Iron Gustav (37 page)

And supposing this door opened and supposing there should be people outside, a big crowd, a mass meeting for instance, and by some accident this meeting was listening to the wrong speaker, then the cannon's mouth would vomit death and destruction on the unsuspecting persons below. By some accident! So much had happened by accident that afternoon.

Heinz Hackendahl closed his eyes. But he opened them immediately, for Irma had nudged him and was whispering, very excited: ‘Look at that officer!'

This officer, standing there unchallenged with his brown, determined face, smoking a cigarette among the soldiers, observing everything acutely and occasionally giving an order in an undertone – this seemed the most extraordinary sight of all on that confusing day
to those two young people. Had they not already both witnessed how the three unfortunate sergeants, on account of a pair of shoulder straps …

‘So the old traditions haven't completely disappeared,' said Heinz quietly.

Irma pressed his hand excitedly. ‘I'm so glad, Heinz!' she whispered.

He didn't even ask why she was glad, he understood immediately.

A little later their guide returned. ‘Now I know where Herr Hackendahl is,' he said, hurt. ‘Upstairs on the second floor. Herr Hackendahl's responsible for security in Berlin. You should have told me straight away, then I would have found him quicker!'

‘Security? What security?'

Erich appeared ever more puzzling to Heinz.

‘Oh, you know, against attacks, looting. You must know about that if you're his brother?' And the old man suddenly looked at him suspiciously.

‘I really didn't know that, although I'm definitely his brother,' said Heinz. ‘So show us where we should go. And many thanks for your trouble!'

The carefully written notice on the door, ‘Dr Bienenstich – Secretariat', had been clumsily crossed out in pencil. The fresh notice consisted of a piece of ordinary cardboard on which was scribbled ‘Committee of Security' in blue. It could not be said that this was very informative either, but it was the place to which the porter, after many enquiries, had directed them. Heinz knocked and looked at Irma. She nodded. He knocked again. A voice shouted, ‘Come in,' and they went in.

Erich was standing by the window talking with a swarthy and rather stout gentleman. He only looked briefly at his two visitors, shouted ‘One moment!', and continued to talk quickly, in a low voice, with the swarthy man.

Irma and Heinz looked at each other. Then she nodded and Heinz
said in a whisper: ‘Of course! That's him!' There was no doubt about it – they had seen this gentleman before, this swarthy gentleman in a dark coat, with the elegant striped trousers. In fact, he had been the speaker at the meeting which had been so violently interrupted. Heinz was dying to know who it was. It wasn't Ebert. Ebert was smaller. And it wasn't Liebknecht, either, who was not fat … He searched his memory, but as a true war child, to whom only the military seemed important, he hadn't been interested in the civilian deputies, who were suddenly now important after all.

The swarthy gentleman said, ‘Well, Erich, leave everything till tomorrow. I, for my part, must get at least five hours' sleep tonight – and it would do you good too. And by the way, we're putting off your visit.'

Erich smiled, but this annoyed Heinz. It was a smile that seemed to say how completely unimportant his visitors were.

But now the stout man looked at Heinz, and stretched a fat, very white, floppy hand towards him. Heinz had to take it and shake it.

‘So you're our clever Erich's brother?' Heinz was asked.

‘You could also say that Erich was Heinz Hackendahl's brother,' he answered provocatively.

The swarthy gentleman smiled in agreement. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘You don't always want to be a clever man's brother. And what are
you
? Student? At school?'

Heinz had to admit that he was still at school.

‘And what's the atmosphere like with you, at your school?'

Heinz said the atmosphere differed.

‘Of course!' The fat man understood straight away. ‘Depending on what's just happened. Quite right too!'

Heinz thought the fat gentleman could be a little more sparing with his praise. He always had a deep antipathy to the praise of his teachers.

‘And how do you feel?' he was asked.

‘I heard you speaking this afternoon,' he said excitedly. ‘My girlfriend and I had to run for it pretty quick.'

To his surprise this sally didn't seem to cause any wound at all. On the contrary, it produced hearty and quite sincere laughter.

