An Infinity of Mirrors (10 page)

Dame Ellie Lewis was said to be eighty-seven years old. She had a remarkable memory for the distant past. Whenever she played Berlin Paule arrived at her dressing room with a jar of calf's-foot jelly before the first matinee performance, and the old lady would repay her with a new reminiscence about the splendor of Paul-Alain Bernheim.

“You know, Paule,” the great lady said, “for years I have been meaning to ask you something very important. My husband is ninety-four now, the poor man, and he dotes upon unraveling secrets.”

What a joy it was to hear French spoken again. How could she have forgotten? She must insist that Veelee speak French to her every weekend.

“It was 1921, I think,” the old woman said, “and my question is: What was the name of the restaurant because of which your father won the quarter of a minion francs from Benoit Lesrois?”

“Restaurant?” Paule's memory wasn't as sharp as Dame Ellie's. “Oh, no! I remember what you mean. It wasn't a restaurant at all.”

“Fascinating! Oh, dear me, my husband will be thrilled. We were in at the very beginning of that wager, you see. It started at our restaurant, the old Hotel du Golf. Benoit Lesrois was a gourmet of such caste that he employed two writers to turn out his bon mots about food and wine. Restaurant proprietors were delighted to have him dine at their establishments—absolutely free, of course, because of the glory his approval could bring.”

“Monsieur Lesrois still is a most formidable man,” Paule said.

“He was the greatest causist for fine food in all the world. He invented the congressional system of feeding, you know. He organized thirty-nine seemingly not connected feeding and drinking societies, which he designed principally for North Americans who cannot bear to eat well alone. He became an uncommonly rich man because of this.”

“He became so pale when he drank.”

“He became as white as chalk only when he drank the red wine of Pauillac,
Château du Colombier-Monpelou”

“His third wife was called Josette Monpelou.”

“Ah.”

“Papa admired her.”

“Of course. Well, one evening in the Restaurant du Golf your papa had ordered ortolans under white truffles. When they arrived he opened a small tin of something called condensed milk which he poured over the ortolans and truffles, ate it with gusto, then washed it all down with a Montrachet 'o6—a wonderfully rewarding wine and a long keeper—which he mixed before everyone's eyes with some American soft drink he had brought with him in a grotesquely shaped bottle.”

“They sent it to Papa from America.”

“My dear, Benoit Lesrois left his chair like a wounded water buffalo and knocked your father off his chair. Your father took up his cane and beat Lesrois out of the restaurant while Smadja, the old
sommelier
, struck feebly at your father with a long, white napkin. There was total chaos in the restaurant, and four soufflés which my husband was cultivating were ruined. Lesrois rushed to his newspaper and at white heat wrote his famous column
“J'accuse!”
and attacked your father, calling him a disgrace to France. Your Papa answered with a full-page advertisement which carried only the name Benoit Lesrois followed by three words:
Liberté? Egalité? Fraternité?
Monsieur Lesrois was hissed wherever he went, but your father was hissed wherever he went, too, and it was of far more consequence in his case, because he was an actor.

“A solution had to be found. Your father sent Monsieur Lesrois a letter which said Lesrois was too fat to be challenged to a duel. And he was a huge man—he looked like Sir Toby Belch, as Jupp played him. Instead of dueling, your father offered to bet Monsieur Lesrois a quarter of a million francs that he could take him to a restaurant that Lesrois would not be able to identify but which he would have to agree was the finest restaurant he had ever patronized. He was so clever, your papa. He returned the quarrel to the stomach and removed it from the area of patriotism which was causing the hissing so disturbing to his performances.”

“He never told me they hissed him in the theatre,” Paule said in a shocked voice.

“Well, naturally. He was an actor. The very idea of the wager so amused Lesrois that he accepted at once and spread the word all over Paris. He kept laughing heartily right up to the second forkful of food.”

“I was there!” Paule said with excitement. “I ate with them! I was the official witness!”

“How delicious of your father to provide a ten-year-old witness.”

“Oh, no, madame. It was Papa's analysis that Monsieur Lesrois could not defile my innocence by denying what had happened.”

“But what did happen, child? What was the name of the restaurant?”

Paule giggled with delight. “There was no restaurant. You see, first Papa had had a recording made at Foyot's which reproduced all the sounds in a restaurant at the height of the dinner hour.”

“Why?”

“Aha! You will see. Papa fetched Monsieur Lesrois in the big Hispano-Suiza and blindfolded him. The car drove to Cours Albert I. As they got out of the car I was in the main hall with the gramophone and I played the special recording of Foyot's—and do you know what?”

“What?”

“As Monsieur Lesrois, led by Papa, crossed the main hall, he said, ‘Sounds Lice Foyot's to me.'”

“Excellent.”

