“Miss,” the older one said. Both men were quite tense, now. “Do you know what this is?” He held up a flat white box, not too large.
“Yes,” Juliana said. “Nylon stockings. Synthetic fiber made only by the great cartel in New York, I. G. Farben. Very rare and expensive.”
“You got to hand it to the Germans; monopoly’s not a bad idea.” The older truck driver passed the box to his companion, who pushed it with his elbow along the counter toward her.
“You have a car?” the young Italian asked her, sipping his coffee.
From the kitchen, Charley appeared; he had her plate.
“You could drive me to this place.” The wild, strong eyes still studied her, and she became increasingly nervous, and yet increasingly transfixed. “This motel, or wherever I’m supposed to stay tonight. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have a car. An old Studebaker.”
The fry cook glanced from her to the young truck driver, and then set her plate before her at the counter.
The loudspeaker at the end of the aisle said,
“Achtung, meine Damen und Herren.”
In his seat, Mr. Baynes started, opened his eyes. Through the window to his right he could see, far below, the brown and green of land, and then blue. The Pacific. The rocket, he realized, had begun its long slow descent.
In German first, then Japanese, and at last English, the loudspeaker explained that no one was to smoke or to untie himself from his padded seat. The descent, it explained, would take eight minutes.
The retro-jets started then, so suddenly and loudly, shaking the ship so violently, that a number of passengers gasped. Mr. Baynes smiled, and in the aisle seat across from him, another passenger, a younger man with close-cropped blond hair, also smiled.
“Sie furchten dass—”
the young man began, but Mr. Baynes said at once, in English:
“I’m sorry; I don’t speak German.” The young German gazed at him questioningly, and so he said the same thing in German.
“No German?” the young German said, amazed, in accented English.
“I am Swedish,” Baynes said.
“You embarked at Tempelhof.”
“Yes, I was in Germany on business. My business carries me to a number of countries.”
Clearly, the young German could not believe that anyone in the modern world, anyone who had international business dealings and rode—could afford to ride—on the latest Lufthansa rocket, could or would not speak German. To Baynes he said, “What line are you in, mein Herr?”
“Plastics. Polyesters. Resins. Ersatz—industrial uses. Do you see? No consumers’ commodities.”
“Sweden has a
plastics
industry?” Disbelief.
“Yes, a very good one. If you will give me your name I will have a firm brochure mailed to you.” Mr. Baynes brought out his pen and pad.
“Never mind. It would be wasted on me. I am an artist, not a commercial man. No offense. Possibly you have seen my work while on the Continent. Alex Lotze.” He waited.
“Afraid I do not care for modern art,” Mr. Baynes said. “I like the old prewar cubists and abstractionists. I like a picture to mean something, not merely to represent the ideal.” He turned away.
“But that’s the task of art,” Lotze said. “To advance the spirituality of man, over the sensual. Your abstract art represented a period of spiritual decadence, of spiritual chaos, due to the disintegration of society, the old plutocracy. The Jewish and capitalist millionaires, the international set that supported the decadent art. Those times are over; art has to go on—it can’t stay still.”
Baynes nodded, gazing out the window.
“Have you been to the Pacific before?” Lotze asked.
“Several times.”
“Not I. There is an exhibition in San Francisco of my work, arranged by Dr. Goebbels’ office, with the Japanese authorities. A cultural exchange to promote understanding and goodwill. We must ease tensions between the East and West, don’t you think? We must have more communication, and art can do that.”
Baynes nodded. Below, beyond the ring of fire from the rocket, the city of San Francisco and the Bay could now be seen.
“Where does one eat in San Francisco?” Lotze was saying. “I have reservations at the Palace Hotel, but my understanding is that one can find good food in the international section, such as the Chinatown.”
“True,” Baynes said.
“Are prices high in San Francisco? I am out of pocket for this trip. The Ministry is very frugal.” Lotze laughed.
“Depends on the exchange rate you can manage. I presume you’re carrying Reichsbank drafts. I suggest you go to the Bank of Tokyo on Samson Street and exchange there.”
“Danke sehr,”
Lotze said. “I would have done it at the hotel.”
The rocket had almost reached the ground. Now Baynes could see the airfield itself, hangars, parking lots, the autobahn from the city, the houses…very lovely view, he thought. Mountains and water, and a few bits of fog drifting in at the Golden Gate.
“What is that enormous structure below?” Lotze asked. “It is half-finished, open at one side. A spaceport? The Nipponese have no spacecraft, I thought.”
With a smile, Baynes said, “That’s Golden Poppy Stadium. The baseball park.”
Lotze laughed. “Yes, they love baseball. Incredible. They have begun work on that great structure for a pastime, an idle timewasting sport—”
Interrupting, Baynes said, “It is finished. That’s its permanent shape. Open on one side. A new architectural design. They are very proud of it.”
“It looks,” Lotze said, gazing down, “as if it was designed by a Jew.”
Baynes regarded the man for a time. He felt, strongly for a moment, the unbalanced quality, the psychotic streak, in the German mind. Did Lotze actually mean what he said? Was it a truly spontaneous remark?
“I hope we will see one another later on in San Francisco,” Lotze said as the rocket touched the ground. “I will be at loose ends without a countryman to talk to.”
“I’m not a countryman of yours,” Baynes said.
“Oh, yes; that’s so. But racially, you’re quite close. For all intents and purposes the same.” Lotze began to stir around in his seat, getting ready to unfasten the elaborate belts.
