ALMOST

STEFAN MOLYNEUX

ADVANCE COPY FOR E-READER

PART I

Chapter 1

During the first months of the Great War, Reginald loved to run to the edge of the white cliffs of Dover and lie panting on the grass, staring out over the English Channel. He loved listening to the rumble of guns and the flashes of light from France, where there were always ashen clouds, even on sunny days. His father Quentin lived in those clouds, and Reginald truly believed he was a species of thunder-god, who strode miles at a step and bit down on white lightning with tobacco teeth.

Reginald did not really remember his father being home, home in the way his mother was, sitting and knitting and sighing and, from time to time, wandering with the other mothers, from house to house, with tears in their eyes and handkerchiefs to their faces.

Home was a large, rambling house, a very English house, which was cold in the endless rain and spacious and creaky and covered with doilies crocheted by dead grandmothers and walled by pictures of chilly men who never smiled, not from any angle. The cabinets were glassy, glossy, containing plates and cups that were never used. It was a very quiet house. There were servants, but they were all very old, or women. It was a world without men.

Reginald hated spending time alone, and so spent a lot of time with his friends. Mostly they fought elaborate wars with sticks and old tennis balls. They aimed and boomed from the corners of their mouths, fell in heaps, dragged each other to safety, healed with a touch, and argued over wounds and accuracy. They strove mightily to send their small braveries over the Channel to shore up the resolves of their fathers.

When his father left, Reginald was the ‘man of the house,’ and he did press-ups and tried to run without panting, half-expecting to receive a tiny gun and a little helmet and to be sent to France to run with the feet of the giant soldiers.

Reginald had a younger brother, Tom, born shortly before the War, in 1912. Reginald believed that his brother was dangerous, that he was confused and strong-willed and overemotional. His random affections spread like a spring flood, which Reginald constantly tried to dam up with teasing and scorn.

Tom seemed indifferent to noise or light or jostling; he was a perfectly self-contained sensual fortress. He lay in the garden; when a maid came out to beat the rugs, he fell asleep, right under the cracking ripples of rising dust. Reginald was quite the opposite. When Reginald was an infant, he did not seem to notice the household; he was insensitive to moods. When Reginald wanted milk, he wanted it, even when his mother was drawn and dark-eyed and everyone else asleep. His mother did not like that very much. Reginald cried without conscience, it seemed. Without pity, or consideration. Reginald was indifferent to people and terrified of nature. Thunderstorms which bolted Reginald upright in his bed did not disturb Tom. Disapproval which bored Reginald caused a great, sickening pit to open up in Tom’s tummy.

Their mother, Ruth, was a very attractive—but not quite beautiful—woman. This fact brought down on her all the nail-biting tension of the world of almost. With enough work, she could turn almost every head in the room, male and female, but the care and maintenance and passing nature of her beauty—combined with the feeling that this beauty should be put to work somehow, like a glistening slave—gave her no small portion of daily discontent. She was almost beautiful; her cheeks high, her lines good—the hair was thin, but could be teased into volume. Gray eyes, not too striking, but different. No breasts, but long legs. No bottom, but a flat stomach. She was almost, almost… Ruth spent a good deal of time gazing and turning in front of the mirror, trying to find the perfect angle, where everything came together, and all flaws were just over the horizon of flesh, and she almost wished that she could become a statue in that shape, or send her reflection around to do her business.

Female beauty is a snare, designed to catch a man and his sperm. Its greatest value is on the auction block; once bought and fertilized, what is the point? Its purpose fulfilled, it becomes like a trophy of teenage athleticism, good only for nostalgia and fond memory. But the great vanity of physical beauty—like wealth—is the belief that it has value in and of itself, like food, and should outlast its real purpose. Ruth pampered herself, and built a nicely gilded cage out of her own beauty, and from within this cage she gazed at her sons, disliking them in her core, because they made the point of her beauty moot, vain. Staring through the bars, their eyes said: your beauty has already made us, why cling to it now? But Ruth wanted more, much more than that. She wanted to be art, poetry, fantasy. She wanted a train of men to trail her, sighing and playing ‘rock-paper-scissors’ to determine who could speak to her next. She wanted to throw her head back and laugh as tuxedoed men refilled her champagne glass. She wanted to enter a party and be the only woman—a woman who was kind to other women, plainer women, to be sure, as a queen is kind to her subjects. A magnetic woman, who could draw men’s eyes from their sockets and gather them, flying, to her skin, in squishy little thumps. A radiant woman, who made senators stammer and lords loosen their neckties. A lovely woman, who could never be pictured naked (except as the center of a mythological painting), who responded in soft tones or rebuked in ringing ones, and had a strange consistency to her random whims, which men stayed up all night trying to figure out. A giggler, a sylph of little joys, who could turn serious in a flash.

Reginald inherited his mother’s vanity, and developed a great love of little suits and well-slicked hair, even as young as five. He was pompous, insistent, always demanding to sit at the adults’ table, always pretending to listen with great seriousness, venturing forth unformed opinions and blushing fiercely at their quick dismissal.

Tom did not really like the adults’ table. Most of his mother’s friends seemed quite silly; the women were very breathy and wore frilly things that made no sense. They never appreciated offerings of chocolate or knelt down to play. They chattered constantly, talking over each other, and all had the same hair and ate very little and always frowned while talking to him (indeed, until he was older, he thought that the sharp ridge between the eyebrows was a physical trait common to all women). They also had little interest in fairness, which was a topic that fascinated Tom immensely.

Fairness is the natural obsession of the younger sibling, a defense planted by Mother Nature to ensure that the older children do not get all the food or attention. The runt of the litter is always the loudest—the other option is, all too soon, to become the quietest, and decompose in a corner. Tom was consumed by questions of fairness, but found, to his everlasting sorrow, that his mother was little help in that area. Her forehead crease would sharpen visibly if a conflict with Reginald was brought to her attention, and would be ceilinged by a row of further ripples along her forehead. This would be followed by a rubbing of the eyes, a sighing, a stiff, useless commandment, and then a lie-down.

Tom also learned that his mother had little sense of time or repetition. She would groan: “why are you and Reginald always fighting?”—even if it were the first fight in two days. Her pronouncements on the best way to resolve conflicts had absolutely nothing to do with causes; both of them were always in the wrong, and she never cared who had started it. A toy would just be taken away, or they would both be denied supper, or sent to their room and told to lie on their bunkbeds and think about what they had done.

This was just plain confusing. What was the point, thought Tom, of thinking about what we’ve done if she doesn’t? Is the problem that we bothered her? Or that we came to her for fairness? Or that I should have just given in when Reginald snatched my toy?

Blind, indifferent punishment always encourages misbehavior, and Reginald was not slow to grasp this. Knowing that no matter what, they would both be punished, Reginald would grab or push or punch or tease. Tom could do little about this, other than submit to mutual punishment if the provocation grew too severe. This occurred if Reginald did something pointlessly destructive, like stepping on Tom’s model airplane, or unmaking his bed, or flicking his earlobe for no reason.

It could be pointed out that Tom could have come to the same conclusion as Reginald, and launched unprovoked attacks, knowing that Reginald would be unwilling to submit to Ruth’s unjust arbitration, but oddly enough, this thought never crossed his mind. His perspective was, perhaps, the same as that of a prisoner of war, who finds ways to deal with unjust treatment at the hands of his guards, but does not consider launching his own retaliation.

Their father, Quentin, could be quite funny with the children. Sometimes, when he was home on leave, Reginald and Tom would begin screeching about some biting or snatching or falling, and their yowling would grow between them, like arcs of electricity, and they would whip themselves into an operatic frenzy. Quentin would stand in front of his howling offspring with a pencil in his hand, pretending to conduct them, like some musical devil before a symphony of the utterly damned. Ruth, on the other hand, took unhappy children as a personal insult; her compliant nature could not really weather the grim storms of toddlerhood, and she would rush between Tom and Reginald, her tension rising, her soothing touch turning cold and jabbing in her growing rage.

Tom developed language early, but it was his own language. Only Reginald could understand him, and for almost a year, he had to relay everything back and forth.

Proving the axiom that power corrupts, Reginald also developed a kind of under-the-table cruelty. He would deliberately misinterpret Tom’s requests; he knew perfectly well that ‘gee a eh’ meant ‘give me an egg,’ but would convey this to mother as ‘I want more brussels sprouts,’ and would feign confusion at Tom’s subsequent tears of frustration, leaning in and asking him to just be a little clearer, as his younger brother’s wet mouth worked, and his cheeks grew red-hot with tears.

Tom’s tears, however justified in his own world, were soon swept away by a maternal monsoon that threatened to drown the entire family.

Chapter 2

Ruth’s family had been in the military ever since 1066; they came over in the Battle of Hastings, and took God, Christianity, and Empire very seriously indeed. In the heyday of nineteenth-century British optimism, when the tiny island seemed almost larger than the whole world, the men of Ruth’s family fought long and hard to bring civilization to the savages of the world. When Ruth was ten, and had started asking questions about the far-flung world, her father had sat her on his knee and delivered the following speech:

“Ruthie girl, it is believed by the men of this family that England has been chosen by God to bring the light of civilization to the darkened areas of the world. When you spin this globe, you see all the colors of the Empire—all the places where the civilized rule of law has finally appeared among tribes who have warred, murdered, and pillaged for tens of thousands of years. And there was no original color to these countries—before the Empire came along, they were simply colored black; they had in them no God, no Parliament, no justice, only endless war and slaughter.”

He smiled and swirled his brandy glass; the rippled color rolling over his face. Ruth touched his faint stubble delicately, in love with the scent of cigars. The tip of a servant’s shadow flashed past, in the hall. Ruth’s father grunted and shifted his knees under her, like a wobbly raft.

He took a sip from his brandy glass, then lowered his hand and let her sniff it. “Now,” he said softly, “if you were going to school and you saw a girl picking on another girl, what would you do?”

“Get a boy to help me.”

He nodded slowly, from his high wise pedestal. “And if there were no boys?”

“I would stop it myself!”

“That’s right. Now, the Bible says that a man who walks a road and sees another man who needs his help—and passes him by—is committing a mortal sin. No honorable Englishman is willing to commit that sin. In India, they burn their dead, and if a husband dies before his wife, she has to throw herself on his body as it burns, and burn with him. And if she doesn’t want to, they tie her up and throw her on anyway. Even her own brothers. It’s called a suttee, and it’s a vicious, barbaric murder, and no sympathetic soul can pass that by and do nothing, if helping is at all within his power. And they have what is called a caste system, where people are born into ranks, and can never change them, except by marriage, and if someone from a lower rank is leaving a room, he has to sweep the floor so that his dust does not offend his so-called superior. And because this caste system can only be broken by marriage, young girls from higher castes are constantly being kidnapped and forced into marriage and to have children, with men they don’t even know. It is an awful, awful place. Like we were a few hundred years ago, I suppose. You see, Ruthie, there are so many people in the world who cannot protect themselves from evil—and it is up to good men to come to their aid. That is why the men of this family study war. To protect the helpless, and enforce justice and the rule of law. Every town has its policemen; the world has the soldiers of the British Empire.”

Little Ruth nodded slowly. In her mind, she saw her father and uncles on a beach, where small brown children played, and they were holding an onrushing black tide at bay with fierce eyes and strange gestures.

When war came in 1914, Ruth’s three brothers, uncle and father were all assigned to the Western Front. There was much excitement in the household in the summer and early fall. The men were all worried that the war would be over by Christmas, and that they might miss the fighting, the greatest test and best story that their generation might have to offer.

However, as the reality of the Great War became clear, perceptions began to change. War, formerly thought of as dangerous but glorious, now stood revealed as dangerous and squalid. The fronts formed early, and seemed immovable. The generals, all trained in a time of wild charges and the supremacy of the horse, seemed unable to comprehend the waste of sending wave after wave of men against machine-gun nests. Only after the guns had overheated was any progress made. After the general European peace of the past hundred years, the appetite of the god of war seemed to have increased sharply, probably because he’d had so little to eat.

The letters Ruth received from her brothers were full of love, courage and hope, but there was something between the lines that spoke of bewildered, almost bitter hopelessness. And sometimes, this was not so between the lines. Her youngest brother (how often the youngest have so little to lose from telling the truth!) wrote:

“I used to think that being in a war was charging up a hill with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. But war is nothing like that. War is sitting in the mud, waiting for someone twenty miles away to push a button and blow you to smithereens.”

The fronts were always just about to break. They had to, for even by 1915, no war had ever lasted so long without a breakthrough, or cost so many lives. The shocking truth was that, between 1914 and 1915, more British soldiers were killed than had died in the previous thousand years combined.

Then, in 1915, the second year of the War, Ruth lost three brothers, her father, and an uncle, all within three weeks. After two deaths, the army tried to get the others out, but was too late each time. Ruth was awarded a medal, which she fingered in fundamental disbelief.

Two brothers succumbed to the new mustard gas, and another died of a small foot wound which became infected. Ruth’s father stepped on a mine, and her uncle just disappeared under a hail of shells. His body was never even found, let alone identified.

Ruth was shocked almost into her component atoms, and instantly merged with the growing herd of bereft women, who seemed to lose their sex at the same time as they lost their men. An entire generation of men, raised from squalling infancy, cleaned and cuddled and loved and trained and filled with all the warm expectation of companionship into their mothers’ old age—all wiped out, gone. Twenty years’ labor, a lifetime of anticipation and hope—all destroyed. The women saw this, and their wombs seemed to falter and dry up. Why breed sons for this kind of slaughter? they wondered, staring out their windows, their fingertips leaving red welts below their black eyes.

And the myth of male leadership—which was also a central pillar of these women’s perceptions of the world—also took a blow from which it never truly recovered. Not only had men not anticipated the slaughter of the Great War, but they had done very little to end it once it started. Idiotic generals threw their troops at withering bullets like a spiteful child hurling disobedient lead soldiers into a roaring fire. Women began to realize the truth. Men are not as smart as they seem, or claim, or pretend…

And Ruth—well, after all five of her closest male relatives were wiped out, Ruth gave up on the idea of having more children. So might cows, if they knew the abattoir which awaited their calves, shy away from bulls. She turned away from her husband, because she could not bear another loss—or consider having another child—and fell into herself.

In the time between the deaths and the details, Ruth became obsessed with the horrible question: how had they died? (This was a mere cover for the far more terrible question of: why?) The thought of them suffering was utterly unbearable. She preferred to imagine their ends, which were cloaked with fog and shrouded with flags. The reality of blood, bullets, and bowels was beyond her, and that made her afraid to read the letters of their comrades, those who had survived.

One of them came, a sergeant, and they sat in the tearoom, in August of 1915. It was a bright day, but she had no love of the sun; it gave her headaches and made the world look happy. She was there with her children, who sat—for once!—still and silent, staring at the visitor, who was a stoop-shouldered man of twenty-four, who had cut himself shaving, and kept mopping his throat with a red-spotted handkerchief.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Eldred,” said Ruth, staring at her teacup. Mr. Eldred ate slices of poppyseed cake two at a time.

“Well, I thought that it was proper,” he said, and Ruth noticed that his voice had a delicate, whispery sound, and she imagined him in a fetal position, running in a slippery circle in the mud, choking on gas. “Now, I only knew your father… He was our Division Commander, and I know that we’re all very brave when we write home. We try to be—jaunty, you know, like we’re having a little adventure…”

“‘It’s taking a tad longer than we first thought,’” she murmured, from one of her father’s early letters.

“Yeah, that sort of stuff. Rot really. You don’t have anyone out there anymore, do you Missus?”

Ruth shook her head, hanging in the balance of telling him that all five men in her family were dead. But she changed her mind. That would be most unkind, to give him a sense of the odds…

“That’s good,” said Mr. Eldred, nodding slowly. “It should be all at once or not at all.” Then he shuddered slightly, and she thought of dreams, where you are almost falling, and jerking back wakes you up. “But,” he continued, “I know what the telegrams say. Nothing, really, but where and when. And the letters are brave. Well, not brave—we wanted to believe them as much as anyone, I suppose. So, there’s nothing—nothing that you can hold onto, you know, as you get older.”

Will you get older, Mr. Eldred? she wondered, another fissure appearing in the rubble of her broken heart. Probably not much…

“And there was a letter,” he said, “but you should read that when I’ve gone.” He reached into his pocket, took out an envelope and handed it over. Ruth turned it over in her hand. The ink was washed, faded; the paper was abraded, as if it had been rubbed repeatedly. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed. Fields. Fog. Blood. Almost, almost, the black symphony of war…

“It’s been washed,” she said.

“Just—wet,” he murmured, glancing away. A finger on his right hand twitched, there on the knee of his woolen trousers, and Ruth saw him opening her father’s ragged coat and pulling the envelope—this envelope—out of his breast pocket, out from the widening wound that was swallowing him whole, and later, by the light of a candle, rubbing it with water. The handwriting had to be kept; the blood had to be washed away. So tricky… And it was doubtless happening throughout the front, on either side of no-man’s-land, in thousands of dugouts and trenches. And some soldiers would be shot through their letters, and the letters could no more be stitched back together than they could… The proverbs are all wrong: in this new world, the pen mostly bows to the sword.

“I’ll read it later,” said Ruth, touching the paper to her forehead for a guilty moment.

“He was a brave man,” said Mr. Eldred, leaning forward. “It was a mine; he knew it when he stepped on it. That click, almost no one hears it. He told us to get back. He was very firm. I would have given my right arm to save him. He was a good man. He threw the letter to me. He looked at the sky. He closed his eyes. He folded his hands in prayer. He took a step, and was no more.”

Ruth did not flinch. She felt as wide as water, as empty as a spent cloud. “He could not save himself?”

“There was nothing to do. But Missus—Missus, it is important to know that he had a chance to square things with—with his Maker. That’s more than most get. I don’t know if I want to know when I have to go. But that’s… Well. I wanted to tell you a little about him. I mean, you have a right to know, so you can mourn. His death was just a moment, and there were a lot more, before that. Moments. After you, I mean, but before that. He saved—I made some notes, and asked around. He saved many men. He covered one when a shell came. He sent another one back behind the lines, just before his dugout was shelled. There was a cook who was going to—kill himself, sorry Miss, but your father wrestled him to the ground and saved him. And once he held us back from a raid where most everyone was killed, because it made no sense, like a lot of things. And he would send boys back for a rest, when they’d had too much, and he sent men home when they had small injuries, and could have stayed. He was a good man, Missus, and many sons will be named after him. Mine, certainly, you know, if I…”

Mr. Eldred trailed off, and another pair of poppyseed slices went into his mouth. He wiped his eyes.

“You have been very kind to come,” she said slowly. The room seemed enormous; she half-expected a distant, tinny echo.

He shrugged and smiled. “I’ve got a tongue of stone, Miss. I can’t do anything justice. Certainly not your father. But I wanted to let you know.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No, that’s fine. I thank you for the food. I never get used to… I was a stout man, before all this. I weighed twenty-two stone when I was twenty-two. I hope to weigh that again.”

After Mr. Eldred left, Ruth opened the envelope. There were a number of other envelopes inside. One for her mother, one for herself. Some more… She turned the envelope over, and three other envelopes came out. With a kind of dread, she picked them up and turned them over. They were addressed to her brothers. Her dead brothers. With a wet thud of her heart, Ruth knew that, very soon, she would be holding letters from her dead brothers to her dead father, and it would be like holding out her pale hands and being received into a circle of ghosts, where there was no sun.

She opened her letter and read:

￼Line Line

Dearest Ruthie:

So, I have come to a bad pass after all. As I write these words, I feel with all the faith in my being that I will come back to England and be near you all for all my remaining days. Thus, I hope that this letter will never be read, and I am looking forward to taking all these grim scribbles and consigning them to a fire—I see us all doing this, as a family, while Jack plays something lively on the piano, cheering as each one goes into the flames.

But you are reading this now, so it has not come to pass. Do not fear for me, or grieve for me longer than is absolutely necessary. I have been a tremendously lucky man. I have had the love of a good woman, the reward of a good career, and all the tender joys of happy and boisterous children. I have lived with a clear head and full heart, and mortal man can ask for no more.

I am sure that my end was unpleasant, but I don’t want you to think of that. Death is just the shadow of the Doorway as we step from this world of sorrows to a better realm. I believe that an angel has been watching over me through all my days of peril, and if I am snatched at some point, it is doubtless for the best. However much it must hurt those who remain, the unfolding of the Ineffable Plan, while beyond the capacity of reason to fathom, will all be clear after we pass through that Doorway.

Dearest Ruthie, I hope that you live a long, happy life—which is most unselfish of me, of course, for I yearn to see you again; when you come through that Door, I shall be the first to fall upon you with kisses, even if I have to elbow a thousand angels aside to do so. When I went to war, we knew that we would be parted for a time. Now that I have fallen, our reunion is but delayed for a little longer. In the face of infinity, it will seem as nothing.

Thus, my dearest daughter, I have only one thing to ask of you. Please, if you live for a hundred years, never think of me as dead.

I am not dead. I am only waiting.

With all the love in my heart,

Your father.￼Line Line

A hard cannonball had formed in Ruth’s chest. It was a sweet, sentimental letter, which should have sent her sprawling on the carpet in an Italian orgy of grieving. She felt her father’s courage, his gentleness, his love… But the letter simply said to her:

His mind, in this letter so tender, is nothing now but broken meat…

Ruth tried to return to God after the shattering of her family. She imagined His angels swooping over the battlefield, like darting white kites, snatching away the suffering soldiers, flowing through the hands of priests, cutting the threads of dying lives, easing their passage to better things, but it all seemed like so much childish nonsense, all of a sudden, and there was nothing above the battlefield but smoke and burnt hair and droning planes.

This ending of God was accomplished without struggle. He was there, and then he was not. One moment He was capitalized, the next he was not. One moment, her priest was telling her what God wanted her to do; the next, it was just her priest telling her what he wanted her to do. The Germans were praying to the same God as the British. Everyone wanted to be saved. If God listened to prayers, why were they there at all? If God did not, why pray?

The hardness in her chest did not allow for negotiation. She was not angry with God; she was weary of the idea of gods and devils and angels and ghosts. The world was empty; nothing shone beyond bland matter; there was nothing but what was. A sparrow fell because a sparrow fell. The War was nothing more than caged animals striking at each other.

Ruth was not constituted to bear great pain. Her early religious faith was too sentimental to absorb a loss of such magnitude. Her faith in a planned universe left her completely, in a single wilting blow, and she was shocked back to a more primitive state, to a kind of Stone-Age hunger to—to almost reabsorb her own children. She clutched them to her breasts as she sobbed or stared or, sometimes, fainted dead away. Reginald was uncomfortable in her embrace, twisting and looking at her with a suspicion which seemed far beyond his years, as if he thought she were malingering. Tom, though, wound himself into her, trying to sooth her twisting nerves, but she always cried harder when he kissed her, and he became dismal and confused.

As the War ground on, Ruth developed night terrors, and began to have awful, recurring dreams. Night after night, she breastfed all the dead men of her family, and as the dream continued over the following months, they continued to decompose. They suckled at her milk, and it dribbled out through the growing holes in their cheeks, over their rotting and falling teeth.

Ruth awoke from these terrible visions and needed Tom so badly that it would have taken great force to prevent her from going to his room, scooping him up, staring at his smooth cheeks and perfect hair in the moonlight, and then stealing him back to her bed, and falling asleep, finally, after drinking in his youth, health, and innocence in a midnight vigil of staring and weeping.

When Quentin returned on his next leave, he did not like this at all.

“You’re going to turn that boy soft, Ruth!” he hissed, waking up for the second time with Tom’s form lying between them.

Ruth gazed at him; she had developed a disconcerting thousand-yard stare. There was no fight left in her—no fight, but no negotiation or compliance either.

Quentin could not reason with her. He found his wife’s dead stare enraging—I’m fighting to save this? he would snarl to himself. Ruth, on the other hand, felt the need for an almost supernatural tenderness. She had lost not only tangible men, but intangible masculinity. She had no father, no brothers, no uncle, and now no God. Such rawness can only be tended with rose petals, and there were none to be found in Quentin. Like most practical men, he seemed empty of flowers, but full of fertilizer.

He felt—and perhaps not unjustly—that he needed some of the comforts of home, some feminine tenderness and sympathy. The endless war of those who are experiencing terror—versus those who have been touched by it—entered the very foundations of the Spencer household. Quentin needed love because he was in danger of dying every day. Ruth needed love because she had lost—or was in danger of losing—every man she had ever loved.

And they could not help each other at all.

Chapter 3

Quentin was not stationed on the Front. Before the War, he had been a fairly competent businessman, and so was employed as a supply sergeant. He was close enough to the Front to feel some danger, to feel the vibrations of shelling, but it was rare that anything exploded anywhere near him. Once, a plane had crash-landed within a hundred yards of where he worked; once a stray shell had felled a bare tree that fell on his shadow, but other than that, the war was little more than a background rumble and a foreground stench.

While he did not see the slaughter first-hand, the Front seemed to him like a brutal disassembly plant, where whole men were sent to be separated into their component parts. The courage of the soldiers was beyond belief. They knew that their chances of survival were marginal at best, and that surviving was not always preferable to death. Efforts were made to shield the incoming soldiers—mostly Colonials, and, towards the end, Americans—from the endless tents of the wounded, but the smell was impossible to shield. Extreme maiming returns the body to an infantile state, and the reek of feces, urine, and blood hung in the air like the scent of a medieval nursery.

