It had seemed not surprising that young people should be set afire with hopes of justice for the poor, and the ending of oppression and war. Every Jew in the world knows that his ancient prophets proclaimed such a millennium, the coming of such a Messiah. If Hansi and Freddi were excessive in their fervor, well, that was to be expected at their age. As they grew older, they would acquire discretion and learn what was possible in these days. The good mother and the hard-driving father waited for this, but waited in vain. Here was Hansi twenty-five, and his brother only two years younger, and instead of calming down they appeared to be acquiring a mature determination, with a set of theories or dogmas or whatever you chose to call them, serving as a sort of backbone for their dreams.
To the Jewish couple out of the ghetto the marriage of Hansi to Robbie Budd’s daughter had appeared a great triumph, but in the course of time they had discovered there was a cloud to this silver lining. Bess had caught the Red contagion from Hansi, and brought to the ancient Jewish idealism a practicality which Johannes recognized as Yankee, a sternness derived from her ancestral Puritanism. Bess was the reddest of them all, and the most uncompromising. Her expression would be full of pity and tenderness, but it was all for those whom she chose to regard as the victims of social injustice. For those others who held them down and garnered the fruits of their toil she had a dedicated antagonism; when she talked about capitalism and its crimes her face became set, and you knew her for the daughter of one of Cromwell’s Ironsides.
Lanny understood that in the depths of his soul Johannes quailed before this daughter-in-law. He tried to placate her with soft words, he tried to bribe her with exactly the right motor-car, a piano of the most exquisite tone, yachting-trips to the most romantic places of the seven seas, and not a single person on board who would oppose her ideas; only the members of her own two families and their attendants. "Look!" the poor man of nullions seemed to be saying. "Here is Rahel with a baby who has to be nursed, and here is the lovely baby of your adored brother; here is this ship of dreams which exists for the happiness of all of you. It will go wherever you wish, and the service will be perfect; you can even break the rules of discipline at sea, you and Hansi can go into the forecastle and play music for the crew, or invite them up into the saloon once a week and play for them—in spite of the horror of an old martinet trained in the merchant marine of Germany. Anything, anything on earth, provided you will be gracious, and forgive me for being a millionaire, and not despise me because I have wrung my fortune out of the toil and sweat of the wage-slaves!"
This program of appeasement had worked for four years, for the reason that Bess had laid hold of the job of becoming a pianist. She had concentrated her Puritan fanaticism upon acquiring muscular power and co-ordination, in combining force with delicacy, so that the sounds she produced would not ruin the fine nuances, the exquisite variations of tone, which her more highly trained husband was achieving. But Johannes knew in his soul that this task wasn’t going to hold her forever; some day she and Hansi both would consider themselves musicians—and they meant to be Red musicians, to play for Red audiences and earn money for the Red cause. They would make for themselves the same sort of reputation that Isadora Duncan had made by waving red scarves at her audiences and dancing the Marseillaise. They would plunge into the hell of the class struggle, which everyone could see growing hotter day by day all over Europe.
X
Besides Mama, the only person to whom Johannes Robin unbosomed himself of these anxieties was Lanny Budd, who had always been so wise beyond his years, a confidant at the age of fourteen, a counselor and guide at the age of nineteen. Lanny had brought Johannes together with his father, and listened to their schemes, and knew many of the ins and outs of their tradings. He knew that Johannes had been selling Budd machine guns to Nazi agents, to be used in the open warfare these people carried on with the Communists in the streets of Berlin. Johannes had asked Lanny never to mention this to the boys, and Lanny had obliged him. What would they do if they found it out? They might refuse to live any longer in the Berlin palace, or to travel in the hundred-dollar-an-hour yacht. Bess might even refuse to let it carry her name. Thus Jascha Rabinowich, standing in front of his private wailing wall. Oi, oi!
He was in the position only too familiar to the members of his race through two thousand years of the Diaspora: surrounded by enemies, and having to play them one against another, to placate them by subtle arts. Johannes had risen to power by his shrewdness as a speculator, knowing whom to pay for inside information and how to separate the true from the false. Having made huge sums out of the collapse of the mark, he had bought up concerns which were on the verge of bankruptcy. To hold them and keep them going meant, in these days of governmental interference with business, some sort of alliance with politicians; it meant paying them money which was close to blackmail and became ever closer as time passed. It meant not merely knowing the men who were in power, but guessing who might be in power next week, and making some sort of deal with them.
So it came about that Johannes was helping to maintain the coalition government of the Republic and at the same time supporting several of the ambitious Nazis; for, under the strain of impending national bankruptcy, who could tell what might happen? Knowing that his children were in touch with the Reds, and continually being importuned for money—who wasn’t, that had money?—Johannes would give them generous sums, knowing that they would pass these on to be used for their "cause." Yet another form of insurance! But do not let any of these groups know that you are giving to the others, for they are in a deadly three-cornered war, each against the other two.
All this meant anxious days and sleepless nights. And Mama, from whom nothing could be hidden, would argue: "What is it for? Why do we need so much money?" It was hard for her to understand that you must get more in order to protect what you had. She and the children would join in efforts to get Papa away from it all. For the past three summers they had lured him into a yachting-trip. This year they had started earlier, on account of the two young mothers, and they were hoping to keep him away all summer.
But it appeared that troubles were piling up in Berlin: business troubles, political troubles. Johannes was receiving batches of mail at the different ports, and he would shut himself up with his secretary and dictate long telegrams. That was one of his complaints concerning the Soviet Union: letters might be opened, and telegrams were uncertain; you paid for them but couldn’t be sure they would arrive. Everything was in the hands of bureaucrats, and you were wound up in miles of red tape—God pity the poor people who had to get a living in such a world. Johannes, man of swift decisions, plowman of his own field, builder of his own road, couldn’t stand Odessa, and asked them to give up seeing the beautiful Sochi. "There are just as grand palaces near Istanbul, and the long-distance telephone works!"
XI
The Bessie Budd returned in her own wake, and in Istanbul its owner received more telegrams which worried him. The yacht had to wait until he sent answers and received more answers, and in the end he announced that he couldn’t possibly go on. There was serious trouble involving one of the banks he controlled. Decisions had to be made which couldn’t be left to subordinates. He had made a mistake to come away in such unsettled times!—the Wall Street crash had shaken all Europe, and little by little the cracks were revealing themselves. Johannes had to beg his guests to excuse him. He took a plane for Vienna, and from there to Berlin.