The Vengeance of Rome (77 page)

We went straight past the reception sergeant, who nodded to us and raised his hand in an enthusiastic ‘Heil Hitler' salute, so I knew I could not be under arrest. The policemen returned the salute rather less energetically. We walked down Corridor B, heading no doubt for the criminal investigation offices.

But we did not stop at Corridor B. At the end of this passage was a set of doors which the red-faced policeman stooped to unlock with a special key. ‘Short cut,' he murmured. Descending a flight of steps we found ourselves in a poorly lit passage with a low roof. The doors on either side had peepholes and little grilled windows. I recognised them as police cells. My heart began to sink. But again we did not stop. We quickly walked the length of the corridor and came to door number 107, on which the vulpine policeman knocked. It was opened, and we went in.

From somewhere behind me I heard a thin, womanish scream, a kind of sob, and then silence. I felt a moment of fatalistic alarm, yet continued to force myself to believe the best. I was a complainant, not a criminal. Because some prisoner had become hysterical did not mean they were being harmed!

The doors were quickly shut behind me and relocked. Suddenly the policemen were at attention on either side of me. The room was full of young men in shirtsleeves, rushing about, picking up telephones, slamming them down, inspecting files, yelling information at one another. Clearly none of them had been in their jobs long. They seemed to have no idea what they were supposed to be doing.

Removing my hat I extended my hand to the man who greeted us. He seemed one of the few to carry any real authority. He wore an ill-fitting civilian suit. He had a thin, pale face, small, bright blue eyes, prominent ears and thinning hair.

‘Good morning, officer,' I said. ‘It's kind of you to show such an interest in my case. With so much crime and chaos taking place on our streets, it's reassuring to know the police still care.'

He lifted his arm in a rather languid Nazi salute, offering us a muttered ‘
Grüss Gott
' and dismissing my escorts. He signalled for me to enter a smaller, much darker room, with barred windows. This, no doubt, was where I would dictate my statement to the stenographer. Yet, instinctively, I hesitated.

‘I am of course here to give you details of the suspected violation of my flat,' I said.

He looked at me blankly for a moment then shook his head. ‘No,' he said.

‘But surely? Your uniformed men … ?'

‘They were sent to pick you up about some citizenship enquiries. You're not a German national, I understand.'

‘No, I'm American.'

He shook his head. He was silent, unhelpful.

‘Now look here, officer …' I began.

He sighed and indicated the room again. I had no choice.

One chair sat on the other side of a narrow desk. Behind the chair was a filing cabinet on which stood a cup of coffee. The coffee looked as if it had not been touched for days. On the wall was a picture of Hitler riding a white horse and posing as St George setting off to slay the dragon. A rather exaggerated portrait. I had seen it before and remember thinking it was the beginning of the end for Hitler as a serious social force. He had left the world of realpolitik and joined a world of myth and drama. Slowly but surely, and then with ever increasing speed, he would lose his soul's connection to its native planet; it would drift like an asteroid erratically circling the Earth not knowing how or where to land. I did not blame Hitler. He had allowed himself to become weak. His sycophants and advisers deserved the blame, those Byzantine adventurers who specialised in whispering evil: Goebbels, Rosenberg and Himmler. They corrupted everything Hitler's old friends stood for. They had encouraged him to turn his back on the Strasser brothers. I had seen him—can I even now afford to tell?—bewildered eyes glaring from wounded body, as unstrong and as vulnerable in those days as he believed himself to be. That is why he fought so mightily against his inherited Catholicism. His arguments were with his own past, not our common future.

The man in the badly made suit came in, closing the door behind him. Now that we were in private, he shook my hand, rather limply, and glanced around the minuscule room, apologising for the one chair.

‘I hope this won't take too long,' I said, reassured by his handshake. ‘I understand that as well as the inquiry concerning a possible burglary, you wish to check my documents. I was told it would be a matter of minutes. I have a luncheon appointment.'

‘Aha,' he said. ‘Then let's confirm a few particulars. You have been working in Germany?'