Am I racially kin to this man? Baynes wondered. So closely so that for all intents and purposes it is the same? Then it is in me, too, the psychotic streak. A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power. How long have we known this? Faced this? And—how many of us do know it? Not Lotze. Perhaps if you know you are insane then you are not insane. Or you are becoming sane, finally. Waking up. I suppose only a few are aware of all this. Isolated persons here and there. But the broad masses…what do they think? All these hundreds of thousands in this city, here. Do they imagine that they live in a sane world? Or do they guess, glimpse, the truth…?
But, he thought, what does it mean,
insane
? A legal definition. What do I mean? I feel it, see it, but what is it?
He thought, It is something they do, something they are. It is their unconsciousness. Their lack of knowledge about others. Their not being aware of what they do to others, the destruction they have caused and are causing. No, he thought. That isn’t it. I don’t know; I sense it, intuit it. But—they are purposely cruel…is that it? No. God, he thought. I can’t find it, make it clear. Do they ignore parts of reality? Yes. But it is more. It is their plans. Yes, their plans. The conquering of the planets. Something frenzied and demented, as was their conquering of Africa, and before that, Europe and Asia.
Their view; it is cosmic. Not of a man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land.
Volk. Land. Blut. Ehre
. Not of honorable men but of
Ehre
itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them.
Die Güte,
but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles in space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again. This is an interval,
ein Augenblick
. The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into the granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary. And they—these madmen—respond to the granite, the dust, the longing of the inanimate; they want to aid
Natur
.
And, he thought, I know why. They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God’s power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate—confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man.
What they do not comprehend is man’s
helplessness
. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen. But why is that bad? Isn’t it better that way? Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small…and you will escape the jealousy of the great.
As he unfastened his own belt, Baynes said, “Mr. Lotze, I have never told anyone this. I am a Jew. Do you understand?”
Lotze stared at him piteously.
“You would not have known,” Baynes said, “because I do not in any physical way appear Jewish; I have had my nose altered, my large greasy pores made smaller, my skin chemically lightened, the shape of my skull changed. In short, physically I cannot be detected. I can and have often walked in the highest circles of Nazi society. No one will ever discover me. And—” He paused, standing close, very close to Lotze and speaking in a low voice which only Lotze could hear. “And there are others of us. Do you hear? We did not die. We still exist. We live on unseen.”
After a moment Lotze stuttered, “The Security Police—”
“The SD can go over my record,” Baynes said. “You can report me. But I have very high connections. Some of them are Aryan, some are other Jews in top positions in Berlin. Your report will be discounted, and then, presently, I will report you. And through these same connections, you will find yourself in Protective Custody.” He smiled, nodded and walked up the aisle of the ship, away from Lotze, to join the other passengers.
Everyone descended the ramp, onto the cold, windy field. At the bottom, Baynes found himself once more momentarily near Lotze.
“In fact,” Baynes said, walking beside Lotze, “I do not like your looks, Mr. Lotze, so I think I will report you anyhow.” He strode on, then, leaving Lotze behind.
At the far end of the field, at the concourse entrance, a large number of people were waiting. Relatives, friends of passengers, some of them waving, peering, smiling, looking anxious, scanning faces. A heavyset middle-aged Japanese man, well-dressed in a British overcoat, pointed Oxfords, bowler, stood a little ahead of the others, with a younger Japanese beside him. On his coat lapel he wore the badge of the ranking Pacific Trade Mission of the Imperial Government. There he is, Baynes realized. Mr. N. Tagomi, come personally to meet me.
Starting forward, the Japanese called, “Herr Baynes—good evening.” His head tilted hesitantly.
“Good evening, Mr. Tagomi,” Baynes said, holding out his hand. They shook, then bowed. The younger Japanese also bowed, beaming.
“Bit cold, sir, on this exposed field,” Mr. Tagomi said. “We shall begin return trip to downtown city by Mission helicopter. Is that so? Or do you need to use the facilities, and so forth?” He scrutinized Mr. Baynes’ face anxiously.
“We can start right now,” Baynes said. “I want to check in at my hotel. My baggage, however—”
“Mr. Kotomichi will attend to that,” Mr. Tagomi said. “He will follow. You see, sir, at this terminal it takes almost an hour waiting in line to claim baggage. Longer than your trip.”
Mr. Kotomichi smiled agreeably.
“All right,” Baynes said.
Mr. Tagomi said, “Sir, I have a gift to graft.”
“I beg your pardon?” Baynes said.
“To invite your favorable attitude.” Mr. Tagomi reached into his overcoat pocket and brought out a small box. “Selected from among the finest objets d’art of America available.” He held out the box.
“Well,” Baynes said. “Thanks.” He accepted the box.
“All afternoon assorted officials examined the alternatives,” Mr. Tagomi said. “This is most authentic of dying old U.S. culture, a rare retained artifact carrying flavor of bygone halcyon day.”
Mr. Baynes opened the box. In it lay a Mickey Mouse wristwatch on a pad of black velvet.
Was Mr. Tagomi playing a joke on him? He raised his eyes, saw Mr. Tagomi’s tense, concerned face. No, it was not a joke. “Thank you very much,” Baynes said. “This is indeed incredible.”
“Only few, perhaps ten, authentic 1938 Mickey Mouse watches in all world today,” Mr. Tagomi said, studying him, drinking in his reaction, his appreciation. “No collector known to me has one, sir.”