Chapter 2

The sleek Convair leaned gently into the cross winds rising from the Santos range, slipping easily into the landing pattern for the Sao Paulo airport. Huge factories on neatly landscaped grounds swept beneath the descending wings; the geometrically blocked skyline of the city, reflecting the eastern rays of the morning sun, suddenly tilted sharply, and then straightened. Now a residential area flowed beneath the flowered wheels, small square houses on brown dirt lots with tiny people discernible. The nasal whining of a motor within the plane startled Ari; he glanced out to see the flaps scooping downwards, felt the checked rush in the air. Stained concrete swirled madly beneath, fleeing wildly; he felt a soft lurch as the plane touched down. They were at Congonhas Airport, in Sao Paulo.

He assumed his place in the taxi queue, remembering clearly the line-up for Immigration when he had arrived in Rio. Just one week ago, he thought; one short week. Is it possible? The hollow voice echoing its litany of arrivals and departures in the main hall behind him served as background to his feeling of belonging. I’m growing up, he thought, that’s what it is. And quite a thing, too, at my age. I am becoming what I might have been, had I not lost thirty years. His bag suddenly appeared in the hands of a porter who scarcely seemed physically capable of handling it. A tip changed hands, a cab door opened in his face, his bag was taken from him and deposited within, a hand on his arm, a car door slammed. They were rolling toward the city. He leaned back, relaxing, certain now of his capacity to handle whatever came up.

Herr Mathais had arranged rooms for him at the Hotel Clemente, a modern residential hotel on the Avenida Angelica. There he was greeted with pleasant but cold efficiency by a desk clerk who obviously was not familiar with either his name or reputation. His fear of encountering the same effusive attention he had suffered at the Mirabelle proved to be unfounded; Herr Mathais, despite his dramatic appearance, was no fool.

Once his bag had been placed in his room, and the bellboy had quietly withdrawn, Ari took up the telephone and put through a call to the number neatly printed on the back of the envelope Mathais had given him. As he waited for the call to be completed, he reached down and slipped off his shoes. It was extremely warm and he wriggled his toes appreciatively.

“Sim?” It was a woman’s voice, obviously a secretary.

He leaned forward, speaking quickly in German. “This is Herr Busch calling. have a letter for Deputado Strauss, to be delivered in person. From a mutual friend in Rio. I wonder if it might be possible to speak with the Deputado himself?”

The voice answered smoothly in German. “Herr Busch? One moment while see if the Deputado is in. Please hold the line.” There was a moment’s silence; Ari took advantage of the pause to wriggle his toes some more. He was feeling very good. A deep voice suddenly boomed in his ear.

“Herr Busch! This is a very great pleasure!”

“Herr Strauss? Likewise. Herr Mathais was kind enough to give me a letter of introduction—” “The voice waved this aside with grandiose disdain. There was no need for a letter, really. While have not had the pleasure of meeting the Herr Busch in person, am more than familiar with the Herr in the ways that count! You must have lunch with me. Today, yes?” There was a pause. “I shall come by your hotel in thirty minutes, yes? It is all right?”

“You are most kind, but really, I could meet you—”

“Nonsense! It is my pleasure to pass your hotel.”

“If you wish it, then it is my pleasure, too.”

“I do wish it. Thirty minutes, then, yes? Auf wiedersehen.”

“Auf wiedersehen.”

It occurred to Ari as he hung up and started for the bathroom that he had forgotten to mention the name of his hotel to the Deputado, and for an instant he started back toward the telephone. Then he stopped, smiling grimly. The Deputado, he was suddenly sure, not only knew his hotel and room number, but probably the size of his hat. He turned back to the bathroom.

Thirty minutes later he was standing at the large glass window of the lobby when a long Cadihac drew up at the entrance. He walked to the front of the marquee as a chauffeur sprang down to open the rear door. A heavy-set blond giant, of indeterminate age, leaned forward from the back seat, waving him in. “Herr Busch?”

He smiled and entered the car. They shook hands as the driver put the Cadillac into gear and smoothly entered traffic. Ari reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, producing his letter of presentation, handing it to his companion. Strauss stuffed the envelope into his pocket negligently, smiling.

