An Infinity of Mirrors (15 page)

“About Veelee?”

“Yes. And in a way about you.”

“You mean Jewish things?”

“Not at all.”

“What, then?”

“Well, to be frank—and if you and I can't be frank, who can be—Veelee is terribly worried about you. And it shows in his work—that is to say, Guderian believes it keeps him from doing his best.”

“But how can that be, Hansel? I assure you, through enormous effort—terrible, terrible effort—I give him nothing to worry about.”

Hansel covered her hand with his. “He worries so much that he holds meetings with Gretel and Gisele and Philip and me about how we must rally round. Sometimes he calls the girls from Wuensdorf twice a day for news about you.”

“Oh, Hansel!”

“We know how hard all of this barbarism has been for you.” He cleared his throat suddenly. “But that is beside the point, isn't it?”

“How I love him, Hansel.”

“Splendid. Good thing in families, I always say. But I don't suppose it has occurred to you—after all, you are a civilian from a civilian background—how overlong Veelee—and let me say that Veelee is a very gifted officer—ah … how long Veelee has remained at that little training school out at Wuensdorf.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean … well, he should have been there eighteen months at most, and he's been there almost five years.” He knocked back the Calvados.

“But—”

“Guderian says Veelee is more than brilliant, you know. He implies that Veelee could have had a division by now. Yes, I mean it. But he has resisted the idea of any transfer from Wuensdorf—though so far, thank God, this has suited the Bendlerstrasse and the lapse hasn't even been noted on his service record.”

“You mean that because of me, Veelee—”

“Yes—and I honor him for it. He loves you that much. He's probably the first von Rhode who didn't love the army more. And he was right, you know. All this strain on you. Less sleep, I should imagine. Damned Nazis and their schemes. So he worries and wants to be near you. To protect you, et cetera and so forth.”

“Hansel, I am ashamed. I never knew.” Her eyes grew misty.

“Now, Paule, please. Don't weep, for God's sake.”

“I shan't.”

“Perhaps if you were to call me General Heller we might get through this damnable thing.”

“Please go on, Hansel.”

“You see, two things have happened. Keitel's position is very much consolidated, and he is presently undertaking a minute examination of all of his old service grudges. He is quite capable of keeping Veelee a colonel for the rest of his life, but fortunately Admiral Canaris needs just such a man as Veelee—in fact, he said he could not do better. It is a most delicate assignment.”

“But what do you want me to do?”

“It's quite tricky, actually. Of course Canaris has no idea that Veelee might refuse the post. But if Veelee does refuse then the whole thing must come to the attention of General von Fritsch, and if that happens Guderian won't be able to keep the blinds down and I will be able to be of no help whatsoever. Therefore Guderian, who damned well needs Veelee in his future tank army, asked me point-blank what Veelee would do if he was approached. I told him I would let him know this evening.”

“Are you going to Wuensdorf?”

“There is nothing to be decided at Wuensdorf.”

“Veelee is there.”

“But you are here. Forgive me, oh God, please forgive me, Paule, but it is you who must decide this thing.”

“Tell me what I must do, Hansel.” She looked down at her hands, tightly gripped together, as she spoke.

“Let me say that I am … we are—the army, all of us—are very grateful to you for this.”

“Tell me, Hansel.”

“All right, love. I have been assigned to Rome for special duty. Gretel is going to Wusterwitz. This would be a good time for you to take Paul-Alain out into the country, into the good fresh air and away from all this intrigue. If you were to tell Veelee that you had decided that you want very much to go with Gretel—”

“Thank you, Hansel darling,” was all she could manage to say.