There was no part of the body that was immune to injury; shells got the extremities, magnesium got the eyes, mustard gas and bullets the innards, and cold or infection the fingers and toes.

Nature, it seemed, conspired with war to empty the planet of young men. Anesthetic was in short supply, and deaths from shock were common. The body simply did not contain enough natural painkillers to survive shrapnel, blood loss, and amputation. Doctors could only save a few who came along; even those they saved were subject to the most horrible infections; it seemed that every species of bacteria had flown to France on the promise of an endless feast. And those boys who had left small towns for the excitement of seeing a foreign country soon found their only view to be the inside of their own minds; their eyes, taste, touch, all stripped.

And there was a deadening in the hearts of those who survived as well, and it was born of a rational hopelessness.

Previously war, a dangerous, bloody business, was nonetheless a career of sorts, where training, skill, and fitness played significant roles in determining victory. Success was never guaranteed, but horsemanship, marksmanship, and skill with a sword certainly swayed the odds. And the generals basically fought the same war that had been fought since the Battle of Agincourt, when the high, armor-piercing arrows of the long bow had begun to unseat the power of the mounted knight. There were no planes, no tanks, no submarines, no chemical warfare (there was, on occasion, biological warfare, as plague-ridden corpses were catapulted into towns under siege, but this did not affect strategy).

But the army, since it dealt with life and death and the fate of nations, was very, very conservative. Quentin had been told one story which seemed to capture this problem perfectly. A bunkmate of his had joined the army in 1911, a few years before the war, and had been painting the road leading into the base when he had spilled his entire can of paint. Rather than cleaning it up, he had simply painted the edges into an enormous square. In 1915, he had returned to the base as an infantry instructor, and driving in, he had noticed that his huge white square had been faithfully repainted in the six years since he had first spilled it.

The Great War required wrenching changes in army leadership, in thinking, creativity, and innovation, but originality seemed such a sickly, faltering plant, that it failed to grow no matter how many men’s veins watered it.

There was so much destruction, and so little innovation, that the individual skill of the men in the trenches had almost nothing to do with their survival. The best cavalry in the world could be defeated by a sixteen-year-old farm boy with a tommy gun. Sheer luck separated the living from the dead. A soldier forgot his ammo, ran back to retrieve it, and his companions in a foxhole took a direct hit. Another bent down to tie up his shoe and a bullet took his best friend behind him. A cigarette was passed to a brother; a sniper found the glow and shot him dead. There was no rhyme, no reason.

This irrationalism affected everyone. Quentin was not a particularly moral man, but he was not actively immoral either. He was part of the general herd: he went with the prevailing current so naturally that it felt like personal momentum. Sooner or later, amoral people in positions of power will crumble. Quentin seemed to know this about himself, and decided against pointless shows of resistance.

Unless a major campaign was on, there was very little rationale behind the distribution of goods from his depot. There was never enough for everyone, and rarely good reason for favoring someone over someone else, so Quentin just let the needs of others determine his allocations. It was not that he was innately corrupt, or gained an enormous amount from bribes or kickbacks—it was just that there could be no real reasoning behind any of his decisions, and payoffs certainly helped him prioritize.

Everyone knew that base preference determined the allocation of resources. Even the most moral person in the world would be hard pressed to explain exactly why this brigade got bullets while that division got porridge. (The only rationale—that a certain division needed to be strengthened because of an upcoming battle—could not be used, since everyone knew that Quentin was not privy to such information until the day before the attack.) Every man who put requisitions in for goods was loyal to his own group, and would clean out the supply depot if he could. They stopped at nothing to get all they could, and the first time Quentin gave extra cigarettes because a certain corporal had grown up in the same neighborhood, was the thin edge of an endless wedge. Through some kind of subterranean military jungle drumming, the knowledge spread that Quentin was the kind of supply officer who was ‘friendly’ and could be persuaded. Endless hordes of desperate men descended on him; his office was full from morning to night. In an awful way, he had never been so popular. And he genuinely wanted to help; this was the part of him most susceptible to corruption. Tearful requests from combat veterans always moved him; his office was sometimes more awash with tears than the Veterans hospital.

There were some men who started off friendly, but turned vicious when Quentin hesitated, and he had them immediately thrown out with one call to the military police. They vanished at first, and Quentin was quite relieved, and returned to the mere currying of favors. But these men were merely regrouping and gathering evidence. Soon they returned, one at a time, and then in groups, and Quentin began to get a sense of the secondary nervous system of the army. The first was supply men like himself; the second was a network of contacts, bribery, extortion, blackmail, and friendships that actually controlled the supply chain. It turned out that all his favoritism had been recorded, and was against policy, and was now turned against him. The hints were not subtle; he was asked how he would like being shot, or spending twenty years in military prison, or never seeing his family again. And what was proposed was not extreme—or, at least, not as extreme as the threats. No one was out to put him out of business. He could retain his favoritism; all that was required was that this or that group have first dibs on everything he had.

This caused Quentin some sleepless nights. Great sins are the heart attacks of ten thousand fatty immoralities; he had allowed his independent judgement to be swayed, and now its weakened base was being hacked at. But, he reasoned, we are all on the same side. It’s not as if ammo sent to a certain division will be used against us. These men are just trying to look out for themselves. And what if their threats are harsh? It’s nothing compared to what they are going through…

And, of course, there was nothing to be done. The number of his transgressions had mounted so high that he was beyond the scope of the law. The gun of justice would just go off in his hand. And what was the point of that? All these decisions were arbitrary anyway…

In the end, he decided to go along with the requests, on one condition. He would never keep ammo from a division about to go into battle. This condition was accepted with many toasts and much back-slapping, as the natural response of an honorable man.

It lasted exactly nine weeks. One evening, as he sat slaving over the endless paperwork of requisitions, a man named Uxbridge came to see him. A major offensive was slated for the following night. This was in 1915, when the army had temporarily given up on day attacks.

“Evening, Quentin,” said Uxbridge, lighting a cigarette. While not a smoker himself, Quentin had gotten so used to the stale tang of secondhand smoke—like every army man who worked indoors—that fresh air now smelled strange to him. Empty.

“Evening, Uxbridge.” It was unusual—and against protocol—for a senior officer to address an underling by his last name while the underling used the officer’s first name, but it was not exactly the army proper at this moment; it was the army within the army.

“Big push tomorrow,” said Uxbridge, hacking up a chunk of road-tar throat-phlegm, leaning forward and spitting it on the floor. Quentin almost expected it to roll. Or bounce.

“How is the second battalion?” asked the man, pulling over a worn canvas chair and creaking into it.

“They need more grenades.”

“Yeah,” said Uxbridge, taking his cigarette out of his mouth and flicking the ash on the back of his hand. He always contained his evidence. “Now, it’s a night attack, so grenades are as likely to brighten a friendly as a Jerry. What they really need is flares.”

“They’ve got their flares.”

“That’s good. But they’re not going to get their grenades.”

“How so?”

“Well,” grunted Uxbridge, shifting in his chair. “’Cause you’re out of ’em.”

Quentin paused. “And why am I out of them?”

“Because if you weren’t out, then the Second would be tossing those grenades around like cricket balls, and my division would be right under them.”

“What about your division’s grenades?”

“We’re not going to use any. Me and my men agreed. The Second is of a different opinion, which is why you’re all out, you see.”

Quentin paused. How am I going to pretend that I’m out? He knew better than to ask Uxbridge, who cared little for paperwork.

“I need some empty boxes.”

“Got ’em,” grinned Uxbridge, cocking his head at the door. “Sausages.”

“All right. And I’ll need some help.”

“You’n me. All night, if it has to be.”

“There are more than a hundred crates of grenades back there,” said Quentin, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at the packed warehouse. “And they’re explosive, I don’t have to tell you.”

Uxbridge just stared at him. Quentin scowled.

“All right, let’s bring them in.”

It took them two hours to bring all the empty ‘sausage’ crates into the warehouse, then another eight hours to transfer the grenades into them and seal them up. They put the ‘grenade’ boxes outside as they worked; there wasn’t enough room for everything.

Uxbridge left just after dawn, spiriting the empty grenade crates away in three trucks. Quentin sat down heavily at his desk, then began filling out the ‘Missing Inventory’ form. He had searched all night, but could not find the hundred crates of grenades. Then he fell asleep in the warehouse, on a pile of rough blankets which smelled of potatoes.

When the supply sergeant from the Second Division screamed up on his horse, demanding to know where the hell the grenades were, a very ugly scene developed. Quentin tried to ally himself with the natural disgust for army inefficiency common to all supply sergeants, but it didn’t work. The man was livid that the grenades needed for that night’s battle were missing, and he hadn’t been informed until that moment. The battle could not be called off, the Jerries were well-dug in, and there were almost fifty machine-gun nests, which had to be taken out by grenades, or their would be a slaughter.

The man was very persuasive, but then they all were. Everyone’s story was airtight; everyone’s need was paramount, every disaster imaginable would occur if they were not given what they needed. Quentin spent the afternoon on the phone trying to find other grenades, the man stalking and smoking in front of his desk. None were to be found. Three experimental flame-throwers were available, but the supply sergeant was not interested.

Finally the man left, hoping to go over Quentin’s head. Quentin locked the front door to his office, crawled under his desk, and wept.

It was the last true emotion he was to feel for some time. That night, the Second Division was cut apart by machine guns during their charge. Uxbridge’s division, which was supposed to follow twenty minutes after the Second, was never even called out of their trenches.

Over four hundred men were killed. Another six hundred wounded.

Now, Quentin faced a problem—or, more accurately, a problem faced Quentin, for it was much larger than he was. It was a sky-high problem, with many roots, which went down past his own soul, deep into the class he inhabited.

Quentin had been raised in a boarding school, which meant that he was contemptuous of weakness. All warrior classes have to overcome the influence of the mother; this is usually achieved by separating boys from maternal power and subjecting them to such base humiliation that all tender feelings are utterly destroyed. This is all for the best, of course. It is impossible, after all, to rule unjustly if one feels for one’s subjects.

Quentin was schooled in power early and hard. He arrived at boarding school at the age of seven, and was immediately plunged into the ghastly world of brutal hazing, hysterical sports, prefect servitude, upper-class slavery, and like all the other boys, buried his sobs for his mummy in the rough cloth of dormitory pillows.

Motherhood was fine for the early years, it was believed, but too long an exposure to the ‘original tit’ weakened a man, left him soft, squeamish, and prone to debilitating empathy. Men of action could not overconsider the feelings of others. Men of action were informed by lofty goals, decisive measures, and a relentlessly classical education.

Quentin was a classical product of this kind of system. He was pragmatic, but only in the short-term. He was moral, but only in form, not content. True ethics arise from empathy; the only ethics which can arise in the absence of empathy is conformity, which does no one any good in the long run. Conformity looks almost good, which is worse than just being bad, because it is camouflaged.

The possibility that Quentin had been responsible for the death and maiming of almost a thousand men did not intend to leave him alone—and he did not want it to. Quentin’s honor required that he come to terms with his own actions.

After the aborted attack, Quentin applied for, and was granted, two days leave, which he used to visit a bed-and-breakfast in Calais, on the French coast. He spent these days walking the length and breadth of the beaches of Normandy, forever glancing at the distant white cliffs of England, as if at a magical kingdom that he was banished from. Only once did he come close to tears, imagining Reginald gazing back.

The primary difficulty was in the ‘what if.’ As a pragmatist, Quentin did not judge his actions by their content, but by their effect. And his thinking ran along these lines:

The figure of a thousand men must be disposed of at once. It is an illusion. First of all, no number of grenades could have eliminated all the casualties. Second of all, the general in charge of the attack is well known for his high casualty lists. Thus, even if the lack of grenades contributed to casualties in the first wave, it is quite possible that the second wave, which would have surely gone if the first wave had been successful, might have suffered casualties in excess of a thousand.

But what if the attack, with grenades, had been successful? Well, this same general has a history of taking positions and abandoning them within a few weeks. This has happened at least seven times, each with great casualties. Thus it is also possible that more lives were saved by the withholding of the grenades than the provision of them.

Also, what if Uxbridge was right, and the first wave did not agree to restrain their use of grenades, and the second wave had lost men both due to the success of the first wave, and their indiscriminate use of grenades?

Quentin sat on the hard, cold sand. The Channel churned like rolling iron. For two reasons, it was important not to pursue all these speculations to their final conclusions. The first was that there were no final conclusions, since they were pure speculation. The second was the importance of restraint when examining past actions. If I pursue this self-examination with too much eagerness, he thought, I will surely destroy myself, for I will put too much stake in this or that answer, and so lose my objectivity.

War was an uncertain business. Casualties were inevitable. He had pulled no trigger. Uxbridge had been reliable in the past. Quentin put his face into his hands. There was a kind of churning black sea in his soul, a terror at the root of things, but he was resolved to be strong. Despair is the first and final enemy of the soldier. A thought persisted, though, which was that wrong actions needed no context, and could not be judged by their effects. Wrong is wrong, he thought, but shook his head violently. Wrong in wartime? It was inconceivable. War itself was wrong. One just did the best one could.

And I did not benefit materially at all. I made a command decision, based on the best information I had… The fact that the decision had not been his to make rankled at him, but he felt strong resentment at the army for putting him in that position to begin with. If they gave me enough supplies for everyone—or concrete rules on how to distribute everything—then I would not be put in the position of making these kind of judgements…

There was also the soothing balm of good decisions he had made. He rifled through his memories. There was the time I sent extra ammo to the brigade under siege, without express orders. That saved—what, fifty lives? Easily. And there was the time I withheld horse feed from the cavalry about to charge, who would have been slaughtered. What, two hundred men? Even if giving grenades to the first wave would have saved one out of ten men, a most generous estimate, I still have saved more than twice that number, just in those two decisions alone—and there are more, I’m sure, many more…

By the end of his leave, he had reached a precarious position of self-justification, which he hoped would strengthen over time.

It did, of course, but like all self-justifications which harden through being ignored, it was to have terrible consequences.

Chapter 4

In the confusion and horror of her war years, Ruth found herself unable to educate her children about right and wrong. Every word she imagined speaking seemed hollow in her own ears. The evil of the Great War, the ghastly effect it had had on her own family, own marriage, own soul—lent scant weight to the little ethics, from which grow the great ones. Ruth did not greatly care if Tom lied, or stole, or ate too much, and so his education was left to Reginald.

But children can never really teach other children about right and wrong. The only lesson children can inflict on each other is conformity, and this was about as far as Reginald got before Tom abruptly wrenched the rudder from his hand.

At first, Tom was so naturally compliant that sometimes, when he stood in front of wallpaper, Ruth half-expected him to assume its color and texture. He was very different from Reginald, who was rarely compliant, rarely rebellious, and fundamentally quite cold.

Through the haze of her loss, Ruth still strove to understand her eldest son. Reginald’s coldness was hard to penetrate. He was often attentive, high-spirited, and could be very funny, but he had all the spontaneity of a statue. He gave dry kisses and distant hugs; his eyes never shone, and his cheeks rarely flared red or white. He has an old soul, thought his mother—and if he did, it had a lot to do with her, who was from the old world, and was full of old corpses too long unburied.

Ruth’s general exhaustion (or, as Quentin put it, her ‘lack of resources’) was not helped by the fact that she had given birth to one morning child and one night child. Reginald got up early, and would sometimes drag Tom out of bed in the half-dark of dawn to play with soldiers or read comics or build a Sopwith Camel biplane out of balsa wood and black thread. Tom enjoyed all these things (especially building airplanes), but did not like to get up until the third call for breakfast.

Almost like a photograph, Tom developed in the dark. Unless he was extraordinarily tired, he could never fall asleep before one or two o’clock in the morning (and if he did get to sleep early, his rest would be broken by endless bouts of waking, so that it seemed that night had been little more than a passage of dark, jumpy dizziness). Being a prisoner of the general cult of morning people, he was not allowed light at night and so he developed excellent night vision, and good games of semi-darkness.

One of these was ‘arctic explorers.’ In the blue moonlight of his window, his sheets looked like vast fields of ice; his pillow, properly plumped, was a glacier or ice mountain. His blanket, a dark frigid sea. His toy soldiers? Intrepid Arctic explorers, or secret Swedish commandos. Their goal? An ancient weapon locked in the depths of ice, which would end the war and bring ’em all home. Tom’s imagination was detailed to the point of near-gruesomeness. A fair number of his toy soldiers lacked hands, arms or legs, which was because the intrepid Arctic explorers had a habit of getting snowed in (a white gym sock, laid across their sleeping forms) and ended up eyeing each other’s frozen extremities with narrowed and hungry eyes. One had even eaten himself, and was just a head.

Tom did not make friends easily—indeed, it was not until his late teens that Tom cultivated true and close companions. Reginald, on the other hand, was very popular. He was one of those odd but significantly destined children who possessed a kind of ageless composure and scornful maturity which gave them great power in the settling of disputes and granting of approval. The life of upper-class British children was an endless process of being cattle prodded into claustrophobic pens of social absolutes. All tribal layers seek to perpetuate themselves; elites do it with a judicial combination of vanity and humiliation. You are the greatest is alternated with this is what happens to those who disobey…

Reginald developed friends, it was true, but in an odd manner. He sort of had friends for himself, but also against his brother. Reginald went to boarding school two years before Tom, and would bring his school friends home for a week or two over the summer or Christmas breaks, and it was hard to tell which brought him more pleasure, having his friends over or having them all go on great adventures and leave Tom behind.

‘As close as brothers’ is a phrase that is far overused—it should really be ‘as-close-as-brothers-seem-until-some-incident-triggers-memories-of-early-treachery.’ The number of younger brothers who are spun on hanging tires until they vomit, or sealed in iceboxes until they faint, or sat on until they gasp for breath, or who have their noses and mouths covered until they see purple spots, or who are teased to within an inch of insanity—this number is so great it would almost seem that younger brothers are in fact seeds scattered over the rich earth of family dysfunction—seeds whose flowers are the sadism of their older siblings.

In response to Reginald’s cruelty, Tom developed all of the skills of humiliated solitude. He loved to read and draw; he grew into a great imagination, and learned how to keep his counsel.

He also grew terrifically brave. This can be a long time coming for younger siblings, but if it is achieved, there is almost no human force that is stronger.

There were two significant women in the boys’ lives. The first was their mother; the second was Catherine, their housekeeper and nanny, who was a great, powerful, primitive cauldron of all that is best and deepest in the matriarchy.

Catherine was Irish, and had all the traits; the wide hips, the high forehead, the freckles, the strong arms, the thin, curly red hair, the beaming smile.

There is something about Ireland which is good for women and bad for men. The men drink and tell sad tales; the women fall in love with nature, the sky, their errant men, their children, their country, the very air itself. The superfluity of love in Irish women is what keeps the Emerald Isle afloat. Of course, the fact that most Irish men are fairly useless does give great heft to the weight of the matriarchy, and this tends to be a self-perpetuating system. Men are useless; the power of women flows unimpeded, thus the sons of useless men become useless themselves.

Catherine was mystical, but disciplined. She was unintellectual, but instinctual, and so had access to all the simple truths that the intellect so often obscures. She cried easily, but was not overly sentimental. She was a slave to beauty, the beauty of a swan, a man, or a child’s rounded apple bum. Little gestures of affection melted her heart. She would hold a grudge for a thousand years, unless she was brought a cake. She had a sweet tooth. She was unconcerned with her figure. She kept her hair long but never styled it. She loved her own bosoms, perhaps because they obscured the size of her hips. She hugged Tom so tight that his ribs would creak, like an old accordion.

Catherine was a natural storyteller. One night, when the boys were very young, and they nestled both on her hips, like little petals in a tree’s knots, she told them the following story:

“Mr. Mouse heard a hammering at his door one morning, and he went to see who it was, and it was Mr. Badger, who grabbed his little paw and pulled him out the door.

“‘We’re late for the Race!’ cried Mr. Badger.

“‘Wha-at race?’ asked Mr. Mouse, his voice catching because he was bouncing up and down so hard.

“‘The Race we’re late for!’ panted Mr. Badger, as they came up to the house of Mr. Goose.

“‘Mr. Goose!’ shouted Mr. Badger, pounding at the door with his free hand (his other hand held the little paw of Mr. Mouse.) ‘Come on, we’re late for the Race!’

“Mr. Goose stuck his long neck out of the window.

“‘Run! Run! We’re late! We’re late!’ cried Mr. Badger.

“Mr. Goose wriggled out of his little window, and they kept running.

“Then they came to the house of Mr. Elephant, and Mr. Mouse became a little nervous. ‘Um, does he have to run in the race?’

“‘Everyone races!’ cried Mr. Badger. ‘No exceptions!’

“Mr. Elephant took a moment to join them, because he couldn’t remember anything about the race, and since elephants have such good memories, he was confused. Then he joined them, and Mr. Mouse had to run quite a long way behind Mr. Elephant, because he didn’t want to be squished, and did not think this was very fair.

“‘I hope we don’t come to Mr. Cat’s house next,’ he thought, but of course that is exactly what happened.

“And so Mr. Cat joined them, and then Mr. Dog, and Mr. Hedgehog (who was not allowed to roll), and Mr. Bear, and Mr. Wolf, and lots and lots of other animals, and finally they were all stampeding through a wood when Mr. Mouse, feeling that his little heart was about to burst, ran up to the front, where Mr. Badger was running along.

“‘Mr.—Mr. Bad-ger—when—do—we—get—to—the—race?’ he panted.

“‘But my dear Mr. Mouse!’ cried Mr. Badger. ‘Didn’t you know? This is the race!’

“And then Mr. Mouse stopped running—and just managed to scurry to one side as Mr. Hippo went thundering past. And then he brushed himself off with his little paws, and sighed very, very deeply.

“‘Well, it’s a long way home, no mistake, but when I get there I will have a tall glass of cold milk, and write myself a long note that I am not to run after Mr. Badger any more, and pin it to the door, and look at it every morning, and make sure I remember!’

“And that is exactly what he did.”

Tom loved this story. “And did he?”

“Of course!” said Catherine, putting him on his bed and kissing his forehead.

“And the next time Mr. Badger came around?”

“There was no next time. Mr. Badger only comes for you if you forget that there is no race.”

Tom lay back, listening to Reginald scrambling into his bed above him in the darkness. There was a lot to consider in that story.

Reginald snorted. “Why would there be just ‘misters’ if there are no ‘misses’?”

There was a pause.

“And the elephant would remember.”

Pause.

“And why just that year? He’d put the note on his door every year.”

Pause. Finally, with a decisive, rolling-over rustle:

“That’s a stupid story.”

Catherine could be surprisingly ferocious. On more than one occasion, the boy’s endless backyard war-games would end suddenly, as Catherine—her ears constantly tuned to the ‘child-in-true-distress’ frequency—came charging into the trenches and dispersed the little gods of war with all the wild power of no-nonsense feminine outrage.

Her ability to tell whining from genuine distress was fascinating to Tom. Sometimes he would play around with this. If he fell and twisted his ankle slightly, or stubbed his toe, or fell and winded himself, he would cry out, but she would never appear. If he injured himself seriously, though, he would cry out without thinking, and next thing he would be scooped up in her dress, her damp cold arms pressed against him, her head lowered over him, her voice descending from her hanging hair like birds in a high dark willow. It was like another game of his, the game of catching himself falling asleep. Every time he tried to feel himself falling asleep, he would wake again. He never felt himself sliding into the dark. It only ever happened when he was not trying to see it. Likewise, Catherine only came when he did not try to summon her.

She was a wonderful nurse. She allowed no whining, and was beautifully immune to manipulation, because she knew truth as well as plants know sunlight—they never grow into shadow, and she never hugged a complainer. ‘Children should be part of the house when sick,’ she always said, and never put an ill child in his room, but made up the sofa in the living room and always stayed in reach and drew suffering, it seemed, directly into her ample flesh, where it dissipated without harm.

Tom loved her beyond words, beyond reason. It was Catherine who taught him the power of really listening, and she also taught him everything about inevitability, which is perhaps the most important lesson of childhood.

‘Everyone tells you everything in the first five minutes,’ she always said. Tom never understood her, except in his heart, and in the story of his life, it was almost too many years before his head caught up.

Chapter 5

As the Great War ground on, the games of the children at home grew longer, and fiercer, and darker.

These battles usually involved storming a position, or retrieving a rag or book or some such treasure from the enemy. The rules were elaborate, and the weapons were defined down to the last detail; everyone knew just what kind of stick ended in a bayonet, and which did not. Grenades were classed according to radius of impact; those boys who had elected to be pilots (Tom was always in this group) knew how they should time the opening of their hands over the trenches, what arc their apple-bombs would actually take. All the base physics of war, all the dismal science of a boy’s deep warrior brain—all this made the shooting down of a plane supposed to be a few hundred yards overhead (but was actually a boy running past) all very realistic, and surprisingly free of disagreements.

