The Foreign Correspondent (11 page)

“Two weeks.”

“I will call you,” she said.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow.” Looking in the mirror, she turned her head to one side, then the other. “At lunchtime, I can call.”

“You have an office?”

“We all must work, here in the thousand-year Reich. I’m a sort of executive, at the
Bund Deutscher Maedchen,
the League for German Girls—part of the Hitler Youth organization. A friend of von Schirren’s got me the job.”

Weisz nodded. “In Italy, they go down to the six-year-olds, make fascists of children, get them while they’re young. It’s awful.”

“It is. But
must
is what I meant. One must take part, otherwise, they come after you.”

“What do you do?”

“Organize things, make plans—for parades, or mass gymnastic exhibitions, or whatever it is that week. Sometimes I have to take them out to the countryside, thirty teenagers, for the harvest, or just to breathe the air of the German forest. We have a fire, and we sing, then some of them go off hand in hand into the woods. It’s all very Aryan.”

“Aryan?”

She laughed. “That’s how they think of it. Health and strength and
Freiheit,
freedom of the body. We’re supposed to encourage that, because the Nazis want them to breed. If they don’t wish to marry, they should go and find a lonely soldier and get pregnant. To make more soldiers. Herr Hitler will need all he can get, once we go to war.”

“And when is that?”

“Oh, that they don’t tell us. Soon, I would think. If a man is looking for a fight, sooner or later he’ll find it. We thought it would be the Czechs, but Hitler was handed what he wanted, so now, maybe, the Poles. Lately he screams at them, on the radio, and the Propaganda Ministry puts stories in the newspapers: those poor Germans in Danzig, beaten up by Polish gangs. It isn’t subtle.”

“If he goes for them, the British and the French will declare war.”

“Yes, I expect they will.”

“They’ll close the border, Christa.”

She turned and, for a moment, met his eyes. Finally, she said, “Yes, I know.” A last look at herself in the mirror, then she returned the comb to her purse, hunted around for a moment, and brought out a piece of jewelry, holding it up for Weisz to see. “My
Hakenkreuz,
all the ladies wear one, out where I live.” On a silver chain, a swastika made of old silver, with a diamond on each of the four bars.

“How beautiful,” Weisz said.

“Von Schirren gave it to me.”

“Is he in the party?”

“Heavens no! He’s old, rich Prussia, they hate Hitler.”

“But he stays.”

“Of course he stays, Carlo. Maybe he could’ve left three years ago, but there was still hope, then, that somebody would see the light and get rid of the Nazis. From the beginning, in ’thirty-three, nobody here could believe what they were doing, that they could get away with it. But now, to cross the border would be to lose everything. Every house, every bank account, every horse, the servants. My
dogs.
Everything. Mother, father, family. To do what? Press pants in London? Meanwhile, life here goes on, and in the next minute, Hitler will reach too far, and the army will step in. Tomorrow, maybe. Or the next day. This is what von Schirren says, and he
knows
things.”

“Do you love him, Christa?”

“I am very fond of him, he’s a good man, a gentleman of old Europe, and he’s given me a place in life. I couldn’t go on any longer, living the way I did.”

“Everything else aside, I fear for you.”

She shook her head, put the
Hakenkreuz
back in her purse, closed the flap, and snapped the button shut. “No, no, Carlo, don’t do that. This nightmare will end, this government will fall, and then, well, one will be free to do what one wants.”

“I’m not so sure it will fall.”

“Oh, it will.” She lowered her voice and leaned toward him. “And, I guess I can say this, there are a few of us in this city who might even give it a little push.”

Weisz was at the Reuters office, at the end of the Wilhelmstrasse, by eight-thirty the next morning. The other two reporters hadn’t come in yet, but he was greeted by the two secretaries, both in their twenties, who, according to Delahanty, spoke perfect English and French and could get along in other languages if they had to. “We are so happy for Herr Wolf, will he return with his bride?” Weisz didn’t know—he doubted Wolf would do that, but he couldn’t say it. He sat in Wolf’s chair and read the morning news, in the thinking man’s newspapers, the Berlin
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
and Goebbels’s
Das Reich.
Not much there, Dr. Goebbels writing of the potential replacement of Chamberlain by Churchill, that “swapping horses in midstream is bad enough, but swapping an ass for a bull would be fatal.” For the rest, it was whatever the Propaganda Ministry wanted to say that day. So, government-controlled newspapers, nothing new there.

