Paving the New Road (14 page)

“You want us to buy art?” Clyde asked incredulously.

“Only if it’s good. We don’t want people to think we’re bad art dealers.”

“No, that wouldn’t do at all,” Edna agreed.

And so Rowland left his friends to purchase art, while he set out to meet Alastair Blanshard, who, as an Old Guard plant, had infiltrated Eric Campbell’s inner circle. He paused to collect an old copy of
Der Stürmer
from the reception desk on the pretext that he had missed an edition. He slipped the paper into his jacket without looking at it.

He walked to the Königsplatz, and took a seat on the park bench on the grassed square adjacent to the Museum of Classical Art, in accordance with Blanshard’s instructions. He checked his watch. Still twenty minutes to ten. For a while he sat watching the plaza, the movements of people, of motor cars and horse-drawn vehicles, the children who played on the grass and the bullying presence of the Brownshirts. Almost without thinking he pulled the leather-bound notebook from his jacket to record what he saw. The square was surrounded by buildings inspired by classical architecture—Corinthian columns and iconic plaques on all sides—but Rowland wasn’t interested in the buildings. He sketched quickly, his eye drawn as it always was to faces and figures. With strong, stern lines he captured the ruthless arrogance of the SA patrol and then, with a softer hand, the faces of the boys who gazed admiringly at them. He had lost himself in trying to catch the wistful eyes of a young woman casting coins into a fountain when a man sat wordlessly on the bench beside him.

Rowland glanced up. Dressed in tweeds, with a shock of thick red hair and aged about forty-five, the man opened a silver case and silently offered him a cigarette.

Rowland declined in German.

The man glanced down at the paper now on the bench between them. “Mr. Negus?” he asked. He looked disgruntled.

Rowland nodded.

The man sighed and cursed under his breath. “Alastair Blanshard,” he said finally. “How old are you?”

A little startled by the question, Rowland did not reply immediately.

“Well?”

“I’m twenty-eight … but I’m not sure what that—”

Blanshard swore—quite extravagantly, though his expression was so controlled that anyone watching might have thought them discussing the weather, and he nodded in a manner that was quite contrary to his words. “What the bloody hell do those fools think they’re doing? … I ask for an experienced man and they send me some novice who—” he paused to glance at Rowland’s notebook, “who likes to draw pictures, for God’s sake!”

Rowland did not react visibly. “I am who they’ve sent, Mr. Blanshard. What can I do to help you?”

Blanshard cursed again while smiling congenially, and then he asked, “Do you mind if I glance through your newspaper?”

“Be my guest,” Rowland muttered, a little disconcerted by the divergence between Blanshard’s gestures and what he was saying. He decided it was best just not to look at the man.

Blanshard unfolded
Der Stürmer
and spent the next several minutes studying it. Unsure of what else to do, Rowland went back to his sketch. The meeting was not going as he had expected.

Eventually Blanshard refolded the paper and returned it to the bench between them. “You’ll find an itinerary in the paper,” he said, lighting a cigarette. He kept his eyes focussed on the plaza. “Campbell has a meeting with Göring at the Braune Haus the day
after tomorrow … the details are all there. The meeting must not happen, or it must not go well.”

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Something very dangerous, Mr. Negus, which is why I can’t believe that they have sent me an untried man!”

Rowland was getting somewhat fed up with Blanshard’s dissatisfaction.

“Suppose you just tell me what has to be done, Mr. Blanshard.”

Blanshard drew so heavily on his cigarette that Rowland half-expected to see the stick disappear entirely. “Among the National Socialists, Hermann Göring’s star is rising. If Campbell manages to ingratiate himself with the man, it could be dangerous indeed. I have done what I can to stop the meeting but my hands are tied on this. Göring speaks English, so Campbell has no need of a translator.”

Rowland waited silently until Blanshard continued.

“Ideally, we would like Göring himself to cancel, or simply fail to attend the meeting.”

“How on earth am I supposed to get Göring to cancel a meeting?” Rowland interrupted. Surely Blanshard didn’t expect him to kidnap a minister of the Nazi cabinet.

“We have one chance.” Blanshard stubbed out his cigarette and lit another immediately. “Göring has a younger brother, who is currently in Munich. Albert Göring is, we believe, a dissident, opposed to the National Socialist Government of which his brother is a part. According to our intelligence, he hates Adolf Hitler and has been actively working against the Third Reich.”

“But …” Rowland pre-empted the qualification.

“But we can’t be sure. He is Hermann Göring’s brother, after all, and we have no evidence of any falling out between the two. Indeed, their relationship appears to be warm.”

“I see.”

Once more Blanshard swore, while smiling pleasantly. “I was expecting someone I could send to talk to Albert Göring. Someone of at least the calibre of Bothwell, who could convince Albert to persuade his brother to cancel the meeting.”

Rowland shrugged. “I speak German, Mr. Blanshard, both High and Bavarian. You can send me.”

“You do not seem to understand the danger, Mr. Negus. We have no way of knowing what Albert will do … no guarantee that he will not simply turn you in to the Nazis as a spy or an insurgent. If you fail to convince him to manipulate his brother to assist us, it is quite likely that you will be arrested and shot.”

For a moment Rowland said nothing as the words settled between them.

“And if this meeting goes ahead?”

“Campbell could make a very powerful ally. I have already heard some of the Nazis call him Australia’s Hitler.”

Rowland smiled. “The Germans can call him whatever they want … I doubt Australians will call him anything that remotely resembles Hitler.”