“Papa told Monsieur Lesrois that they would eat in a private dining room where they would be joined by his daughter as a witness. When he took the blindfold off we were in our small dining room where the windows had been masked. Clotilde served the meal wearing only a black leotard, a white lace apron, a black mask and a white lace cap, and Monsieur Lesrois actually sniffed his disapproval.”

“He must have thought he was in a bordello.”

“I think so too, because he wanted to say something but my being there seemed to stop him. Well, the food began to appear. Monsieur Lesrois just wept quietly while he wolfed the caviar. It was the roe of the yellow-bellied sterlet.”

“How in the world did your father ever get it?”

“A Russian Grand Duchess.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Few foreigners, indeed few people anywhere, have ever tasted it; it had always been reserved for the Russian Imperial Court before the revolution. Monsieur Lesrois kept wolfing it and weeping and saying, ‘Where did they get it, Bernheim?' Papa answered, ‘The late Tsar liked this little place—he came here a great deal incognito. I suppose he left them a barrel or two of the stuff.'”

“Oh, the poor man. But then, he did go beyond his depth when he offended your papa.”

“The
bourride du Midi
came next, with a good Tavel served—inside a ripe watermelon—you know,
la pastèque de la Provençe
. Monsieur Lesrois began to mumble a prayer of thanksgiving at his first taste of the
Salmis de palombe d'Etchalar
. Those were the only words he spoke for the remainder of the meal. He kept his beady little eyes fixed on the kitchen door when his plate was empty. Concentrating utterly, he just ate and wept and wept and ate. After the
gras-double au safran à l'Albigeoise
came the contrast of a
gratin de ris de veau truffé
, and at this, Monsieur Lesrois began to whimper pitiably.”

“But who was this great chef, my dear? The knowledge of such food grayed Lesrois overnight you know, and the lines in his face became absolutely harrowing.”

“That was the cruel part of Papa's revenge,” Paule said sadly. “When the last ice disappeared, Monsieur Lesrois pleaded for the name of the restaurant and the name of the chef, but Papa refused, smiling. Monsieur Lesrois bullied and cajoled, saying he could make the chef the most famous man in France. Papa just smiled, and Clotilde served a ripened meringue layer cake. By the time Monsieur Lesrois was sipping Papa's epic Calvados his face had taken on a desperate, lost expression which I shall never be able to forget. I could see in Monsieur Lesrois' face the knowledge that he would have to fill the time until his death knowing that within Paris there was food such as he had just eaten, but that he would never enjoy again.”

Tears filled Dame Ellie's eyes and she dabbed at them with a handkerchief. A boy banged on the dressing-room door and called, “Fifteen minutes.”

“And the name of the chef?” she asked. “I will never tell. I won't even tell Alan.”

“The chef was Miss Willmott, who had been Papa's English nanny. She is one of the geniuses of our epoch.”

“What contours doth justice have,” Dame Ellie intoned. “Perhaps it is better, at that, that Monsieur Lesrois never know that the cook of the greatest meal of his life was an Englishwoman. But justice did not halt right there, you know, my dear. Your wicked Papa was repaid for his cruelty. Years later he told me that he had spent the entire wager on flowers for an auto magnate's wife who, in what your father considered to be one of the best-kept secrets of all Paris, he discovered to his bitterness to be a devout Lesbian.”

The old woman kissed her goodbye, and Paule picked her way across the debris of the backstage and left the theatre feeling as euphoric as though she were accompanied by her father himself. Gisele was waiting for her at the Adlon, and they had lunch and a refreshing hour of gossip. Gisele had to leave early for a fitting and so she scurried out the Wilhelmstrasse exit. Paule strolled on the Unter den Linden. A parade was making its way down the Charlottenburg Chaussée toward the Brandenburg Gate. Every sort of Berliner was at the curbside as the marching, brown-shirted men came abreast. They were singing lustily, and the drums and brass of a band rang out behind them:

“Zum letzen Mal wird zum Apell geblasen,

zum Kampfe steh'n wir alle schon bereit,

Bald flattern Hitler-Fahnen über alien Strassen,

die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit;

Bald flattern Hitler-Fahnen über alien Strassen

die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit.”

Paule asked the woman next to her what the occasion was. A storm trooper in front of her turned around. He had very small eyes that seemed to have been pasted to either side of his nose. His mouth was twisted into a sneer. “What kind of a German are you?” he said to Paule. “Horst Wessel died for this country two years ago today.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” The storm trooper turned away. The elation that she had always felt during a parade began to fade. A mass of party flags went by, dozens of black swastikas in white circles laid upon fields of blood. Paule felt someone grab her arm roughly; the storm trooper was shouting at her. “You are too good to salute the flag? Are you a German or are you some kind of filthy Jew?”