But control of the press could have unexpected consequences—Weisz recalled the classic example, the end of the Great War. The surrender of
1918
had sent waves of shock and anger through the German public. After all, they had read every day that their armies were victorious in the field, then, suddenly, the government capitulated. How could this happen? The infamous
Dolchstoss,
the stab in the back,
that
was the reason—political manipulation at home had undermined their brave soldiers and dishonored their sacrifice. So it was the Jews and the Communists, those crafty political guttersnipe, who were responsible for the defeat. This the German public believed. And the table was set for Hitler.

Done with the newspapers, Weisz started on the press releases, stacked in Wolf’s in box. He tried to make himself concentrate, but he couldn’t. What was Christa
doing
? Her lowered voice would not leave him—
give them a little push.
That meant clandestine business, conspiracy, resistance. Under the rule of the Nazis and their secret police, Germany had become a counterintelligence state, eager informers, and
agents provocateurs,
everywhere, did she know what could
happen
to her? Yes, she knew, damn her aristocratic eyes, but
these people
were not going to tell Christa Zameny von Schirren what she could and couldn’t do. Blood told, he thought, and told hard. But was it so different from what he was doing?
It is,
he thought. But it wasn’t, and he knew it.

The office door was open, but one of the secretaries stood at the threshold and knocked politely on the frame. “Herr Weisz?”

“Yes, uh…”

“I’m Gerda, Herr Weisz. You are to have a meeting, at the Propaganda Ministry press club, at eleven this morning, with Herr Doktor Martz.”

“Thank you, Gerda.”

•

Leaving time for a leisurely walk, Weisz headed down the Leipzigerstrasse toward the new press club. Passing Wertheim’s, the vast block-long department store, he stopped for a moment to watch a window dresser taking down a display of anti-Soviet books and posters—book titles outlined in flames, posters showing garish Bolshevik thugs with big hooked noses—and stacking them neatly on a handcart. When the window dresser stared back at him, Weisz went on his way.

Three years since he’d been in Berlin—was it different? The people on the street seemed prosperous, well fed, well dressed, but there was something in the air, not exactly fear, that reached him. It was as though they all had a secret, the same secret, but it was somehow unwise to let others know you had it. Berlin had always looked official—various kinds of police, tram conductors, zookeepers—but now it was a city dressed for war. Uniforms everywhere: the SS in black with lightning-flash insignia,
Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe,
others he didn’t recognize. When a pair of SA storm troopers, in brown tunics and trousers, and caps with chin straps, came toward him, nobody seemed to change direction, but a path opened for them, almost magically, on the crowded sidewalk.

He stopped at a newspaper stand, where rows of magazines displayed on the kiosk caught his attention.
Faith and Beauty, The Dance, Modern Photography,
all their covers showing nude women engaged in wholesome activities of one sort or another. The Nazi administration, on assuming power in
1933
, had immediately banned pornography, but here was their version of it, meant to stimulate the male population, as Christa had suggested, to hop on the nearest
Fräulein
and produce a soldier.

At the press club—the former Foreigners’ Club on Leipzigerplatz—Dr. Martz was the merriest man alive, fat and sparkling, dark, with a toothbrush mustache and active, chubby hands. “Come, let me show you around!” he sang. Here was a journalist’s heaven, with a sumptuous restaurant, loudspeakers to page reporters, reading rooms with newspapers from every major city, workrooms with long rows of desks bearing typewriters and telephones. “For you, we have everything!”

They settled in red leather easy chairs in a lounge by the restaurant, and were immediately served coffee and a huge platter of Viennese coffee buns,
babka,
moist, buttery cake rolled around crushed walnuts flavored with cinnamon and sugar, or a ribbon of thick almond paste.
Surprising, Weisz, that you became a Nazi. Oh, it’s a long story.
“Have another, oh go ahead, who’s to know.” Well, maybe one more.