It was Tom who discovered the undisputedly accurate methodology of simulating bomb-drops. Sycamore seeds, which spun and fluttered to the ground in uncertain sideways paths, were deemed to be accurate representations, but only if the boy crossed no-man’s-land at a full sprint, with his legs barely visible, and returned at the same speed. The exhaustion of this run—no-man’s-land could be fifty yards long, and it took time to turn around at a full sprint—also limited the number and frequency of flights, and the number of pilots. Many boys preferred flanking the enemy, crawling through leaves, or lobbing shells.

Shelling was tricky, but could be managed. They all had provisional helmets, stolen colanders or pots tied with string, and so cricket balls—hard and painful—were possible, but of course a genital shot could end play for a few days for an unlucky boy, so tennis balls were used instead. The radius of damage was considered to be about five yards, and hits were taken on an honor system. Direct hits put you out of the game for a slow count of a hundred (perhaps British reincarnation was more efficient; they did have an Empire, after all); being in the five-yard radius was a fifty. This could be cut in half if you were touched by a ‘medic.’ Naturally, for tennis ball shells, only the first bounce counted.

No-man’s-land was a different matter. If you were killed there, you had to wait until a medic came to touch you, and often wars were ended by drawing more and more medics out to rescue heaps of dead soldiers.

It was also acceptable to use the enemy’s shells—crawling out to retrieve them was for scouts, who could not be damaged by machine-gun fire, since they were heavily camouflaged. This created a good balance; killing a scout with more tennis balls was good, because he would have to wait there until a medic came and revived him; medics could be killed by machine-gun fire, and so sometimes a large quantity of tennis balls were lobbed into no-man’s-land just to draw out scouts and medics.

Machine-gun fire was very effective; to kill an enemy soldier, all that was required was that you make the ‘uh-uh-uh’ sound, and then call out the boy’s name. Originally, this was just the boy’s first name, but the single-syllable slaughter this entailed made charging across no-man’s-land pointless, and so it was first expanded to the boy’s first and last name—and when that also proved too calamitous, all the boy’s names had to be shouted out. Given that they were mostly upper-class boys, this could be four or five names. (The number or title after the names—so-and-so the third, or ‘esquire’—were dropped as being too difficult to remember, and prone to slowing down the game.)

The speed of the war was essential, since nothing destroyed the illusion of combat more than having the Germans and English stop in mid-slaughter to argue about rules. (Occasional fraternization was allowed. Once, Reginald, acting on a newspaper article, waved a white flag and brought a jug of lemonade over to the German trench, saying that on Christmas it was all right to share whiskey.)

This eternal backyard war was quite difficult for the mothers, who often congregated in sitting rooms and drank tea or sherry while the soprano shouts of slaughter rang through the misty air. They sealed up the windows and talked more loudly, but could not imagine stopping the war; the boys were too spent afterwards, and none of the mothers relished the thought of bringing twenty-odd boys indoors and organizing pacifist activities for them.

And the girls, well the girls mostly left the boys alone, but there were a few intrepid souls who decided to venture into the backyard Front and assert themselves as nurses. One even fought hard to become a soldier, which was, after long discussion, allowed, since the Geneva Convention only stipulated that women could not be combatants, and she was still only a girl. Besides, she was the fastest runner, and so excellent at bombing missions.

By 1918, the backyard wars were almost endless, and the teams were beginning to harden. Originally, the German/English were picked by eeny-meeny-miny-mo, but as the indignities and insults accumulated, boys began to want to be on either team, to avenge the injustices of the previous day’s battle. The protests of the mothers had won out, and the battle had been relocated to some local woods, where ancient and abandoned plowlines were hacked into realistic trenches.

Reginald was often on the German side. Tom was too young to be a pilot because he was deemed too slow to stay airborne. He became a medic instead, who was confined to the trenches, since he was too slow to dodge the shelling in no-man’s-land. (He had started out as a cook, which meant running to the nearest house for snacks, but refused that within a week, and was replaced by a girl.)

Reginald was a cunning and resourceful enemy. Most of the boys who joined the war started out with direct charges on enemy lines, hoping to end things quickly, waving wooden swords and crying for the other boys to follow them “for St. George!” They ran alone, of course, and were mercilessly cut down, and learned better. Among the Germans, Reginald rose quickly to the position of field marshal because he had great patience and original plans. He handpicked his troops, gave them detailed instructions, and was excellent at drawing the British out of position and attacking them where they were weakest. This strategy produced great confusion among the English troops, and they began to spread themselves too thin, not knowing where Reginald was going to strike.

Tom struggled hard for command of the British troops. His youth was a distinct disadvantage, as was the fact that he could not scan no-man’s-land without a boost. But he had an instinctive feel for Reginald’s thinking. The point, he explained over and over, was not to respond to Reginald’s attacks, but rather to figure out why he was attacking. Why would he want us to go over there? he would ask, but the boys ignored him, rushing to their usual pre-lunch slaughter, and the German’s would win again.

Reginald’s regular victories enraged Tom. It was wrong, the bad men winning, and it must be stopped. Every time Reginald accepted a British surrender, Tom felt that his father was slipping further and further away. So he would spend evenings covering old newspapers with his memories of the day’s combat; the strategies used, the casualties. And he began to discover patterns, and also figured out where Reginald must be hiding, based on the movements of his troops.

One morning, he tried out to be a pilot. The boys timed his race back and forth between the two trenches, and he made it, and so got his wings. As the war commenced, he ran through the trees, gathering fistfuls of sycamore seeds, as the uh-uh-uhs of machine guns and screams of the wounded filled the air. A flurry of shells came overhead, and he threw himself under some bushes until they bounced past. He counted to five, then ran and stuffed his pockets with the shells. He picked up his sycamore seeds, then sprinted back to the trench and threw himself against the wet earth wall.

A wounded boy lay grimacing. Tom healed him, saying: “’S’all right; I was a medic. What’s going on?”

The boy looked up. “Thanks. The Bosche are attacking the north trench.”

“Show me,” said Tom.

The boy took a stick and drew in the mud. “He’s sent his aircraft up to here and here.”

“Machine gun positions?”

“The one that got me was here, but I saw another one up here.”

Tom looked at the positions. “I need your help, soldier.”

“For what?”

“Well, if we kill Reginald, we win the war. If you look at it, his planes are flying to here and here, which must mean that they are starting from here, right? And his machine guns are set up here—he needs to talk with them, right? So he has to be here.”

The boy squinted up skeptically. “You think?”

“Yeah.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“Cover me for a bombing run. Go out halfway into no-man’s-land, then cover me if a machine gun opens up.”

“With what?”

“Hold these.” Tom dumped his sycamore seeds into the boy’s hands, then emptied his pockets.

“Ho-ly—that’s a lot of ammo!” whispered the boy, staring at the shells.

“Big sky-thunder,” grinned Tom, taking back his seeds. “This is my plan—I’m not going to fly over the trench, but into the trench.”

“Into…?”

“Yeah—look, they have to shoot up to get me, right? Those’re the rules. If I’m in the trench, they can’t get beneath me, so I’m gonna to be all right. And besides, all their guns are facing out.”

“But a plane can’t fly in a trench.”

“Why not?” Tom stood up and stretched out his arms. “See, my wings don’t touch the sides of our trench. It’s wide enough.”

“You can fly the length of the Bosche trench without touching your wingtips at all?”

“I think so,” said Tom. “Come on—we’ll be heroes. Statues, medals, girls. We’ll talk about it for weeks!”

“All—right,” said the boy.

“Now put those shells in your pockets,” said Tom.

“I carry them kangaroo-style,” said the boy, piling them in the belly of his jumper.

There was a great salvo of machine guns to the north, and the cries of the wounded filled the air.

“Come on,” said Tom. He tried to scramble up the embankment, but his legs were too small. The boy stared at him. “Give me a boost then,” cried Tom.

The boy cupped his hands, and Tom climbed up, treading on the boy’s shoulder.

“I’ll wait here,” said Tom; you get into position. By that dead German.

The boy crawled out into no-man’s-land. Tom shielded his eyes, his heart hammering. Loosen your hands, he commanded himself. If he crushed the sycamore seeds, he would have no ammo.

The boy crawled further. A shell fell near him—he had been seen! He froze. A German fell back in the far trench. No—just a mis-throw from a wounded man. He made it to the dead German, who was forbidden by the rules of war from giving away the British boy’s position.

Tom vocally revved up his engine, extended his wings, then churned his legs and took off. Turbulence was bad—the rutted earth bounced under his waving vision. A German soldier, picking his nose, looked up, startled, and then turned his machine gun. But a shell from Tom’s cover caught him squarely on the forehead, and he fell back silently, as was proper—direct hits could not be called out. Tom turned and gave the thumbs-up to the boy, who grinned back.

He was across! Tom swooped into the German trench. It was empty; everything was happening to the north. He flew north, being extra careful not to brush his wingtips; sometimes the trench narrowed, and he had to bank sharply, then turn back to avoid hitting the wall.

He passed two machine-gun nests on his mad plunge towards enemy headquarters. The first did not notice him, despite his growing engine noise; the second did, and their jaws dropped, and they wheeled their guns around, but Tom had flown around a corner by the time they were in position.

“Aircraft in the trench! Aircraft in the trench!” they cried out, before being silenced by another expert shell from Tom’s cover.

Another corner; some dead soldiers. This was tricky; he had to fly over them without stepping on them—and the trench narrowed as well. Tom’s legs flew; his shoulders ached from the strain of such a twisted flight course. One German tried to trip him—must be wounded, thought Tom—but he leapt up and flew onwards.

“Incoming Englander plane!” cried the wounded German, leaning on his elbows, admiration in his eyes.

Tom turned another corner. There! He saw Reginald lying on his belly in a hacked-out depression, with two other older boys, scanning the air above no-man’s-land with cupped-finger binoculars. They heard the sound of the incoming plane, and frantically searched the battlefield for the source. It was not until the last moment when one of the German generals caught Tom’s incoming aircraft, roaring up from the trench. He screamed, tugging at Reginald’s belt. Reginald dropped his binoculars and threw up his arms as Tom released his bombs, and pulled up madly. Glancing back, he saw his double-fistful of sycamores floating down over the three German leaders; scattering over Reginald’s dumbfounded face.

Tom flew on into no-man’s-land. The war was over. He tried to do a victory roll, then make a graceful landing, but he was too tired. He stumbled over a shell, and plowed into the glistening earth. His wings crumpled, but he rolled clear and lay panting, giggling, coughing, squinting up at the clear blue sky, joy coursing through his veins.

“Doesn’t count!” screamed Reginald, scrambling to his feet, brushing the bombs from his jumper. “Not fair! You can’t fly in a trench!”

The other boys gathered around as Reginald marched up to Tom.

“That doesn’t count! That was no victory!”

Tom couldn’t stop giggling.

“Shut up!” shouted Reginald. “There’s nothing to laugh about! It doesn’t count!”

“What—a—feat of—arms!” gasped Tom, pumping his arms in the air. “I am the warrior-king!”

“I saw him, Reg,” said one of the ex-Germans. “He flew the trench without touching his wings.”

“You can’t fly a trench!”

“I flew the trench, Reggie,” said Tom, knowing how much his brother hated that nickname. “No touch, no crash.”

“Are you telling me you think a real airplane could fly a trench?”

“If you build the trench wide enough to let a plane fly it, that’s not my fault.”

“He’s right, Reg,” said another boy. “He followed the rules.”

“If it couldn’t happen in the real world, it shouldn’t happen here!” shouted Reg. “Why do you think there’s no navy?”

“I thought it was great!” grinned one of the German generals. “I turned around, and almost peed my pants! Neaaaaw! Wizard!”

“British victory,” said another.

“No!” cried Reginald.

“Don’t be a sore loser, Reg,” said one of his generals. “You had the plan, he had the courage. Fair fight.”

“Let’s get some lunch,” said another boy, thrusting his gun into the wet earth. “Great job, Tommy!”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“First rate!”

The boys all passed him, patting him on the back and shaking his hand. Reginald took several steps backwards, his face seething.

The war continued throughout the summer, in both the backyard and France. The battles grew more vicious in both arenas. Reginald’s plans grew so complicated that his troops began to rebel against his leadership, complaining about the complexity of their orders, the endless drills and practices, and his habit of screaming at the dead and wounded. The idea that leadership should be turn-based—and that Reginald had already had more than his turn—began to grow among the muttering German soldiery. As British victories mounted, Reginald was also faced with mounting desertions, and the growing belief that eeny-meeny-miny-mo should be resurrected as a means of choosing sides.

This posed great problems for Reginald. First, there was no point developing detailed plans of attack if he did not know his team—and second, if his German generals defected to the British side, all his secrets would be spilled straight into the ear of the enemy.

However, this problem began to be overshadowed by the problem of over-realistic game-playing.

Harold was the first to succumb. As his family losses mounted—a father, then an older brother, an uncle, a cousin—his war-playing began to get out of hand. His bayonet went from an invisible extension of his stick to the stick itself, and he began leaving welts. He picked up grenades already exploded and threw them straight into the faces of oncoming soldiers. He tripped pilots. He refused to be hit, even when it was obvious.

Everyone was afraid to bar him from the game; he became belligerent or burst into tears if the honor of his gameplay was called into question. So the war games just became a little more realistic; for a boy, seeing Harold bearing down on a him provided a far deeper sense of war than a tennis ball to the head.

So he bounced from side to side, and was given shelling, scouting, or medical roles, but he often went rogue, wandering the battlefield, immune to bullets, bayoneting anyone in his path.

Tom kept an eye on Harold. Sure enough, one afternoon, he snapped completely, and began clubbing the wounded in no-man’s-land, who scattered wildly before his charge.

“Fucking Jerries!” screamed Harold, swinging wildly.

“Harold!” shouted Tom, running forward. “Harold, it’s lunchtime!”

“Fucking Jerries!” Harold cried out again. He ran after a young boy and clubbed him viciously on the side of the head. The boy went down without a sound. The boy’s brother ran to check on him.

“What did you do?” cried the brother, who then leapt up and tried to drag Harold to the ground. Harold twisted around and bit the boy’s forearm.

Tom picked up a stone from a low wall ringing a flowerbed.

“We’re not playing anymore!” he shouted. Heads began emerging from the trenches on both sides.

“Are we stopping?” called Reginald.

“Harold’s gone buggy!” shouted Tom.

“Just let him tire himself out!”

“Can’t,” said Tom, circling the two fighting boys. “We’ve got wounded.”

“Just tell them to get up!”

“Real wounded!”

There was an unholy scream as more biting ensued between the fighting boys. Permanent injury was just around the corner.

Reginald came running forward. “Harold, you’ve got to stop!”

Tom circled behind the boys with his rock nestled in his hand.

Harold threw the boy down and scrambled over to grab his stick.

“Harold!” cried Reginald. “Put the stick down and talk to me!”

Harold glanced up and scowled, one of his eyes blood-red. The boy on the ground groaned and rolled.

Reginald spread his hands. “We can talk this out, Harold. Take a breath. Put the stick down.”

Harold’s hands tightened on his stick, and it slowly came up. Tom leapt forward from behind and brought him down with a rock to the back of the head.

“Tom!” cried Reginald, aghast, “What the hell are you doing?”

Tom stood over Harold, who was moaning and trying to raise himself on all fours. “You try and get up, I pound you again!” hissed Tom.

Reginald strode up, grabbed his younger brother by the shoulders and threw him to the ground.

“You’re just as bad as he is!” cried Reginald. “Worse—he’s lost his father!”

Tom got up, still holding his rock.

“What, you’re going to hit me with that now?” sneered Reginald. “But who will you be defending? Oh, I forgot. You don’t care about defending anyone. You just like bullies because they give you an excuse to hit someone. Because you could never be a bully, could you Tom? Oh no!” He turned to Harold, who was swaying, rising to his feet, clutching his head. “Come on, Harold, it’s all over. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Harold lowered his head.

“Here it comes,” murmured Tom. In the circle of the boys, all muscles tensed.

Harold charged at Reginald, plowing into his chest and driving him into the ground. Reginald’s breath exploded out of him, and he wheezed in agony, winded to the core. Harold’s hands closed on the neck of his jumper, and pulled his head up off the ground. Reginald’s eyes squeezed shut as he fought for breath.

Tom’s free hand closed into a fist. I don’t want to save him! he thought, and this thought fought mightily in his chest with another thought, a hatred of violence, a feeling of dumb, inevitable blood loyalty, a knowledge that none of the other boys would act.

Tears sprang into Tom’s eyes. He just could not watch his brother getting beaten.

Narrowing his eyes and gripping his rock, Tom took a deep breath, lowered his head, and charged at Harold.

Chapter 6

There was one adult who attracted Tom. A friend of his mother’s, named Gunther, who was a scientist, and used to be a military man, had been charged with looking in on the family from time to time.

Gunther was very tall, and wore his gray hair short, had a large, prominent nose, and thin-rimmed glasses. His voice was deep and gravelly, and his Adam’s apple very prominent. He had a slight accent, and seemed amused by an inordinate number of things. He had a small, constant smile, but not a cynical one. It was more like a delight in the predictable nature of the fools around him than disgust at their prevalence.

Tom fell in love with Gunther one sunny afternoon in 1918 when the clouds darkened and rain began to spatter the lawn. He and Reginald had a large number of toys scattered over the grass, and Reginald, as was his habit, just glanced at the wet sky and went inside.

Tom stared at the wooden trains, metal trucks, and painted soldiers (they were invading Russia to end communism, and so needed a good supply chain), feeling close to tears. If I go in like Reginald did, the toys will all be ruined, we will both be punished, and we’ll have nothing to play with ever again! But if I pick up the toys now, Reginald will always go inside and leave me to do all the work.

Gunther was reading in a white chair on the back porch. Tom had barely noticed him; in his experience, moral dilemmas did not benefit from the presence of adults.

“Tom, where’s Reginald?” called Gunther, closing his newspaper.

“He’s gone inside.”

“What about the toys?”

“I have to get them, I think.”

Gunther smiled. “That’s not right.”

Tom glanced up, his heart hammering suddenly.

“I’ll get him,” said Gunther, unfolding his long, lanky frame to a standing position. To Tom, he looked like a flagpole rising up.

Gunther went into the house and reappeared with Reginald in tow. Reginald glared at the sky, at the starting rain.

“Now, why did you go inside without helping your brother?”

“Because we have a rule,” replied Reginald. “Whoever brings the toys out has to put them back. Tom brought them out, he has to put them back.”

“I see,” said Gunther. “Tom, do you agree with that rule?”

Tom’s cheeks burned hot. So much unspoken injustice…! “No, sir, I don’t.”

“And why is that?”

Reginald scowled. “Can we talk about this inside? I’m getting wet.”

“In a moment,” said Gunther. “Tom?”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t like that.”

“Why is that?”

“’Cause, if he plays with the toys, he should help me put them away. And if it’s really a rule, like he says, then why does he always go inside without putting any toys away? Ever?”

“Now you’re going to cry,” smiled Reginald.

Gunther turned to him. “So, he’s wrong?”

“If I take the toys out, I put them back. Yesterday, I played with the destroyer, I put it away.”

“You did not!” cried Tom, his hands closing into fists. “I took it out, you took it away, and I had to put it back!”

“Why do you lie so much?” asked Reginald. “Does it—satisfy you somehow?”

Gunther leaned back on his heels, rubbing his chin. “Right, one thing at a time.”

“Everything’s getting wet!” cried Reginald, turning to go. “I’m getting mother.”

Gunther leaned forward and closed his hand over Reginald’s shoulder. “Your mother is lying down, and said that I could take you two on this time. So, just settle down for a moment. You say you put the destroyer away.”

Reginald paused, not turning his head. “I really don’t think I have to talk to you. You’re not my father.”

“That does not matter. I have authority because I am a reasonable adult.”

“Are you a younger brother?” asked Reginald suddenly, turning towards Gunther with merry eyes.

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Ah, so you sympathize with poor, put-upon Tommy. The wee martyr. That’s all right. He needs all the friends he can get. Though I must wonder,” said Reginald, his eyes narrowing slightly, “if your older brother—or brothers—are not at this moment fighting on the Front. Yet you are here, bravely disciplining children.”

Tom flinched. Reginald could be unbelievably brave!

Gunther’s eyes narrowed. He smiled grimly. Tom fell in love with that smile. “Never mind all that,” he said. “Right now, I want you to do something. I want you to show me where that destroyer is.”

“What?”

“Well, you put it away, you can show me where it is, right?”

“I can show you were I put it, of course,” replied Reginald brightly. “That doesn’t mean it’s there now. Someone could have moved it, you know.”

Gunther turned his head. “Tom, did you play with the destroyer since yesterday?”

Tom shook his head. “I’m a pilot, not a sea captain.”

“Now, Reginald, you are going to show me where that destroyer is. And if you can, fine, we pursue another line of questioning. But if not, then Tom looks a whole lot more like he’s telling the truth.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” cried Reginald. “Is this what adults spend their time on? I don’t have time for this. I’m going inside.”

Gunther picked him up bodily. Tom stared, fascinated, adrenaline running through his young frame like a tsunami through a tap. Reginald cried out:

“What are you doing, you strange, strange man? Put me down this instant!”

There was a sudden thump from upstairs, and Ruth’s head poked out through a window. Quickly counting the wrinkles on her forehead, Tom realized she was in the grip of the dreaded maternal headache.

“Gunther,” she moaned. “What is going on?”

“Go back to bed, Ruth,” grunted Gunther, shifting the wriggling boy on his hip. “Or go for a walk. This boy needs a man’s attention. Goddamn it!” he shouted, throwing Reginald to the floor. “You bit me!”

Reginald scrambled to his feet. “You shouldn’t use such words.”

Gunther suddenly laughed. “All right, so now we go inside.”

“And if you hit me, I’ll write my father, and he’ll come home and deal with you.”

“You can go inside on your own, or I can carry you, and I can be very clumsy. And if you bite me again, I will hit you.”

Reginald got up, opened the back door, and went inside, banging the door with such force that it shook raindrops from the surrounding ivy. Gunther scowled, then reached out and ruffled Tom’s hair.

“Come on, son,” he sighed. They went inside together.

Ruth was at the top of the stairs, in a pink dressing gown. “What’s happening?” she bleated. “I was just falling asleep!”

“Ruth,” said Gunther, placing his hand on the bottom of the banister (Tom felt the man’s use of his mother’s name as an almost-physical shock; it seemed to make her smaller, in a way that felt good.) “You are a lovely and charming woman, but your eldest son needs a bit of firmness. And it’s not going to be pretty, so I would suggest that you have a deep nap and stay in your room.”

Ruth paused, then sagged physically. She turned away, and Tom heard the click of her door closing—and then another, softer click, as she locked it.

Reginald had taken refuge in his bedroom, and was lounging on the upper bunk, pretending to read a comic book.

“Get up, please,” said Gunther from the doorway. Tom was gripping his right hand, unbearably excited. It’s like hunting!

“I don’t think so,” said Reginald, staring at his comic. “I’m a little tired.”

Gunther disengaged Tom’s hand, went into the room, and sat on a low brown steamer’s trunk. When he spoke, his voice was low, even. “This is what I will ask of you, and I will only ask it once. You will go and show me where the destroyer is, and then we will have a conversation about the toys outside.”

Reginald did not reply.

“I would like you to do this now.”

Nothing.

“Do you consider this an unfair request?”

Silence.

“All right,” said Gunther. He reached forward and tried pulling the comic book from Reginald’s hands. Reginald tightened his grip, and then Gunther yanked violently, tearing the comic book in two.

Reginald leapt up. “That was a present from my father! He’ll make you pay for that!”

Gunther reached for him. Reginald threw himself backwards, kicking his legs wildly. Gunther’s hands fastened on one of them, and he pulled Reginald bodily off the bunkbed. There was a cry, a dark thump, and then Reginald went limp.

Tom’s eyes widened. His hands went to his mouth.

Gunther leaned forward, pulling Reginald’s eyelid open. “He’s all right,” he said, then picked him up. Reginald exploded into kicks and screams again.

With some difficulty, Gunther levered him into the toy room.

“Where is the destroyer?” he asked. He set Reginald down, immediately blocking the door. Reginald stepped back into the room, panting, his eyes wild. He jerked his sleeve across his nose.

“You—just—wait—mister. My—dad is coming—home—next week—and—and—when he does, and—he sees what you’ve done—he’s gonna—deal with you!”

“I think your dad and I are going to be just fine,” said Gunther. “Now tell me where the destroyer is.”

“You’re mad!!” snarled Reginald, backing away a little further. “Barmy! I won’t do it!”

“No, that’s true, of course. Free will is so important.” Gunther backed out of the room, then closed the door, locking it from the outside.

“Yeah, that’s just fine!” shouted Reginald. “Lock me in with the toys, it’ll be so much fun!”

Tom’s face fell. This isn’t justice!

Gunther leaned down. “Now,” he said with a smile. “Bring me the key to the cellar.”

Tom’s eyes lit up.

After they had locked Reginald in the cellar—and Gunther had told him he would be freed once he decided to show them where the destroyer was—Gunther and Tom went to the kitchen.

“Wow,” said Tom for perhaps the twentieth time, as Gunther made some tea. “Dad never did that!” There was no point even mentioning his mother.

“Shame, too,” said Gunther, stirring in some powdered milk. “He might be beyond saving.”

