Circles of Time (43 page)

The minister tossed the pages idly aside. “Assassination plots against me are so common, the newspapers no longer take the trouble to mention them. I receive a dozen letters a week signed by
this
secret organization or
that
society threatening me with death because—of any number of reasons. You are a well-known journalist,
and
an American—therefore considered gullible. A story is hatched—not a plot, a
story
—and offered for sale. An exclusive scoop. Is that the correct word, Martin? Scoop?

“Yes, sir.”

“And you pay good money for a fabrication. Thus the confidence trick.”

In the sudden silence Martin could hear the twittering of birds in the garden below the windows.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that this is genuine.”

Lieventhal glanced back at the scattered pages. “Black Knights of the Sky! The mumbo jumbo of oaths and fraternity to the death! The type of nonsense undergraduates at a university fencing club might come up with.”

He sighed and got to his feet. “The real death threats are the ones I get every day as I drive to the chancellery. Some ex-soldier who blames all of the Republican ministers for stabbing the Reichswehr in the back. These poor fellows will never believe they were defeated on the western front by force of arms.
Never.
The Republican politicians are to blame … the Jews are to blame … the Communists are to blame. Everyone is to blame except tanks and guns and aeroplanes and a million American doughboys coming into battle at the eleventh hour. And I am a politician, and a Republican—and, ostensibly, a Jew. It hardly matters that I am not by birth a Jew. They know that. ‘Jew' is simply a term, a label stamped onto anyone who favored an end to the war and an end to the Kaiser. And so I drive to my office in the morning, and I drive home in the evening, and the ex-soldiers shout at me—or simply raise a sign that I can see. And the words are always the same—‘Kill the Jewish hog Lieventhal.'”

He reached down to his desk and crumpled the sheets of paper in his hand. “Do you think
this
nonsense frightens me? It is just one more absurdity—and a minor absurdity to boot.”

Martin gave him a helpless look. “Please, sir, I still feel that—”

Lieventhal clapped his hands, pronouncing an end to the matter. “I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I am quite used to this sort of thing. Now, let's indulge in more pleasant conversation in the drawing room over good, strong cups of English tea.”

She was seated in the drawing room when they entered. No painter, Martin thought, could have posed her more carefully. She sat on a small divan of yellow silk, large windows behind her, the pale afternoon sun falling softly across her.

“Amelia,” Lieventhal said, “you met Herr Rilke at Werner's party—and I'm sure you remember Jacob Golden.”

She stood up—a tall, slender, beautiful woman.

“Good Lord,” Jacob said. “You're not the Amelia I remember.”

She smiled brightly as he walked toward her. “But you're the same Jacob. Really you are. I would have recognized you anywhere. Do you still get irritated with young girls when they ask a lot of silly questions about ropes and sails?”

“No,” he said, taking her hand. “I know now that young girls grow older.”

Servants entered the room pushing wheeled trays piled with delicacies for tea.

“Amelia,” her father said, “you pour.”

The conversation was light, dominated by Jacob's account of a performance of
Romeo and Juliet
he had seen at Max Reinhardt's theater and a very good vaudeville act at the Winter Garden. Martin found it difficult to concentrate on what was being said. The room was warm, the tea hot, and yet he felt a cold chill along his spine every time he glanced at Lieventhal. Somewhere beyond the smiling man, beyond the French doors and the garden wall, perhaps at this very moment, young men were talking in a bar or café, whispering dark plans for death.

“Do Romeo and Juliet actually get into bed together on stage?” Amelia asked.

“Now, now, Amelia,” Lieventhal said. “It is hardly proper to ask such questions.”

“But, Father, it's only make-believe. Reinhardt theatrics. Do they, Jacob?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, they do. But it's handled with great delicacy.”

Martin excused himself and went back into the library. The sheets of notepaper lay crumpled on the desk and he smoothed them out with his hand, then folded them carefully and slipped them into his pocket. When he returned to the drawing room, Jacob was still talking about the theater, but Lieventhal was taking peeks at his gold pocket watch.

“I think we'd better be going, Jacob,” Martin said.

“Must you?” Amelia asked.

“I'm afraid so, yes.”

She stepped over to him and held his hand. “Please come again.”

Martin could only nod. It was like holding Ivy's hand. Like looking into Ivy's face.

They walked through the Tiergarten in the dusk, not saying anything until they reached the Brandenburg Gate and waited for the traffic to ease before crossing Pariserplatz.

“I know what you were thinking,” Jacob said. “Amelia's resemblance to Ivy is quite extraordinary.”

“Yes. But to me, the resemblance of any dark-haired, violet-eyed girl is extraordinary. It's disconcerting how many there are. But it wasn't so much that, Jacob. What struck me was how young and beautiful she is. Ivy was that young and that beautiful when she died. These Black Knights of the Sky. What if they go after Lieventhal when he least expects attack? Perhaps on his way to a restaurant … or a theater? What if they go for him when Amelia is by his side? Will they shoot carefully, or cut loose with a submachine gun?”

“You're totally convinced the plot is real, aren't you? In spite of what the old boy said?”

Martin put his hand in his pocket and touched the folded papers. “It's real, Jacob. Real as death.”

W
OLF VON
D
IX
read what Martin had placed before him and then tilted his chair back and swung his legs onto a corner of his desk.

“And you say you gave this to Lieventhal to read?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“And what was his reaction to it?”

“A kind of weary contempt.”

“That's understandable. Death threats are hardly news to him.”

“Why so many directed against
him
, for Christ's sake?”

