Johanna laughed. “I think Mr. Dreiser was a bit alarmed by Pa’s offer of hospitality in the form of a wench,” she drawled. “Visions of weeping captive maidens dragged to his bed in chains, no doubt.”
“Ah,” Eric said, pouring himself another cup of coffee. “Well, don’t concern yourself; the steward never has any trouble finding volunteers.”
“Eh, Rahksan?” Johanna said jokingly, turning to a serf girl who sat behind her on a stool, knitting. She did not look like the locals, the American noticed; she was lighter, like a south European. And looking him over with cool detachment.
“Noo, thank yaz kahndly, mistis,” Rahksan said. The Draka woman laughed, and put a segment of tangerine between the serf’s lips.
“I’m married,” the American said, flushing. The two Draka and the serf looked at him a moment in incomprehension.
“Mind you,” Eric continued in a tactful change of subject, “if this was Grandfather Alexander’s time, we could have shown you some more spectacular entertainment. He kept a private troupe of serf wenches trained in the ballet, among other things. Used to perform nude at private parties.”
With a monumental effort, Dreiser regained his balance. “Well, what did your grandmother think of that?” he asked.
“Enjoyed herself thoroughly, from what she used to cackle to me,” Johanna said, rising. “I’ll leave you two to business; see you at dinner, Mr. Dreiser. Come on, Rahksan; I’m for a swim.”
“This . . . isn’t quite what I expected,” Dreiser said, relighting his pipe. Eric yawned and stretched, the yellow silk of his robe falling back from a tanned and muscular forearm.
“Well, probably the High Command thought you might as well see the Draka at home before you reported on our military. This,” he waved a hand, “is less likely to jar on Yankee sensibilities than a good many other places in the Domination.”
“It is?” Dreiser shook his head. He had hated Berlin—the whole iron apparatus of lies and cruelty and hatred; hated it the more since he had been in the city in the ’20s, when it had been the most exciting place in Europe. Doubly exciting to an American expatriate, fleeing the stifling conformity of the Coolidge years. Be honest, he told himself. This isn’t more evil. Less so, if anything. Just more . . . alien. Longer established and more self-confident.
“Also, out here and then on a military installation, you are less likely to jar on Security’s sensibilities.” Eric paused, making a small production of dismembering a pomegranate and wiping his hands. “I read your book, Berlin Journal,” he said in a neutral tone. “You mentioned helping Jews and dissidents escape, with the help of that Quaker group. You interest yourself in their activities?”
“Yes,” the American replied, sitting up. A newsman’s instincts awakened.
The Draka tapped a finger. “This is confidential?” At Dreiser’s nod, he continued. “There was a young wench . . . small girl, about two years ago. Age seven, blond, blue eyes. Named Anna, number C22D178.” The young officer’s voice stayed flat, his face expressionless; a combination of menace and appeal behind the harsh gray eyes.
“Why, yes,” Dreiser said. “It created quite a sensation at the time, but the Committee kept it out of the press. She was adopted by a Philadelphia family; old Quaker stock, but childless. That was the last I heard. Why?” It had created a sensation: almost all escapees were adults, mainly from the North African and Middle Eastern provinces. For a serf from the heart of the Police Zone, there was nowhere to go and an unaccompanied child was unprecedented.
Eric’s eyes closed for a moment. “No reason that should be mentioned by either of us,” he said. His hand reached out and gripped the other’s forearm. “It wouldn’t be safe. For either of us. Understood?”
Dreiser nodded. The Draka continued: “And if you’re going to be attached to a paratroop unit, I strongly advise you to start getting into shape. Even if it’s several months before the next action.”
Chapter Five
“Both love and hatred can be frustrating emotions, when their object is not present. My father had sent me away. Not that I missed him overmuch; it was not he who had raised me, after all. But he had sent me away from the only home I had ever known from those who had loved and cared for me. How could I not hate him? But I was a precocious child, and of an age to begin thinking. In Philadelphia, I was a stranger, and lonely, but I was free. Schooling, books, later university and the play of minds; all these he had given me, at the risk of his own life; there was nothing for me in the Domination. And he was my father: how could I not love him?
“And he was not there: I could not scream my anger at him, or embrace him and say the words of love. And so I created a father in my head, as other children had imaginary playmates: daydreams of things we would do together—trips to the zoo or Atlantic City, conversations, arguments . . . an inner life that helped to train the growth of my being, as a vine was shaped by its trellis. Good training for a novelist. A poor substitute for a home.”
Daughter to Darkness: A Life, by Anna von Shrakenberg
Houghton & Stewart, New York, 1964
OAKENWALD PLANTATION
OCTOBER 1941
Arch-Strategos Karl von Shrakenberg sipped carefully from the snifter, cradling it in his hands while looking down from the study window, southwest across the gardens and the valley, green fields and poplars and the golden hue of sandstone from the hills . . .
One more, he thought, turning and pouring a careful half-ounce into the wide-mouthed goblet. One more, and another when Eric came; he had to be careful with brandy, as with any drug that could numb the pain of his leg. The surgeons had done their best, but that had been 1917, and technique was less advanced; also, they were busy. More cutting might lessen the pain, but it would also chance losing more control of the muscle, and that he would not risk.
He leaned weight on the windowsill and sighed; sun rippled through the branches of the tree outside, with a cool wind that hinted of the night’s chill. He would be glad of a fire.
Ach, well, life is a wounding, he thought. An accumulation of pains and maimings and grief. We heal as we can, bear them as we must, until the weight grows too much to bear and we go down into the earth.
“I wish I could tell Eric that,” he whispered. But what use? He was young, and full of youth’s rebellion against the world. He would simply hear a command to bow to the wisdom of age, to accept the unacceptable and endure the unendurable. His tongue rolled the brandy about his mouth. Would I have stood for that sort of advice when I was his age?
Well, outwardly, as least. My ambitions were always more concrete. He rubbed thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose, wearily considering the stacks of reports on his desk; many of them were marked with a stylized terrestrial globe in a saurian claw: top secret. I wanted command, accomplishment, a warrior’s name—and what am I? A glorified clerk, reading and annotating reports: Intelligence reports, survey reports, reports on steel production and machine-tool output, ammunition stockpile reports . . .
Old men sitting in a basement, playing war games on sand tables and sending our sons and daughters out to die on the strength of it, he thought. You succeeded, won your dreams, and that was not the finish of it. Not like those novels Eric was so fond of, where the ends could be tied up and kept from unravelling. Life went on . . . how dry and horrible that would have seemed once!