‘Yes,
that was a regrettable incident!' said the fat man, laughing. ‘But with not entirely unpleasant consequences, what, Erich, my son?'

Laughing, Erich admitted that the consequences had not been entirely unpleasant. No, certainly not!

Heinz became angrier and angrier. ‘I saw women and children being badly trampled,' he said heatedly, in response to the odd, self-satisfied laughter.

The fat man immediately grew serious. ‘I know, I know. It all happened a bit fast, and the others were … Well, I don't think such little bureaucratic mistakes will occur again soon.'

He nodded to Erich in a friendly way, repeated: ‘Sleep, sleep, Erich, my son', stretched out his hand to Heinz, nodded towards Irma and went quietly out of the room, visibly preoccupied by the ‘little bureaucratic mistakes'.

‘Who was that, Erich?' asked Heinz, somewhat rudely, for the door had hardly closed.

‘Sit down. Cigarette? You don't smoke yet, Bubi? They'll let you start soon, surely. When are you taking your school leaving certificate?'

‘I asked you who that man was.'

‘Don't you know? Why, you heard him speak. By the way, what did you think of it – the speech, I mean?'

‘Splendid,' grinned Heinz. ‘Except the backfiring. And who's the speaker?'

‘A future minister.'

‘Oh, Erich!' Heinz shouted, laughing. ‘You still like to keep things quiet and swank about them, I see. Didn't I describe him correctly, Irma?'

Irma nodded.

‘Well, so he's a minister! Oh, let's leave it, Erich. You needn't tell me his name. If he really is a minister, I'll get to know anyway. And you're his secretary, I presume, on the way to being head of a department, eh? Or higher up even?'

But Erich was not in the least annoyed; on the contrary, he smiled quite complacently. ‘What did you mean by backfiring?' he asked in rather too innocent a way.

‘Dear,
dear, so you don't know. The death-threatening car, of course, that broke up your meeting.'

‘Excuse me, the meeting was fired on by machine-guns.'

‘Pardon me, Irma and I were sitting on top of Bismarck – it was a car with a grey hood.'

The brothers looked at each other.

‘Did you by any chance do a bunk from the meeting too?'

Heinz turned red. ‘One has to hunt with the hounds.'

‘And run with the hares,' laughed Erich heartily. The more furious his brother became the more he laughed. ‘Bubi, Bubi,' he said, ‘you're still damned young, you know.' His little victory made him inclined to talk. ‘Can't you exert your undeniably vast mental powers and see that in the end it's completely immaterial whether it was a machine-gun that fired or a car that backfired?'

‘No,' said Heinz perplexed. ‘I can't. You'll have to explain.'

‘Is it immaterial,' cried Irma, ‘whether people are killed or not?'

‘I said in the end, little lady,' drawled Erich, incredibly superior. ‘In the end!'

‘I'm not a lady!'

‘Then let's hope you'll become one.' Erich turned to Heinz. ‘Listen, it's quite simple. I'll explain things … We have an agreement with the Liebknecht people not to disturb each other's meetings. A kind of armistice, so to speak. Comrade Liebknecht speaks from the Schloss, we from the Reichstag. Now if our meeting's been fired on we've got the right to complain of a breach of agreement and smoke out a Workers' and Soldiers' Council which has been found treacherous and unreliable.'

‘But there was no actual firing.'

‘Ass! We say there was – and that's sufficient.' Erich looked at his brother triumphantly. ‘Don't you see it's enough if you can assert with some probability that a right's been infringed?' He winked an eye as beautiful and fine as a cat's. ‘Why should we have to investigate whether it was a machine-gun or a motor car?' He bent over and whispered, ‘What's wrong with producing a car or a gun yourself if it's going to help?' He straightened up. ‘The W. and S. Council here in the Reichstag was really very disturbing. Was disturbing, my dear Bubi. Was – since this afternoon.'

Heinz
stared at his brother. He had read about the tricks of diplomacy, about treason, spying and knavery, but such things were always abstract, remote, historic. That they should take place today, in front of his very eyes and by his own brother's contrivance …

‘Oh, Erich,' he said, and broke off. Even swearing did no good here. What would be the point of calling him a pig. He was proud of being one!