Dix shrugged and folded his hands behind his head. “Because he's not afraid to stick his neck out and allow the extreme right wing to chop at it. Approver of the peace—if not the terms—signer of the trade agreement with the Soviets—any number of things not popular with certain ingredients of our ideological stew—these Knights of the Black Sky among them.”

“Black Knights of the Sky,” Martin muttered.

“Yes.
Black
Knights.”

“Have you ever heard of them?”

“No. But then, there are so many secret societies. The Black Knights, the Red Knights, the Sons of Siegfried … Whenever three embittered ex-army officers get together they form a society. One such group murdered poor Erzberger because he had followed orders and signed the armistice agreement. That was his only crime—helping to end the slaughter. Don't look for any degree of rationality among these self-righteous thugs, Martin.”

Martin leaned forward in his chair and tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk. “I was hoping you might know something about this particular band. That perhaps Anna …” He paused, eyeing the lanky editor steadily. “I think both you and Anna knew a little more about Herr Hitler and the National Socialists than was contained in your files. Am I wrong about that, Dix?”

Dix yawned and stretched his long arms toward the ceiling fan above his head. “That's possible. But then you casually mentioned that the little gold swastika pin had come from a friend's pocket. Werner von Rilke's pocket, no doubt, of Bad Isar and Berlin, your kinsman. I purposefully held my tongue. As for the files in the morgue, may I remind you, dear Martin, that I am the bureau editor of an American news agency. I send Herr Kingsford only those items that he can sell, and he is not interested in reports of minor beer-hall brawlers and Jew baiters.”

“What made you so sure it was Werner's pin?”

“Because, like you, I'm a good reporter. I may make my living sending out stories on Berlin night life, visiting celebrities, and rising theatrical stars, but in my off moments I keep my ear to the walls and my nose to the ground. Werner von Rilke is the primary financial backer of the budding Nationalsozialisten party—‘Nazi' for short.”

“Is that hard evidence, Dix?”

“As hard as it comes.” He swung his legs from the desk and leaned forward. “I have people who pass on information, all of it sound as holy gospel. I'll make some calls and see what I can find out about the Black Knights—but don't expect much. These little societies have raised secrecy to a fine art. And Berlin is a big city, Martin—and as tangled as a jungle.”

M
ARTIN SCANNED FACES
on the street as the taxi inched its way toward the Unter den Linden, through traffic congealed by swarms of bicyclists, great horse-drawn wagons, rickety trucks, and worn-out cars that seemed to stall or break down completely every few yards. Streams of people, overflowing the sidewalks, wove through the stalled lanes of vehicles. Two young, fair-haired men wearing leather jackets crossed in front of the taxi, talking earnestly, and disappeared from view in the crowd. What were they talking about? Martin wondered. Their jobs—or lack of jobs? Their girls? Or were they perhaps discussing murder? He stared broodingly at the passing throngs, but there was no point in that kind of crazy speculation. Equally pointless, he felt sure, was the possibility of uncovering the names of six conspirators in this city of so many millions. And he doubted strongly that any of Dix's informants had the necessary qualifications to penetrate such a close-knit band. There was only one person who could, conceivably, have the proper connections to ferret them out. He leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

“Take me to the Grunewald.”

The von Rilkes' majordomo, splendid in velvet jacket with brass buttons, was quite taken aback by Martin's arrival at the house in a wheezing, spluttering Berlin taxicab. It was not the custom for visitors to drop by unexpectedly. Every morning the majordomo was presented with a list of callers by Frederick von Rilke's secretary, with the approximate hour of their arrival. Martin Rilke's name was not on the list—but then, he was, to be sure, a relative. Still, it was hardly proper.

“Herr Werner?” The old man looked puzzled. “He is not here, Herr Rilke, neither is he expected.”

“Today, you mean?” Martin asked.

“This is not his residence. His apartments are in Zelten Allee, Herr Rilke, number forty-seven, off the Charlottenburger Chaussee.”

A spit and a holler from Lieventhal's home. He felt like an ass.

“Thank you,” he said, backing away from the door. “Thank you very much.”

Number 47 was one of a row of four-story stone buildings of baroque design set back from the street behind a screen of linden trees. Flags flew from the balconies of several, marking them as the residences of foreign ambassadors. Martin paid the taxi driver with an English crown. The man was so startled to have a solid silver coin pressed into his hand that he almost stripped the car's gears as he lurched away from the curb.

Werner had a twelve-room apartment on the ground floor. The upper floors had been turned into two huge apartments which he rented to a Chilean businessman and the Argentinian chargé d'affaires.

“This was Father's city house in the old days,” Werner was saying as he took Martin on a tour of his apartment. “I decided to turn it into flats. I live like a cozy bachelor here with a cook and a valet.” He indicated the spacious billiard room. “Would you care for a game of snooker?”

“Not just now,” Martin said.

“A drink, then.”

“Nothing, thank you. I'd just like to discuss something with you. Perhaps you might be able to help.”

Werner read the papers carefully and then placed them on the coffee table that separated their two chairs in the drawing room.

“But it's too fantastic, Martin. Black Knights of the Sky! Why, that's the sort of name one would find in a boy's adventure story printed in a penny dreadful. This is not to be taken seriously, surely?”

“I take it seriously. Lieventhal doesn't, and neither, I've been led to believe, do the Berlin police.”

“I tend to go along with their feelings on the matter.”

“Do you? But such secret groups exist—and are potentially dangerous despite their penny-dreadful names. Wouldn't you say so?”

“Your question seems pointed. What exactly are you implying, Martin?”

“I'm not implying anything. I'm asking your opinion.”