"That is possible; but he hasn’t given any hint of it."
"Would he, unless it suited his convenience? Freddi is his only hold on you, and he knows that. Probably he thinks you’d go straight out of Germany and spill the story of Johannes."
"That story is pretty old stuff by now. Johannes is a poor down-and-out, and I doubt if anybody could be got to take much interest in him. The Brown Book is published and he isn’t in it."
"Listen," said the wife; "this is a question which has been troubling my mind. Can it be that Freddi has been doing something serious, and that Göring knows it, and assumes that you know it?"
"That depends on what you mean by serious. Freddi helped to finance and run a Socialist school; he tried to teach the workers a set of theories which are democratic and liberal. That’s a crime to this Regierung, and people who are guilty of it are luckier if they are dead."
"I don’t mean that, Lanny. I mean some sort of plot or conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the government."
"You know that Freddi didn’t believe in anything of the sort. I’ve heard him say a thousand times that he believed in government by popular consent, such as we have in America, and such as the Weimar Republic tried to be—or anyhow, was supposed to be."
"But isn’t it conceivable that Freddi might have changed after the Reichstag fire, and after seeing what was done to his comrades? It wouldn’t have been the Weimar Republic he was trying to overthrow, but Hitler. Isn’t it likely that he and many of his friends changed their minds?"
"Many did, no doubt; but hardly Freddi. What good would he have been? He shuts his eyes when he aims a gun!"
"There are plenty of others who would do the shooting. What Freddi had was money—scads of it that he could have got from his father. There were the months of March and April—and how do you know what he was doing, or what his comrades were planning and drawing him into?"
"I think he would have told us about it, Irma. He would have felt in honor, bound."
"He might have been in honor bound the other way, he couldn’t talk about those comrades. It might even be that he didn’t know what was going on, but that others were using him. Some of those fellows I met at the school—they were men who would have fought back, I know. Ludi Schultz, for example—do you imagine he’d lie down and let the Nazi machine roll over him? Wouldn’t he have tried to arouse the workers to what they call mass action? And wouldn’t his wife have helped him? Then again, suppose there was some Nazi agent among them, trying to lure them into a trap, to catch them in some act of violence so that they could be arrested?"
"The Nazis don’t have to have any excuses, Irma; they arrest people wholesale."
"I’m talking about the possibility that there might be some real guilt, or at any rate a charge against Freddi. Some reason why Göring would consider him dangerous and hold onto him."
"The people who are in the concentration camps aren’t those against whom they have criminal charges. The latter are in the prisons, and the Nazis torture them to make them betray their associates; then they shoot them in the back of the neck and cremate them. The men who are in Dachau are Socialist politicians and editors and labor leaders—intellectuals of all the groups that stand for freedom and justice and peace."
"You mean they’re there without any charge against them?" "Exactly that. They’ve had no trial, and they don’t know what they’re there for or how long they’re going to stay. Two or three thousand of the finest persons in Bavaria—and my guess is that Freddi has done no more than any of the others."
Irma didn’t say any more, and her husband knew the reason—she couldn’t believe what he said. It was too terrible to be true. All over the world people were saying that, and would go on saying it, to Lanny’s great exasperation.
V
The days passed, and it was time for the Munich opening, and still nobody had called to admit a blunder on the part of an infallible governmental machine. Lanny brooded over the problem continually. Did the fat General expect him to go ahead delivering the goods on credit, and without ever presenting any bill? Lanny thought: "He can go to hell! And let it be soon!"
In his annoyance, the Socialist in disguise began thinking about those comrades whom he had met at the school receptions. Rahel had given him addresses, and in his spare hours he had dropped in at place after place, always taking the precaution to park his car some distance away and to make sure that he was not followed. In no single case had he been able to find the persons, or to find anyone who would admit knowing their whereabouts. In most cases people wouldn’t even admit having heard of them. They had vanished off the face of the Fatherland. Was he to assume that they were all in prisons or concentration camps? Or had some of them "gone underground"? Once more he debated how he might find his way to that nether region—always being able to get back to the Hotel Adlon in time to receive a message from the second in command of the Nazi government!
Irma went to à_ _thé dansant at the American Embassy, and Lanny went to look at some paintings in a near-by palace. But he didn’t find anything he cared to recommend to his clients, and the prices seemed high; he didn’t feel like dancing, and could be sure that his wife had other partners. His thoughts turned to a serious-minded young "commercial artist" who wore large horn-rimmed spectacles and hated his work—the making of drawings of abnormally slender Aryan ladies wearing lingerie, hosiery, and eccentric millinery. Also Lanny thought about the young man’s wife, a consecrated soul, and an art student with a genuine talent. Ludwig and Gertrude Schultz —there was nothing striking about these names, but Ludi and Trudi sounded like a vaudeville team or a comic strip.
Lanny had phoned to the advertising concern and been informed that the young man was no longer employed there. He had called the art school and learned that the former student was no longer studying. In neither place did he hear any tone of cordiality or have any information volunteered. He guessed that if the young people had fled abroad they would surely have sent a message to Bienvenu. If they were "sleeping out" in Germany, what would they be doing? Would they go about only at night, or would they be wearing some sort of disguise? He could be fairly sure they would be living among the workers; for they had never had much money, and without jobs would probably be dependent upon worker comrades.
VI
How to get underground! Lanny could park his car, but he couldn’t park his accent and manners and fashionable little brown mustache. And above all, his clothes! He had no old ones; and if he bought some in a secondhand place, how would he look going into a de luxe hotel? For him to become a slum-dweller would be almost as hard as for a slum-dweller to become a millionaire playboy.
He drove past the building where the workers' school had been. There was now a big swastika banner hanging from a pole over the door; the Nazis had taken it for a district headquarters. No information to be got there! So Lanny drove on to the neighborhood where the Schultzes had lived. Six-story tenements, the least "slummy" workingclass quarter he had seen in Europe. The people still stayed indoors as much as they could. Frost had come, and the window-boxes with the flowers had been taken inside.
He drove past the house in which he had visited the Schultzes. Nothing to distinguish it from any other house, except the number. He drove round the block and came again, and on a sudden impulse stopped his car and got out and rang the Pfortner’s bell. He had already made one attempt to get something here, but perhaps he hadn’t tried hard enough.