“Well, well,” he said happily. “This is your first trip to Brazil?”

Ari assured him it was.

“And you like it?”

“Very much,” Ari said. He glanced about him, noting the luxurious appointments of the Cadillac.

“This is a very beautiful car.”

“For my use as a Deputado,” Strauss said immediately.

“Government.” He smiled deprecatingly. “Unfortunately, not my own.” He looked at his wrist watch. “You are anxious to eat at once?”

“Not particularly,” Ari said. “Why?”

“A stop I must make first, if you honestly do not mind.”

“It is perfectly all I right.”

“You are most kind.” Strauss leaned forward, speaking to the driver in Portuguese, and then leaned back again. Despite his bulk, there was a certain grace about him, the grace of controlled power. There is nothing effusive about this one, Ari thought; and very little that is subtle. He can be brusque, and also very tough. But somehow he lacks something that I would sense, or that I would recognize, if he were the leader of the group. I wonder what it is?

They drew up before a small factory building in a rundown neighborhood. The buildings here were low and ramshackle, running almost to the rutted roadway; bare patches of brick under the broken and dirty cement facing showed great age and poor care. At one side of the building in front of which they had stopped, an oily driveway led through tottering wooden gates to an unloading platform piled with debris. A faint clacking noise came from within, monotonous and depressing. Strauss descended and held the door back for Ari.

“Please,” he said. “I should like you to come too, if you do not mind.” Ari got down, wondering, and followed the large man into the building.

In the gloom of the interior he could see several flatbed presses, two hand-operated card presses, and the usual clutter of the small-job printing shop. Seen from the inside the building seemed even smaller; the ancient and battered machinery filled it. Rickety cabinets holding type leaned drunkenly against one wall; tables for pulling proofs and pounding forms were placed haphazardly about. The shop looked as if it had not been swept for weeks; rubbish lay under the tables and around the machines.

A young boy in a filthy apron stood feeding a hand press under the single bulb that gleamed faintly in the room. His eyes were half closed against the fumes of a cigarette pasted in one corner of his mouth, and his arms swayed in automatic rhythm to the slapping of the platen. He paid no attention to his visitors. They stood in silence watching this operation for a moment, then Strauss touched Ari on the arm and they turned aside into a small office set under a stairway.

Strauss reached up to the wall and switched on a light; a naked bulb dangling from a twisted cord lit the messy room with brutal clarity. It was a tiny office with barely room to move about in. A roll-top desk covered with papers filled one corner; another table littered with more papers and magazines took up most of the remaining space. The calendars on the wall were stained and crooked; an old typewriter leaning askew with one corner caught on a pile of catalogues completed the inventory of debris; it was all indescribably shabby.

Strauss sat down heavily in a plain chair and motioned Ari to the wobbly armchair before the desk. He waved his arms about in disgust, watching Ari under firm eyebrows. “You see it,” he said quietly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, ‘You see it.’ Our propaganda center. We are supposed to work with this; to produce results with this.” He shook his leonine head fiercely. “If it were not so tragic, it would be a joke.”

Ari sat silent, afraid of not knowing what to say. His eyes passed over the pitiful confusion of the room and returned to the other. Strauss leaned forward impressively.

“Herr Busch, I am not like the others,” he said, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the small, elderly man balanced precariously on the edge of the swivel armchair. “I speak out with what I have on my mind. I know who you are and the work you have done. I am proud of the work you have done. And I am also envious of the work you have done. But, Herr Busch—” a thick finger sprang in the air for emphasis—“if you had been forced to work as we have, you could not have accomplished what you did!”

Ari gazed about him. “It is not much, it is true.”

“Not much? It is nothing! It is worse than nothing!” The thick hands scrabbled through the papers that cluttered the table until they unearthed a trade magazine for the graphic arts. He picked it up, rimed through the pages to an advertisement offering a complete, modern printing plant for sale and slapped the folded page down in front of Ari. “Do you see this? This is what we were promised!” He jerked his hand contemptuously toward the clacking press outside. “This is what we have! And have had for ten years! It is not possible!”

Ari studied the beautifully illustrated cuts in the advertisement. “How much would a factory like this cost?” he asked quietly.