“Beyond…” Tom sort of felt his way through to what Gunther was saying. He felt horror in his heart at the idea.

“People betray themselves, then their brothers, and finally their country,” murmured Gunther. He cocked his head and looked squarely at Tom. “And you?”

“I—don’t think I’d—act like that,” said Tom.

“And what do you do, Tommy? Besides dodge your brother and pick up after him.”

Tom smiled weakly, with great pleasure. His brow furrowed, at the unusual conversation. “I read. I like to build planes. I’m going to be a pilot.”

“Your eyes are good?”

Tom nodded. “Very. I can see a match a mile away at night. We tested it.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and Reginald. He didn’t think I could.”

“Well, that makes sense. I think you would make an excellent pilot. Do you want to be a war pilot or a peace pilot?”

Tom frowned. “There won’t be any more wars, dad says. This is the last one.”

Gunther nodded, something unreadable in his eyes. “Yes. But let’s say that you could have anything, be anything. Would you be a war pilot or a peace pilot?”

There was a thump from downstairs, followed by a wail of pain and pure, pure despair. Tom smiled.

“Well, I think I would be bored of being a peace pilot after a while. But if I was a war pilot, I’d have to be sure I was on the side of the good fellows. I wouldn’t want to shoot someone just ’cause someone else pointed me at them.”

Gunther nodded slowly. “Do you know how to fight?”

“Fight? Like yell?”

Gunther laughed. “No. Man fight. Fists up, chest out, head back.”

Tom shook his head slowly.

Gunther leaned forward. “Well, maybe you should learn.”

“From you,” said Tom very seriously.

“Yes, from me. If you want to be a war pilot, you might as well find out if you like fighting. I mean, it’s a good thing you don’t fight with your brother.”

Tom frowned. “How come?”

“That’s not fighting. That’s like spitting from a bridge. A real warrior never fights like that. That’s how diplomats and women fight.”

“What’s a dipple-mat?”

Gunther paused. “No, that’ll have to wait.”

There was a pause. The wailing continued from downstairs.

“What do we do now?” asked Tom.

Gunther grinned, then stood up suddenly.

“Do you play cards?” he asked.

They played for the majority of the afternoon. Ruth ventured downstairs, but Gunther sent her back up again.

Eventually, there was a wail from downstairs.

“Guuuntheeeeer!”

Gunther leapt up and ran down the front hall. He unlocked the cellar door and opened it. Reginald sat on the cold ground, his fists clenched.

“I have to use the lavatory!”

“Where is the destroyer?”

“I—I’ve thought about it, but I know that someone moved it. I bet it was Tom, that it…”

“Reginald,” said Gunther softly, cutting him off. He walked over and squatted in front of the boy, cocking his head to one side so their heads were more or less at the same angle. “Reginald, did you put that destroyer away?”

“Yeah…”

“But you don’t know where it is now. Tom doesn’t play with ships. Your mother doesn’t play with ships. No one else in this whole house plays with ships. So if you can’t find it, it’s because you are lying about putting it away. No wait—shh, shh.” Gunther leaned forward and touched Reginald’s wet cheek. “I don’t think you’re a bad child. You told a lie because you wanted to make your life a little easier—and that’s all right. We all want to do that, because we don’t know that lying actually makes our lives a lot harder—and the lives of those around us. And by the time we do know that, it’s often too late. So today, I’m making your life harder because you are lying, but that’s not just my rule. It’s a rule of life.” Gunther shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving Reginald’s. “Not personal. I’m not trying to beat you, or make you cry, or win. If you were playing with matches, I’d take them away. You want to lie, I have to take that away, too. For the same reason. Do you see what I mean?”

“Yes…”

Tom appeared in the doorway, tears in his eyes.

“So now, I’m going to let you out you, and we’re going to get you something to eat, and then we’re going to talk about the toys outside, all right?”

There was a short pause. “All right.”

Gunther took a step back, leaving a space in front of the door. As soon as he did so, Reginald shot forward, past him, out into the hallway, where he turned and smiled.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I really cannot sit and listen to lectures from a coward who won’t even pick up a gun and do his Christian duty.”

So saying, he grabbed his yellow anorak and walked out the front door, out into the rain, past the drowning toys.

Tom’s face was white. Gunther stood up slowly, then walked over to Tom and put his hand on the boy’s head. Tom’s shoulders contracted painfully. He desperately wanted the words which were to come—though he didn’t know what they were to be—to not come. For Gunther not to say what Gunther was about to say.

But Gunther said them anyway.

“Beyond saving,” he said with slow, thick clarity.

Tom burst into tears, burying his face in the older man’s thigh, clutching at his thick trousers. “The destroyer is in the blue trunk in our room! That’s where I put it! That’s where it’s supposed to be!”

“I know,” murmured Gunther, stroking the boy’s hair, staring out into the rain, at the receding yellow boy. “I know.”

Chapter 7

Reginald had all the attributes of a successful school boy, highly respected prefect, and future scion of the intellectual empire of the West. He had almost no inner life, and so no hesitations, no conflicts, no doubts. Everything was unconscious, everything assumed; he had all the fate of defenses disguised as instincts.

Tom, on the other hand, was quite often wracked with doubt. His relationship to rules, for instance—unlike Reginald’s—was complex. One day, at boarding school, Tom vaulted the iron fence over to the sanatorium to retrieve an errant soccer ball, and on return had been met by a grim-faced group of prefects. His brother lurked in the background.

“Attaboy, Tom,” said Edward the Head Prefect, a fresh-faced boy of glassy, soulless perfection. “Not many new boys have the guts for that kind of move.”

“Um—thanks,” said Tom, rolling the ball in his grimy hands.

“Against the rules, of course, so you’ll have to take your licks, but we can all admire a renegade. Cheers.”

Tom took a step backwards. “Well, I shan’t do it again.”

“I am quite convinced of that,” smiled Edward. “That is what we prefects are all about. It’s why we patrol. To ensure that no one does anything wrong twice.”

“The Empire is built on daring and obedience, Tom,” added Reginald. “You have the first. Now, you must learn the second.”

“Come on then,” said Edward, leaning forward and pinching Tom’s earlobe painfully.

They surrounded Tom and marched him up to the headmaster’s office, and he had to wait outside while they made their report.

After a few minutes, Tom was called in. The headmaster was a deity of the Old Empire, with a pale face, jug ears, a high, broad forehead, and delicately thinning, colorless hair.

“Sit down, Tom,” said the headmaster. The prefects left the office; as he passed, Reginald pinched the flesh on Tom’s hip savagely, almost making him cry out. Tom said nothing, though. He knew the rules; it was only honorable to squeal down the chain of command.

“So, Tom, you took it upon yourself to retrieve this football—which I would, actually, appreciate you leaving in the hallway.”

Tom got up, put the football outside, came back, and sat down again.

The headmaster stared at him blankly for a moment, then said: “This is your first transgression, so we shall have to have a little chat about it. Is it my understanding that you in fact know that it was against school rules to go over the sanatorium fence?”

Tom tried to speak, then swallowed and tried again. “Yes, sir, I did.”

The headmaster leaned forward. He seemed very tired, which in Tom’s short experience always was the first sign of impending violence from authority.

“But you went ahead anyway. Explain.”

“I…” Tom paused. Some part of his brain knew that he was supposed to come up with some sort of story, something like youthful enthusiasm, a desire to finish the football game and bring honor for his team. That’s what Reginald would do, he thought. Well, Reginald would never go over the fence anyway… He would get some younger boy to go over for him. But that part of his brain never seemed to work very well. He did not have that kind of energy, the energy to create and sustain a self-serving fiction.

“I disagree with the rule, sir,” he said.

The Headmaster stared again, then rubbed his eyes. “I see. And are there any other rules with which you disagree?”

Tom frowned, surprised to be asked. Could this be a chance for justice? “Yes, sir. Yes.”

“Ah. Please,” gestured the headmaster. “Enlighten me.”

Tom nodded, pursing his lips. “Well, we always line up alphabetically, by last name then first name. So, I’m always behind my brother. I think it should be reversed every second time…”

“Go on.”

“Well, the tuck shop is only open for two hours a day, when the upper boys are out of class, so the new boys never get to it on time. So the upper boys end up selling sweets to us, for a lot more money. And it’s hard to wear garters on our socks when it’s very hot out. And choirboys should get cushions when visitors come to listen, ’cause sometimes we’re sitting for two hours or more. And we need more songbooks; some of the pages have been torn out, to make paper airplanes I guess, and sometimes some of us can’t sing ’cause we don’t have the words or music. And the new boys are always stuck next to the organ, and it’s so loud we can’t even hear ourselves, and I’m deaf in one ear for hours afterwards. ’Specially after Easter. And…”

The Headmaster held up his hand. Tom stopped instantly. “Tell me this, young Mr. Spencer. Do you know what the word ‘cause’ refers to?”

“The—something that brings an effect about?”

“Actually, yes. More or less correct. However, it’s use as an abbreviation for the term ‘because’ indicates a thoroughly callous and lower-class attitude towards the King’s English. Scarcely the sort of thing we’re fighting for, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The same could be said for the word ‘especially,’ which despite your usage, actually does have a first syllable.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“As for your other issues, I will tell you a story before administering your punishment. When I was a young man, in the Boer War, I raised some objections—similar to yours—about matters of dress. Shoes in particular. Mine were very hot. I suggested softer shoes in warmer weather. My commanding officer took me at face value, and provided me with the shoes I requested, and then asked me to march around the compound for ten hours straight. The shoes gave out just before I did. And then I understood. I kept the book of army rules in my chest pocket for the remainder of the war. I still keep it with me.” The headmaster pulled out a small black book from the chest pocket of his crisp shirt and handed it to Tom. Tom fingered a deep hole in the front.

The headmaster’s voice sharpened. “That hole, young man, comes from a bullet which was stopped by my army rulebook. And that is when I finally appreciated that rules—even if you do not agree with them—can save your life. Do you understand?”

Tom frowned, touching the bullet hole. He raised his head, then lowered it again. What if the bullet had been two inches to the left or right? Would that make rules useless? He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He felt a terror beyond measure. He looked up at the headmaster. “I understand the story, sir,” he said finally.

The headmaster nodded, took the book back, tucked it into his pocket, and stood up. A cane was leaning against his desk.

“Now, my boy, I want you to bend over and take your punishment like a soldier, and remember that rules must be obeyed even without understanding. It is the very foundation of our society. Of civilization itself.”

Tom did as he was told, and the headmaster took position behind him. There was a slight, whiffy swish, and then the cane slashed into his backside.

The pain—it was as if a spiderweb of fiery acid raced through his very innards, branding his bones. The headmaster grunted with the effort, and Tom closed his eyes.

There were twelve blows in all. Tom refused, refused, refused to pass out…

Reginald was waiting for him in the hallway outside.

“I’m to take you to the nurse,” he said, grabbing Tom’s elbow.

“Slow—slow!” gasped Tom, tears coursing down his cheeks.

“Can’t have our young rebels getting infected, can we now?” asked Reginald. “No football for a while, for you, eh, Tommy?”

“You bastard!” groaned Tom, as Reginald yanked him down the stairs.

“Now, now,” grinned Reginald. “That’s your mother you’re talking about.”

When they went home that summer—the summer of 1918, the last summer of the Great War—they found their mother in deep disarray.

The house was clean as always; Catherine, the nanny, saw to that. Food was delivered and prepared on time; the cook saw to that. But Ruth kept to bed, with a nameless illness that seemed to hollow out the dark heart of the home.

She was pale, thin, listless, exhausted. This was a great terror to her boys; mothers cannot fail without taking the souls of their sons with them. In family legend, Tom had always been her favorite, and he was very gentle with her. Reginald, who was forever considered a reincarnation of all that Ruth found objectionable in her husband, either kept his distance or stomped into her room with a great show of exasperation and boredom. To save her nerves, Ruth sent him to spend a month with family friends in Dorset.

After that, for Tom, the summer became very strange. It was like living in an anthill; the workers all crawled and struggled with giant leaves, building and feeding and protecting a nest which contained nothing but a stagnant queen who seemed dead to the world, to her family, her own heart. His mother sweated through the still heat of an English summer.

Tom went to sleep thinking of her; dreamed about her, and awoke to further imaginings of what she might need, what strange combination of herbs, teas, and jokes might rejuvenate her. He went down to the kitchen first thing, and made tea and toast. He would bring it up the four flights of stairs to his mother’s bedroom, his arms aching with the strain of not spilling.

Entering her bedroom was an act of will; he sometimes felt nauseated. She had lost so much weight that the covers barely rose above her skeleton. It was a bed with a head, nothing more. Her hair was bushy, wild. The maids could do nothing with her, but sometimes Tom could convince her to let him wash it, and he did so slowly, massaging her loose scalp, dreaming that the soap suds could slither down through her scalp, into her brain, and wash clean the stain that pinned her down.

It was a summer full of weak weepiness and stale sentimentality. An allergic pollen seemed to hang in the air, stinging the eyes into useless tears. Ruth would sometimes lever herself onto her elbows—they creaked audibly, and Tom was terrified that they would crack suddenly, like wet pressed sticks. She chewed on her toast forever; crumbs would spill onto her chin, but she would not wipe them, and Tom was afraid to; he tried brushing them off with his own chin when he kissed her.

He read to her. She resisted any news of the war by turning her head and emitting shuddering sobs. She smelled of sweat—and, twice, blood. The maids washed her every week; Tom was too terrified of that, of navigating her flesh; he felt it would be an endless desert that would wither him, dry him out, leaving his bones beyond use for vultures.

The doctor came. Tom heard the words; hysteria, hypochondria, melancholia, neurasthenia, but they sagged under the weight of the old man’s indifference. They brought no prop to her lassitude.

Ruth did not resist her youngest son’s entrance, or respond to his readings or stories or questions, but she did sometimes moan when he crept away, when he thought she might be asleep, and he would freeze at the door, his heart pounding. He became frantic. He wanted to give her something, carve off half—or more—of his staunch young heart, give her blood, or marrow, or hope.

In early August—three weeks after Reginald’s departure to Dorset—the monologues began.

For Tom, these speeches were the hardest part of her illness. In his mind’s eye, they bent him backwards, almost double, like a sapling in a hurricane.

“There is so much that is gone,” she would whisper, her back to him, her fist working back and forth before her mouth, as if she were trying to weakly punch her own words. “Your grandfather got a sunburn that was so bad that he needed help putting on his shirt. When was that? 1883? I was twelve, perhaps. My eldest brother loved whales. He sang underwater—it was so funny, you could hear him if you lay still. He had three moles on his thigh, a perfect—perfect triangle. He loved a girl called Theresa. She lives in Scotland now. My middle brother, Daniel, could whistle almost every bird sound you ever heard. In winter, he was so loud, we said, he could wake the buds on trees. My—my younger brother, Wesley, he opened his mouth only to eat or say yes and no. I never even saw him yawn. He didn’t like his teeth. Everything is in ashes in the air over France. Their lives were like water going down a drain. Nothing is left, nothing except what I remember. I am too full. I think about them all the time. Father was a baritone; Stephen a tenor—he loved to sing, but thought he sounded like a girl when he spoke. Wesley was a bass, but hated to sing. They had to force him. He sang almost without opening his mouth. Oh god they sounded so sweet. When I was in bed I could hear them practicing in the music room. I never got to hear a song all the way through. They would start and stop and argue and start again. Sometimes it was one verse, for an hour or more. I went mad.”

Unseen by his mother, Tom would place his hands over his eyes. The wallpaper seemed too vivid; the painted flowers seemed to be growing before his vision.

“Father was a fair man; he wanted no stories. He judged us by our sincerity. Wesley was a great pretender, probably because his mouth was always closed. He was the strongest. They wrestled, always after singing, like they wanted to be manly again. Wesley won, most times; Stephen would wait until Daniel had tired Wesley out and then win, sometimes. Wesley was a sulker when he lost. He always made up excuses. Stephen was the best at Latin, but Daniel had the best memory; he could do pages and pages on Cicero without skipping a syllable.” Ruth’s voice broke. “They wanted war. They had been waiting for it. They cared nothing for business. It was like cricket, Stephen said, where only one team walks off the pitch. Wesley used to write to me about crickets. They always kept him up as a child, but not in France. He was too tired. There were no crickets after a while. He missed them. He did not think it a good omen that there were no more crickets. If insects could not live there, what chance did he have? He never said that, but I knew. I think they all knew. Eight days before he died, Daniel wrote down the names of everyone he wanted me to remember him to. It was six pages, small writing. His memory… Father gave me lots of advice in his last letter. Carry on, he said. Do not mourn the past. It was like he had already taken up residence there, like being underwater and watching the bottom of a boat sail away. Love Quentin, he said, as if I needed reminding. Which I did. I do. I do. And the boys…”

Her fist tightened and tried to enter her rambling mouth.

“And I carry everything inside, everything that they were and, sometimes, everything that they were going to be. Everything. I am a museum of broken history, the only visitor. All these details, all gone. I could tell them all, to everyone, but never get it quite right. I want to go back and write everything down, but I forget, even now more things come, faster than I could say. And it’s like there’s this other world, this world of before, and it’s the only place I want to go. I only want to talk to dead soldiers. I want to be held by—by corpses.” She cried. “And that’s for me too, for my life. All my details will be gone. Water down a spout. Nothing important is ever kept. We all go to ash, to the sky. I don’t want to knit anything. Or clean. Or read. It all goes. The past is the only place we are safe. Memories are the only future…”

And she would continue, sometimes all afternoon, until her voice was cracked and faded, like old porcelain under a shelf. And the weight of all this history hung heavy on Tom’s narrow frame, like wide icicles on a little tree.

In mid-August, he brought her a bird. He brought her a bird, and Reginald came back.

During one of her rambles, Ruth had expressed a feverish desire to be a bird, to be able to fly away. Walking in the garden afterwards, Tom had found a little brown thrush hopping in circles, dragging its wing. He had caught it, and brought it to his mother.

He knew she would cry, but the depth of the torrent was unexpected. Ruth held the bird in her hands, weeping so hard that Tom was afraid that her skin would collapse inward, into dry raisin furrows. “Milk and bread!” she sobbed.

Tom went to get these, and watched as his mother dipped the milk-soaked bread into the yawning red beak of the thrush. “Cheep, cheep!” she whispered in a high falsetto, staring through unblinking eyes. Tom could scarcely bear it.

The bird did get better over the next few days, but then Tom was awakened by a high keening sound, and ran upstairs to his mother’s room. She lay on her side, facing the wall, and the cage he had fashioned out of balsa wood was empty.

Tom ran around, calling for the bird. The cook informed him that Reginald had taken the bird out into the garden.

Outside, Tom found Reginald and Elizabeth, the pretty daughter of their neighbors. Reginald was cooing at the bird; Elizabeth stood about ten feet away. As he watched, Reginald cried out: “Fly, birdie!” and threw the thrush at Elizabeth. She caught it, almost snatching it from the air, and then took a step backwards and threw it back at Reginald.

“Stop! Stop!” shouted Tom, running forward. Reginald grabbed the bird, then threw it back at Elizabeth.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“What are you doing?” cried Tom.

Elizabeth laughed. “We’re teaching the bird to fly!” She threw it back at Reginald. It shot past him and crashed into the grass, rolling awkwardly before flopping to a stop.

“Now look!” cried Reginald. “You made me miss it!”

Tom ran over to the bird, which lay on its side, its beak frozen open. He picked it up gently; its head lolled, and its tiny weight rolled in his hand like a little bag of broken sticks.

“It almost flew that time!” said Elizabeth, coming up.

“What, is it not doing well?” asked Reginald. “They have to learn how to fly, otherwise releasing them is just cruel.”

Ignoring them, Tom turned and walked into the kitchen. The cook glanced up.

“That the bird?” he asked, squinting at Tom’s cupped hands.

Tom nodded.

“Bring him upstairs then—don’t muck about with him here!”

“I think…”

“What?” asked the cook, standing by his side.

Tom opened his hands. One little claw twitched and curled.

“Oh, dear,” said the cook. “That doesn’t look good. Go on then—take him up to your mother. Maybe she can help.”

Tom’s breath hissed between his teeth. “No.”

“Up to you,” shrugged the cook, returning to his cutting board.

Reginald and Elizabeth came into the kitchen.

“It’s fine,” said Reginald, glancing at Elizabeth. “Just tired.”

Tom shook his head slowly.

“Oh, give him here,” cried Reginald, snatching the bird from Tom’s hands. “We’ll put him back in his cage. Wait here, Liz,” he said, turning and running up the stairs, two at a time.

Almost against his will, Tom forced himself to climb the stairs. In her bedroom, his mother was sitting fully upright in bed.

“Give me the bird,” she said to Reginald, who was holding the thrush in one hand while trying to open the cage door with the other.

“It’s fine, mother. He’s just tired.”

“Now!” she shouted suddenly. Both children flinched. Reginald took two steps toward the bed and rolled the bird into his mother’s outstretched hands.

She pulled the creature close to her chest, and lowered her head, her hair falling forward, obscuring the bird, like a little waterfall.

“Cheep, cheep!” she cried, stroking its lolling head. There was a faint squeak from the bird.

“Cheep, cheep,” echoed their mother. The house seemed unnaturally still; even the cook’s knife had stopped its endless chopping. “Cheep, cheep.”

There was no answer. Ruth lay her head back against the headboard. Her hands opened slowly, and the dead thrush’s wings unfolded against her pale skin. Tom stared at Reginald, who gazed in pure hatred at their mother.

Chapter 8

After that summer, Ruth’s life seemed to be a parabola without a downward limit. She had been raised by giants, and those giants had been yanked skyward, never to return, and she fell into their footprints, into their trenches, and now wandered lost in the red mud of their endings.

Depression is not the worst thing, because the violence is always self-inflicted, and to suffer wrong is always better than to do wrong. Ruth was depressed; hers was a naïveté cut so deep that it never healed over. She had been a light, airy, challenging young woman, who laughed gaily and flew from depth, and was fascinated by Quentin from their first meeting. Before the war, Quentin was a lightning bolt of unconsidered energy. He moved through evening parties like a tumbleweed of dry, intense goodwill, pressing hands, remembering everyone’s job, everyone’s name, everyone’s children’s names. He was an empty hotel, peopled by the details of other people’s lives. He was a two-handed handshaker—and, occasionally, he would clasp both hand and forearm—which made the recipients of his goodwill tingle with goosebumps.

Before the war, Ruth was pale, slender of waist, and puffy of face. During the war, she moved with the languorous grace of the depressed insomniac. She had been consumed by the vanity of mourning, and all the attentions paid to the catastrophically forlorn. And then, in 1918, when it was all over, in her heart of hearts, she missed the war: the tension, the days organized by scanning newspapers, collecting metal, and being afraid. She still read the newspaper, but was bored by the small news of fiscal policies and peacetime crimes. She wanted—almost needed—a world-convulsion to bring her out of herself. Only an earthquake could spit her out of her own grave.

Quentin, for his part, returned to a wife he no longer recognized. Her capacity to become excited by clothing, by the petty actions of others, by a new sauce or fabric, her delight in all the transient distractions of the senses, had all vanished, and she was now like a stiff ghost. Her heart was slack, but her muscles never relaxed.

There was the great question, of course, of how long they should refrain from making love, out of respect for the millions of dead. Quentin felt that the business of life was worth getting on with—the more who had died, well the more should be seeded, to replenish the race and allow the names of the fallen to rise again. But that was not part of his wife’s thinking. After six months, they took a few stabs at it, but Ruth just went through the motions, and he felt too angry to continue. She was inert, and would not talk about it, and it quickly became too horrible to contemplate.

And Quentin could take that rejection. He thought, sex is a young man’s game, and, like Socrates, I should look forward to freedom from the demon of lust. Besides, he did not wish to resuscitate Ruth for his own sake, but for the sake of his sons.

He had great respect for Catherine, the nanny, who lay like a great warm lagoon at the center of his household, but she was scarcely sophisticated enough to bring the boys to fruition. They needed language, art, and the lighter play of delicate feelings. Catherine, to him, represented all the untamed passions of the lower classes, whose feelings raged like wild paint against a white canvas. His sons needed more delicate brushes, a lighter touch—and more subtle colors.

This was the province of his wife. He could teach them about the world, the male world of still faces, deep motives, soft alliances and silent stabbings, but navigating that world was impossible without delicacy of feeling. He could speak of that world, describe its rules, but steering through its infinite shoals required that his wife elevate their hearts from Catherine’s simple land of tough fables to something more artistic, more elevated, more slippery, more dangerous. No one fears men who wear their hearts on their sleeves. He was afraid that they would grow up to be blubberers, pantywaists, sentimental men who could move others in an extremity, but were never respected by them.

But Quentin could not rouse his wife, and so their children remained always just beyond her grasp. That was not the end of the world for Reginald, because Quentin had great affinity for him, but there was something very fundamental about Tom that Quentin was unable to grasp. Something self-contained, alien and threatening, a deep river he would be lost in, in an instant, should he ever step in.

Tom grew up keeping his distance from Reginald. They had little interaction at school; Reginald had a circle of sharp, well-dressed, resolutely unathletic friends. On holidays, Reginald went to visit his friends for long periods—once, he spent almost the whole summer on an estate near Cheltenham. When Reginald was away, Quentin would spend weekdays in London, only returning to the country house midmorning Saturday, almost always with a friend or five in tow.