And that was just for starters. Martz gave him his own red identification card. “If you have a problem with a policeman, God forbid, just show him this.” Did he want tickets to the opera, or a film, or anything? “You need only ask.” Also, filing dispatches here was gloriously easy, there was a counter at the Propaganda Ministry, leave your story there and it would be cabled, uncensored, back to your office. “Of course,” Martz said, “we will read what you write in the newspapers, and we expect you to be fair. Two sides to every story, right?”

Right.

Clearly, Martz was a man happy in his work. He’d been, he told Weisz, an actor, had spent five years in Hollywood, playing Germans, Frenchmen, any role requiring a Continental accent. Then, on returning to Germany, his idiomatic English had landed him his present employment. “Mostly for the Americans, Herr Weisz, I must admit it, we want to make life pleasant for them.” Eventually, he got down to business, producing from his briefcase a thick dossier of stapled reports. “I’ve taken the liberty of having this compiled for you,” he said. “Facts and figures on Poland. Maybe you’ll take a look at it, when you have a moment.”

After wiping his fingers on a white linen napkin, Weisz paged through the dossier.

“It’s about the corridor we require, through Poland, from Germany to East Prussia. Also the situation in Danzig, getting worse every day, the treatment of the German population there, which is appalling. The Poles are being stubborn, they refuse to compromise, and our side of the story isn’t being told. Our concerns are legitimate, nobody can say they aren’t, we must be allowed to protect our national interest, no?”

Yes, of course.

“That’s all we ask, Herr Weisz, fair play. And we want to help you—any story you want to write, just say the word and we’ll supply the data, the appropriate periodicals, a list of sources, and we’ll arrange the interviews, excursions, anything you like. Go out into Germany, go see for yourself what we’ve accomplished here, with hard work and ingenuity.”

The waiter appeared, offering more coffee, a silver pitcher of thick cream, sugar from a silver bowl. From his briefcase, Martz produced one last sheet of paper: a schedule of press conferences, two every day, one at the Propaganda Ministry, the other at the Foreign Ministry. “Now,” he said, “let me tell you about the cocktail parties.”

Weisz trudged through the daytime hours, hungry for twilight.

Christa managed to come to the hotel almost every afternoon, sometimes at four, when she could, or at least by six. Very long days for Weisz, waiting, daydreaming, thinking of this, or maybe that, some neglected appetizer on the Great Menu, then making plans, detailed plans, for later.

She did the same thing. She didn’t say it, but he could tell. Two taps at the door, then Christa, cool and polite, no melodrama at all, only a brief kiss. She would settle in a chair, as though she just happened to be in the neighborhood and had stopped by, and, perhaps, this time, they would merely converse. Then, later, he would find himself led by her imagination to something new, a variation. The gentility of her bearing never changed, but doing what she liked excited her, charged her voice, quickened her hands, and this made his heart pound. Then it was his turn. Nothing new under the sun, of course, but for them it was a very broad sun. One night, von Schirren went away, to a family property up on the Baltic, and Christa spent the night. With leisure, they sat together in the bathtub, her breasts shining wet in the light, and talked about nothing in particular. Then he reached below the water until she closed her eyes, held her lower lip, delicately, between her teeth, and lay back against the porcelain curve.

Work grew harder every day. Weisz was infinitely dutiful, filing away, as Delahanty had suggested, asking press-conference questions of colonels or civil servants. How they hammered away at it: Germany wished only economic progress—just see what’s happened at our Pomeranian dairies!—and simple justice, and security, in Europe. Please take note, ladies and gentlemen—it’s in our communiqué—of the case of one Hermann Zimmer, a bookkeeper in the city of Danzig, beaten up by Polish thugs in the street before his house while his wife, looking out the window, cried for help. And then they killed his little dog.

Meanwhile, at small restaurants in Berlin neighborhoods, open the menu and find a slip of red paper with black printing:
Juden Unerwünscht.
Jews not welcome here. Weisz saw it in shop windows, taped to barbers’ mirrors, tacked to doors. He never got used to it. Great numbers of Jews had joined the Italian Fascist party in the
1920
s. Then, in
1938
, German pressure on Mussolini had finally prevailed, articles appeared in the papers suggesting that Italians were in reality a Nordic race, and Jews were anathematized. This was new, for Italy, and generally disliked—they weren’t like that. Weisz stopped going to the restaurants.