‘And paying my taxes,' I said, thinking I understood where this was going.

He nodded. ‘You are Mr Max Peters, until recently employed by the UfA company as a film actor? You are an American citizen but until recently were in the service of the Italian Air Ministry?'

‘That's correct. I then became an unofficial emissary at large. My main career, however, is as an engineer. I have some important blueprints, inventions of my own which I had hoped to show to Herr Hitler's people. At present they are with Captain Göring's department. It was for their safety that I most feared.'

‘Indeed. So you have something worth stealing, eh, Herr Peters?'

‘Very important documents. But they are still safe. Have you any idea who the burglars might have been?'

‘Yes.' His pale eyes closed, and with a small, narrow hand he pinched at the bridge of his nose. ‘You are an admirer of Signor Mussolini.'

‘Rather more than a simple admirer, sir.'

The hand came down and went into a trouser pocket, re-emerging with a brown handkerchief. He folded it back to make a clean square and blew his nose, folding it again before replacing it. ‘So, Herr Peters, you are an unofficial emissary of the Italian government, but prefer to work as an actor?' He turned his back on me and opened the file drawer in the middle of the cabinet from which he took out a slender, dark blue folder.

Surely this was not a file on me! Why should anyone wish to make one? I could read upside down, however, and my name was printed carefully at the top. I became alarmed. I did not know I had been subjected to any official attention. I wished that Röhm was with me to vouch for me, but he was still in Berlin dealing with recalcitrant SA.

‘I am proud to have known and to have served Il Duce, but I am a private citizen, an engineer. An inventor. I was fortunate enough to earn my living in the Hollywood cinema for some years, which was how I came to be working here in Munich with the UfA company. Agriculture Minister Hugenberg is a friend of mine. My real qualifications are in science. I originally came to Germany because I saw there was a new, young element here which embraced the future.'

I continued to feel anxious. All this talk of Mussolini seemed irrelevant. Had Il Duce passed on something to the German authorities? Very unlikely. Or had someone revealed my identity to Hitler? Again I thought of Prince Freddy and those films. They formed a link I had not considered before. Could I be recognised from them? I knew Hitler would not tolerate
my freedom if I were identified as the person used in his ‘therapy'. I could easily suffer the fate of the Man in the Iron Mask and never see the outside world again. I might even die here.

I realised my left knee was beginning to shake a little, so I straightened to attention as the door opened. A police officer wearing the armband of the Bavarian Political Police stepped into the room, removed his cap, put it on the desk, murmured a word to the plain-clothes man and took up the file, a reassuringly slim collection. At least that villain Brodmann was not behind this particular inconvenience. Any file Brodmann supplied would be bulging with his Bolshevik lies. The same was true of the ‘dossier' the late Baroness had compiled. My equilibrium returned, and I became determined to answer in my most cultured German so the officer would know he was dealing with an educated man of substance. I should not have allowed the policemen to bring me here. Yet I had done nothing wrong. Perhaps the burglaries had been of a political nature. Perhaps they already knew who committed them.

Dismissing the civilian, my new interrogator smiled pleasantly. He was a round-faced Southerner with pale, pink skin and sharp grey eyes. His manner was regretful. ‘My dear Mr Peters. My men no doubt have explained this whole thing. Your life, sir, is in some danger, I fear. There are rogues abroad who are anxious to spill any alien blood they smell. We are, of course, doing everything to crack down on them. A secure home-land is what our Führer has sworn to give the German people, and it is our job to maintain that oath. But this does not mean we tolerate attacks on the property or persons of foreigners. Especially those who have shown us such generous support.'

‘I am anxious to offer the Reich every cooperation,' I told him. ‘Do you mean that the man who burgled my apartment somehow had plans to take my life? Naturally, in those circumstances, I will answer any question you wish to put!'

He was grateful. ‘It's so much easier for us, Herr Peters, when a gentleman is as cooperative as yourself. It saves everyone time and trouble and allows us to process matters more efficiently. Have you applied for residency papers?'