Tom liked staying at home during the summer, lazing on a lawn chair, reading or playing the recorder. He loved turning his face to the sun and letting its light paint the purple skin of his eyelids with bright neon portraits of—well, nothing at all, really, except the joy of heat and light and dreaming. In the evenings, Tom would spend time with Catherine, helping her in the kitchen, reading her a story or showing her a model airplane he had made. They often ate together, just the two of them.

Reginald’s contempt for his mother was one of the icier bedrocks of the household. Ruth felt it deeply, woundingly; it was one of the few family feelings which could skewer through the numbness of her depression. They had not touched in years; it was almost as if Reginald thought she was unclean somehow, or contagious.

He made little secret of it. His hatred was strong, deep, pure. It was hard to say just when it had started. He had pulled away early; he always twisted out of both Catherine and Ruth’s embraces. As he grew up, he sighed whenever his mother talked at dinner, or made loud clattering sounds with his cutlery. Once, when they were in Harrods, a department store in London, she had mislaid her purse briefly, and her voice began to rise and tremble, as she tried to picture how they would get home. Reginald had looked up at her, his pale green eyes watery with contempt.

“You’re only embarrassing yourself, mother,” he had said slowly, clearly, and all the remaining afternoon, the sentence had lashed in stinging waves at her heart. What can one say after an utterance like that? He’s only eight, and already so able to wound!

Ruth attempted to rally. Perhaps Reginald hated her because she was too easy on him, so she began to ask him to do more chores, run errands, but he proved maddeningly inert. If she came in to ask him for something more than twice, he would sigh, not looking up from his reading, and chant:

“Yes, mum, no mum, three bags full, mum…”

Ruth would stand above him, behind him, in his blind spot, afraid of her rage, fighting mightily against the desire to strike her eldest son, because it was not about striking him once, as a correction, but she felt that he wound up her muscles so tight that, once she started, she would not stop flailing at him until her nails met bone.

So Ruth began to avoid her eldest son, and an awful inner dialogue began to emerge in her head, joining the great chorus on the her endless, bed-ridden roundabout:

He is the child, I am the parent… I cannot abandon him just because he displeases me. I cannot turn away; he knows not what he does. But how am I supposed to love the hate-filled little goblin? It would be intolerably hypocritical. But I cannot ask him what the matter is, or what I have done, because he thinks me so hopeless that I must be coddled, and never know the truth of my infirmities. But what on earth are those infirmities? Does he know, or is he just hoping that, in the face of his scorn, I will manufacture them for myself? The little brute—how did he get so good at this? Certainly he has not his father’s patience; Quentin listens to my concerns, even if he doesn’t share them. I should get some female friends. But what would I have to say? I should be terribly dull. Everything I have is in this house. And little Tommy is my own secret heart. Catherine thinks I am malingering. I know. I see. They way she snaps the sheets. Her one-word answers. Compressed lips. I don’t have her grim Protestant endurance. I would put my cares from me if I could, if I knew how—or even knew what my cares were, which seems impossible enough. Dear lord, I have ennui—please send me a remedy. Hide it in the lyrics of a hymn, I don’t care. But no such succor will be mine. No one is coming to save me. There is precious little left to save. O my father!

And another crying jag would come along, and the house would fall silent, and all hands would stop, as the lost daughter cried, high up in the sky of the house.

As the whispery crying continued, something would begin to grow in Tom’s mind, deep and dark, like an oozing of oil at the bottom of the sea. His mother, in her room, just below the roof, sitting there, in her bed, staring… Tom would find himself unable to shake this vision, and would slowly rise towards her room, where, he was sure, she awaited him. By the time he was eleven, this journey was almost inevitable. If I do not go to her, he felt, she will scarcely last another day…

And so he went, and developed the more antic and irresponsible parts of his nature, in order to wring a rare smile from her thin-lipped face. Her face was a terrible picture; it seemed, sometimes, as if she were a portrait in reverse; where a portrait has a face on one side and the wall has two holes for nails to hang it from, Ruth’s face had two black holes where the eyes should be, and her face hung like a lank sheet between them.

But she was not beyond provocation, so Tom would bring all the cuttings of his day to her, and attempt to rouse her dying head for one more sip of the deep lake of life.

“I saw a dog today,” said Tom, sitting by her bed and stroking her hand (how the bones rolled, like little sticks in silk!), “and it had only three legs, but it ran so fast that I couldn’t tell until it slowed down. Why does God give dogs four legs, I wonder, when they can do just as well with three?”

“So they’ll have one to spare,” murmured Ruth, looking away. Tom felt rather than saw her deep-skull welling of tears, and went on, a little desperately.

“And in my aircraft, my new model Sopwith, there’s a little plastic man, and I have to paint him, but he has no eyes, I mean other than plastic eyes, so I used a hot needle to poke a hole where his eyes are, and that makes him look both deep-seeing and blind at the same time, but there’s nothing in the instructions to say what I should do.”

Ruth shuddered at this, and Tom realized that digging out vision with a needle was not quite the right tack. So instead, he moved on to a topic which was sure to rouse his mother, just a little.

“I wonder what Reginald will become…”

Ruth’s eyes flashed distantly, like a turning sword in a deep pond. “He will be whatever he sets his mind out to be!” she said vehemently.

“I think so,” said Tom. “He’s too clever by half. Do you know that no one at school calls him ‘Reggie’? That’s something. Not even the older boys.”

“Politics,” said Ruth. “It will be politics. Nothing less. Nothing else.”

“Well,” added Tom. “It will be nothing to do with business, at any rate.”

“Business is a filthy game; look what it has done to your…” And here Ruth trailed off.

Tom smiled. “Reginald has something about him that makes people respect him. He doesn’t even try for it. I really think he might save the world. And everyone will send you flowers!”

Ruth’s eyes glazed over again, and Tom frowned, then realized: Oh, that sounds like something the world would do to someone who had died—next topic, next topic! I wish I could juggle!

“Reginald and his friends are like big hot-air balloons; they will all rise together. That’s why it’s so important that they spend their summers together. So they will know everything about each other when they run England. I am glad of it; they will be a grand crew. Very serious, and very grand.”

“Oh, Tom!” cried Ruth, throwing her arms around him and pulling him to her. He struggled for a moment, thrown off balance, and then hugged her with all the might of his young frame, aching to infuse her with something, something… The thought flew at him: what is the opposite of ‘morbid’?

“And you will keep the world for me,” she whispered, stroking his hair. “You will keep me with the world.”

And then Tom felt that there was another kind of hot-air balloon underneath him, and that he was rising with his mother to an unearthly realm where curtains obscured the ground below, and the past rose above them, like a great night without stars, to swallow them into nothing.

Chapter 9

When Reginald was fifteen, he won a scholarship to study in France for a year. There was great celebration in the family—which Tom was supposed to participate in, despite never having been told about any scholarships himself.

As Reginald packed, Tom sat on his bed, picking at balls of lint on the blanket.

“I’ll miss you,” he said, a little theatrically. It seemed the right thing to say.

“You’ll be fine,” said Reginald briskly. Tom could sense that his brother was terrified that he, Tom, would cry.

There was a silence for a time.

Reginald sighed. “It will give you the chance to make your own friends at school. Spread your wings. Be a good chap and don’t sniffle!” he said sharply, though Tom had not made a sound.

Will you miss me, will you miss me? The thought chased its own tail in Tom’s mind. But he was terrified to ask it. He stared out the window, at a tall tree towering over the little wood they used to wage war in. I miss those days, he thought suddenly, and felt a lump in his throat. Will I never grow up?

“Please go and ask mother to make me some tea,” said Reginald, struggling to close his suitcase.

Reginald was gone for over a year. Quentin spent a good deal of time traveling for business, and visiting Reginald in France. Tom would see the postcards, stuck into the corner of the mirror in the front hall, and would stare, dumbfounded, at all the fun that was being had in his absence. Skiing, hiking, cathedrals. Brussels, even! His skin was hot with the endless scalding of young injustice.

He could not fight the feeling that he had been left behind as a kind of cork in his mother’s throat. He was thrown to her, to maul and play with, as his brother and father shouted and iced down snowy mountains. Reginald doesn’t love Mummy, Tom would think, carrying a tray up the stairs to his mother. Neither does Daddy. And they don’t love me, either. They want to be far away, and they don’t even care if we know it!

To Tom’s shame, his mother clung to him in a way she would never have dared if either Reginald or Quentin had been home. Before, Quentin spent a good deal of time prying his wife off Tom—but he had recently given up on that task, and now had clearly decided to infuse Reginald with some masculine essence that Tom would not benefit from. Because I am beyond hope, he thought sadly. And so I have been given to mother, to keep her quiet…

And it was during this time, this time of darkness and claustrophobic maternal neediness, that Tom’s morality deserted him.

He had been a moral child, even before he knew two-syllable words. He had lost a treasured pen at school, and heard that one had been found, and had gone to claim it. But the gold pen was not his, and he had said as much. The teacher was surprised, and praised his honesty. He repaid forgotten tuck shop debts. He was kind to lonely boys. He passed the ball in soccer.

But something left him when he entered puberty. All his grand visions and inner purity were washed out of him. Even Catherine could not reach him, lost in the shade of his mother. He became idle, dreamy, distracted, dull, and inert. His reading habits regressed, to comic books and fairy tales. He played with younger boys, until they giggled and rolled their eyes as he approached, and he felt too humiliated to continue. He was alone. He began to hate sunrise, getting up, saying good morning. He was exhausted all the time. His mother would not stop talking, and he gave up trying to fight her. He nodded when she spoke, no longer pointing out her endless contradictions or trying to get a word in edgewise. He would slouch against a piano, playing minor keys very slowly, until chased outside, where he would roam the woods, feeling itchy and out of place.

Boredom and exhaustion plagued him, and he faced the world with downcast eyes and an endless shrug. He descended to a new pack of companions; town boys who were witless and resentful and wild. They stole from shops, roamed the streets for hours and performed feats of senseless physical daring. They rode bicycles down steep hills and crossed train-track bridges at night and argued about the name of their club. Tom neglected his pet mouse, until it escaped, and was seen no more. Tom still pretended to feed it, though, because he was unable to stand his mother’s hysteria at the thought of a mouse loose in the house.

His school marks dipped a little, but Tom was able to coast on talent. He gravitated towards solitary sports; running and swimming. He slept poorly, turning in his sheets for hours, until he looked as if he were wrapped in an enormous white rope. He would stare in despair at his thigh, wishing for a switch to make him fall asleep. Sleep would come, heavily, a few hours before morning, and he would always be jarred into waking by his mother’s bright, empty greeting, by her short bursts of morning energy. It seemed that she loved nothing more than to stand by his door and recite long lists of things he had to do, before he had even gotten out of bed. And, of course, she would chastise him for taking so long to get out of bed, but he couldn’t get up with her in the doorway, could he? So annoying, so annoying…

When Reginald finally returned from France, he took a rather dim view of Tom’s activities and friends—not to mention his slovenly appearance and poor personal hygiene. He took to giving Tom long lectures:

“Tom, you really must try and look in the mirror and strive to see yourself as others see you. For instance, you have a stain on your collar, and your tie leans to one side. What do you think that says to others? That you don’t respect yourself, or your appearance. First impressions count for everything. You look like a sullen, uncooperative specimen, who would as soon fly at you as give you the time of day. Is that really how you wish to appear? Oh, for God’s sake! Are you crying? I would have thought that, by now, you would have outgrown such blubbering!”

The world seemed made entirely of broken glass, and everywhere that Tom turned, some essential part of his flesh would be cut. He did not like other people, but could not concentrate when alone. He bought a harmonica, and played ‘Taps’ over and over, agonizingly slowly, while reading comic books in his room. He envied Reginald’s self-discipline, assurance, and poise, but he could not rouse himself to take that course.

And then, there was the terrible time of the Great Theft.

Reginald had been given ten pounds by an aunt, and kept it in a little envelope on his nightstand. Tom wanted to buy a picture-book about the Amazon, which cost forty-five pence. He had no money, and hated asking his mother or father for some. His mother would cry out that she had no money of her own, but was dependent on Quentin, and his father would ask to know what Tom intended to buy. Tom would have to tell the truth, because Quentin would require proof of purchase. Quentin would never approve of a grown boy of fourteen buying a picture-book. “What,” Tom could imagine him saying, “should we also budget for some coloring crayons for you?”

So, one night, Tom took some change from Reginald’s envelope, and bought the book.

He was amazed at how quickly Reginald knew. He had barely settled into his bed (they now had separate rooms, at Reginald’s insistence), when Reginald came in without knocking.

Tom’s heart thudded painfully. He attempted to cover up the book with his covers, but to no avail.

Reginald’s face was a cold mask. “Tom, where did you get that book from?”

“I… What book?”

“The one on your lap,” said Reginald slowly.

“I… I found it.”

“You found it,” repeated Reginald. He came in, closed the door, and pulled a chair up to Tom’s bed. “Are you sure that you found it?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see it, please.”

“Excuse me, but it’s mine…” said Tom in a small voice, holding the book tightly.

“Well, if you found it, it might not be yours then, correct? Give it over.”

Tom felt hot humiliation. “But I really think that…”

Reginald barked: “Tom!”

Tom handed the book over without a word. Reginald flipped the cover closed and glanced at the back, then nodded, his lips compressed.

“Forty-five pence. Exactly.”

Reginald settled back in his chair, flicking his hair back from his pale forehead. Tom reached to his night table for some chewing gum.

“Would you like some?” he asked, extending his hand.

“No,” said Reginald, his eyes wide at the non sequitur. He cocked his head and stared at Tom.

Half-surreptitiously, Tom wriggled out from under his covers. It felt better to be a little more out in the open. He heard clatterings from downstairs, and suddenly wished that Catherine was in the room with them. She wouldn’t damn him for stealing. She would ask him why he stole. Because I have been stolen from! he imagined himself crying back, having no idea what the words meant. His heart hammered, a wet drumbeat of mortal danger.

“Tom, I want to tell you something,” said Reginald finally. “You are dangerously close to becoming the kind of boy that nobody likes. The kind of boy that you used to scorn, in your better days. Your old friends have just about given up on you. They see you, as we all do, just drifting off into your own little world. And, as for your new chums, well, I don’t think that I have to say too much about them. They are little more than contemptible rabble.”

Reginald shrugged. “And that is all your choice, of course, because no one else seems able to tell you how to live. You scorn good advice, and just seem content to…to slide down the easy path of slow failure and low companions.” Reginald waved a hand. “So—such are your evident choices. And you are welcome to them, such as they are.” His face darkened. “But now you are going down quite a different path, and one which I cannot stand idly by and witness without speaking up.” Reginald smiled. “For all the good it will do.”

“What—what path?” asked Tom, striving for defiance, but failing utterly.

Reginald laughed. “Oh, you’re very brave now. Now that you’re cornered.”

“I found it!” cried Tom.

“Oh, please!” snapped Reginald. “Don’t insult me. This book costs forty-five pence, and I am, since this morning, missing exactly forty-five pence from my night table.”

Tom tried to pull the wrapper off his remaining piece of chewing gum, but it had been warmed, and the wrapper stuck. He began picking at it.

“So you lost your money,” he said softly. “It’s not my fault.”

“Are you really going to maintain that this is just a coincidence?” asked Reginald, shaking his head. “I mean, really! Are you going to sit there and tell me that the fact that forty-five pence of my money goes missing at exactly the same time you claim to ‘find’ a book worth forty-five pence? Wait—before you answer that, answer this: did you go into town this morning?”

“Well, yes! Am I supposed to check with you about that too? Can I not…”

“Yes, well you can protest all you like,” interrupted Reginald, “but the fact of the matter is that you went to town, and so had the capacity to buy this book. Are you still going to claim that you found this book?”

“I did! It was lying on the pavement, in a wrapper!”

“Do you have the wrapper?”

“No… I threw it out before coming home.”

“What did you do in town?”

“I went to the toy shop and looked at the trains.”

“Did you go in alone?”

“Yes! I’m old enough!”

“Of course you are. So, if I were to go into town, and ask Mr. Osgoode at the book shop: ‘Did my brother Tommy come in here today and buy a book on the Amazon?’ what do you think he would say?”

Tom’s lower lip stuck out. “I don’t know what he would say. I’m not Mr. Osgoode, am I?”

Reginald paused, rubbing his face wearily. He leaned forward in his chair, dropping his hands to his lap. “And if I were to go to father, and tell him of my suspicions, what do you think would occur?”

“You are welcome to go to father,” said Tom softly, staring at his gum. “You can go to father and mother and everyone, and tell them that you think I stole from you, and that I am a liar, and you can all drive into town and ask everyone to tell you that I am a thief, and then you will see.”

“So, you have no problem if I pursue that course?”

“No. No, I don’t,” said Tom. He felt a strange, giddy pressure in his chest. He knew that he was lying, and he knew that Reginald had the power to expose him—and he suddenly felt that it was important to be moral, which he had not felt in a long, long time. And, most strongly, he felt that telling the truth to Reginald would be the worst thing in the world. That it would blacken his soul. And then—in the next precise moment—he lost an old compass and found a new one at exactly the same time.

Perhaps sensing something, Reginald took a sharp breath. “I am going to try one more time, Tom. I am going to ask you—and I want you to look me straight in the eye—I am going to ask you if you stole this money from me.”

Still picking at his gum wrapper, Tom did not raise his head. “I don’t have to. I already told you.”

Reginald paused, then said: “So, you refuse to look me in the eye.”

“I’ve already told you,” said Tom, still staring at his gum.

“I see.” Reginald sat back in the chair. Tom could feel his gaze rippling over him in chilly waves.

“You do realize,” said Reginald, “that you leave me no choice but to go to father and lay before him all I know about your behavior.”

“You can do what you like,” said Tom.

Another pause.

“Last chance,” said Reginald.

Silence.

Reginald jumped out of the chair, startling Tom. Sibling rage hung in the room, vaporizing oxygen, inflating shadows. Reginald’s fingers widened and closed repeatedly. “All right,” he said, in a helium-breath of pure tension. “You have clearly made your choice. But remember this, Tom, in the days to come: I gave you many, many chances to do the right thing, to tell the truth and take your punishment like a man. Instead, you have chosen to lie and evade and wriggle, and it is you that will have to live with that. Not I, Tom. Not I!”

With that, Reginald turned and strode out of the room, slamming the door.

Tom turned and curled into himself, pulling the covers tight. Staring at his white wall, he felt a sudden, supernatural chill pass through him, as if he were enclosed in a giant womb of pure ice.

This incident, oddly enough, marked a certain turning point for Tom. Perhaps this was because absolutely nothing came out of it. Reginald might have told their father, or gone to the book shop to check Tom’s story, but Tom never knew about it. It was never spoken of again. And there was something liberating in that. Something liberating in the fact that Reginald had done nothing, though he had the power to destroy. That he never mentioned it again. A kind of impotence. Some sort of punishment that was supposed to be self-inflicted… Perhaps they want me to imagine that they sat up late, talking about me, my father and my brother, and could find no way to help me, because I am hopeless and beyond help. But Tom could not quite get himself to believe that.

Tom felt a certain power slowly seep back into him. He began to feel again, and stopped stealing, because he was now too terrified of getting caught. Discipline returned, bit by bit; he joined team sports and actually did his homework. His early, sunny personality began to reassert itself, and he became more popular. The fact that he was growing into a very handsome young man only accelerated his progress.

Sadly, however, there was a great chasm between Quentin and Tom, the kind of chasm which is, so often, the only hope for change within a family. Tom was affectionate, more so than anyone in the house except Catherine. His affection spread like a rising river, without restraint, and it had such depth and strength that everyone else in his family took to the trees and raised their skirts and trousers.

To Quentin, Reginald had many virtues, and his lack of indiscriminate affection was one of his greatest. The entire purpose of boarding school, in his mind, was to scrub all traces of maudlin emotions out of the future scions of the ruling class. If you retain all those little playful habits of affection, he thought, next thing you know you’re crying at music-hall love songs, wandering the old locations of childhood, misting over at the sight of two doves on a branch, and boom!, the Empire is snatched away, and then where would we be?

(This last habit of Quentin’s drove both of his sons quite mad. He would grind the most absurd consequences out of innocuous habits, and then smack his knee, lean forward and say: and then where would we be? It is a habit of youth almost as old as the planet to have a pathological hatred of rhetorical questions.)

Every three months, when Reginald came home from boarding school, Quentin would mentally inspect him, noting with genuine pleasure a new curl of the lip, a new jaw-thrusting opinion, a harsh laugh in regard to the idea of self-rule for the Empire, a downward sweep of the hand whenever the Irish question arose. All of the essential elements were falling into place. England had a gift which went unappreciated by the benighted pagan hordes. It was for their own good. Soldiers and diplomats were superior to politicians and capitalists. We guard the frontiers while the English splash in the Brighton sea. Everyone dislikes British rule, but imagine the chaos if we left! India is the jewel in the Empire’s crown. Self rule, in time, perhaps, when they have left behind the bloody altars of their painted fathers…

This all made sense to Quentin, and was much approved.

Tom, on the other hand, made very little sense at all.

Tom was well liked, his father thought, but not respected. He was still a blubberer, even into his teens, prone to weeping over sad songs, melancholy plays, a view of a lighthouse through the mist—and anything more than a quarter hour with his mother generally transformed his face into a crumpled mush of wet salt.

Tom was brave, Quentin admitted, but seemed utterly unable to choose his battles wisely. Reginald had a natural sense of tactics which seemed completely alien to Tom. In fights at school, Reginald first used his acid tongue, then his friends, his distance—and only in a last report his own fists—and then suddenly, with neither warning nor mercy. Tom would beat down a bully, and then offer to help him back up. The victims of Reginald’s aggression generally did not get back up for some time.

Tom was also popular with girls, and this was cause for some suspicion. In Quentin’s world, only men had real purpose; the purpose of women was, largely, confined to the production of additional men. As Quentin moved from the world of the army to business, his wife became less and less interesting. She did not follow his work. She was listless about his achievements. She was gracious with his friends, but they ran out of things to say to her in less than a minute. She was an indifferent hostess. She was wretched with a quip, a hopeless storyteller. Her only point of interest was her wan, shadowed, shut-in beauty; ‘an ex-ballerina on the last legs of consumption’ was how one man put it.

Reginald was not popular with girls; he glittered with condescending malice, which rarely warms the hearts of the fairer sex. When meeting him, they recognized his ability to provide, but tended to imagine him holding an infant by the foot, at arms length, his face averted, as it peed against a wall. A few older women found him sexy, in a cold, fastidious (which meant sexual stamina somehow), and mechanical way, but these women were rarely part of the social circle which could approach him.

Tom was well liked by girls and women. He was feminine, to a small degree, and women sensed that his heart could be a great masculine balm to the thousand daily slights that the female soul is err to. He will grow into a man, they thought, who will listen to the injustice of my family, the unreliability of my help, and I will be soothed through such discharge, and he will not be wounded at all by it; he will absorb it like a sail swallows wind, and we shall both move on thereby.

Tom had a pleasant way of teasing girls, of puncturing their vanities with gentle humor. Also, the more intuitive among them saw that, under still remaining baby fat, a lean and dynamic profile was slowly emerging. And his eyes were most attractive. They could cry, which for women is not a bad thing, unless it stems from weakness or self-pity. They could also absorb, which is essential for women, who often feel more than their own frames can contain.

And—and, of course, there was a kind of sadness, deep within Tom’s young heart. It had all the soft welling of having been wronged, but having never retaliated. Beyond it was a great lake of gentle need. For a surprisingly large number of women, this was pure ambrosia.

Chapter 10

Quentin enjoyed taking Reginald to his study for an after-dinner drink. Tom was sometimes invited, but knew from experience that he would not be drawn into the conversation. The last one he had attended was in 1925, when Reginald was seventeen, and Tom fifteen.

“So, my boy,” said Quentin, pouring a large cognac for himself, a small one for Reginald, and a glass of water for Tom. “Do you know that today, a great treaty was signed between England, France, Italy, and Germany, at Locarno.”

“Someone said something,” said Reginald, reaching for the glass. He quickly sunk into ‘his’ armchair, the possession of which had been the subject of pitched battles between himself and Tom in their early years, until Tom had realized that he was fighting against Reginald, rather than for the chair, and gave it up, enduring Reginald’s constant smirks of triumph whenever he got the chair without complaint—even now, six years after the end of the conflict.

“This is very good news,” said Quentin, “and I wonder if you can tell me why.”

“Well,” said Reginald, swirling his glass under his nose. “It means that Germany isn’t being just treated as a conquered nation any more.”

“Yes, very good. It will pave the way for her entrance into the League of Nations, mark my words. And it means that England, France, and Italy, rather than just seeing themselves as the winners of the Great War, are now prepared to guarantee the borders of France and Belgium with Germany. And the Allies are removing the military Control Commission and the last of the occupation troops from German soil. That will go a long way towards restoring Germany’s faith in herself.”

“Why Belgium?” asked Reginald.

“Sorry?”

“Why does the Treaty of Locarno guarantee the borders of Belgium, when she’s not even a signatory?”

