Nine

When Admiral Canaris came to see him in the rest hospital in Pomerania, Veelee could not have felt more surprise if Winston Churchill had strolled into the room. The Admiral was small and serious, and on that afternoon somewhat diffuse. They chatted about Hansel and about General Stuelpnagel, and then Canaris said, “Speaking of Stuelpnagel, I think I can anticipate your next assignment, General.”

Veelee sat up even straighter.

“I’ve just been through to Paris,” the Admiral continued, “and I must say that Stuelpnagel was very firm about having you on his staff.”

“Me? He requested me? You are very good to tell me that, sir. Frankly—” He shrugged. “Well, I was sure I was about to be assigned to the Home Army.”

“Germany needs your experience, General—and your traditions.”

“What is the job, sir? They can hardly need a tank commander in Paris.”

“Signals. A lively command.”

Veelee’s voice grew softer and happier. “My son is in Paris.”

“Has it been a long time since you have seen him?”

“Four years. But he’s only seven, so they are four big years.”

“Well then, I envy you, General.”

“My wife is there, too, but I have changed a little since they last saw me.”

“Change is nothing. It is when life does not change that there must be concern.”

“They’ll get used to the arm easily enough,” Veelee said with certainty. “I have already. But this face is something else again.”

“There is a trick you might use.”

“I’ll take any ideas you have, sir.”

“Remembering pictures of your father and grandfather, perhaps a monocle wouldn’t be such a bad idea, you know.”

“A monocle over a socket? I like that. Conspicuous waste. Real ostentation. I could prop it in there, even if the muscles don’t work.”

“It would add a glittering sort of a deception, really.”

“It would, wouldn’t it? And very old school.”

There was a pause, and then Canaris said, “Von Stuelpnagel showed me your letter some time ago—the one about your meeting with the Fuehrer at Praha. Hope you don’t mind.”

“I was rather upset.”

“It must have been a shocking moment for you.”

“I hope the letter didn’t embarrass you, sir. Officially, I mean.”

“Not at all. I travel a bit, you know. Quite a few of our friends concur with your feelings.”

“Then why hasn’t anything been done?”

“It will be done.”

Veelee took a deep breath. “I hope I may be included in such plans, whenever or wherever they may happen, sir, and may they happen the day after I walk out of here.”

The little Admiral stood up. “Have faith,” he said. Veelee started to rise, but the dizziness still came over him when he moved. “Here,” the Admiral said, “I have just remembered something—the reason I am here today.” As he smiled at Veelee in a winning and a conspirational manner, his hand went into his side pocket and came out again. “I just happen to have a monocle of Fritsch’s.”

Veelee was against the Fuehrer on what really amounted to social grounds. The propriety of the German Army had been offended by that vulgar and murderous man. His objections did not recognize the moral putrescence with which the Fuehrer had infected Germany, making it a stink of rotten death in the nostrils of the world; nor had he the knowledge to assess what the Fuehrer had done to destroy the country physically, its precious institutions, the minds of its youth and its capacity to grow taller and straighter. Veelee had not been trained to think at all, only to act in the framework of the German Army. Since the Fuehrer had offended that army, he must be punished and then preferably banished into death.

Neither Veelee, nor the Admiral, nor anyone else in the old-line German military establishment could ever have understood that they could never succeed in bringing the Fuehrer down because they were hunting him in the wrong dimension, in a wholly different forest.

Hansel was on home leave, and he came to see Veelee with the news that he had been taken out of the Bendlerstrasse and given an army corps in the center of the Eastern front.

“We might as well be led by a blind traffic policeman,” he said as he settled down in an armchair in the hospital room. “Say! I like the effect of that monocle. I’d never guess that you have only one eye. You know, as one of my young men said, the Fuehrer has a superb grasp of military deployment and logistics up to the level of a regiment—well, perhaps a company. He certainly falters when he begins to play with a whole division, he is totally lost when it comes to directing the movements of a corps, and blacks out utterly when he tries to figure out what one does with an army. Therefore, if you consider that this pill-happy maniac is shuttling army groups in and out and back and forth, you may have some remote, shadowy idea of the havoc he is manufacturing and of the German blood he is pumping into the ground.”

“Why hasn’t he been shot?”

“What did you say?”

“Why hasn’t he been arrested and shot? We happen to surround him with three army groups and a full reserve.”

