Paving the New Road (11 page)

The window framed a passing vista of snow-capped mountains, swathed in hills of radiant yellow and deep green. Rowland watched, almost mesmerised. The colours were more intense here than at home. Perhaps it was the broadness of the Australian continent that muted its shades, faded them somehow. Here the colours seemed to be thicker, undiluted. A landscape made for the brush of Van Gogh. “Would you look at that,” he murmured, as the band of yellow widened into a golden sea.

Clyde prodded him. “Don’t tell me you want to paint it.”

Rowland laughed. He had long given up trying to paint landscapes. Both his talent and his interest had always been in portrait work, and not even the magnificence through the window could intrigue him as more than a backdrop.

“What’s making the fields appear so yellow?” Edna asked.

“Dandelions,” Rowland replied, remembering from previous visits, when he had walked in those fields. “Rather a lot of them.”

Milton was unable to refrain. “Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”

“I think you’ll find that Wordsworth was talking about daffodils, not dandelions.”

As the train churned through the Austrian countryside towards the German border, they decided brief personal histories consistent with their new identities. Edna was prone to embroider the story, and for a while they debated the efficacy of the elaborate lie over the simple one. The sculptress and Milton were adamant that plausibility lay in detail, while Clyde demanded something he could
remember. In the end it was decided that they could be creative with those aspects that did not require Clyde to remember them, and a satisfactory agreement was reached.

Edna rested her head on Rowland’s shoulder as the gentle rhythmic lurch of the moving train rocked her towards sleep.

“How are we going to find Campbell?” Clyde asked.

“We don’t want to find him,” Rowland yawned. “He’d quite probably recognise us all. And he’ll most certainly recognise me.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“Apparently this chap, Blanshard, Campbell’s interpreter, will get in touch with us at the Vier Jahreszeiten.”

“The fear of what?” Clyde murmured.

Rowland smiled. “The Vier Jahreszeiten—The Four Seasons. It’s an hotel. Until then we visit galleries, talk to artists, generally carry on like art collectors and see if we can’t find out more about what happened to Peter Bothwell.”

“And Campbell has no idea that Blanshard is an Old Guard spy?” Milton asked, playing with the dark moustache he had kept when he sacrificed his goatee for their time in Germany. It was now just long enough to twist.

Rowland shrugged. “We have no way of knowing. I can only presume if Blanshard is still with him, then Campbell is still in the dark.”

“And if not?”

“Things will get a bit awkward, I expect.”

It was early in the evening when the Orient Express stopped in Munich, before continuing on to Strasbourg and Paris. It was cold,
the sky dark with cloud, and the day misted with a light but steady drizzle.

Rowland offered Edna his hand as she alighted. The sculptress was still not completely awake having roused only moments before. Indeed, they had all slept through most of the journey, forgoing their turn in the dining carriage in the interests of rest. Rowland’s last memory was of the simple lines and rural colour. The ornate, architectural grandeur of the Munich
bahnhof
was disorienting in contrast.

The railway platform buzzed and whistled with celebration. A band played folk tunes and the brown-shirted men of the SA were present in force. The general noise was punctuated with shouts of “Heil Hitler!”.

Edna started. “Is he here?” she asked, casting her eyes around.

“Who?”

“Mr. Hitler … they keep ‘heiling’ him.”

“No … I think they use his name to greet anybody,” Rowland explained.

“Really? Well, that’s a bit silly,” Edna said, as she looked out into the crowd to observe that he spoke the truth.

“It is a bit,” Rowland agreed. He glanced around at the banners and posters which festooned the station. “But you probably shouldn’t say so too loudly.”

When another train pulled in, the jubilation rose into a roar of approbation and the Brownshirts began to chant “Heil!” in a pounding rhythm. It was focussed upon a small group alighting the train on the opposite platform. Fleetingly, Rowland wondered if it was in fact the Chancellor, and then his ear, having become attuned, picked up snippets of excited conversation.

“Who is it?” Milton asked, as Rowland now strained to see the party from the other train.

Rowland motioned towards a large, stocky man who emerged from the carriage with his chest thrust out at the world. The Brownshirts exploded into applause. Rowland glanced uneasily at Milton. “Apparently that’s Röhm. He’s head of the SA … the Brownshirts.”

Edna grabbed Rowland’s hand. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered.

8

HITLER’S LATEST COUP.

TRADE UNIONS

UNDER NAZI CONTROL

LONDON, May 2

The Nazis simultaneously assumed control of the trade unions throughout Germany today, inaugurating Herr Hitler’s campaign to break Social Democracy’s hold on the workers and to mould them to his will.

“Politics of hate” will not be tolerated. Communist journals must submit to Government control and distribution. Provocative leaflets are banned.

Herr Hitler’s blow at the Socialist trade unions, which have a membership of more than 5,000,000, was executed with ruthless efficiency. Police and Brown Shirts occupied all the trade union buildings, workmen’s banks, and co-operative stores, and arrested 50 leaders, including the secretary of the Trade Union Federation, Herr Leipert, an ex-Minister of Labour (Herr Wissel) and three editors.

The raid was organised by Dr. Ley, President of the Prussian State Council, who describes it as the second phase of the national revival. “Marxism has been pretending to be dead,” he said, “but we are not going to be deceived.”