“Well, glance at the globe, and tell me.”

Reginald leaned forward, twirling the globe at his feet, tracing his fingers over the borders of France. “Because—because the French share a border with Belgium?”

“Yes, but why else?”

Reginald sniffed. “Don’t know.”

Quentin grinned, leaning forward. “Think defense.”

“Hm.”

“Think Maginot…”

“Oh!”

“Yes?”

“Well,” said Reginald excitedly, jabbing his finger. “The French are building the Maginot Line on their eastern borders, as a defense against the Germans, but not on their northern borders, which they share with Belgium.”

“The great fear of the French,” said Quentin, sitting back with a grunt of satisfaction, “is that Germany comes through Belgium in through the north. As in the Great War.”

“Oh, so if Belgium is invaded…”

“Compromised,” corrected Quentin.

“Sorry?”

“Say ‘compromised.’ It’s more sophisticated. ‘Invaded’ sounds like you’re still playing with lead soldiers.”

Reginald shrugged. “All right, then if Belgium is compromised, then England has to come to the aid of France.”

“Which means that Germany will have to think twice about coming at France through the north. So France can focus on its defenses in the East, against Germany itself.”

“Very well,” said Reginald. Tom was having a hard time keeping awake. Even the smell of cognac could do that to him. “But tell me this: why is France mucking about in the East?”

“The East where?” asked Quentin. “And yes, you can have another drink; you’re eyeing it like a thirsty dog!”

Reginald got up and poured another. His father waved away his offer of a refill.

“The East, as in Czechoslovakia.”

“Ah, Czechoslovakia…” sighed Quentin. “That mongrel will be no end of trouble, I guarantee it.”

Tom stirred. “Why is it a mongrel?”

“Well, France and England created Czechoslovakia out of thin air in 1919, in the Treaty of Versailles. It’s a mess, a real patchwork. It’s got Slovaks, Poles, Germans in the West, in the Sudetenland. And the Czechs themselves. Germany ruled it for three hundred years, and now the tables have turned, and the Germans living there—who did not ask to be thrown out of the Reich by their enemies—will not be happy until they are returned to the Fatherland.”

“What does ‘Reich’ mean?” asked Tom.

Reginald jumped in. “It’s like ‘kingdom,’ or ‘empire.’”

“Ah.”

“So, France is making treaties with Czechoslovakia,” continued Quentin, draining his glass and licking the rim (something he only did when Ruth was not around), “because the only thing that terrifies Germany—which, as an ancient, noble, and most virile country, is terrified of very little—is the prospect of a two-front war. Say Germany attacks France in the West, why then Czechoslovakia must attack Germany in the East. It’s like a vice, it only works if both sides act at once.”

“And it’s the same the other way,” murmured Tom, thinking back on the garden strategies of many years past.

“Of course—if Germany attacks East into Czechoslovakia, then France must attack from the West. It’s the only deterrent which will work.”

“And if France attacks from the West, then so must we,” said Reginald.

Quentin crossed himself. “God forbid. But yes. Yes. We stand and fall with France. But those days will never come again. Never. Modern war has become so horrible that it remains unthinkable. That’s the purpose of the League of Nations. To ensure that Europe never goes to war again. To get everyone to sit around the table and work out their differences with words, not guns. No, not guns. No guns, no bombs, no grenades. Never again. Never.”

Quentin was quite sure what Reginald should do with his life. The Great War had arisen from misunderstanding; another war would kill them all. Quentin himself was too old, and also hopeless with languages. By the time he was eighteen, Reginald knew French, German, Latin, and a little Russian. He also had no difficulty making himself clear, and remained unclogged by any traces of sentimentality.

The Treaty of Versailles was never going to hold. Europe was about to undergo a radical revision, and all this had to be accomplished without violence. This was England’s specialty. The Empire was maintained with only a few hundred thousand troops. Play the dictators against each other. Find a way to prop up France. In the infinite chessboard of continental politics, no principle was inviolate. Pragmatism was the key.

No, without a doubt, it was to be the Foreign Office for Reginald. Quentin broached this subject most baldly when Reginald turned eighteen. The coming world was going to need smart men, international men, far-seeing men, men with the strength to rise above naïve idealism. With Reginald’s language skills, he would be wasted in any profession which was not pan-European in character. Thus, it was business or diplomacy. Business had its merits; it was a quicker path to power, but the power it provided was only financial. Business struggles could never compete with the subterranean clashes of great states. Returning value to shareholders was scarcely as gripping as shaping the future of Europe. Quentin, however, had faith in his son’s ability to create a capital impression in either sphere.

Thus it was decided. Boarding school had done its job; Reginald had well absorbed the great upper-class British distaste for business. Money would prove a problem but, as Quentin put it, that was more of a matter for the heart than the hands, for it was far better for a young man with ambitions outside business to marry money than make it.

In 1927, Reginald went to All Souls at Oxford to study economics, international relations, and languages. Two years later, Tom followed, without much enthusiasm or encouragement.

Quentin had no conversation with Tom about the boy’s future. He thought of it briefly, but it irritated him even to imagine Tom’s blank eyes, staring at Quentin as his father lost track of his topic and wandered off into old war stories.

There is nothing hard and sure about the boy. He is a wet towel. Soppy. All the flaccidity of his mother has snaked into his bones, silly boy. The coming world will be a harsher one, requiring pragmatism, decisiveness, and industry. It will be no place for anxious people. No place for the sentimental. Hard decisions must be taken. Danger will not be avoided by taking to bed and crying about the unfairness of danger. The Thirties will be a grim time, a time when Weakness will be swept aside by Will. When blinking across a table will mean the loss of your history. Reginald is the one to man the ramparts. Tom—well, if they have no need of a wandering minstrel, where shall he go? He would trip over any proffered sword. Hide in the cellar with his mother, I suppose…

Quentin’s compassion was this: I will not talk with him about his future, because I do not want to have to speak such awful truths.

Tom knew all this, knew that he did not really fit into his family. This broke his heart, because he was young, and that meant that he did not yet know that justice is more important than loyalty—and that justice is the only cure for a broken heart. He knew that his father did not respect him, but felt strangely strong in the face of this. He felt no desperate need to win his respect, which was odd, for he was a sensitive boy. Perhaps it was the chilling lack of compassion the family showed towards Ruth that did it. Tom was well aware that his mother needed some sort of salvation—and that he could not provide it. However, he was a comfort to her, and that was something.

It could also be because Tom had inherited his mother’s atheism. Atheists are notoriously unimpressed by father figures.

After the war, Quentin had gone back into business, relieved that his habit of cutting corners was no longer cutting throats. His war experiences gave him intimate knowledge of the process and supply of military goods, and he spent 1919 buying surplus aircraft from the Air Force, and re-selling them to civilian outfits which disarmed them and sold them to private citizens. The value which he brought to the operation—he was, after all, a rather unnecessary middleman—was that his wealth of contacts gave him inside information as to where and when the planes were to be up for sale, as well as the chance for the first pick of the crop.

Then he moved into real estate, and flipped land and houses. A lot of property came up for sale in the early 1920s, since so many sons had been killed or maimed that retiring fathers had no one to will the family farm to. So endless tracts came up for sale, and Quentin managed a group of fit young men on bicycles who would scan rural newspapers, then race off with saddlebags of cash to press into the sweaty, uncertain hands of the old, grieving farmers. Quentin then had other men who oversaw the renovation of these farmhouses into luxury cottages, and others who sold them to the rising hordes of the nouveau riche.

It was a trundling, distasteful but stable business. Quentin knew enough about macroeconomics to realize that, due to the lack of young male labor in England and France—combined with the introduction of oil-powered merchant shipping—it was cheaper to import food from labor-rich America then grow it at home. So the price of farmland went down, but the demand for weekend retreats went up. He did quite well, and was quite untroubled by the fact that he did not produce anything of value himself. Doing great wrong early in life—as was the case with his failure to supply grenades to the troops in the Great War—is very liberating, because nothing else will ever feel as bad as that first, catastrophic time.

But even Quentin was quite unprepared for the rise of the stock market.

Starting in 1926—at first in America, and then around the world—stocks began to soar. Initially, this was due to rises in productivity—the introduction of the motor car, the creation by Henry Ford of the idea of the assembly line—but it quickly became a terrifying, glorious, obsessive ride. Stocks no longer had any relationship with the company they represented; they were traded as things-in-themselves; they had value because buyers would pay more for them than the sellers had paid for them. It was a pyramid scheme, a gamble, a mad scramble for a peak that was in fact a chasm, and Quentin, after a brief, uncomprehending stare, dove in with everything he had. He stayed up for days at a time, reading the newspaper, following the ticker tape, listening to the radio. His gains mounted, and some manic part of him felt that the hollow part of him could be filled with infinite wealth, and he began to make poor decisions. He sold the stocks which went up, and kept those which went down. Thus his portfolio became weighted down with non-performing securities, and when the crash came—October, 1929—he held on, in blind fury and terror, imagining every day that this was the lowest point that stock prices could possibly go, and to sell now would be madness. The next day, they would be lower, and he would tell himself: today, today is the lowest…

And then, then his margin call came in, and everything fell apart.

In order to buy more stock, Quentin had borrowed more money than his portfolio was actually worth. When his broker called, demanding that Quentin liquidate his holdings, Quentin avoided the phone, staring from the doorway, his forehead pressed into the cool wood. No, it cannot all be going! I will not admit defeat! Tomorrow comes the rally!

It was no good. His stocks crashed, his margin call came, and Quentin lost everything.

And he kept this to himself for a long, long time.

Chapter 11

Tom had a dream the night before he left to go to University, and woke up weeping.

In his dream, he was getting on a plane. There were throngs of people lining the runway, waving flags and blowing kisses. A mother held her small child, gripping its wrist, waving it at him. Tom was the pilot, and he thrust the throttle forward, and was surprised how nimbly the airplane responded—it almost skidded across the runway, veering to one side, and a small knot of schoolgirls scattered as he roared past, gaining speed. Tom pulled back on the joystick. The plane lifted, and then something odd happened. His vision began to flow backward through the plane, which was empty, except for Gunther, who was reading a book, hunched over in a front seat. Tom’s view then flew out the back of the plane, and lay on the runway, watching the plane fly off, into a distant storm.

As he watched, unable to move—almost without a body, it seemed—the well-wishers stopped waving, gathered their children, and slowly wandered back to a low building. Soon the runway was deserted. There was something awfully lonely about it… A seagull flew into view, and then veered away, out of sight. The wind picked up. Tom saw a windsock snap up and hold strong. The sky darkened. Nothing happened. The low building was dark. Everyone was gone. Time passed. He became fascinated by tiny details: the shape of a cloud, the silvery shapes in the blowing grass, the letters on the building, fading into the dark. Everything was silent. It seemed like agony to wait. And there was something—something in the scene that made Tom feel that no one would ever come here, back to this airfield, ever again… Not even the sun.

After an eternity of waiting, Tom awoke suddenly, his hand in a fist to his mouth. The loneliness of the scene… In the dark, he thought of a childhood friend, in whose house he had spent many happy afternoons. That friend had moved away—to Canada, he recalled. There would be new people in that house now, or perhaps it had been torn down. One day, as a child, he had had to go into the kitchen to find a pair of scissors. He had opened a drawer, and found all the little detritus of kitchenware—old place mats, rubber bands, a stapler wide open, a rusted potato peeler, a spool of white thread. What ever happened to all that stuff? Had it been sorted and discarded when his friend’s family had moved? Where was that potato peeler now? Lying in some landfill, probably. It could never be found again, even if he searched for a thousand years.

But—and this thought tore at him achingly—but where did that long-ago kitchen drawer exist now? It was gone in time, yet he recalled it. It lived only within him, but he really wanted—needed, almost—to know that it existed in some place, somewhere which could be revisited, like a museum of things lost to time. What a sad, wonderful thought! Everyone should have such a museum, where the past can be re-examined in more detail, where everything can be revisited and pored over and thought deeply upon…

It was nonsense, of course, but it made him yearn… Oh, to go back, to cross through rooms frozen in time, to be a traveler through everything that made me, everything I passed through, to turn things over in my hand that have long since passed from my life…

This was getting very silly. His stomach was tense, straining against old tears, old cries. Tom flopped over in his bed. I will go away to school tomorrow, and I am supposed to burst into my future like an airplane through a paper wall, but I cannot, because…because I have too many things in my wake, and will never leave the ground…

I should bring her, he thought, picturing Catherine, her warm eyes and worn hands. I will bring her and my teddy bears and walk through the library aisles holding her hand and sucking my thumb, ignoring all jeers, content in my oldest cot.

His love for Catherine came to him then, after many years of teenage narcissism. Everything I have of value is hers. All my courage, all my clarity, the depth of my heart, I owe to her alone. All my childhood, I brought things home only for her. In a sudden tilting shift, he changed from remembering bursting through the kitchen door to show her a flower or centipede or tadpoles in a jar to seeing himself coming through that same door, from her viewpoint—and felt for the first time her patience with everything, everything he wanted to share. Almost never did she wave me away. He pictured Catherine sitting down to count the number of tadpoles, and explaining where frogs came from—and people too, he suddenly recalled, using ovens and dough and rising bread as most effective metaphors.

Oh, I have been most sad and ungrateful, thought Tom, and swung his legs over his bed. Most glorious is the heart of a good woman! He swung his feet uncertainly, and this, of course, recalled memories of Catherine swinging him, and brought fresh tears. Standing up, he wiped his face. His eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness. He opened his door quietly and went downstairs.

No house is the same in the dark. Empty floors are always lonely at night. Blackness robs life, even the memory of life. Squinting, Tom strained to see the time in the faint gold gleam of the grandfather clock in the hallway. A quarter of six? Think so.

He padded down the hall, through the kitchen, and into the back rooms where the servants lived. Catherine’s room was in the very back—she had been with the family for the longest, and had earned her view of the garden.

I will probably terrify her, and get a rolling pin to the head. Only once had he seen Catherine violent. A vagabond had tried to steal from her laundry line, and she had hit him with a rolling pin. She was screaming with fear the whole time. That had taught him a lot about courage.

Tom knocked very softly. He thought he heard a sniff. There was a pause. He was too fearful to knock louder. Women awakened suddenly always expect to hear news of death.

Then, he heard: “Tom?”

“Yes,” he said.

There was a creak, then a pause. “Come in, then,” said Catherine, opening the door. A candle guttered in the little breeze; the gray light from the windows turned the room monochromatic.

Tom entered, and Catherine went back to sit on her bed. There was something great about her. She had gained weight since he was a child, but it was not slackness, or laziness, or the self-burying of sadness… There was something fertile about her size. With her brown hair down, he caught a glimpse of how she must have looked thirty years ago. He had an impulse to reach out and touch her cheek, but refrained. Why did she never marry? But—who could be her equal?

“Well, don’t stand there like a post,” she murmured. “Come and sit down, then.”

“Catherine,” he said, his voice catching. I hope she cannot see my tears in the dark.

“By God we are a pair, aren’t we?” she sighed deeply, wiping her own face. “Blubberers, plain and simple.”

“I wanted…”

“Shh—wait…” She took a deep breath. “I hate crying silently.” She looked up, wagging her finger. “And we have a secret, you and I.”

He sat down.

She crinkled her eyes, then took a deep breath. “So, you’re off tomorrow.”

“Today,” he said. “In a few hours.”

“Are you hungry?”

He shook his head, his cheeks tightening.

She sighed. “Well, that was the point of it all,” she said, her face turned away. “Making you all set for the big world.”

“You don’t know—how much I will miss you.” He leaned his head forward slightly, feeling too old to hug her.

She touched his forehead, brushing his hanging hair to one side. The light grew by one tiny shade.

“I have been a shepherd,” she said softly. “This is not a happy house. We have a secret, which is that we know love. It’s God’s gift, you know. It makes up for our deaths. Because we never die. Not when we love. Not for each other, not in our hearts, not for the world. That’s all. That’s all.” She shook her head slowly.

Tom sat in silence. “I love you, Catherine. You’re the only one who…”

“No,” she said, suddenly emphatic. “Your mother loves you as well. Your father, yes, I think, somehow. But they’re scared. That’s life without love. They want it so much, they knock it over when they reach for it. They make you pay for it, but they love you anyways. And they won’t change. And that’s your cross.”

“Let’s not…” whispered Tom.

“No…”

“I, er… I would hate to leave this house, leave you in it, without saying—that I know—everything you have brought to me.”

“All right,” said Catherine, cupping his cheek with her broad, hard hand. “I won’t say anything about your poor ma. I love you too, Tom. You are the sweetest thing in this hard world.” Her voice thickened. “And I will also say, so that you know, that everything I gave you, everything you think I gave you, I got back more than a thousand times, and it wasn’t because I wanted to give you something, but because the love of a child is the sweetest thing in the whole world, and I was greedy for it, greedy for you, because you have a heart as big as the sky, and no evil can come from you. I tried to love your brother as well,” she moaned, another tear spilling down her dark cheek. “I did. I thought he was a test. I prayed to God for the strength to love that child.” Catherine’s voice broke. “But I couldn’t, and I will take that with me to the grave. I tried, from every side… He will be…” Her eyes were wide. “He will be a scourge. He is beyond our reach. Only God, only God… I was not strong enough. Everything you give that child, he makes into a weapon. Watch him, Tommy. Watch him.”

“I will,” said Tom, reaching forward to take her hands in his. He raised them, and pressed his lips to them, his brow furrowed deeply.

“Look at you!” she laughed, averting her eyes.

But she let her hands be.

Chapter 12

Ruth’s atheism was actually more of a subspecies of nihilism. It was not that she did not believe in God, but rather that she believed in nothing, of which God was just a small portion.

Due to her losses, there was a certain amount of spite in her rejection of the divine. She was blessed and cursed with imagination, and felt bowed down by no small portion of the millions who had died in France. She could see them, in her mind’s eye—and not just them, but the millions who mourned, the whole world over. The farmers plowing up old bones. The helmets with holes in small French pubs. The endless photographs on the mantelpieces. Each story a tapestry, a world within the world, all contained within history, falling behind. The dead cannot keep up, and neither can their stories. Memory rots faster than flesh…

It is true that, in every human heart, in the absence of self-knowledge, base instincts war with divine illusions. A woman may believe that the dead are in heaven, but she cannot lay the table with one less plate without placing her knuckles on the tablecloths and dropping tears. God may have his reasons, but they do not speak to her heart, her spine, her bloodied animal losses. And even if his wishes became clear, after she is dead, she cannot imagine what knowledge she would have to possess to follow and love his reasoning. And to keep it hidden, to keep it hidden! What cruelty is that at the hands of a master storyteller? Even detective novels explain everything at the end—and to the same eyes which started the tale.

No, none of it did anything for Ruth. The simple logic of the harshness of her test felled the divine like an axe to the roots of an endless, shimmering tree. Five men could not have been killed to test my faith. My father’s faith survived his demise (she well remembered Mr. Eldred’s tale of her father’s clasped hands), but then my father did not have to survive his own death; he did not have to live on in the knowledge of his own absence. The same with my brothers, none of whom discovered the deaths of the others before they themselves died…

Neither were the men taken because they were complete in their faith, because her youngest brother was an agnostic. And her faith was unshakable before the absenting of her men. Now it was a ravaging beast. Priests cowered at her passing. Choirboys scattered like crows over a gunshot.

Ruth’s loss of faith was borne by Quentin, who had no particular ideas on religion. It became utterly unsupportable, however, when he decided to go into politics.

One night, Quentin came and knocked on Ruth’s door about nine o’clock. For a moment she thought that Tom—who had just come in for his goodnight kiss—had come back to throw his large arms around her neck. But of course, as a semi-invalid, she knew the tenor of every knock, every location. (Since she so rarely saw Tom standing up, she actually traced his growing height by noting the rising locations of his soft knocking.)

Ruth frowned when she heard Quentin’s voice responded to her query. She sat up in bed hurriedly, brushing her hair back under her nightcap, pinching her cheeks slightly. Such habits, how they cling to us! But he can’t have come for that. I mean, it’s been years. And without warning? No, it cannot be so unilaterally decided. And I cannot lie back and think of England, for when he was above me all I saw was France…

Her husband entered, with a tray.

“I brought you some hot chocolate.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking down. He came and sat on the bed. She felt the mattress tilt, and wondered how much he weighed now, and how his trousers stayed up under his growing belly. She touched her mug, and felt an old anger in her veins. He never told me that it was too hot. Is it so hard? ‘Dearest, be careful, let it cool.’ I mean my God, how can you trust a man with your heart when he cares so little for your fingertips?

In a sideways flash, all the uncorrected malignancies of her marriage came back to her. He was never quiet in the morning when I was sleeping. He cursed in front of the children; I don’t care how young they were; they knew. He would tidy up by throwing their teddy bears across the room, rather than taking five steps and putting them down properly. Why do men never flush the toilet? Are they marking out territory? If I was napping, he would come into the room and ask me a question without checking if I was awake, and never apologized for rousing me. He never suggested going to visit my mother. Everyone gets his energy and attention but me. He has a civil word for the milkman, but no time for my thoughts. I am not at the bottom of the list—I’m not even on the list! He can switch from enraged with me to gracious with a visitor within five seconds—I’ve seen it! And if he can do that for someone he doesn’t even know—why not with me? Why not? Why?

Her bedroom came back to her in a sudden thud. Quentin was looking at her expectantly. That peninsula of hair is being rapidly cut off, she thought.

“Pardon?” she said.

His lips compressed. “Why don’t you tell me where you left off?”

She shrugged. Her stomach rebelled, hidden under the covers. “Why don’t you start again, and I’ll tell you.”

“Well, I’ve decided to go into politics.”

“I see. Why?”

“I don’t think business is for me. I want to do my part. My duty.”

“Very well.” A few hundred objections came into her head, each waving a glittering musket, but she could not organize them, and also knew that her opinions were rarely sought before a decision was made. Her head fell back on the pillow. What if we are destroyed financially? That thought should have frightened her more, but… But he will be destroyed more than I, and—and it might do me good to have this bed yanked away from under me.

He took a sip of his hot chocolate, seemingly unaware of the thoughts which lay under his wife’s white night-cap, like rising lava under a snowy peak. “Now I can scarcely hope that you will be intimately involved,” he said, “knowing how disposed you are towards indisposition, but there is one matter which I need to clear up before setting out on this journey.”

She lay silent.

“Your relationship with your Maker,” he continued, setting down his cup on the night table and turning to her, “underwent, as far as I understand it, a rather serious blow with the tragedies of fourteen years ago, but I need you to begin engaging in a détente, as it were. Nothing much. Just, church, once a week. With me. No Hail Satans in public,” he smiled.

“I don’t believe,” she said.

“No, of course not,” he said, “and I have not the theological skill to gainsay you. Yet it is required. It is required.”

“By you.”

He seemed surprised. “Well, yes, insofar as it is I who am making the request. Yet it is also required by duty. I believe that I have something of value to add to the debates of the coming decade. I am obliged, then, to press myself into the service of my country. Now I don’t envision anything so grand for you, but as my wife, it is your obligation to support me in my duty.”

She nodded slowly. How I hate that he is always on the side of Right!

“For better or worse, this is a Christian nation, and I shall not get far with an atheist at my side. Once a week, Ruth. That’s all I ask.”

“I shall have to think about it.”

Quentin frowned. “You believe that I am asking too much?”

“I—am not sure that anything good can come out of my compromising my beliefs.”

He snorted. “Dear me, I am sorry, but what beliefs… Of course, spending your life in bed might be a certain kind of strike, against the fact that soldiers die in war perhaps, and good luck to you. I hope you achieve everything you wish for. But beliefs? I don’t think that you lie in here day after day because you are too good for the world.”

“Hm,” she said, then raised her eyes to him. “Then why, pray tell, do you think I lie in here day after day?”

Quentin grinned humorlessly. “Oh, we should not even approach that sleeping dog, hm? I am not looking for a row. I’m just a humble husband with a humble request. Come to church once a week. Dream of dynamiting it if you want, but be there.”

“As I have said, I shall have to think about it.”

He paused, pursing his lips. “Well, you must excuse my scorn, dearest, but I have heard that before, and it does not fill me with hope that things shall be resolved. A holiday? Let me think about it. A party for Reginald? I shall consider it. Getting out of bed for the garden party? Let’s see—yes, it’s on the list. The committee will be meeting soon. No, it won’t work this time, Ruth. I need an answer now, for I never get one when you decide to ‘think about it.’”

“Yet I retain the privilege.”

“Nonsense!” he cried, raising his hands. “You do not participate in this family, except to fawn over Tom. You do not function as a wife—and not just in the base sense, but also as a friend, a companion, a partner in life. What privileges do you claim to retain? Hm? The right to lie like a toadstool and be fed and maintained without effort? Is that to be the sum total of your beliefs? Sponge baths and slow decay?”

“It is now time for you to leave,” said Ruth, turning away, her heart hammering in her chest.

Quentin took a deep, shuddering breath and leapt to his feet. “No. No, I will not fall into your old trap of harsh words. Nothing of the sort shall pass between us. I need an answer now, tonight. You are free, of course, to choose your own response. But take heed of the consequences. That is my advice. Take heed.”