Strauss shrugged. “I have the quotation around somewhere, but it is an old one. It would probably cost much more today. But that is not the point; that is the least. No; that is not true, it is not the least. But it is only a part.” His eyes fixed the man before him. “Herr Busch, we must be frank with each other. We need money if we are to do the work that must be done; and much money.”

Ari studied the man before him dispassionately. “Everyone needs money, Herr Strauss. And everything needs money. And the work goes on in many places. Not just in Brazil.”

Strauss looked at the little man before him. The icy blue of the eyes showed a strength belied by the narrow shoulders, the potbelly. “Yes,” the Deputado admitted politely. “But you are in Brazil. And you have money.”

The blue eyes showed no emotion. “I fail to see…”

The heavy hand was raised in conciliation. “Herr Busch, if you will pardon me, your efforts in the United States were well done, although, to be honest, it is difficult for us here to determine just how effective they were.”

“They were effective.” Ari stared about the office with disdain. “Much more so than anything I have seen since coming here.”

“Without doubt. I did not mean to deride, believe me. But, Herr Busch, if we had the necessary money, we could do much more. And this is the country from which the work must be directed. Note what I say, Herr Busch: not could be, or might be, but must be.”

“Ach, so? And why must it be directed from here?”

“Because…” For the first time Strauss seemed at a slight loss for words. He came to a decision. “Because here, Herr Busch, we have the nucleus of a real rebirth of our glorious party!”

“What do you mean by nucleus?”

But Strauss had said all that he was walling to say at the moment. He stood up, smiling. “We shall discuss it again some other time, yes? And now, lunch?”

Ari looked up at the huge figure towering over him. “Please sit down, Herr Strauss. We are in the midst of a discussion; let us carry it forward a bit. Lunch can wait.” The other looked at him with a touch of surprise and more than a touch of respect, and then reseated himself. No, Ari thought with certainty, he is definitely not the head of the group. He lacks authority; the poor soul also lacks ruthlessness.

“Herr Strauss,” he said coldly, “you speak of wanting to discuss this thing frankly. I agree. I happen to be in a position where I have some money; and I am sure that you realize that my interest in rebuilding the party is as great as anyone’s interest. However, Herr Strauss, do you have any idea of how many people try to get their hands on money, using any excuse that comes to mind?” He shook his head sadly. Strauss sat listening quietly.

“No, Herr Strauss. My sympathies are well known. How easy it must appear to simply appeal to these sympathies and presto!—money! I am not a fool. My money is available for the work I believe in, but not on anybody’s say-so. I am not attempting to be insulting, please believe me, but you must be able to understand exactly where I stand.”

Strauss studied the little man judiciously. The blue eyes stared into his steadily. Finally the big man shrugged.

“Herr Busch,” he said slowly, “I understand exactly what you mean. I also am no fool. I do not know what you would require in the way of proof….” He thought a bit. “Herr Busch. You recall a certain Captain Da Silva?”

“Yes, of course I remember Captain Da Silva. Too well.”

Strauss smiled. “Well, at this moment he is on his way to Paris. He was too curious; and also he was becoming a nuisance. With my influence, I was able to arrange another assignment for him. Do you believe me?”

Ari sighed. “I’m afraid you do not understand me, Herr Strauss. If you say you arranged a transfer for this Captain Da Silva, of course I believe you.” He paused. So Da Silva had been taken out of the game! A cold feeling of being alone swept him momentarily, but he forced it away. “however, I must continue to be frank. You have told me nothing so far that would lead me to give any money to you or to whatever group you represent. Please believe me. I am not trying to be either stubborn or insulting. I am only being careful. And honest.”

Strauss sat with his big head bowed in deep thought.

Finally he looked up. “Herr Busch, I must discuss this with others, you understand.”

“As you wish.” Ari rose slowly, brushing his lapel. “And now, lunch?”

Strauss lumbered to his feet, bulking in the tiny office. He leaned over and picked up the trade magazine, still folded to the beautiful advertisement of the modern printing plant. “Should I bring this along?” he asked, looking at Ari questioningly.

“I don’t think so,” Ari said, smiling coldly. “No, I really don’t think so.”