The Sydney Morning Herald, 1933

M
aximilianstrasse, through the centre of Munich, was the city’s busiest boulevard. Here among the fashionable boutiques and clubs, behind a magnificent gothic façade, stood the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten. Built in the previous century, under royal command, it was easily Munich’s premier hotel.

Rowland led the way into the wood-panelled foyer, checking them all into two of the hotel’s best suites, while his companions waited under a domed ceiling of coloured glass. Milton and Edna, posing as brother and sister—Albert and Millicent Greenway—would share the Ludwig suite, while Rowland and Clyde—as Robert Negus and Joseph Ryan—took the rooms named for Hindenburg.

Although he was equally comfortable with the Bavarian dialect, Rowland was careful to use only the High German spoken in Berlin, and by most foreigners. Already he’d caught the loose words of hotel staff, who assumed their Bavarian dialect would not be understood.

The hotel was busy. It seemed there was to be a rally of some sort soon and the Vier Jahreszeiten was brimming with Nazi officialdom and tourists. As the meeting place of the German supremacist Thule movement, the hotel had a proud association with the inception of the Third Reich.

They were shown to the suites, each of which overlooked Maximilianstrasse, and was opulently furnished in baroque style. Extra trunks had already been delivered to the rooms and unpacked. Again Rowland marvelled at the global efficiency of the Old Guard.

He and Clyde were in the suite’s sitting room when Milton and Edna rejoined them, dressed to go down for dinner. Rowland looked up from the newspaper, clearly perturbed.

“What’s news, Rowly?” Milton asked.

Rowland dropped the newspaper on the low marble side table. “The trade unions have been dissolved.”

“Which ones?” Milton asked, appalled. Both he and Clyde were active unionists back in Australia.

“All of them,” Rowland replied. “Union offices were demolished yesterday, and today all the unions were dissolved.”

Clyde picked up the paper, though he couldn’t read it. “Can the government do that?”

“Apparently they did.”

Milton cursed. “Just like that? No … that’s crazy … they wouldn’t just …”

Rowland took the paper back from Clyde, shaking his head incredulously. He scanned the article and paraphrased. “It’s been done, Milt. Any man found to be a trade unionist is apparently being arrested.”

“We’ll we have to do something … we can’t let the fascists—” Milton said, outraged.

“Calm down, Milt. We’re not in Sydney, mate … We can’t just petition parliament with our concerns.”

Milt sat down, slapping the chair’s arm in frustration. “Someone’s got to say something!”

Edna looked at the poet with concern. She sat down beside him. “Milt, darling, this is not our country.”

“But …”

“We must be careful. You can’t walk around Munich decrying the German government … God knows what they’d do if they found out why Rowly was really here.”

Rowland rubbed his brow thoughtfully. It wasn’t just the dissolution of the unions; there was so much in the newspaper that disturbed him. Even when New South Wales appeared on the brink of civil war, the rhetoric had not seemed so extreme. “Perhaps you fellows should take Ed home. I can book passages on the next ship.”

Edna rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Rowly.”

Clyde looked out the window at the bustling boulevard below. “We have all the more reason to make sure Campbell doesn’t bring this insanity back home.”

Rowland met Milton’s eye. “The SA seems to be going after anybody who’s out of step with the National Socialists.”

Milton sighed. “I get your meaning, Rowly. Clyde’s right … all the more reason we should make sure Campbell doesn’t make powerful friends.” He smiled sadly. “Don’t worry, mate, I’ll remember why we’re here.”

They did not dine at the Vier Jahreszeiten that evening. There were many Nazi leaders patronising the hotel and Rowland thought it best that they allow themselves time to adjust, before breaking bread in the company of fascists.

He took them instead to a different part of Munich, the jazz and cabaret district which he had frequented years ago when he had travelled across from Oxford. There was something alluringly unwholesome about the area, a refuge of things which had become clandestine, and those things which had always been so. Women for purchase congregated on corners posing against street lamps as they waited for the men who came like moths towards the glow of their cigarettes. In the shadows, merchants of the black market traded the foreign goods which had been banned under the Nazi Government.

To Rowland’s disappointment many of the cabarets for which the district was known had now been closed but they did find a small, smoky restaurant which served food and beer and boasted a three-man swing band on a rough stage. It was a bustling, crowded venue and for a while it looked as though they would not get places at one of the extended communal tables, until Rowland paid a group of long-haired young men to give up theirs. The food was
simple: sausage, bread and pickled cabbage. The fine Bavarian beer was served in massive tankards. In dinner suits, they were possibly overdressed, but the gathering was eclectic enough that they passed without attracting too much attention.

Rowland noticed that the conversations here were not so firmly in support of the government. Occasionally he heard the sentiment of contempt, and the salute of “Heil Hitler!” was rare and half-hearted.

They ate and drank. As it became late, the night spot became only more crowded and busy. Milton and Rowland danced with Edna and she danced with many men besides. And then, with no warning, the band stopped and disappeared through a door behind the stage. An almost spherical man in traditional costume replaced them, playing German folk music on an accordion. On the dance floor, Rowland was bewildered, but he and Edna followed the other couples into a slow polka.