“There are plans, you know, Veelee. Is it entirely safe to talk here?”

Veelee nodded.

“Well, he’s the luckiest swine you can imagine. Twice it was agreed that he should be killed on a fixed date, and twice he changed his plans at the last moment. Not only that—he looks us in the eye and says that he knows we will try to kill him and that changing his plans is what has kept him alive for so long.”

“But even we must have a few fanatics!”

“On the whole … no.”

“No one will drive into his bodyguard with a heavy tank and finish him?”

“Oh, of course,” Hansel said, mildly and patiently. “The real problem is that we have no leaders. The field marshals keep saying they are bound to the Fuehrer by that oath of allegiance—which in most cases means they are merely frightened silly of him, because no reasonable man seeing the Fuehrer every day could take the oath seriously any longer. As for the others, they are like panicked horses in a burning barn. They want action, but each one wants to charge off in a different direction and there is no one leader strong enough to hold them in line.” He shook his head sadly. “By God, if Seeckt were still here—”

“Seeckt! What of the young men—the majors, the colonels? To hell with the generals. Why don’t the young men act?”

“It’s our system, Veelee. They will act—I know they will act—but because of the chain of command they must be convinced that we have failed, that we cannot move. Time robbed us, you know. Beck could have taken charge of this execution, but he is sick and old now. Hammerstein is dead. And someone has to be in command, Veelee—that is the way we are. You know that.”

“Tell them something from me, Hansel. I respectfully recommend that they assign a sound staff colonel to procure a tank and a crew. No more bother with decisions from field marshals. The tank will go through any building to find him and blow him into the sky. With three days of staff work and three minutes of action, we could all try to become sane again.”

When Gretel and Gisele came to the hospital they burst into tears when they saw Veelee. He fumbled in the drawer of the night table and took out his monocle and waved it jauntily. “Belonged to von Fritsch,” he said, fitting it carefully into the hollow of his face. “What you don’t know,” he said, “is that the edges of this thing have been covered with glue.”

“You look exactly like Grandfather,” Gisele said.

“Like Grandfather when Grandfather was laid out in his casket,” Gretel said.

“They start me on the sun lamp tomorrow,” he told them. “I’ll look like Baldur von Shirach before they’re through with me.”

“Oh, Veelee,” Gisele said, “I hope not.”

“This hospital smells worse than any I have ever been in,” Gretel said.

“Just today, perhaps,” Veelee said. “We are very full.”

As they sat at the end of the bed he realized that they did not look well either. Their faces were sallow and puffy from too much starch and too little of anything else. Gisele had developed a tic at the left corner of her mouth which twitched incessantly. Miles-Meltzer had been killed in a bombing attack on Hamburg.

“You are being posted to Paris, Veelee?” Gretel asked.

He grinned. “You probably know my hotel.” Only one side of his face moved with the grin, and he noticed that they both looked away for an instant. He would have to learn not to smile when he saw his son again.

“Hah!” Gretel said with delight. “I do-the Royal Monceau. You have a two-room apartment on the quiet, court side.”

“Gretel, you know more about the army than Keitel.”

“My God, Veelee, I hope so.”

“Will you see Paule in Paris, Veelee?” Gisele asked.

“Of course he’ll see Paule, you goose.”

“I don’t know,” Veelee said.

“But you will want to see Paul-Alain?”

“Yes.”

“When you see Paul-Alain you will have to see Paule. There is no other way.”

“All right.”

As the two sisters went down the hospital corridor they were depressed and silent. Not until they left the building did Gretel speak. “My God, he looks awful. Why didn’t Hansel prepare us?”

“We saw him at a low point, Gretel. He’ll get better from now on.”

“Do you think I should write to Paule and prepare her?”

“Yes.” Gisele sighed heavily. “If only she would answer. If only we knew that she got the letters.”

“She was very sad.”

“But you could write to her through Clotilde, as you always do.”

“But should I this time? I suppose he will want to surprise her.”

“Men are mad for surprises. Only men like surprises. To give them, not to get them.”

They began the long walk to the train, in the hope that it would be running.

