Atlantis and Other Places (45 page)

I can look like a man of the working class. It is not even difficult for me. I wander the streets with my nose to the ground, listening like a bloodhound. I order coffee in an estaminet. My accent for the one word does not betray me. I stop. I sip. I listen.

I find . . . nothing. Have I been betrayed? Does Doriot know I am here? Has my presence been revealed to him? Is that why he is lying low? Has someone on my own side stabbed me in the back? I would give such a vile subhuman a noose of piano wire, if ever he fell into my hands, and smile and applaud as I watched him slowly die.

Hoping to hear again from you soon, I kiss your hands, your neck, your cheek, your mouth, and the very tip of your . . . nose. With much love from—

 

 

What a special man, what a superior man, your uncle is! Despite having to carry on in the face of your disappointing silence, I relentlessly pursue the Red criminal, Doriot. And I have found a lead that will infallibly betray him into my hands.

One thing you must know is that the folk of Lille are most fond of pigeons. During the early days of the war, we rightly confiscated these birds, for fear of their aiding enemy espionage. (Some of these pigeons, I am told, ended up on soldiers’ tables. While I hold no brief for meat-eating, better our men should enjoy them than the French.)

Now, though, we have in France what is called peace. The Frenchmen are once more permitted to have their birds. La Societé colombophile lilloise—the Lille Society of Pigeon-fanciers—is large and active, with hundreds, it could even be thousands, of members, and with several meeting halls in the proletarian districts of the city. And could not these pigeons still be used for spying and the conveying of intelligence? Of course they could!

I know something of these birds. I had better—as a runner in the war, did I not often enough see my messages written down and sent off by pigeon? I should say I did! And so I have been paying visits to the pigeon-fanciers’ clubhouses. There I am Meinheer Koppensteiner—a good family name for us!—from Antwerp, a pigeon-lover in Lille on business. My accent will never let me pass for a Frenchman, but a Fleming? Yes, that is easy enough for them to believe.

“Things are still hard in Antwerp,” I tell them. “The green devils will take away a man’s birds on any excuse or none.”

This wins me sympathy. “It is not so bad here,” one of them answers. “The Boches”—this is what they call us, the pigdogs—“are very stupid.”

Nods all around. Chuckles, too. They think they are so clever! Another Frenchman says, “The things you can get away with, right under their noses!”

But then there are coughs. A couple of fellows shake their heads. This goes too far. I am a stranger, after all, and what sounds like a Flemish accent could be German, too. I am too clever to push hard. I just say, “Well, you are lucky, then—luckier than we. With us, if a bird is caught carrying a message, for instance, no matter how innocent it may be, this is a matter for the firing squad.”

They make sympathetic noises. Things must be hard there, they murmur. By the way a couple of them wink, I am sure they deserve a blindfold and a cigarette, the traitors! And maybe they will get one, too! But not yet. I sit and bide my time. They talk about their birds. Meinheer Koppensteiner says a couple of things, enough to show he knows a pigeon from a goose. Not too much. He is a stranger, a foreigner. He does not need to show off. He needs only to be accepted. And he is. Oh, yes—he is.

Before long, Meinheer Koppensteiner will appear at other clubhouses, too. He will not ask many questions. He will not say much. But he will listen. Oh, my, yes, he will listen. If I were back in Munich, I would rather listen to you. But then, after all, I am not Meinheer Koppensteiner. Thinking of the kisses I shall give you when I see you again, I am, in fact, your loving—

 

 

Three weeks now in Lille and only two letters from you! This is not the way I wish it would be, not the way it should be, not the way it must be! You must immediately write again and let me know all your doings, how you pass your days—and your nights. You must, I say. I wait eagerly and impatiently for your response.

Meanwhile, waiting, I visit the other pigeon-fanciers’ clubhouses. And I make sure to return to the first one, too, so people can see Meinheer Koppensteiner is truly interested in these birds. And so he is, though not for the reasons he advertises.

The workers babble on about the pigeons. They drink wine and beer and sometimes apple brandy. As a Fleming, Meinheer Koppensteiner is expected to drink beer, too. And so I do, sacrificing even my health in the service of the Kaiser. At one of the clubs, I hear—overhear, actually—quiet talk of a certain Jacques. Is it Doriot? I am not sure. Why is this pestilential Frenchman not named Jean-Hérold or Pascal? Every third man in Lille is called Jacques! It is so frustrating, it truly does make me want to chew the carpet!

And then someone complained about les Boches—the charming name the Frenchmen have for us, as I told you in my last letter. A sort of silence ensued, in which more than a few eyes went my way. I pretended to pay no particular attention. If I had shouted from the rafters, I am Belgian, not German, so say whatever you please!—well, such noise only makes the wary man more so. A pose of indifference is better.