Paule felt herself tremble with outrage. She stared into his tiny eyes with flat distaste. “Franz! Set to!” she said and spat into his face. He punched her heavily and instinctively, knocking her backward into the crowd. She lay on her back and saw him rushing to her, his thin lips drawn back from his teeth, his heavy boot raised to kick her face. But miraculously the crowd closed around her, eager hands pulled her to her feet and spun her back and back, hiding her with their bodies. “You filthy Jew! Filthy Jew bitch!” the choked voice screamed after her as she stumbled toward the stone columns and the large lanterns at the doorway to the Adlon.

Ten

The Imperial German Army begat the Freikorps and the Freikorps begat the Sturm Abteilungen, called the SA, and the SA begat the Schutz Staffeln, called the SS, which begat an eternity of shame for the German people. Arminius, the Cherusci's Fuehrer, became a citizen of Rome in I
A.D.
then returned to his dripping, northern forest eight years later to overthrow Roman rule. Arminius led his people to worship Hercules in a weapons-decorated shrine deep in the Teutonwald. Almost two millennia later, Heinrich Himmler turned the German tribes to another barbaric, weapons-strewn religion. He called upon his Fuehrer to breathe upon the decrement of Germany and lo! a miracle skulked upon the earth. The prime sullage was processed. The cloacal scum of losers and rejects, of misfits and resenters; the exuviae of Bavarian emotional cripples, Thuringian hysterics, Saxonian eugenic disasters, Hanoverian paranoids, Swabian aberrants, and Viennese come-aparts became the bone and tissue, nerves and spirit of the SS. The rootless, the aimless, the perverted, the monstrous; the off-scourings of feeble haters yearning for chaos, the mental defectives with a knack for brawling, the secretly vicious who demanded punishment, apolitical lay-abouts and louts—these were the SS, the legally constituted maggots which feasted upon the German republic; the quintessence of the Fuehrer's exalted dream of total nihilism.

The SS was founded in 1923 as the Stasztruppe Hitler, a part of the brown-shirted Sturm Abteilungen, a bodyguard improvised by three Munich bravos named Shreck, Maurice, and Heiden. It was disbanded after the craven farce of November 9, 1923, because the party was declared illegal and the Fuehrer was put into prison. The ban on the party was removed in 1925, but the SA was still illegal and party meetings were being broken up by political opponents, so the Fuehrer ordered that the Schutz Staffeln be built up into protection squads of a leader and ten men each.

In 1926, when the SA was made legal again, the SS, now consisting of two hundred and twenty men, faded into the background. But the Fuehrer understood the uses of two of everything, and he presented the SS with the “famous” blood standard; and in 1929, to balance the power of the SA, he named young Heinrich Himmler Reichsfuehrer SS and ordered him “to form this organization into an elite troop of the party, a troop dependable in every circumstance.”

The resolute Reichsfuehrer SS was twenty-eight years old, five feet seven and a half inches tall, and weighed one hundred and forty-six pounds. He wore rimless pince-nez, and his dead-white, heavily blue-veined hands were always in repose. He had been a fertilizer salesman and a chicken farmer and his wife's name was Marge. When he took command there were only two hundred and eighty SS, but he built his charge into a state within a state of over five hundred thousand people, uncovered their talents for murder, and stocked the archives with lore concerning astrology, phrenology, rune reading, Japanese Aryans, selective human breeding systems, Genghis Khan parallels, medieval Teutonic-knight rituals, human skull classifications, alchemy, reincarnation, oatmeal and carbonated water production, and certified Valhalla sites for the readily available German dead. The Reichsfuehrer SS was a devotedly inhuman man in his old-fashioned Bavarian way. He was sentimental enough to obtain a post for his old mother's favorite doctor at the Dachau concentration camp. He designed the SS uniform himself, and the Death's Head insignia for the Totenkorps, as a sure-fire recruiting gimmick. He developed personally the “interrogation” system of identical tortures for everyone, rich or poor, so that Germans might not be thought of as sadists. No careless kicks would scatter teeth from the mouths of young Jewish women: only pre-planned, pre-ordered kicks. No floggings during interrogations were ever self-indulgent. Everything was specified in a manual which clearly stated the standard operating procedure: 1. arrest and detention; 2. if a stick or a club were used the beatings were not to exceed twenty-five blows; 3. floggings were permitted only in the presence of a physician; 4. “rigorous examinations”—meaning that forms had to be executed in quintuplicate—insisted that humane, precautionary procedures be followed. These were:
a
. attendance by a physician;
b
. temporary drowning in ice water
must
be followed at once by artificial respiration—so that this could be followed by other temporary drownings;
c
. the same standard equipment, contained in a kit, must be issued to all interrogation teams, no matter where stationed, and would be available upon request. This kit would contain: 1. a testicle crushing machine; 2. an electrical device kit with electrodes to be fastened to hands, feet, breasts, penis, and rectum; 3. an acetylene torch to be administered only if the interrogation was not going well. No individual German interrogator had devised the interrogating methods, nor did he ever exceed them. Interrogators were only following orders.