The Right Hand of Sleep (39 page)

It was pointless to talk to the girl, or the other servants in the
house, or the banker and his wife, either, should they eventually
reappear. I had to go to Mittling. The problem with going to Mittling was that I’d never seen him or spoken to him directly. I didn’t
even know his Christian name. Glass guarded each communiqué
from Munich jealously and burned each day’s total in the lavatory
sink before retiring. Not even Spengler had been allowed free contact with his cousin, though that may, in fact, have been Mittling’s
own preference; there was little love lost between them.

Once every morning in the month before the putsch the phone
would ring, Glass would answer it, and the rest of us would file
quietly out into the hall. There was a second receiver in a filing
room a few doors down and when the door was unlocked I’d sometimes slip in and pick it up. Mostly they talked about money and
Himmler, how there was never enough of the one and always too
much of the other. They made bland, forgettable jokes about one
or another of the boys, most often Spengler, and in general talked
as little business as possible. Mittling was a Sudeten German and
spoke with a cloying, timorous accent, as though his mouth was
full of marzipan. It had been his idea that we dress as policemen.
“One Black Shirt’s as good as another,” he’d said, tittering.

“Ha!” Glass had answered. “Very good, Brigadenführer.”

I left my hosts’ house in the afternoon and walked across the
wide stone bridge to the center of town. Dust rose thickly from the
cobbles; countless sedans and wagons rattled by. Everyone seemed
almost laughably industrious and carefree. Excitement was everywhere in the air—a new, fierce optimism. This was the Germany
I’d imagined for myself from the earliest days of the movement,
clear-eyed, secure in its future and hard at work, and I felt at home
in it. I’d never before been to another country; there seemed to be
many more bicycles in Bavaria, and more convertibles.

As I passed into the Altstadt, throngs of housewives bustled
past on the narrow walks, humming to themselves benevolently.
The light on all the streets was warm and gilded. My heart fluttered in my chest and I realized for the first time that I’d escaped
something horrible and entered into something fine. I broke into
an idiotic, unembarrassed grin, laughing and bowing to people as I
passed. I had only to look at the posters and handbills everywhere
around me, on the streetlamps and sides of houses, to know that I
was free. Even the thought of Niessen and all I’d lost seemed dim
and insignificant to me then.

The offices of the SS were in a peach-colored building off the
Königsplatz, a short stroll from the center of town, and I found it
without much trouble. I was nervous, oddly enough, coming to the
gate, and I stood awhile looking up at the yellow roof and marveling at its cheeriness. After a time, a guard came out of the gatehouse and asked me in an unconcerned tone of voice what I was
looking at.

“Your building,” I answered. “It’s wonderfully put together.”

“Oh,” said the guard. “Student of architecture, are you?”

“Not exactly. I’m an Obersturmführer of Reichsführer Göring’s
Grand Austrian Legion.” I clicked my heels as best I could in the
low-cut spats I’d taken from the banker’s shoe closet. “I’m here for
Brigadenführer Mittling.”

The guard straightened immediately and stared at me. “You’d
best come right inside then, Obersturmführer.”

He took me through the gate, into the building through chipped
fluted double doors, and up a broad unpainted staircase to a
second pair of doors with a newly painted swastika-and-eagle-recumbent on each wing. He rapped once, waited, then rapped
again and stepped back at attention. I fell in beside him, conscious
suddenly of my rumpled suit.

A small bespectacled man stuck his head out. “Well, Peter?
Who is this citizen?” I recognized the marzipan voice immediately.

“An Austrian, Brigadenführer. An Obersturmführer from the
‘Göring Legion,’ whatever in God’s name that is.”

“Is that so?” said the man with a faint flicker of interest. He
looked me over more carefully. “Are those policeman’s castaways
you have on under your jacket, Obersturmführer?”

“They are, Herr Mittling. Standartenführer Glass sends his
regards.”

“Does he,” said Mittling, not smiling anymore.

I said nothing, unsure of myself suddenly. I’d thought for some
reason that Glass’s name would be a welcome one in Munich in
spite of the fiasco, that as oily as he was he’d naturally not be held
accountable for any of it. But Glass was clearly in disfavor. I supposed I must be, now, as well. I cursed my luck.

“Come along inside,” said Mittling, heaving a little sigh. He
looked like nothing so much as an underpaid, exhausted file clerk,
waddling ahead of me with his self-pitying air. In spite of my new-found worries, I found myself grinning as I followed him down a
narrow unlit corridor to a cramped, cluttered suite of thick-walled
office rooms subdivided into alcoves, coated uniformly with plaster flakes and dust. “We’ve only just moved in,” said Mittling out
of the corner of his mouth, motioning me toward a chair. “Charming, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing to a small leaded-glass window giving onto a tree-lined courtyard.

“It’s very charming in general, here in the Reich.”

“We like to think so,” Mittling said blandly. He sat down at his
desk and began rifling through a drawer. “Now then: who did you
say you were? Forstner? Galicek? Bauer?”

“Bauer, Brigadenführer.”

“Do you smoke, Bauer?”

“I do, Brigadenführer.”

“That’s a nasty habit,” he said, his face creasing slightly. I’d
forgotten his particularly joyless sense of comedy.

“Yes. I suppose it is, Brigadenführer.”

“Well.” He paused. “Suppose you tell me how you managed it,
then. I’m very curious.”

“Managed it, Brigadenführer?”

“Yes, Bauer: managed it. Made it from the chancellery in
Vienna all the way to my office without getting hanged, shot or, as
far as I can tell from the admittedly brief span of our acquaintance, made in any way untidy. How you managed it.”