On April 2, 1942, Major-General Wilhelm von Rhode was named Nachrichtenfuehrer beim Militaerbefelshaber in Frankreich, commander of the Signal Corps installation under Colonel-General Karl Heinrich von Stuelpnagel, Military Governor of France. He was responsible for all wireless and telephone communication in Occupied France, the courier service of the German forces in the country, the maintenance of permanent broadcasting installations and mobile transmitters, and the defense of all telephone lines against attacks from commando and resistance units. From the hospital Veelee had been routed to Paris through the Fuehrer’s headquarters at Rastenburg, in East Prussia, for ten days under General Fellgiebel, whose command was then the most complicated communications center in the world. Veelee was still quite weak and most of the time he had great difficulty in concentrating, but his lifetime of soldiering, his monocle, and his frozen face carried him through.

Veelee had two offices. The first was at the Hôtel Majestic on the Avenue Kléber, in the headquarters of the Military Governor; the other was at the headquarters of the Commander of Gross-Paris, at the Hôtel Meurice in the rue de Rivoli. As usual, Gretel’s information was impeccable, and he was assigned quiet rooms on the court side of the Royal Monceau.

Veelee walked past Cours Albert I on his first evening in Paris, but he did not telephone Paule until the third day, a Saturday morning. He had not heard her voice for five years.

When Clotilde answered the phone Veelee tried to disguise his voice; Clotilde was a weeper. “Mme. von Rhode, please.”

“Who is calling, please?”

“This is the office of the Military Governor.”

“General von Rhode! It is you! Oh, how good to hear your voice again, sir.” Clotilde began to weep. “Frau General Heller wrote to me to say you would be here. Oh, when you see Paul-Alain! He is so handsome! And such a good boy. Madame will be so happy—” There was a pause, and then he heard Paule’s voice.

“Veelee?” Her voice trembled.

“Why can’t my sister mind her own—”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Are you in Paris?”

“Yes.”

“Please come now; Paul-Alain will be home from school in ten minutes.”

“Thank you. That is very kind of you.”

Veelee was perspiring heavily when he put the telephone down. He leaned back in his chair to rest, and then after a few minutes he walked slowly to the lavatory and washed his face carefully. He looked up slowly into the mirror and stared for a long time at his ruined face. Stiffly, he reached into the pocket of his tunic, removed the monocle and fixed it deeply into his right eye socket. The heavy gold leaves denoting his rank gleamed on the scarlet collar tabs of his gray tunic. The campaign ribbons across his left breast carried the emerald ribbon of die Italian Cross of St. Mauritius and St. Lazarus, two tabs of the Bronze Medal for wounds in action, four silver decorations for having been awarded the Iron Cross twice—both second and first class—in each World War, the gold and white of the Knight’s Cross; and a tiny gold eagle on a royal-blue ribbon symbolizing twenty-five years of military service.

Veelee pulled on his black beret with its silver Death’s Head pin as he re-entered the office, and an orderly held out his white silk scarf and his gray leather overcoat. A car was waiting for him in the porte-cochère. He patted the empty left sleeve of his coat and, sitting stiffly erect, told the driver where to go. The monocle glittered over his limp cheek and his chin was high.

Clotilde, Mme. Citron, the two chambermaids, M. Deboucoux-Piccolet, the chef de cuisine, the two scullery maids, Paule’s personal maid, and Paule were all standing in the hall when Paul-Alain opened the front door to let his father in. Mme. Citron had pleaded that everyone be on hand to greet the General, and Paule had agreed because it would postpone for a moment longer that first instant when they had to be alone.

A very broad, tall, blond man stood in the door, his monocle glaring at them balefully.

“General von Rhode! Your arm!” Clotilde cried out. Paule turned and rebuked her silently, then turned again, saw the right side of his face and walked to him and kissed him on the right cheek. “Welcome to France, my General,” she said. She took his hand, led him forward, introduced him to the staff, thanked them, and dismissed them.

After a pause Paul-Alain asked about each one of his father’s medals and decorations, and Veelee said, “I am going to take you to the park and tell you all about them,” but he did not look at Paule.

“He must be back at one o’clock for lunch,” Paule said.

“Will you be here for lunch, Papa?”

When Veelee did not answer, Paule said, “Of course your Papa will be here for lunch.” Clotilde was lurking in the doorway, and Paule sent her to fetch Paul-Alain’s hat and coat.

“What happened to your arm, Papa?”

“I left it in North Africa.”

“In a battle?”