‘I am planning to return to Italy in a short while. And I have business in England. My acting jobs were merely a kind of holiday. I was helping out Reichsminister Hugenberg. I was unaware that I required special papers. I came here in order to make a statement to a stenographer.'

‘Of course. So much to absorb. Another good reason for keeping you with us in
Schutzhaft
, protective custody. I will set wheels in motion, and
when you have the necessary papers, it will be easier for you to move about freely.'

‘Custody? My dear Inspector, I have a luncheon meeting. I was told I was only going to be here for a few minutes. To answer a couple of questions. And now you plan to keep me here? For how long? I made no preparations to be here for hours, merely minutes.'

‘I do apologise. We are rather overworked these days. Our chaps aren't always properly informed. They do their best, but it's difficult …' An apologetic shrug. ‘It might be possible for someone to telephone the person you are meeting and let them know you will not be able to make it.'

‘Are you telling me I have been arrested?' I had to express my panic somehow. Every instinct told me that I had entered a trap.

‘Herr Peters!' He raised his hands to show shock. ‘Certainly not. But you have seen what is happening on our streets, at least in the rougher quarters. Roving gangs of young men, many of them probably communists, pretending to support the new Germany by picking on any foreigner they come across. Breaking into their premises. Stealing their papers and property. Attacking them as Jews when they are frequently innocent …'

‘I am, sir, an American citizen. I served in the War. I fought the Bolsheviks. My family is as old as history. Surely you are not suggesting … ?'

‘I would not insult you.'

I relaxed to a degree, but my peace of mind was destroyed. Surely Röhm had not betrayed me? What motive would he have? To keep me quiet? Impossible. If he had wished to be rid of me, he would have killed me himself or had one of his SA people do it. We shared too many secrets. More likely one of Röhm's enemies was behind this. Streicher? No. Doubtless one of the new ‘Berliners', like Goebbels. Johnny-come-latelys who had jumped on the Nazi bandwagon as soon as it showed signs of success. Well, they would not crack me! I resolved to keep Röhm's secrets, and my own at all costs. I, who had endured the Cossack whip and the exquisite tortures of al-Habashiya, would not easily reveal anything to these people. I have not eaten that which is unclean. Anubis is my friend. I played with the blind children. I became reconciled to my own murder. I who was dead am resurrected. I who have remained pure have endured the torments of death and the land of death and am whole again. I know there is a life to come. I have been promised that life.

I had to give up my documents, my wallet and whatever small change I had in my pockets, but I was not searched. I still had enough
sneg
to last several days, by which time I was sure I would be out. The officer asked,
almost as an afterthought, if I was armed. A pistol, perhaps, for self-defence? I was furious. ‘My dear sir!'

I was back in the nightmare. I had thought never to be in it again.

Still in my overcoat I was handed over to two brown-shirted SA men, who escorted me up several flights of stairs. They addressed me with gruff lack of respect. The first was a young man with a pale, thin mouth and uncertain green eyes; the second was an older man, who had the manner of a regular army NCO. They were cheerful enough, though they called me a ‘rascal' as if I were some sort of criminal, and told me it would do ‘my kind' good to see the inside of a jail for a few days. Even then, said the older man, I would never know what it was like to serve in the trenches. It was on the tip of my tongue to reveal to them how I had served with the Don Cossacks, but this would have required further explanation, and besides, I had been fighting against Germans.

Collecting myself, I asked what they meant by ‘a few days', and they refused to reply. I said that I fully expected to be free by that afternoon. I was an honest, hard-working professional man. I had paid the German government large amounts of tax. I folded my arms in an attitude of contempt as, at last, we arrived at a dank guardhouse. Here I was handed over to two regular prison warders, who showed none of the uncertainty of the others. They were older men, rough and ready, but not without an air of humanity. Admittedly there was a military atmosphere to the place, but also a sense that if you behaved yourself, ‘kept a clean nose', as they say, you would not suffer any particular indignity. The Munich police had a reputation for fairness. I was sure I would be released within hours when they discovered my papers to be all in order. The worst that could happen was that I would be held overnight until Röhm or Göring were contacted.