Veelee's favorite dish in all the world was
Gefuellte Kalbsbrust
. Four months before, in a burst of love, Paule had sent the recipe to Maître Gitlin in Paris, requesting that he ask Benoit Lesrois if he would be good enough to consult with the best chefs about how the recipe might be improved. Benoit Lesrois had taken his work seriously because the request had come from Paule, the witness to the greatest meal he had ever eaten in his life; in fact, he hinted that perhaps now that so many years had gone past she might agree to reveal the name of the restaurant in which her father had won the wager. There had been no further word until the recipe had arrived, the day before Paule's lunch with Hansel. The letter to Paule from Lesrois explained that he had eaten fourteen different versions of
Gefuellte Kalbsbrust
while seeking the best recipe and had traveled four hundred and thirty-two kilometers. The recipe had finally been developed to M. Lesrois' satisfaction by Lucien Courau in the rue Surcouf. Lesrois favored a Labastide-de-Levis, from the Gaillac hillsides of Tarn, if young enough, to accompany the dish. If that was not readily available, she could feel secure with a Pfirseichberg of the exposed Mamburg slopes at Turckheim in Alsace.

The recipe had come at such a perfect time that Paule dashed off a note to M. Lesrois telling him all about Miss Willmott and giving her address in America. On her return home after lunch with Hansel, she gave the servants the evening off, rolled up her sleeves and began to prepare
Gefuellte Kalbsbrust, à la française
.

The telephone was ringing as Veelee came in the front door. He moved across the square hall to answer it, yelling, “What's that wonderful smell?”

“Gefuellte Kalbsbrust!”
Paule shouted from the kitchen. “And I made it all by myself!”

“What!” He picked up the phone. “Hello? Yes. Very good, I'll be there.” He hung up hastily and strode toward the kitchen.

“You made it! The French touch!”

“I don't know what wine to have with it.”

“Wine? Are you crazy? With a dish like this? We have beer.” He grabbed her and kissed her, then lifted her and whirled her around and kissed her again.

“Who called?”

“What? Oh. Wuensdorf. General Guderian just missed me. He wants to see me at the Bendlerstrasse tomorrow morning.”

Paule's throat tightened. “Just routine?”

“Oh, sure. He runs out of tank officers to talk to.”

Veelee watched with awe as Paule served the dinner. “It looks like
Gefuellte Kalbsbrust,”
he said. As he tasted it his eyes glazed over and a look of ecstasy spread over his face.

“Paule!”

“Yes, darling?”

“It is magnificent. My God, what did you do to it? How did you do it?”

She shrugged lightly and looked at him helplessly. “I don't understand,” she said. “I used Gretel's recipe—I only did what Gretel told me.”

He began to eat rapidly. “This is the greatest
Gefuellte Kalbsbrust
I have ever tasted.” She filled his plate again, and again. When he finally pushed himself away from the table he was dazed.

She put more beer in front of him. This must be like the end of life, she thought. When he was gone there would be left only a high, blank stone wall. She pushed herself to tell him what she was about to do with both of their lives, because she hoped that he might refuse to leave her for a reason so frivolous as whether he would win another pip on his shoulder in his army. She stared at him trying to erase any sign of sadness from her eyes.

“Veelee?”

“Anything, my beloved.” No one who had ever lived, she thought, could smile like Veelee.

“Would you mind if Paul-Alain and I moved to Wusterwitz with Gretel for a while?”

He blinked. He did not answer. She felt her throat tighten. She gripped her hands together tightly, under the table. Perhaps he would refuse to let her go. If he refused they would mean more to him than the army. If he rejected his army, perhaps, in a shorter time than she had ever dared to dream, she could persuade him to leave the army. They might get away. They might be together forever and get away. She made herself speak again. “Hansel is going to Rome and Gretel will be in Wusterwitz alone, and I thought Wusterwitz would be good for the baby and less tense for me.”

He looked at her gravely. His right hand slapped the table lightly. “Of course! Why, you won't even know that Berlin is a part of Germany when you are in Wusterwitz. They are our people. There are village Nazis, of course, but they are
our
Nazis. Let them wear their uniforms and have parades, but you are the wife of Colonel von Rhode.”

She had heard her life stop. In the course of one afternoon Veelee was being subtracted from her life. “What will you do?” she asked him.

“The same old thing. I'll soldier. They always have ten jobs ready. But, you'll love it at Wusterwitz. It's really beautiful.” He shivered. “How exciting those two old houses are to me.”

“Perhaps you should go to Wusterwitz and I should go to Wuensdorf.” She giggled.

“No more Wuensdorf. I feel it in my experienced old army bones.”