Blanshard tapped the ash from his cigarette, subtly checking the area around them. There was no one too nearby. “Have you read
Mein Kampf
, Mr. Negus?”

“Hitler’s manifesto?” Rowland shrugged. “Only partially … I’m afraid I find fascist insanity more tedious than amusing.”

“As much as you dismiss it, Mr. Negus, there were many men who were seduced by its ideas. It has sold a quarter of a million copies already, and now every newly wed couple in Germany receives some kind of nuptial edition.”

Rowland laughed. “Sounds like an intriguing wedding night, Mr. Blanshard.”

Blanshard refused to share his flippancy. “Eric Campbell has begun drafting his own manifesto, which he plans to release on his return. It will set out what he sees as the path for Australia, much as
Mein Kampf
set Germany’s road. Campbell already considers that there are similarities between himself and Mr. Hitler. Any encouragement by the hierarchy of the Reich could easily see Campbell’s view become more extreme.”

Rowland frowned uneasily as he remembered Clyde’s earlier insight on Campbell’s choice of foe. Campbell could well be looking for a new enemy. “Very well, Mr. Blanshard. I’ll try.”

Blanshard swore at him, though again his face revealed nothing to anyone out of earshot, anyone but Rowland. “You’ll have to do more than try, Mr. Negus,” Blanshard said tightly. “An experienced man would know how to judge Albert Göring—to assess his chances and proceed accordingly. I bloody well hope you’re up to this.”

Rowland exhaled. “I’ll bloody well have to be,” he said abruptly.

10

MR. ERIC CAMPBELL AND THE NAZIS

PROTESTS AGAINST HIS ADDRESS TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

SYDNEY, October 17

In the Legislative Assembly today, Mr. Heffron (Lab.) directed the attention of the Minister for Education (Mr. Drummond) to a speech made by Mr. Eric Campbell, leader of the New Guard. Mr. Heffron asked, “Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to a statement in the press reporting a speech of Mr. Eric Campbell, delivered to a meeting of undergraduates at the University, in which he is reported to have said that if there was a great Nazi demonstration in Sydney today, the University would be represented by its most distinguished professors; and, further, that the racial hatred in Germany today was due to the cleverness of the Jews?”

The Advertiser, 1933

R
owland walked slowly back towards the Vier Jahreszeiten, his collar turned up and his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat. The weather had closed in suddenly and it was now overcast and cold. As much as he’d concluded that Blanshard was unnecessarily alarmist, Rowland was understandably preoccupied. He might not have even noticed her had she not run into him.

“
Entschuldigung sie, bitte
… Fräulein Eva? Hello.” Rowland’s speech slipped automatically into German.

“Herr Negus.” The young woman they’d encountered at Hoffman’s studio clutched his arm to regain her balance. “I’m so sorry … I wasn’t watching …”

“You’re crying,” Rowland said, startled, as he noticed the tears still wet on her cheek. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, no, I’m not.” She blushed. “I’ve had a little disappointment, you see.” She turned her face away from him as she tried to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand.

Rowland passed her his handkerchief and waited until she’d composed herself. “Is it anything I can help you with, Fräulein?”

Eva laughed. “You are kind, Herr Negus, but no. Unless, of course, you have a dachshund in your pocket?”

“A dachshund?” Rowland smiled. “Do you have a particular reason for needing a dachshund?”

“Oh, I don’t suppose I need a dachshund but I would like one more than anything in the world. I had hoped a certain person would make me a present of one … but he has not.” Her eyes brimmed again.

“I’m sorry for that,” Rowland said, amused and somehow touched by her child-like desperation for a puppy. “I too like dogs.”

“Oh … do you own a dog, Herr Negus?”

“At home, yes.”

Eva smiled. It lit her face. “A dachshund?”

Rowland laughed. “No, Len pretends to be a greyhound.”

She slapped his arm playfully and giggled. “You must think me silly, Herr Negus,” she said wistfully.

Rowland regarded her kindly. “Not at all. If I should come across a dachshund, I shall keep you in mind, Fräulein Eva, but in the meantime would you care to join me for lunch at my hotel?”

She gasped excitedly and then stopped. “I am afraid Herr Wolf would not approve of my dining with another gentleman. He would not deem it proper.”

“We won’t be alone—my friends, whom you met yesterday, will be joining us. I’m sure your Herr Wolf would have no objection … if you would care to join us that is.”

Eva clasped her hands together. “Oh yes, I would, please. Herr Hoffman, my employer, is closing the shop for a week, so he has let me go home early. I am free to do as I please just as soon as I post these.” She pulled a sheaf of envelopes from her bag to show him.

“I’d best walk you to the post office, then,” he said, offering her his arm.

The others had not yet returned when Rowland and his guest arrived at the Vier Jahreszeiten. And so he took the young lady to wait in the hotel’s famous Walterspiel Restaurant.

“Will you have something to drink?” Rowland asked as he called for the waiter.

Eva hesitated.

“You are old enough to drink, aren’t you?” he asked, looking at her carefully. She was wearing rather a lot of make-up … perhaps she was younger than she looked.

“I was twenty-one on my last birthday,” she replied. “May I have champagne?”

“Of course.” Rowland smiled, relieved that he hadn’t accidentally invited a child to lunch. He asked a waiter to bring a bottle of the hotel’s best.

Eva took a cigarette from the case in her handbag and moved so that Rowland could light it. As she leaned towards him, he glimpsed the scar on her neck.