She smiled. “Surely you do not imagine that you will be more successful as a politician if you are divorced—whose ex-wife is still an atheist—than if you are a married man whose wife does not go to church.”

“No, of course not. I was thinking no such thing. Why must you always…” His face softened a little, and he sat back down. “Dearest, I have only two real arguments for you. The first is that, believe it or not, I am interested in politics partly out of respect for your late father, who was a great man. I believe that this coming decade will be most hazardous for the cause of peace. I want to do what I can to help avoid a war in Europe. The second is that, should a war come, it is most probable that Reginald and Tom would be consumed. And I believe that our bloodline has seen enough death as it is.”

Ruth’s breath caught, and her face tightened. “That… That… You cannot be using these words!” She slammed white fists into the blanket. “You cannot!”

“What?”

“My father is not—to be used—as a prop—for you!” she cried. “And to speak of our sons! Sweet God in heaven, what sort of man are you?”

“It is my conviction,” he said softly, standing and turning away. “Rail at me as you please, but—but my dear, imagine—what if I am right?” He turned back and leaned over, his knuckles on her covers, his face close to hers. “What if, without your participation, without your acquiescence to my single, simple request, events unfold which cause a general conflagration, and more men fall into the pit? Do you think you could survive such a happenstance?” Her eyes were wide. “But there is no need for such apocalyptic sentiments. Let us make a more simple barter. You feel that I have favored Reginald over Tom, and we both know Tom has little or no direction in life. Let us clap hands on the following: after he graduates, Tom shall receive five hundred pounds a year, for five years. I have asked our accountant. That much can be managed, if I win a position in Parliament. With your help.” His hands burrowed under the covers, found one of Ruth’s, and held it tight. “This liberates Tom to pursue whatever talent he chooses, gives me the chance to do my duty, and liberates your conscience. What do you say, love? I have asked for so little these long years. Let us be a team for once. And who knows what might come of that?”

His forehead was glistening. And, though she knew that it would cost her many sleepless nights, though she knew she would feel like hurling a lamp at the door within a minute of closing it—and though she knew that it would change nothing between them, there was Tom, and the terror of another war flattened her resistance like an ant under a falling anvil.

“I will come to church,” she said, closing her eyes.

Chapter 13

Overall, Tom’s childhood had been a dizzy, flickering array of light and dark, from the brittle distance of his father to the invasive closeness of his mother. Like many untutored youths of high potential, his true self, and true power, was buried under a kaleidoscope of contradictions. He did not know how to live, and so skittered over the surface of things, relying on youth, looks, energy, and easy charisma. Seeing Tom lope along in the sun, bowling in cricket whites, leaping for a tennis shot, or sitting tall in a rowboat, feeling his muscles pulse like charged ropes after a match—no one could imagine that he was not an easy, genial arrow poised at the deepest pull of a bowstring. Everything seemed easy for Tom; everyone knew him, and he was good at so many things that it seemed impossible that his brow should ever knit under excessive strain.

He was greatly envied, and it was the envy that brought Hart to him.

Tom was not empty, but was so submerged that, for a time at least, he might as well have been. His graceful, oiled ease brought many young men into his orbit, but none of them could provide the spiritual nutrition that true friendship depends on.

But something happened, when Hart finally got the nerve to introduce himself.

Hart came from a coal-mining family. He had all the night terrors of a compulsive trespasser, rising as he had through the thick social strata of English society. He had survived a childhood of endless, casual brutality—not in his family, but among the other children of his small Welsh town. (Those with neither ambition nor potential see their zoo as freedom; they only feel caged if they see someone eyeing the woods beyond the bars.)

Hart was small, slight, short of sight, and narrow of chest. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, often places a powerful mind in a brittle body, adding a great deal to the theory that abstract intelligence is one of the scars which form over physical defenselessness. Hart had white skin so reflective that others often got better tans by standing near him. He had lank, flat, dirty reddish hair, and thick eyebrows which always seemed to consider joining hands across the bridge of his nose. A wide herd of raw horsepower churned away between his ears, racing in apparent confusion across a plain which seemed too hot for their hooves to stand on for any length of time. Other people swam back and forth across his mostly inner vision; they could not help him, and the force of their arguments often caused a mad inner stampede to some new vantage point of Absolute Truth. Since he was usually directing his horses from behind, this meant he was very often trampled most gruesomely in the sudden turnarounds.

He joined the debating society, hoping to meet argumentative people like himself, but instead only met smooth and polished young men warming up their fruity, mellifluent voices for political careers. He stuck at it for most of his first year, but exasperated both himself and others by constantly turning around the thrust of his arguments during a long debate. He would start by arguing that the pen was mightier than the sword, and then end up stabbing himself with the sword. It was annoying to both himself and his opponents, who arrived limbered up for heavy swordplay, only to see their opponent leap forward, brandish his blade, then throw himself on the floor and commit hari-kari.

Hart was constantly evasive about his origins. He never tucked postcards from his parents into the corners of his dresser mirrors, for fear that some curious soul might turn them over and see his parents large, childish, all-capitals missives. He worked tirelessly to up-crust his accent, which was quite foolish, of course. Only a certain section of British society rejects on rank alone—and these are people scarcely worth courting. A scrappy Welsh miner’s son, striding into All Souls in a great blaze of heavily accented assertion, would have aroused great curiosity and genuine respect. Alas! Hart had enough confidence to get there, but not enough to believe he had the right to remain.

But just as he was adroit at manufacturing imaginary enemies, so he was good at imagining friends. The first time Hart saw him, Tom was coming up the steps from the dock after a long rowing practice, his thick arms humming with sweat and spent strain. He was wiping his face with a white towel, and Hart felt faint at the sight of Tom’s dark, perfect, glistening hair. Tom flopped down on the grass, chatting with some of the other rowers, and soon a girl came up with a tray of iced tea. Hart sat up on the grassy hill, staring at them, sweating in his thick cotton, feeling a chilling dribble of sweat down his spine, fighting, as he often did, the urge to scratch just about every nook and cranny he possessed.

He loved them all, all the rowing men. They chaffed each other about athletic errors, casually planned their weekend social activities, sucked ice, discussed women, and outlined vague travel plans. There were so many amazing things about Tom; what struck Hart the most was how Tom’s hair dried into a perfect side-part. All he had to do was rake his hands through his hair a few times, and it all fell beautifully into place. Hart loved them all, but there was a faint, grim hopelessness about his love. They were everything he wanted to be. They were a polished advertisement he desperately wanted to climb into. Staring at them, he felt the oldest, most devilish bargain charge through him: I would trade all my depth for their beauty and seeming ease. They were mere clouds over his deep sea, but he wanted nothing more than to dry up and join them in the sky. Hart’s face was pale and still throughout those two hours; when the rowers left, he sat for over an hour more, staring at their bench.

Now, I must plan the Great Seduction, he thought, his heart racing. I must shed all my tension, just long enough to be accepted, and then that acceptance will prevent its re-emergence… But—but what do I have to offer these lean, lithe gods? They already have ease and beauty, which I have not. I could be a capering jester, whose base accent and homely tales could provide brief amusement between successive chippies—but I am a wretched storyteller, and have no humor. Could I be a curiosity, a silent, harmless tagalong who is allowed to allay their fears of being snobs? Could I accept the role of wet-eared younger-brother to the Alpha Males? Could be, could be… No harm in that. Of course, they will never send me notes about their secret gatherings, where they tan and stretch and exercise, but should I wander into their midst I will not be shooed off. They may speak of me a little, the irritated bewilderment of some vying with the social charity of others. ‘What does he want?’ ‘I say, be a good chap, give him a bone. No friends, far from home, not exactly in his element, hm?’ Well of course I am not in my element. Not yet. But I shall be. I shall be…

Now, Hart was not a fool; neither was he utterly without self-knowledge—he knew as much about himself as an anthropologist can learn about a tribe before he learns their language. He knew that he was embarking on a course rife with potential creepiness. But if I should achieve my goal—ahh, then I shall be a hunter of legend among we outcasts! To bring down an Alpha Friend! O sweet triumph of exclusion!

But I must be patient, so patient… To charge into their midst, with neither preparation nor knowledge, would scatter them like haughty eagles. No, I must learn their quirks, their little loves, the tiny tickings of their flawless hearts! Hart began to watch them; he haunted the libraries and tried to read their laughing lips as they conducted their study groups in glass-walled offices. He sidled up beside Tom to see what kinds of books he took out. He watched their cricket practices, changing hats each time, so as not to seem intrusive.

He had less luck with clubs. Tom’s talents lay so far outside his own that a random crossover seemed impossible. Hart was in the chess, math, and astronomy clubs; Tom did most of the glory sports; rugby, tennis, cricket. Not football, no of course not, that would be far too lower class. However, Tom was in a few non-athletic clubs, the most promising of which, to Hart’s eyes, was the Shakespeare Association.

One morning, Hart went up to the SA and inquired about its meetings. But the young man behind the desk knew, and it was most embarrassing. Hart had tried to get it right; he wore black, slept little, and chewed a hole into the elbow of his jumper. Somehow, though, it was still clear that he was not a literature student, and so was about as likely to be interested in poetry as in Dadaism.

Still, he managed to get a syllabus of what they were reading—this month, it was Hamlet—and he went to the library to read it. It was like a shot of Novocaine, straight to his central cortex. He tried again and again. Normally he was a light sleeper, but the Dane felled him over and over, like a tireless sniper. He drooled so much that he awoke dizzy and confused from dehydration.

Yet it didn’t matter. What else could he do? It was the only in he had. He was still more likely to comprehend Hamlet than come out of a rugby game with the same number of ribs he went in with.

He studied the play as closely as he was able—which was hard, hard. This is what it must be like to study at high altitudes, he thought one night, before losing consciousness with such force that, not only did his nose hit his desk hard enough to bleed, but even that impact did not awaken him. Drool was easy enough to get out of paper; blood was almost impossible, and Hart was forced to purchase the play, which caused him great pain.

Tom’s group met on Wednesday nights, and after a few nights of intermittent blackout studying, Hart felt well-enough prepared to come and, with any luck, make his first contact.

He dressed nervously, taking great care. I know that I am not good-looking, so there’s no point trying to be snazzy; I don’t even have the kind of horn-rimmed homeliness which can be insouciantly cool. He got a haircut—nothing too short, because his ears protruded at such an odd degree that sprinting made a roar in his brain. A nice shave (he imagined being Hamlet, monologue-ing at the mirror: begone, thou eight hairs of almost-manhood!), a little cologne, and he was ready.

He considered leaving behind his copy of Hamlet, in order to ask Tom to share, but that seemed just too… His first impression should not be that he was incapable of remembering to bring a book—that just screamed parasite!

Hart did not want to be there early, because that would not give him the chance to sit next to Tom. He did not want to arrive late, however, since all the chairs near Tom were likely to be taken—he could not be the only outcast looking for the golden gate back to the tribal core! So he hovered outside the room where the meeting was to take place, pretending to take great interest in the adverts for shared rides, second-hand books, and the slightly desperate scrip-for-cash offers. After twelve people had gone in (or about twelve; he couldn’t decide about the last gaggle, who passed by peripherally; he was afraid of staring), Hart panicked and rushed in, his cheeks and neck hot with fear, and found that it was quite a small room—about twenty chairs—and that men were clumped around in groups designed to point out to any newcomer the isolation of any bitter loners like himself. So Hart decided to sit near enough to a group that, when Tom entered, he could pretend to be rooting in his rucksack; he was not excluded, just turned away from his boon companions, just for a moment.

But when the golden statues of the rowing-men came floating in—the chilling union of Greek beauty and English reserve—Hart barely dared to glance up. They circled Tom like a Nordic phalanx, sitting in a circle around him. They all talked at the same time (Hart normally hated that habit, but didn’t expect, should he actually end up in this tribe, to end up speaking a whole lot), and the verbal play-fighting continued, as it always did, without interruption or abatement. They mocked as gods would mock, secure in their power and unable to die.

A few minutes after seven, the door opened again, so slowly that it seemed to be shifted by an errant breeze. An elderly man came in, supported by a balding young teacher’s assistant. The old man was clearly a professor, because he had obviously gathered so much abstract knowledge that little matters like personal hygiene were as relevant as ants to an elephant. Deep knowledge seems to mark out its occupants with rank stench, much as a dog marks its territory with pee.

“Theeeenk-you,” said the professor, reaching his desk and leaning, knuckles-down upon it. (This was, for Hart at least, a vaguely simian gesture which brought to mind a very wise, and utterly bald, orangutan.) The TA hovered behind him, perhaps waiting to catch him, should the force of the great man’s thoughts lean him too far to one side or another.

The professor squinted at them. “We are studying, Hamlet, as you know, and we left off last week with the Oedipal problem of Gertrude and Hamlet, and now are interested in the possible degeneracy of the relations between Hamlet and Laertes. Why do they want to fight? Many men who fight over a woman are secretly in love with each other. It is not the woman they want to seduce, but in fact each other. Thoughts? You!”

An ancient claw came up and jabbed at Hart, like a toothless snake old beyond years.

“It’s my first—time,” said Hart, thinking: bally hard luck, old man. You’re about to look like an idiot.

“Do you think that Hamlet is not about unnatural, sexual love? The love of a boy for his mother, or his friend. Convention says that Hamlet must avenge his father, but he cannot. Convention also says that Hamlet must love a woman, but he cannot. His inclinations run elsewhere. The Oedipal theory of Hamlet is interesting, because Oedipus is a Greek play, and it is used to describe this play, which has a Greek theme. Sexual love of the mother always leads to sexual love of the brother, so to speak. Comments?”

Hart was dizzy. Lord above, is this what they do in English Literature? Random Perversity 101? “I think—well I am a history major…”

“Ah, interesting; we haven’t had a history man in here since—oh, what, 1891. But Hamlet is not a history play, other than family history, which in fact reaches to pre-history, in our collective intelligence. Comments?”

Hart shifted. He could feel that Tom might be looking at him. He desperately wanted to confirm this, but was afraid that his eyes would give too much away. Take me to your cloud-kingdom! “Well, sir, I think that—well, Hamlet is an aristocrat, right?” He could feel the creak of eyes widening, of laughs gathering, as his accent shouldered its Viking way into the delicate gathering. “But aristocrats are warriors to begin with, or were, since the fall of the Roman Empire. Violent overthrows would not have offended them. But Hamlet is a change in aristocracy, of aristocratic thinking. He wants to substitute right for might. He is the first glimpse of humanism and rationality over the medieval horizon.”

There was a pause in the room. He knew what it was. The thoughts, contrasted with the accent. It’s like hearing Beethoven played on a set of spoons. That wasn’t what Hart wanted to leave them with. He plunged on.

“See, the uncle kills, takes the throne. Very primitive. But better for Denmark. I mean, this is the Dark Ages—Hamlet would be a terrible warrior-king. Gertrude marries the uncle. Again, practical. Women were drawn to the most powerful warrior. Hamlet’s father must have gotten weak, or lazy, to fail to notice a usurper skulking around his gardens. So far, the pair of them have not distinguished themselves as warriors. So the father is killed. That’s a fair way to overthrow a warrior. Now, if the uncle were in Hamlet’s position, he would have killed the usurper—not for the sake of right or wrong, but for the sake of power. But Hamlet doesn’t. He wants to know if his uncle actually did it. That makes no sense, from the standpoint of a warrior. Who would care? Power, the force of arms, courage and daring, that’s the right of succession among warriors. Not facts, evidence and juridical morality. But Hamlet needs to have right on his side to act. And reason. That’s the problem with the ghost. I mean, if I had a vision telling me to kill someone, I’d stop to think as well. It’s the difference between Abraham and Hamlet. That’s the difference between a warrior society and a humanistic, just society. But Hamlet was ahead of his time. He was an Enlightenment man, trapped in a medieval world. He wanted right in a world where only might held sway. And I imagine that there were a lot of people like him. People who wanted to do the right thing, before legal protections were in place. And were cut down. I’ve been talking too long. It’s a bad habit. I’ll be quiet.”

There was a pause in the little room. The TA leaned forward. The professor leaned forward. “And young Hamlet’s desire to fornicate with his mother?”

“I don’t…I don’t see that as much. So why didn’t he act? That’s the mystery, isn’t it? Why didn’t he kill Claudius? Well, he needed a court of law, but there was no such thing. He didn’t have the brutality to take the law into his own hands, especially with such flimsy evidence—which I think is true of most of us. I think that’s all of it. That’s all.”

“Intereeesting,” croaked the professor (and Hart suddenly saw the old man, in a smelly room, feeding at least three cats, with no photographs of relatives on his mantelpiece, and felt very sad, as if he had kicked a blind man). “I think that the historical perspective is always of relevance. But I think that your view does the genius of the play scant justice. Or, if it does, that it amply reinforces the genius of Shakespeare, who could create works capable of absorbing multiple perspectives.”

The rest of the lecture continued, but Hart couldn’t follow it. The play in fact seemed to be a barely restrained medieval incest orgy. He felt dizzy, and wanted to be gone. I hate shining my light on muck, he thought. Tom did not look at him the whole time, and Hart felt a great, bitter disappointment. So he’s just a great gorgeous muckraker, after all. Hart had visions of himself, climbing great snowy capped mountains, far above the eating industrial acids of academia. With Nietzsche perhaps.

The professor’s head leaned further and further forward as the class wound down. Apparently there was a preordained angle which indicated that he was done, because the TA began levering him back to a standing position—almost in mid-sentence—and students began to pack up.

Hart felt lethargic. The smell of mothballs hung heavily in the room. He was the last one to leave. In the hallway, Tom was standing in front of the bulletin board.

Hart’s eyes widened slightly. My God—even his stubble is perfect! So few men can get away with that!

Tom grinned at him. “All right, so that was a bit of all right!”

He’s been separated from the herd! cried a possessive part of Hart’s brain. Strike! Strike! But his predator-patience asserted itself, only slightly more strongly. Don’t babble. Don’t try to make jokes. Don’t try to be clever. Don’t impress. Listen, and be easy.

“What were you doing there?” asked Tom.

“I was just—curious. What’s going on in the other tents, that sort of thing.”

“Professor Turgen is rather…”

“Yes, rather…” No, don’t imitate his accent!

“Well, I thought you had something of great interest to say. More than I’d have in one of your classes. That took guts. And do you think it’s true?”

“True?”

Tom nodded, and something very intense flickered into his eyes, which did not escape Hart. “True, you know. Some people say clever things, and some people say true things. Which are you?”

“I think—true. That’s how I’d like it…” Hart felt a despairing panic. Brain seizure! The hunter has become the hunted!

Tom grinned suddenly, and Hart wilted before the full searchlight of the young man’s charisma. “So, let’s get a coffee.”

Hart did not drink coffee after noon, because of his light sleeping habits, but he drank three cups with Tom that night, and they stayed until the cafeteria closed.

They had many things in common. Neither of them had any idea what they wanted to do with their lives. Neither of them were close to their siblings. Tom had more physical courage; Hart more intellectual courage.

They talked for many hours. The first topic was modern literature.

“There’s just this perception that there’s something dirty in society, isn’t there?” asked Hart. “Everything is rape and incest and taboo topics…”

“Well, that comes from the war, of course,” said Tom.

“Hm?”

“These supposedly Christian civilizations went to war, and the only evils they refused to employ were torture and cannibalism—and they refrained from those only because they were of doubtful utility.”

Hart frowned. “But that wasn’t the world, Tom, right?”

“Some have called it a World War.”

“But it wasn’t the world that was corrupt, Tom.” In his shy, excited wonder, Hart could not resist the temptation of using Tom’s name every chance he got. “It wasn’t as if the world went mad.”

Tom ran his fingers through his marvelous hair, then narrowed his eyes at Hart. “You don’t think the world went mad?”

“Oh, heavens no.” Don’t over-fruit your accent now, of all times! “Look at it this way. A man gets a terrible infection. He lies in bed, thrashing in his own sweat, his eyes rolling, cursing in ancient Aramaic, I don’t know. Do we stand at his bedside and say: good lord, his body has gone mad! No—he has been attacked by a virus, and he is defending himself. There is the attacker, the instigator—and the defender. The world has not gone mad when a good society defends itself against barbarism. In fact, to refrain from fighting would have been madness. We’d all be shouting in German, preparing to destroy the New World.”

Tom seemed very emotional, all of a sudden. “I see. That’s—interesting.”

Hart hesitated, then took the plunge. “You lost a lot of family in the war.”

This was the constant danger of conversation in the early nineteen twenties: bringing up the war, treading on old wounds. Now, among their own generation, it wasn’t so bad. Father’s had vaporized, of course, but they had never been around long enough for bonding, so it was all very abstract.

It was quite another thing, though, to refer to depressed mothers.

“You know,” said Hart, feeling his way towards the topic with a far greater degree of emotional sensitivity than he had ever conceived himself capable of. “It’s these bloody Marxists who have killed our capacity to mourn our fallen.”

“Wh—what?” stammered Tom. His eyes were glistening, and from more than charisma this time.

“They say that war is an inevitable consequence of capitalism. All history is class conflict. Inescapable. A mere struggle for power, without moral consequence. Our fathers fell in the service of war profiteers. Nothing heroic. They were pawns on the chessboard of international business, nothing more. Not defenders of our noble island. Not the saviors of civilization. Not heroes. Not heroes. Just fools.”

“Don’t make me cry!” said Tom sharply, looking away. “I’m enough of a blubberer without you pouring it on!”

“How many?” asked Hart softly.

“Five,” whispered Tom, his voice catching.

“Mother’s side? Father’s?”

“All mother’s.”

“Oh, Tom,” said Hart, staring at Tom’s forearm, willing his own hand to stillness. “I’m sorry.”

“What about you?”

“Well, everyone in my village was just happy to get out of the mines. They toasted it in the pub. ‘Here’s to a red death, ’stead of a black lung!’” Hart laughed softly. “They all joined up early. Attrition is statistically very powerful. Seventy percent.”

“Weren’t they needed in the mines?”

“Some women went down. And kids.”

“And your family?”

Hart shrugged. “Two cousins. It was unbelievable. My father, two uncles on my mother’s side, three on my father’s—they all came back. Not a scratch. We’re a new religion in town. The Miracle McDoughty’s. We always had an irreligious streak. Now they say: ‘the devil looks after his own.’”

“That’s… Of everything I’ve heard, that’s the most…”

“We’re not far from Llangollen. Do you know, we lost more women and children from domestic bombing than men from overseas bullets?”

There was a pause.

“Zo! Tell me about your mutter,” said Hart, imitating a German accent.

“The standard. Depressed.”

“Do you get along with her?”

Tom grimaced. “More than anyone else in the family. I kept her happy.”

“You know…” Hart paused. It seemed that their conversation was a series of steps of precipices, but this next one seemed the greatest.

Tom took a sip of his coffee. “Cold. Go on.”

“Well, your lot… It’s like you were all shipped in from some planet that never knew war.”

“My lot? The rowers?”

“Yeah, and the cricketers and the rugby men. You’re all so jaunty.”

Tom stared at him, then cocked his head slightly. “And so? All the goodness cannot vanish from the world.”

Hart paused, and the electric intensity of their sudden intimacy seemed to pass through him in a shudder.

“All joy cannot be forgotten,” continued Tom, then looked back at Hart. “You know, I never thought that about Hamlet, that he was a man struggling to be good before there was such a thing as goodness. That his struggle helped discover goodness. That there was nothing incestuous in his nature.”

Hart said nothing.

“But my joy is nonsense,” continued Tom. “I mean, it’s not, of course, in the here and now. But I have no idea where I’m going. But it’s more than me. All of us. You think of the past, it pulls you down. You go forward without it, you’re empty. So I just—play, for now.”

My god, does the man have any idea what he’s saying? thought Hart, on the verge of tears himself. He’s like an oracle which cannot translate itself to itself…

“So, tell me about your family,” said Tom, after a moment.

“Well, me dad is smashing,” grinned Hart, suddenly shrugging off their collective burdens. “He’s this great prehistoric beast of pride, always bringing me seconds and cuffing my brothers for not applying themselves more, like me, the golden boy.”

“And your mum?”

“Quiet, reserved, with that eerie, calm rural dignity. There’s nothing she can’t handle. She gave birth in the barn. She’s three foot, from hip to hip. She likes to sing. She never plays favorites, and praise from her is as rare as a winter swallow. But there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for us kids. She’s all deeds, no words. My dad talks more, but he’s a rock, too.”

“And your brothers?”

“Oh, they’re great. Livestock, actually. Envious, of course, a little. They think I’m breaking free to go to great fancy balls in the big city. I ask them if they liked swotting, and they said no, cracking a book was getting a headache. So I says: that’s where I’m going, what I’m doing. Studying. They says: more power to you then! The other kids, though… You know, in the army, apparently, you have to run through a row of men who beat you with oars. That was like going through my school. I was happy to be smart—it means you’re never alone, rarely lonely, not often bored. But I was putting on airs, of course, and thought the less of everyone else. S’pose I was, of course, but what’s the harm in that?” demanded Hart, his eyes gleaming dark. “I mean, smarter is better, right? And I would have only thought them a little worse, but they beat on me so. And that was a lot worse, in my mind, than teasing me about being Mr. McBrain. And fight back? Biology is destiny, you know—don’t fool yourself for a second!”