It worked here. Indeed, it could not have worked better. Quietly, sympathetically, someone said, “Don’t worry about him. He’s from Antwerp, poor fellow.” In fact, he said something stronger than fellow, something not suited to the ears of a delicate, well-brought-up German maiden.

“Antwerp?” someone else replied. “They’ve been getting it in the neck from the Boches even longer than we have, and there aren’t many who can say that.”

This sally produced soft laughter and much agreement. I memorized faces, but for many of them I still have no names. Still, with the help of the immortal and kindly Herr Gott, they too will be caught, and suffer the torments such wretches so richly deserve.

Seeing me make little response—seeing me hardly seem to understand—made them grow bolder. Says one of them, “If you want to hear something about the Boches, my friends . . . Do you know the house of Madame Léa, in the Rue des Sarrasins, by the church of Saints Peter and Paul?”

I suspected this was a house of ill repute, but I proved mistaken. This happens even to me, though not often. “You mean the clairvoyant?” says another, and the first fellow nods. Madame Léa the clairvoyant? There is a picture for you, eh, my dear? Imagine a fat, mustachioed, greasy Jewess, telling her lies to earn her francs! Better such people should be exterminated, I say.

But to return. After the first pigeon-fancier agrees this is indeed the Madame Léa he has in mind—heaven only knows how many shady kikes operate under the same surely false name in Lille!—he says, “Well, come tomorrow at half past nine, then. She gives readings Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Other days, other things.” He chuckles knowingly.

Tomorrow, of course, is Wednesday. Who knows what sort of treachery boils and bubbles in Madame Léa’s house on the days when she does not give readings? No one—no one German—knows now. But after tomorrow, she will be exposed to the world for what she is, for a purveyor and panderer to filth of the vilest and most anti-German sort. Such is ever the way of the Jew. But it shall be stopped! Whatever it is, it shall be stopped! I take my holy oath that this be so.

Maybe it will not be Doriot. I hope it will be. I think it will be. No, it must be! It cannot be anyone, anything, else. On this I will stake my reputation. On this I will stake my honor. On this I will stake my very life!

When the mothers of ancient Greece sent their sons into battle, they told them, “With your shield or on it!” So it shall be for me as I storm into the struggle against the enemies of the German Empire! I shall not flag nor fail, but shall emerge triumphant or abandon all hope of future greatness. Hail victory!

Give me your prayers, give me your heart, give me the reward of the conquering hero when I come home covered in glory, as I cannot help but do. I pause here only to kiss your letters once more and wish they were you. Tomorrow—into the fray! Hail victory! for your iron-willed—

 

 

Himmelherrgottkreuzmillionendonnerwetter! The idiocy of these men! The asininity! The fatuity! How did we win the war? Were the Frenchmen and the English even more cretinous than we? It beggars the imagination, but it must be so.

When I returned to Feldgendarmerie headquarters after shaking off whatever tails the suspicious pigeon-fanciers might have put on me, I first wrote to you, then at once demanded force enough to deal with the mad and vicious Frenchmen who will surely be congregating at Madame Léa’s tonight.

I made this entirely reasonable and logical demand—made it and had it refused! “Oh, no, we can’t do that,” says the fat, stupid sergeant in charge of such things. “Not important enough for the fuss you’re making about it.”

Not important enough! “Do you care nothing about serving the Reich?” I say, in a very storm of passion. “Do you care nothing about helping your country?” I shake a finger in his face and watch his jowls wobble. “You are worse than a Frenchman, you are!” I cry. “A Frenchman, however racially degenerate he may be, has a reason for being Germany’s enemy. But what of you? Why do you hate your own Fatherland?”

He turned red as a holly berry, red as a ripe tomato. “You are insubordinate!” he booms. And so I am, when to be otherwise is to betray the Kaiserreich. “I shall report you to the commandant. He’ll put a flea in your ear—you wait and see.”

“Go ahead!” I jeer. “Brigadier Engelhardt is a brave man, a true warrior . . . unlike some I could name.” The fat sergeant went redder than ever.

The hour by then being after eleven, the brigadier was snug in his bed, so my being haled before him had to wait until the following morning. You may be certain I reported to Feldgendarmerie headquarters as soon as might be. You may also be certain I wore my uniform, with everything in accordance with regulations: no more shabby cap and tweed greatcoat, such as I had had on the previous night for purposes of disguise.

Of course, the other sergeant was still snoring away somewhere. Did you expect anything different? I should hope not! Such men are always indolent, even when they should be most zealous—especially when they should be most zealous, I had better say.

So there I sat, all my buttons gleaming—for I had paid them special attention—when the commandant came in. I sprang to my feet, took my stiffest brace—my back creaked like a tree in the wind—and tore off a salute every training sergeant in the Imperial Army would have admired and used as an example for his foolish, feckless recruits. “Reporting as ordered, sir!” I rapped out.