I said nothing, thinking how to represent my part in the whole
blessed farce. Mittling leaned forward, puckering his mouth.

“Unclench yourself, for Christ’s sake, Bauer. Herr Glass taught
you wonderfully bad strategy, I’m afraid, and even worse manners.” He sighed again, gently, and offered me a cigarette from a
brown Bakelite case. “Indulge me, Bauer. You’re among friends.
Let’s have the unabridged version.”

I said nothing for a moment. Then, to my great surprise, I gave
it to him, more or less in its entirety. I made no attempt to condense events or cast Spengler or anyone else in any particular light.
Suspicious as he was of unadorned truth, Mittling was sharp
enough to sense a lie three times out of four, and besides I felt for
some reason at that particular moment like giving him exactly
what he wanted. It took me less than an hour to tell it all. When
I’d finished, Mittling fished out a cigarette for himself and lit it.
“That’s quite an epic,” he said, exhaling. He looked at me expressionlessly for a time. “Some would call what you did desertion,
Bauer. Most would.”

I returned his look as calmly as I could. “What’s to become of
Spengler and the other boys?”

“What’s to become of them? They’re already dead by hanging,
boy. This very morning, coincidentally, at six o’clock. With all
attendant pomp and ceremony.” His eyes twinkled briefly. “A far
better question, I’d say, is what’s to become of you, Kurt Bauer.
Don’t you agree?”

We sat in silence again for perhaps half a minute. Mittling
drummed on the desktop with his fingertips.

“Let them call it desertion then, if they like,” I said.

Mittling smiled at this. “That’s right. Let them call it desertion, Bauer,” he said quietly . “If they like.” He took a telephone
from another drawer of his desk and leaned over to plug it into a
socket. “Would you mind stepping into the hall for a moment,
Obersturmführer?”

“Not at all, Brigadenführer.” I stepped into the corridor and
shut the door behind me. I stood just outside, feeling light-headed,
listening to the indecipherable buzz of Mittling’s voice and the
sound of typing echoing from some other room, trying to form a
theory as to what might happen to me. I was nervous at first, leaning uncomfortably against the wall, but my nervousness soon
passed. I hadn’t yet had a chance to ask Mittling about the Führer’s
disavowal and I had a premonition that chance might never come,
but that didn’t matter any longer. When the door opened and Mittling waved me in I knew that chapter was a dead one for me now,
my questions about it irrelevant, even morbid. A new chapter was
beginning.

Mittling stood at the window, looking into the courtyard.
“We’re in a bit of a predicament over you, Bauer, as I’m sure you
can well imagine. You’re not a fool, clearly enough, whatever else
you may be.” He dug a finger into his nose, held it there a moment,
then drew it out, examining it absently. “The Führer has denied
any complicity in the Dollfuss business, and therefore any connection to you.”

“I know that, Brigadenführer.”

Mittling appraised me coldly. “Do you? All the better.” He
paused a long while, staring at a package of unopened stationery
to the left of his folded hands. “We’re sending you to Berlin tonight
on the nine-o’clock express.”

I swallowed hard to keep back my surprise. “I have no clothes
but these, Brigadenführer—”

“They’ll do,” said Mittling, busy at his desk.

“Is there no uniform or clean shirt for me here?” I swallowed
again.

Mittling arched his eyebrows. “You’re not going there to meet
the Führer, Bauer, if that’s what you’re dirtying your pants over.”

Coming down from the reliquary in the failing light Voxlauer saw them, lolling at the edge of the spruce plantation in the high unbending grass, looking for all the world like a sketch from an album of country reminiscences. That they’d been lying in wait for him for some time he had no doubt. They were sprawled in the grass, caps tipped forward over their eyes, passing a wineskin back and forth between them. Voxlauer bowed to them as he went by. The younger brother took the skin and looking at Voxlauer took a long, calculated draft, letting the wine spray noisily against the back of his throat. The older one wasn’t looking at him at all but gazing instead back up the valley, scratching his bare and sunburnt belly in deliberate, lazy circles, as if hoping somehow to provoke him. Their rifles lay beside them in the grass. Voxlauer passed within a meter of where they lay and looked them both full in the face but they seemed suddenly not to see him. A few moments later he’d left them behind him to wait in the even, indifferent dark.

—Something’s going to happen, said Voxlauer, stepping into the kitchen.

Else looked up from the table. —Has Kurt been up to see you?

—Just now. Was he here, too?

She nodded. Her eyes were small and red. —I’m frightened now, Oskar. I can’t not notice any longer.

—Something’s happened to Pauli. Or is about to.

—Who’s Pauli? said Resi, coming up from the bedroom.

—No one, mouse. Go to sleep.

—He
is
someone, said Voxlauer sharply.

—Hello, Oskar, said Resi, letting out a yawn. She stood between them sleepily, leaning against the counter. —Can I sit?

—I know he’s somebody, Oskar. Christ in heaven, remember who you’re talking to. Go on back to bed, Resi, Else said, half turning toward the counter. —Go on. She turned back to Voxlauer, taking his hand and squeezing it. —I want to leave. I want to leave tomorrow.

—A few more days, Else. A little while longer. Let me find out about Pauli.

—Who’s Pauli? said Resi again, looking back at them hopefully from the top of the stairs.

Else spun angrily in her chair. —You go to sleep this instant! This instant, Fräulein!
Go!

Resi went. They sat silently at the table. Resi was humming to herself as she dressed for bed and the sound of her humming carried faintly up to them. —I had a terrrible talk with Kurti today, Else said.

—He brought Resi?