II
A far greater event than the Detaze exhibition came to Munich, causing the city to break out with flags. The Reichskanzler, the Führer of the N.S.D.A.P., had been motoring and flying all over his land making campaign speeches. After his overwhelming triumph he had sought his mountain retreat, to brood and ponder new policies; and now, refreshed and reinspired, he came to his favorite city, the one in which his movement had been built and his crown of martyrdom won. Here he had been a poor Schlawiner, as they called a man whose means of subsistence they did not know, a Wand- und Landstreicher, who made wild, half-crazy speeches, and people went to hear him because it was a Gaudi, or what you would call in English a "lark." Munich had seen him wandering about town looking very depressed, uncouth in his rusty worn raincoat, carrying an oversize dogwhip because of his fear of enemies, who, however, paid no attention to him.
But now he had triumphed over them all. Now he was the master of Germany, and Munich celebrated his arrival with banners. Here in the Braune Haus he had the main headquarters of the party; a splendid building which Adolf himself had remodeled and decorated according to his own taste. He, the frustrated architect, had made something so fine that his followers were exalted when they entered the place, and took fresh vows of loyalty to their leader and his all-conquering dream.
Mabel Blackless, alias Beauty Budd, alias Madame Detaze, had done some conquering in her time, and was still capable of dreams. "Oh, Lanny!" she exclaimed. "Do you suppose you could get him to come to the exhibition? It would be worth a million dollars to us!"
"It’s certainly worth thinking about," conceded the son.
"Don’t delay! Telephone Heinrich Jung and ask him to come. Pay him whatever he wants, and we’ll all stand our share."
"He won’t want much. He’s not a greedy person."
The young Nazi official was staggered by the proposal. He feared it was something far, far beyond his powers. But Lanny urged him to rise to a great occasion. He had worked hard through the electoral campaign and surely was entitled to a few days' vacation. What better way to spend it than to pay his compliments to his Führer, and take him to see some paintings of the special sort which he approved?
"You can bring them to him if he prefers," said Lanny. "We’ll close the show for a day and pick out the best and take them wherever he wishes." He spoke with eagerness, having another scheme up his sleeve; he wasn’t thinking merely about enhancing the prices of his family property. "If you can get off right away, take a plane. There’s no time to be lost."
"Herrgott!" exclaimed the ex-forester. He was in heaven.
Then Lanny put in a long distance call to Kurt Meissner in Stubendorf. Kurt had refused an invitation to Berlin because he couldn’t afford the luxury and wasn’t willing to be put under obligations. But now Lanny could say: "This is a business matter. You will be doing us a service, and also one for the Führer. You can play your new compositions for him, and that will surely be important for your career. Heinrich is coming, and we’ll paint the town brown." He supposed that was the proper National Socialist formula!
Irma took the phone and added: "Come on, Kurt. It will be so good for Lanny. I want him to understand your movement and learn to behave himself." Impossible for an apostle and propagandist to resist such a call. Irma added: "Take a plane from Breslau if that’s quicker. We’ll have a room reserved for you."
III
Somewhat of an adventure for Beauty Budd. Six years had passed since Kurt had departed from Bienvenu and had failed to return. He had found himself a wife, and she a husband, and now they would meet as old friends, glad to see each other, but with carefully measured cordiality; their memories would be like Marcel’s paintings hanging on the walls—but not for public showing.
Parsifal Dingle was here, and he had heard much talk about the wonderful German composer who had lived for so long with the Budds. He hadn’t been told that Kurt had been Beauty’s lover for eight years, but he couldn’t very well have failed to guess. He never asked questions, that being contrary to his philosophy. A wise and discreet gentleman with graying hair, he had found himself an exceptionally comfortable nest and fitted himself into it carefully, taking up no more than his proper share of room. He cultivated his own soul, enjoyed the process, and asked nothing more of life. If a German musician who had read Hegel, Fichte, and others of his country’s philosophers wished to ask questions about the inner life, Parsifal would be glad to answer; otherwise he would listen to Kurt play the piano in their suite and give his own meanings to the music.
Friendship to Lanny Budd had always been one of life’s precious gifts. Now he was happy to be with Kurt and Heinrich again; yet he was torn in half, because he wasn’t really with them, he was lying to them. How strange to be using affection as a camouflage; feeling sympathy and oneness, yet not really feeling it, working against it all the time! Lanny’s friendship was for Freddi, and Freddi and these two were enemies. With a strange sort of split personality, Lanny loved all three; his friendship for Kurt and Heinrich was still a living thing, and in his feelings he went back to the old days in Stubendorf, twelve years ago, when he had first met the Oberforster’s son. To be sure, Heinrich had been a Nazi even then, but Lanny hadn’t realized what a Nazi was, nor for that matter had Heinrich realized it. It had been a vision of German progress, a spiritual thing, constructive and not destructive, a gain for the German Volk without any loss for Jews or Socialists or democrats or pacifists—all those whom the Nazis now had in their places of torture.
The three talked about old times and were at one. They talked about Kurt’s music, and were still at one. But then Heinrich fell to talking about his work, and recent developments in party and national affairs, and at once Lanny had to start lying. It wasn’t enough just to keep still, as he had done earlier; no, when the young party official went into ecstasies over that marvelous electoral victory, Lanny had to echo: "Herrlich!" When Kurt declared that the Führer’s stand for peace and equality among the nations was a great act of statesmanship, Lanny had to say: "Es hat was heroisches" And all the time in his soul he wondered: "Which of us is crazy?"
No easy matter to stick to the conviction that your point of view is right and that all the people about you are wrong. That is the way not merely with pioneers of thought, with heroes, saints, and martyrs, but also with lunatics and "nuts," of whom there are millions in the world. When one of these "nuts" succeeds in persuading the greater part of a great nation that he is right, the five per cent have to stop and ask themselves: "How come?" Particularly is this true of one like Lanny Budd, who was no pioneer, hero, or saint, and surely didn’t want to be a martyr. All he wanted was that his friends shouldn’t quarrel and make it necessary for him to choose between them. Kurt and Rick had been quarreling since July 1914, and Lanny had been trying to make peace. Never had he seemed less successful than now, while trying to act as a secret agent for Rick, Freddi, and General Göring all at the same time!
They talked over the problem of approaching the Chancellor of Germany, and agreed that Kurt was the one to do it, he being the elder, and the only one with a claim to greatness. Kurt called the Führer’s secretary at the Braune Haus, and said that he wished not merely to play the piano for his beloved leader, but to bring the Führer’s old friend, Heinrich Jung, and the young American, Lanny Budd, who had visited the Führer in Berlin several years ago. Lanny would bring a sample of the paintings of Marcel Detaze, who was then having a one-man exhibition and had been highly praised in the press. The secretary promised to put the matter before the Chancellor in person, and the Komponist stated where he could be reached. Needless to say, it added to his importance that he was staying at the most fashionable of Munich’s hotels, with its fancy name, "The Four Seasons."