“No?”

“I think I might put in for new assignment when I see Guderian tomorrow. It's been a long time, in a way.”

“Where?”

“They'll tell me. So Hansel has been posted to Rome. They swear by old Hansel. He's a clever one, that old Hansel.”

Paule nodded and managed a smile. “Yes,” she said. “Hansel is a very clever one.”

Within eleven days Veelee was reassigned to special duty in Spain. He was assigned to work under the code name of Rabs, as Admiral Canaris's personal representative to General Franco's headquarters. Minister of War Blomberg's representative, Colonel Warlimont, as part of the military mind imitating children at their games, had been in Franco's favor since September, 1936; and Admiral Canaris's representative, who had been with General Franco since Morocco, had recently had the bad fortune to die. The Admiral was most anxious to place another man of skill and background in Spain, a man who could command influence at headquarters by supplying information on the local situation superior to Warlimont's, so that when the Fuehrer asked his questions the Canaris answers, not the Blomberg answers, would be the best answers.

The Admiral's selection of Colonel von Rhode was a calculated risk based upon the Colonel's already proven superiority to Warlimont on the tactics of a war of movement and on the coordination of combined supporting operations. Franco was attacking; therefore Colonel von Rhode would shine in his eyes.

Admiral Canaris was intensely irritated with Faupel, the German ambassador to Franco's headquarters, who was becoming more and more open in his support of General Franco's opponent in the Falange, Manuel Hedilla Larrey. This gaucherie the Admiral called a “typical manifestation” of the Dienstelle Ribbentrop, the surrogate Foreign Office which operated solely on funds from the Adolf Hitler Spende, in direct competition with the legal German Foreign Office.

Colonel von Rhode need not fear inactivity in Spain, Admiral Canaris explained. General Sperrle, commander of the Condor Legion, loathed Ambassador Faupel so much that he refused to receive him, and at the moment things were rather ticklish because General Franco had requested that Faupel be replaced. “Only a man as stupidly wooden as Ribbentrop could have found a man as woodenly stupid as Faupel,” the Admiral told Veelee. Von Rhode's primary assignment was to see that Faupel was recalled as soon as possible; then, for reasons the Admiral did not specify, to see that Sperrle was returned to Berlin for reassignment. Veelee said blandly that he was no hand at intrigue; in fact, he had no resources to accommodate intrigue whatsoever. The Admiral replied coldly that all he was expected to do was to supply full information from General Franco's headquarters and that, as always in history, the conspirators would provide their own intrigues.

Veelee babbled along as Paule got him packed, with the baby seated in a high chair to preside over the meeting so that Veelee could punctuate his report with kisses on the baby's cheeks and neck. “It's a wonderful chance, you know, really it is,” he said happily. “Thoma's tanks are in the thick of it, and they are coming up against Russian armor regularly now, ever since Guadalajara. Very heavy stuff. Really interesting.”

“You just stay sitting in a tent somewhere, I suppose,” Paule replied.

“This morning I persuaded Guderian to pass the word to Thoma to take nine of my tank studies into actual combat. Tremendous opportunity. After this, even stone-headed artillerymen like Brauchitsch and Keitel will have to accept tanks and reappraise the whole order of battle.”

“I suppose a lot of Spaniards will have to get killed to prove the effectiveness of the nine studies?”

He looked at her blankly. “Russians, also. That's part of the profession. They can kill us, too, you know. Russian armor is much heavier than ours, love, thanks to that God-damn artilleryman Brauchitsch.” He helped her close the last bag, then picked up the baby. “Your old father will be a general soon, Paul-Alain, and then we'll go off to Italy like Uncle Hansel and let the workingmen fight the wars.” He tossed the baby toward the ceiling and the child gurgled happily. “I hate to hurt your feelings, darling,” he said, “but Paul-Alain is the most German-looking baby I ever saw.”

Then, before she knew it, he was gone. He kissed her lingeringly, murmured words about writing and about always loving each other—and then he was gone, out of her life. She never saw him again as she saw him standing at the top of the stairs, grinning and waving, his left arm held high. She never saw him like that again.

Fourteen