized that the government had had possession of all the papers in the Robin yacht and palace. He remembered Göring’s promise of a "kick in the tail," but hoped it was just the barrack-room exuberance of a Hauptmann of the German Air Force.
The family were not too badly crowded in that rear seat. The three adults had each lost weight during the past weeks; and as for luggage, they had the suitcases they had carried away after Johannes’s arrest; that was all they owned in the world. As for Little Johannes, it was no trouble taking turns holding him in their laps; each would have been glad to hold him the entire time, until they had got him to some place where the cry of Juda verrecke was unknown.
IV
Irma and Lanny meant to go as they had come, straight through. Lanny would buy food ready prepared and they would eat it in the car while driving; they would take no chance of entering a restaurant, and having some Brownshirt peddling Nazi literature stop in front of them and exhibit a copy of Der Stürmer with an obscene cartoon showing a Jew as a hog with a bulbous nose; if they declined to purchase it, likely as not the ruffian would spit into their food and walk away jeering. Such things had happened in Berlin, and much worse; for until a few days ago these peddlers of literature had gone armed with the regulation automatic revolver and hard rubber club, and in one cafe where Jewish merchants had been accustomed to eat, a crowd of the S.A. men had fallen upon them and forced them to run the gantlet, kicking and clubbing them insensible.
Drive carefully, but fast, and stop only when necessary! The roads were good and the route familiar, and meantime, safe from prying ears, they had much to talk about. The Robins were informed that they owned some money which the Nazis had not been able to keep track of—those sums which Johannes had spent in entertaining Irma Barnes. They would be repaid in installments, as the family needed it, and the money was not to be considered a loan or a gift, but board and passenger fares long overdue. Irma said this with the decisiveness which she was acquiring; she had learned that her money gave her power to settle the destinies of other people, and she found it pleasant exercising this power—always for their own good, of course.
There was the estate of Bienvenu with nobody in it but Hansi and Bess and Baby Frances with her attendants. Mama and Rahel and her little one were to settle down in the Lodge and learn to count their blessings. Johannes would probably wish to go to New York with Irma and Lanny, for they had some business to transact with Robbie, and Johannes might be of help. Lanny gave him Robbie’s letter to read, and the spirits of this born trader began to show faint signs of life. Yes, he might have ideas about the selling of Budd products; if Robbie should get charge of the company, Johannes would offer to take his job as European representative. Or, if Robbie preferred, he would see what he could do with the South American trade—he had sold all sorts of goods there, including military, and had much information about revolutions, past, present, and to come.
"Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." So Shylock had spoken, and now these three wearers of the badge confronted their future, for the most part in silence. Their long siege of fear had exhausted them, and they still found it hard to believe that they were free, that the papers which Lanny was carrying would actually have power to get them over the border. They thought about the dear one they were leaving in the Hitler hell, and the tears would steal down their cheeks; they wiped them away furtively, having no right to add to the unhappiness of friends who had done so much for them. They ate the food and drank the bottled drinks which Lanny put into their hands; a lovely dark-eyed little boy with curly black hair lay still in his mother’s or his grandmother’s arms and never gave a whimper of complaint. He was only three years and as many months old, but already he had learned that he was in a world full of mysterious awful powers, which for some reason beyond his comprehension meant to harm him. Sufferance was his badge.
V
They were traveling by way of Hanover and Cologne. The roads were perfect, and three or four hundred miles was nothing to Lanny; they reached Aachen before nightfall, and then came the border, and the critical moment—which proved to be anticlimactic. The examination of baggage and persons for concealed money was usually made as disagreeable as possible for Jews; but perhaps there was some special mark on their exit permits, or perhaps it was because they were traveling in an expensive car and under the chaperonage of expensive-looking Americans—anyhow the questioning was not too severe, and much sooner than anyone had expected the anxious refugees were signaled to proceed across the line. The inspection of their passports on the Belgian side was a matter that took only a minute or two; and when the last formality was completed and the car rolled on through a peaceful countryside that wasn’t Nazi, Mama broke down and wept in the arms of her spouse. She just hadn’t been able to believe that it would happen.