“I was riding in a car when a plane flew in and shot at the car, and we had a most spectacular smash-up.”

“That is the same as a battle.”

“The effect was quite the same,” Veelee said as Clotilde returned with the boy’s hat and coat.

To Paul-Alain’s chagrin he was taken off to nap after lunch. Paule and Veelee sat on the south terrace. It was a rare April day for Paris, neither rainy nor cold. Paule spoke lightly of the weather, of her luck in having such a cook, and of how frantic the black market made their existence, and as she talked she mourned the changes in his face.

Just as unobtrusively, he mourned the changes which had come into hers. “Paul-Alain is a fine boy,” he said finally, interrupting her. He spoke in German.

“He is a fine boy,” she answered, in German.

“He behaves well and he is not silly.”

“Oh, he can be quite silly.”

“I am grateful to you for his attitude toward me. When I reread your last letter to me this morning, I began to fear all over again that you would not have been able to keep from infecting him with the bitterness you felt toward me.”

“I feel no bitterness now, Veelee.”

“That letter shocked me. I haven’t seen anything in the same way since the first time I read it. I—I couldn’t comprehend what had happened—why you had changed and how you could change. It was sudden and cruel, because the letter of four days before had been the usual news-filled, loving letter. I didn’t know what to do … I sent you a cablegram, but of course you didn’t answer. Then, when I saw Miles-Meltzer seven months later he told me about that night and the bullet holes in the door and the terrible harm which had been done to you, but by that time I had settled so deeply into despair of you that I could not climb out again. I wanted to talk with you as we are talking now, but the war came and everything’s changed, and now it’s too late for what might have been.”

“They are still killing Jews, Veelee. Only now it isn’t just Jews—it’s everybody. Are you doing anything about it?”

His head pounded. Her voice sounded very distant and then very close, and he was thinking of what they had lost.

“Do you have another man now, Paule?”

“Yes.”

He had seated her to his left. At lunch she had noticed the care with which he had placed her, so that though his empty sleeve faced her, his slackened cheek could not be seen, and now she suddenly remembered him as he had looked ten years before, the morning her father had died.

He seemed to read her mind. “There are many worse off than I,” he said. “On both sides. This sort of thing is a privilege of my profession. Your hair seems shorter.”

“When I came back to Paris I had it cut short. The first year it was dyed blond.”

“You thought you could make yourself over?”

“I suppose so, Veelee.”

“And now the wounds from Germany are healed? Now you can permit yourself to look—”

“Not quite. But we do the best we can.”

“And now you can relax about being a Jew again.”

“Hardly. Paris is occupied by your countrymen, after all. They are killing Jews every day. I have lost all joy in being a Jew.”

“It is not the obvious changes that matter, is it?” Veelee asked gently after a long silence. “My arm, my eye, my face—they are nothing. My profession is all I have. I don’t look at it as only a practice of violence, as you must see it. It is an intricate trade involving many skills which are hard to learn.”

“Such as obeying orders. Any orders whatsoever if they are issued by anyone above you.”

“We all do what we have been taught, you know, Paule. Even your father, the freest of free souls, obeyed his training. But we were talking about loss. We live apart in another country, but that is not what breaks our hearts, is it? It is the loss of the innocence of what we had. And so it is with my profession. In the olden days of my family, it was a gallant profession and it required faith and honor. Now there is no faith and no honor. No arm, no eye, no face, no wife, no son, no place—all of it a waste, my dear. And waste is the greatest sin of all.”

She stared at him sadly. “My profession, we might say, was to be your wife. I have been thinking about it for five years, and I suppose that any one of my father’s wives might have happily exchanged my adversities for those my father gave them. I see that men must test women, as some women must test their men. My father tested them with his great weaknesses and you tested me with yours. As a German with faith and honor who could not dare to recognize what was happening to his country, you had to test me—and I failed you. I broke and ran, out of self-pity. I failed you.”

“It was a privilege of your profession,” he answered her, staring into her eyes. His voice shook and his hand grasped at the arm of the chair convulsively, and he stood up with an effort. “I must go now.”

“Veelee, perhaps if we try—”

“Let’s not add to the waste, my dear. You have this lover you speak of, and we have been talking, don’t you see, about a different woman, and certainly, about a different man.” He clicked his heels, made his military bow, and walked across the terrace, through the study, and out the door of the apartment.