‘And those sailors who wanted to listen to Liebknecht, you lied to them too?' asked Irma.

‘The end justifies the means, little Fräulein.'

‘Why employ such means?'

‘Why tear off shoulder straps?' cried Heinz, upset. Then, reluctantly, he said, ‘Supposing Father heard about this?'

‘Please, stay still.' Erich was quite unmoved. ‘No, sit down. It's precisely for Father that I'm explaining this to you and permitting your fraternal cheek.'

‘I'll never believe you,' murmured Heinz.

Erich didn't hear him, because he didn't want to. ‘Why do we resort to such means? Because we want power, alone and on our own!'

‘But who exactly is that “we”?' cried Heinz desperately. ‘Here's one speaker and there's another and both are waving red flags and they're all in revolt. You talk about a troublesome Workers' Council! Well, what's it all about? Do you understand it? No, it's a general collapse – utter chaos.'

‘Not a bit, it's all quite simple. You'll understand the whole thing in three minutes. We – that is the great Social Democratic Party, the only party with the commitment and ability to win and hold power –'

‘Because you're in it, I suppose?'

‘Let's leave out the point-scoring. There are also the Independents, the so-called Independents,' Erich continued. ‘Those are members of the party who voted against war credits. One part of them tends towards the Liebknecht group, another wants to join us.'

‘And the Liebknecht people?'

‘Indeed, the Liebknecht people – they're the problem! Liebknecht
is now very popular … he's always written against the war. He's been in prison. He wants to destroy everything. That's very popular these days! But no one knows how many people are behind him. His Spartacus group is only small. You remember Spartacus, Bubi?'

‘Of course. Thracian prisoner of war. Began a slave and soldiers' revolt against Rome, won, and gained a huge following.'

‘Well, I believe in names,' said Erich. ‘Spartacus … do you know what happened to the Spartacists?'

‘Yes, I do. In the end they were completely destroyed. Spartacus fell with most of his followers. Thousands were crucified.'

‘Absolutely,' said Erich reflectively. ‘We don't do crucifying any more these days …'

The silence in the room was oppressive.

Erich looked up and chuckled when he saw the serious, angry faces of his two visitors.

‘You look so grim. You don't belong to the Spartacists, do you? I promise you, you would be backing the wrong horse. It's we who will form the government!'

‘I haven't backed any horse at all,' cried Heinz, furious. ‘This isn't a matter of horse racing.'

‘No, of course not. One uses such stupid expressions. I apologize.'

‘I don't only believe in names, but also in expressions – in expressions which reveal those who use them,' said Heinz scornfully.

‘My dear young fellow!' The older, superior, big brother was talking. ‘Why such aggression? Of course I'm happy to be fighting on the side of those with the best prospects! Is that wrong?'

‘And what do you want to do when you're in government?'

‘We'll build a democracy on the Western model,' explained Erich.

‘Yes, of course. That's the form you want it to take. I mean, what do you want to achieve when you are in power?'

‘Achieve? What do you mean?' Now it was Erich's turn to be confused. ‘When we're in power, haven't we achieved our goal? What else do you mean?'

‘Oh, Erich. Don't be so stupid! What do you want to do with your
power? You must have plans, intentions, a programme. Just obtaining power—'

‘Yes, my dear Bubi. Thank you for your flattering opinion, but for a government programme you really must wait until our future president announces it.'

‘Don't talk rubbish! You're not an idiot. You must have intentions. We've lost the war. What agreements, for example, do you want to make with our enemies?'

‘We'll think of something. Once we're a democracy, we'll be able to speak to the French and the English. Naturally we'll have to pay something, and more than the French had to in 1871. But two democratic governments will be able to come to a peaceful agreement.'

‘Have you read the armistice conditions?' Heinz broke in, furious.

‘But why are you so upset?
We
didn't make them! Don't forget, armistice conditions are made between generals.'

‘You mean dictated to them!'

‘By the military. We civilians come along afterwards – and we have President Wilson.'

‘So as far as end of the war and peace conditions are concerned, you simply say: it will all get settled?'