Something harder can come into the delicate discourse, and Hart forced himself to stop. You’re not as resigned as he is, not as sweet, so shut up! “Sorry,” he muttered.

Tom smiled. “No problem. We all have our crosses to bear.” He glanced at his watch. “Now, as to the time…”

They said their goodbyes awkwardly, and Hart wandered back to his dormitory room, utterly dejected. It seemed that such tenderness was only to be in passing, for days passed and he never saw Tom.

Chapter 14

Tom and Reginald went to school within one year of each other, and this produced an unexpected Renaissance within the Spencer household.

It was not immediate, but it was unmistakable. Two weeks after Tom went away to All Souls, Ruth came down for breakfast.

Quentin glanced up from his newspaper, stunned. At first he thought that she might be sleepwalking; it had not happened for—what, eight years? Catherine—at Tom’s request—had been kept on as a cook, and she handled it magnificently.

“Good morning, Ruth,” she said with great imperturbability. “Are you hungry?”

“I am,” Ruth murmured, touching her throat. “I really am.”

“Two eggs,” smiled Quentin. “Eggs sunny side up. One piece of brown toast, unbuttered.”

Ruth smiled faintly and sat down. Quentin sat still, afraid to speak, of startling her back upstairs, to her dark nest.

They ate in silence. Quentin lowered the newspaper from time to time, just a shade, to watch his wife eat. Her cheeks colored slightly, and he realized she was aware of his stare, and raised his paper—again, very slowly.

She went back to bed after breakfast, but gradually, intermittently, she began to appear more often, like a ghost straining for corporeality.

Something was stirring in her heart. Some sort of light was breaking over her exhausted inner armies. Not a healing, not quite, but a sort of armistice.

Quentin had not put aside his political aspirations, but they had been delayed. The by-election he hoped to run in happened while he was still paralyzed by his wife’s hostility. She had agreed to refrain from proclaiming her beliefs, but he had had the following conversation with the Conservative party head.

“Well,” said Mr. Watkins, who was tall and thin and had a close-cropped sheen of silver hair. “You possess unremarkable credentials, having had no parliamentary experience, no close affiliation with the Conservative party, and scant financial resources. However, these are not utterly insurmountable, insofar as a man with ability, drive, and oratorical power can position himself as the outsider who can ride into town and clean things up. But, to pursue the American metaphor, perhaps, beyond good taste, you cannot do this without a credible posse. And my inquiries have led me to the understanding that you are in possession of a rather singular wife.”

“I have talked with Ruth,” said Quentin, stressing her name in the hopes of transforming her from crippling hibiscus to fallible human being, “and she fully supports my desire to serve my country.”

“No doubt,” said Mr. Watkins dryly. “Yet we have before us several possible candidates, and their wives have performed every kind of social service, from running the Red Cross to sitting on Means Test committees to running political seminars explaining why the League of Nations failed to check Japanese aggression in Manchuria to our understandably confused constituents. Whether we like it or not, a man is judged by the company he keeps. When offered a candidate with a shut-in wife, voters might legitimately question the man’s ability to keep a steady focus on the job. It is the contention of the Conservative party that the current decade will contain within it grave dangers, and will require a tenaciously steady hand at the tiller. By all appearances—and with all due respect—you are not that man.”

It was a kindness to even receive that depth of explanation, Quentin knew, and did not press the issue.

Things changed, however with Ruth’s unexpected Renaissance. Though the local by-election had come and gone, it was not at all unusual for a candidate to offer himself to a foreign borough, and so Quentin began to follow the health and prospects of those in office with a grim, silent dedication. All I need is for just one of these old buzzards to fall from the limb, and all will come to fruition.

It finally happened when Reginald was in his third year, and Tom in his first. Early 1931, when Ramsay MacDonald was campaigning, the incumbent for Hillington died in office. There was a rush to fill the empty seat. Quentin returned to the office of Mr. Watkins, with Ruth in tow and, after extensive questioning of Quentin’s platform, his knowledge of parliamentary procedure, Conservative doctrine, his personal habits and—last but not least—his wife’s stability, Quentin was accepted as the Conservative candidate for Hillington.

What got him the candidacy was his platform of ‘drawing up the plank.’ He rejected unlimited free trade and argued that England should focus on retaining the wealth of the Empire through preferential trade policies among the Dominions. He also advocated the expansion of benefits being paid out to the unemployed. His most successful speech was delivered to the British Society of Jewelers, and it went thus:

“My dear friends, the time has come for us to admit to ourselves that the growing pendulum of extremism must be stopped by finding the mature, and difficult middle way. Over the past fifteen years, grave threats have arisen, threats arrayed against all the great and liberal institutions of the British Empire. In 1917, the institution of Communism in Russia created a force which is bent on destabilizing our way of life. In 1922, Fascism was brought into existence in Italy. Now, we find that we are spiraling into a Depression the likes of which the world has never seen before. Many millions of able-bodied men are wandering the streets, unable to provide for their families, unable to advance in their trades, and it is my firm belief that a most precious social contract is being broken. Capitalism, untrammeled capitalism has been tried, and found wanting. The danger of economic destabilization is all too clear. Communism, in Germany, which was a grave threat in 1919, almost won in 1923, during the time of catastrophic inflation. We have seen the weakening of democracy in Germany’s Weimar Republic, and the consequent growth of radical elements. National Socialists, Communists, and Fascists fight daily in the streets.

“Turning closer to home, we find, across the Channel, a Great Republic whose democratic ideals are in full retreat. France has suffered under a succession of unstable governments, and the radical Left has joined under a united front, and advocates the nationalization of key industries, the abolition of the exclusive right to property, and, in the absence of strong and opposing leadership—and due to growing social and financial desperation—is turning to violence to achieve its aims.

“So, as we scan Europe, noting its agonies and convulsions, what should our approach to our own island be? Well, I think that we have failed large elements of our society, and if we do not appease those elements, we shall not long retain our seats of influence. Capitalism causes swings too wild to allow society to settle into that stability which is the only rock upon which true growth can be founded. Socialism, communism, and fascism offend our sensibilities too much; they curtail the rights of the individual too greatly to ever be placidly accepted in England. Thus we must recoil from all extremities, and soothe the furrowed brows of our desperate brothers. By taking the best ideas from all camps, we defuse the radicals, stabilize society—and, in my view, the society which results will be more just, more fair and more stable. From socialism we take the redistribution of income—as Shakespeare so nobly states in King Lear—‘that distribution should undo excess / And each man have enough.’ From communism we take the responsibility of all for all—for without a doubt, as the rise of the dictator-nations has shown, we rise or fall as one. From fascism we take national pride, an enduring faith in the nobility of our national institutions.

“Thus for our platform. Yet, you might ask what of you, Quentin Spencer? What do you bring to this table? For it would not be enough to say that I advocate a combination of all that is good and fine in what we see around us, without adding something of my own to the mix.

“I know that there are men in this very hall who fought in the Great War, and are not now gazing with equanimity on the European situation. There are woman here who lost their nearest and dearest to that terrible conflagration. We have long noted the instabilities in Germany, and it is to this subject that I wish to turn to now.

“I wish to state openly, tonight, before you all, that I consider Germany to be laboring under an unjust peace. The framers of the peace treaty of Versailles, fresh from the slaughter of four long years, had in their hearts no small portion of vengeance. Who can blame them? It was a horror without precedence in human history. Yet now, twelve years after the close of that terrible war, we may be in a position to see things more clearly. The German monarchy has been disposed of. Germany has signed the Treaty of Locarno, guaranteeing the Western borders. She has retained her commitment to liberal democracy, despite all the shocks and upheavals she experienced throughout the last decade, through near-revolution, economic collapse, the current Depression we all labor under, and social dislocation of every conceivable kind. She had been, for the past five years, a full member of the League of Nations. She has been paying her reparations. She is currently enmeshed, with the victorious powers of 1918, in complex negotiations for comprehensive disarmament. It is, I submit, quite unjust to continue to treat her as a pariah among civilized nations. Germany will never be stable until she is equal.

“Let us not forget that we have already, in 1925, recognized that the Treaty of Versailles is not written in stone. Some of the more odious provisions in that Treaty have already been done away with. And let us not also forget that our unilateral imposition of German disarmament was—as we expressly pointed out at the time—a mere prequel to the disarmament of the victorious Allied powers. Now, more than a decade later, Germany, in my view, has every right to say to us: England and France, you promised that you would disarm, yet you have not. Why is that? Well, we say, we have an Empire to maintain—which was swollen by our confiscation of German overseas territories, and their incorporation into our own holdings. Yet it does not hold water, my friends. We retain the right to arm, despite our promises to the contrary, while denying that same right to Germany. Is it any wonder, then, that discontent still rages through that country? A country we have stripped of its defense, a country which still lies prostrate in its defeat, so many years after the fact, a country to whom we promised our own disarmament, which we have not done. No, it is my belief that we need to raise Germany from the humiliations imposed by the vengeance of our fathers. It is my belief that the framers of Versailles did not expect that their restrictions would hold forth without change, from 1919 until the end of time. We have agreed that Versailles is open to change. So, let us put our trust back in Germany, which has proven its stability throughout the awful decade of the 1920s. Let us raise a proud people back to a position of equality. Let us seek to find a solution to the just complaints of Germany. The time for vengeance and petty divisions is past. Europe is a single land, and we are a part of it. We must all rise or fall together!”

Quentin paused here, while catcalls of ‘coward’ and ‘never again!’ and ‘Germany has not changed.’ After a time, he held up his hands, and spoke once more.

“And, my friends, lest any think that this is mere rank idealism, let us look at one other significant, salient fact. The horrors of the last war, grave as they were, would be far surpassed by another war of its magnitude. For a new and terrible weapon has entered into the hands of man. The new airplane bomber has the capacity to transcend national boundaries as if they did not exist. There is no counter-defense—the bombers will always get through! Civilian cities would lie in flames under their terrible wings. It has been estimated that half a million people would die in the first day of the next war. What madness could we conceive taking hold of the German people, to imagine that they would pursue a war of aggression which would result in the utter destruction of Christian civilization? No, the Germans care for their lives, their cultures, and their children as much as we do, and would never allow their leaders to pursue such madness, or follow them into a battle which would be the end of us all. The last war has been called the Great War, the war to end war, and it is indubitably so. For the next war would be nothing less than a war to end mankind. I stand here before you to say that the identification and alleviation of German discontent is the only way that such utter destruction can be averted. If I am elected, I will work with every fiber of my being to ensure that such a conflagration will never come to pass!”

Chapter 15

The first Christmas break, Tom, Reginald, Ruth, and Quentin sat in the living room. Quentin and Reginald were smoking; Tom drank water almost by the bucket, but was afraid to leave the room, for fear that his mother would be lost in the darkness of their thoughts. Ruth sat and argued with an unstable vivacity which was a painful contrast to her earlier lassitude.

“But here’s the thing,” said Reginald, lighting another cigarette (this habit lasted only two and a half months). “Who is to say that Russia—the new Russia, Soviet Russia—is not the greatest paradise on earth, where all the essential problems of humanity and society have been solved?”

“It is my firm belief,” said Quentin, easing and creaking in his leather chair, “that there is a great deal which can be learned from the Russian experiment.”

“Exactly!” cried Reginald, then frowned. “Well not ‘exactly,’ for that word also has its problems.”

“But if everything is perfect in Russia,” said Tom, “why don’t we just adopt their society?”

“Well, there are two answers to that,” said Reginald. “First, the powers that be in England can scarcely be expected to cheer a society which would depose them. And second, there is a kind of inertia to society—especially societies which, like ours, have arisen not through planning, but through a kind of historical gradualism. It’s the difference between, in law, a constitution like America’s, versus what we have in England, which is a kind of common law of precedents. We hate and fear the Russian model not because it’s bad, but because it’s different. People are always suspicious of new things.”

Quentin grunted. “Well, insofar as this is an entirely theoretical discussion, I would say that I like certain aspects of the Communist model, but I would never be able to advocate them within this country, because it is too foreign to the continuity of our institutions. And because our institutions—the aristocracy, the church, Parliament—are so entrenched, it would take a revolution of the most brutal nature to overthrow them.”

“Yet that may not also be for the worst,” said Reginald, his cheeks flushed. “It is the oldest question in the world: the good of the many versus the good of the few. Bertrand Russell says: ‘If it could be proven that the deaths of a million Jews could bring about universal peace and harmony, it would be hard to argue against it.’”

“But that makes no sense!” cried Ruth, making them all jump. It still surprised them all that she was no longer confined to her room. “I mean, how could the death of a million people bring peace?”

“It’s theoretical, mother,” said Reginald heavily. “The question is: what are we willing to sacrifice to improve society? For it has to be said that our lot are not doing so well, just at present. We have, what, five million unemployed? A government teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. While in Russia they have full employment, free medical care, superior education, no social classes, no economic instability. Everything is planned, from the top down, and no one goes without. Compared to the brutal instability of late capitalism, there is something to be said for that. I don’t say that I accept it all, just that—there is something to be said for it.”

“Oh, Reginald, you are still the same!” snapped Ruth. “You can’t draw breath without attacking oxygen. You live for the right to criticize your own government—which is not allowed in Russia!”

“Ah, but how do we know that? Perhaps everyone is allowed to criticize the government in Russia, but no one does because they have nothing to complain about!”

“How do you know that?” demanded his mother.

“I’m not saying that I do know that. I am saying that it might be so.”

“So what is the point of saying it? Rank conjecture!”

Quentin held up a hand. “Ruth, please. All the boy is saying is that we shouldn’t assume things about a foreign society. Or judge it by our own standards.”

“They killed the Tsar,” murmured Tom.

“What?” demanded Reginald. “Speak up!”

“They killed the Tsar and his family. The revolution was founded on murder.”

“So was the regime of the Tsar!” snapped Reginald. “What of it?”

“They also killed the Mensheviks. And the kulaks. Hundreds of thousands of them.”

“Do you have any proof of that? Have you seen the bodies? Did you see the executions? No. And even if you have incontrovertible proof of all these allegations, what would it matter? Perhaps communism is the perfect system after all, and we have just been stumbling around in the dark. If so, then the deaths of thousands of people—millions even—who oppose the creation of universal justice is entirely understandable!”

Quentin chuckled. “Steady on, Reggie!”

“But we judge all these things while having no knowledge of the facts!” cried Reginald, thumping a fist into an open hand.

“Why do you need facts?” demanded Ruth, her voice shrill. “Why? They murder! They execute! Thousands, millions, they don’t care!”

“Is it murder if they are defending themselves?” cried Reginald. “If they have a just society being undermined by subversives, by those who had power in the old world, and who will do anything to bring it back? We outlaw criminals—the criminals try to overthrow the police, are the police not allowed to defend themselves, to defend justice?”

“But Reginald,” protested Tom. “The Russian citizen has no freedom.”

“Really? And what is meant by that?”

“Freedom—they can’t choose their own jobs. Everyone is paid the same. It doesn’t look like they have freedom of the press. You know…”

“Actually,” replied Reginald icily, “I must confess that I do not know. I do know that we group certain economic and political liberties under the general rubric ‘freedom,’ but I do not know that different ‘freedoms’ are denied to the average Russian. Let’s see—they have freedom of the press, but 99% of the population can’t read or write.” He clapped his hands sardonically. “Wonderful! Or let’s say they have freedom of association. But they never leave their village. Oh, or they can choose any occupation they please, as long as it’s impoverished farmer! Or we give them capitalism and property rights, which gives them the freedom to join the five million unemployed, like workers in this country! Don’t you see what a ridiculous argument you’re making. You’re just saying: ‘I like these rights,’ without realizing that they don’t apply to a place like Russia!”

“So you think we should all become Communists!” cried Ruth.

“No—no! I’m just saying that we have certain problems, and perhaps they have certain problems—and that we cannot say that our solutions are the best always, everywhere and forever! I mean, they just evolved here! We can’t grow oranges in Shropshire, and we can’t transplant democratic capitalism to Russia!”

“It is nothing but undergraduate vanity!” cried Ruth, turning to her younger son, her eyes softening. “Tell me that you don’t think this way, Tom!”

Tom sighed, taking another drink of water. “No, I don’t think that way.” He paused. “I should hate to live in Russia. I don’t think that the end justifies the means. Murder only begets murder…”

“So you don’t believe in defense against invaders? Just roll over?”

“Hold up, Reggie. There’s a difference between attack and defense. I mean, the Tsar never threatened any of the revolutionaries personally, but they killed him anyway.”

“They killed him for the sake of the proletariat!”

“Sure, I know. But—but I could say that, too. I mean, anyone could. Did the poor ask Lenin to liberate them? They were all intellectuals. They have this idea—this big idea—and everyone has to fit inside that. And anyone who doesn’t fit—has to be cut down. No, I don’t like it at all. I think you should study the world, and then develop theories. I don’t think you should have a theory, and then force the world to fit into it. It’s brutal. Messy. And, if you’re wrong, never-ending.”

“Well, that’s wonderful,” sneered Reginald. “So you believe that no one should do anything but tinker with what is. Very brave. Very progressive. You are an old, old man.”

“All right,” said Quentin, holding up his hand.

“It’s almost time for dinner,” said Ruth. “Reginald, will you join us in our repast of food ripped from the hands of the proletariat?”

“Stop it, Ruth,” said Quentin. She rose up in her chair, her whole body taut with rebellion, then sank back down, her eyes averted.

“Lads,” said Quentin slowly. “There’s something we have to talk about before dinner.” He took a deep breath. “All right—the crash of ’29… Well, my lads, it has just wiped us out completely.”

There was silence in the room. Tom frowned, then his face broke into a scant, sad smile. “Well, we were just talking about the poor…”

“Shut up, Tom,” said Reginald, leaning forward in his chair. “Father, what do you mean? What are the actual implications?”

“It’s…your school. It’s paid until the end of the year, but after that…”

“What,” said Tom. “There’s nothing left to recover with?”

Quentin shook his head. “Sorry. I got out just ahead of the margin calls which would have utterly destroyed us. We have enough for just under a year. I shall have to cast my net very wide to prosper after that.”

Reginald began breathing deeply through his nose. Ruth raised her feet from the floor, as if a sudden flood were rising, and tucked them under her.

“So, father,” said Reginald. “You’re saying that the money is gone, and we shall just have to fend for ourselves. You’re saying that there was precious little purpose to all the endless swotting I have done over the past ten years…”

“That’s just not so. There are other universities which would welcome an All Soul’s man.”

“And all my contacts? Shall I be allowed to transfer them as well? My future, everyone I am supposed to know to—to get ahead? And am I to present myself to the Foreign Office with some crayon-scrawled degree from a local hack-factory? I shall be lucky to be allowed to file!”

“Reginald!”

He leapt to his feet. “And the purpose of filling my head with ambitious dreams, father? Remind me again the point of that! ‘Reginald, you can be anything you want’—well, I suppose that’s true. Unless the family fortune gets flushed down the loo by—by… Tell me this, father—when did you know?”

“If you take that tone with me,” snarled Quentin. “I shall throw you from this house myself!”

“Quentin!” cried Ruth.

“Oh, dear, father,” said Reginald, leaning forward, his shadow scaling the wall behind him. “Are you threatening me? I mean, really! How, exactly, are you expecting to compel my obedience in the absence of anything to offer me?”

“You obey me because I am your father!” thundered Quentin, jabbing a blunt finger up from his chair.

“I see,” said Reginald. “I obey you because you are my father. Yet, as my father, you can be expected to have certain responsibilities. One of which is to provide for my education. Or, at the very least, to complete on the commitments which you made to me.”

“Reginald!” cried Ruth. “This affects Tom as well!”

Reginald whirled on her. “Well Tom may take this lying down if he so chooses. It would not be out of character. But not I. I expect those around me to honor their commitments. And I secured a promise from you, father. So what is to be done?”

Tom raised his hand. “If it helps, I would rather not go back. It would seem that, in Reginald’s year, you are taught to be both a communist and a hateful narcissist.”

Reginald smiled. “Well, Tommy, it would scarcely be surprising if you chose to throw up your education. The last man in the race often wants out of the competition. Now, father,” said Reginald, turning to Quentin. “I am sure that you have some other solutions than ‘sorry, boys—enjoy your last year!’”

Quentin paused, his lips compressing into little white worms. “Though you have put me in no mood to help you, I shall. There are a number of scholarships which would allow you to continue your studies…”

“Scholarships…” repeated Reginald, his voice hollow with shock. “My God, father, that is beyond pathetic! Do you know that the root of the word is Greek for ‘I don’t belong here.’ We all pity such misshapen creatures—like Tom’s little friend Hart, with their little mining accents and dropped ’aiches and nod-nodding servility. Scholarships mark you as a chimera, a mutant, an ape with the ability to juggle.”

Quentin shrugged tightly. “Well, you’ll have the accent, if that’s what concerns you.”

“Yes, but that… Scholarships also—they make you an academic toady. All your education consists of is parroting back whatever fashionable thought will get you the most marks…”

Tom murmured: “Which you do anyway.”

“And,” continued Reginald, ignoring his brother, “there is also the disgrace of having your family’s fortunes laid bare. You have to forego all the outings you were used to—outings which develop the kind of contacts which makes university worthwhile. I will come out knowing nothing but longer words for ideas I already had. Nothing—except the web of friends which can propel you up!”

“Webs don’t propel,” said Tom. Ruth smiled.

“But now—oh, now I shall be known as the po-faced boy whose family fell on hard times, but through dint of his labor managed to hang on, as if he were still respectable, to a station that his father’s improvidence has now barred from him forever!”

Through some violent inner effort, Quentin did not reply to his son’s taunt. Ruth was pale; Tom’s face flushed. Reginald stood over them, poised like some striking snake, then turned and charged from the room—and from the house. They sat in silence, listening to the roar as the motorcar started, then the scrabble of gravel as Reginald roared off down the front road.

Quentin and Ruth exchanged glances—which surprised and pleased Tom, since this was most rare.

“Well, the boy has spirit,” said Quentin finally, managing a smile. “He has spirit, but I have no appetite.” He got up and left the room.

Ruth stared at Tom expectantly, and he suddenly felt irritated.

“How are you, Tom?”

“All—all right. It’s a shock…” But even as Tom spoke, he realized that it wasn’t. Not really.

“You can get a scholarship, if you apply yourself. You are brighter than Reginald. You don’t realize this. You don’t understand. You should. He needs you more than you need him.”

Tom shuddered. Every now and then, a great white light opened up from his mother’s forehead, illuminating everything too brightly, giving his eyes no time to adjust—and the tears which followed were not of release, but the pain of the sudden glare.

Chapter 16

Tom and Reginald did not overlap much during their university years. However, they did share one friend in common. Klaus Heppner was beyond gorgeous. He was a lithe, blonde man of twenty-one, with an almost perfectly formed head. He had a staggering intelligence, which was stirred almost lazily by argument, and seemed to rise and sway on wide hind-legs, sniffing slowly, then striking down its opponents with casually brutal humor.

Tom was drawn to him because of his physical perfection; Klaus was excellent at almost every sport; Tom loved especially to play tennis with him, because Klaus was so good that beating him made Tom’s heart throb with joy. There was something about Klaus that Tom wanted to beat—something, he knew, that could never be beaten by a desire to beat it. Reginald was drawn to Klaus by a similar desire in reverse; they played chess together, but Reginald was always vaguely disappointed on the rare occasions when he beat Klaus. It was like a monk disproving a proof of God. He won, but he lost as well…

No one could ever be quite themselves around Klaus. First, there was his Germanic physical perfection; the knife-edge jawline, the perfect tanned skin, the straight nose, noble brow, long blonde hair, and white square teeth. Long before the phrase ‘master race’ came into common disdain, it rose unbidden into the minds of the young British students, who felt their own thin chests, stringy calves, and jagged teeth more keenly in the face of this young Teutonic god.

Klaus was not vain; he did not preen or suck his cheeks in against his teeth. He dressed casually, simply. He did not date; in fact, those with deep sensitivities felt their way to something odd about Klaus. He was so beautiful that it was impossible not to perceive his sexuality as ambiguous. Some men are framed to attract women but not men; others, men but not women. Klaus was made to attract both—but he was fundamentally uninterested in sex. He liked to joke about it; he enjoyed stories of sexual escapades, but he himself was never really roused to pursue—or to acquiesce to being pursued, which was depressingly frequent. Reginald was reminded of Elizabeth I, the virgin queen, whose perceived celibacy was one source of her great power. (Tom was reminded of a Reformation Protestant priest, which was probably more accurate.)

Klaus drove his teachers to distraction. By the time he was nineteen, he could translate Latin to Greek just by glancing from page to page. His memory was prodigious. His argumentative skills were virtually flawless. His combination of Latin, Greek, and page-for-page memorization of the Bible rendered him almost unbeatable in theological debates. He could take almost any side in any argument and win it. He was almost impossible to pin down; if assailed on logic, he would shift to a critique of his opponent’s etymology. If etymology was the topic, he would switch to philosophy, casually breaking the link between language and reality. If criticized philosophically, he would argue that certainty was impossible. His house of knowledge was a heavily rippled castle of mirrors. Everyone came at him confidently, and was spat out feeling that all their prior beliefs were mere unthinking prejudice.

This habit drove Tom nearly insane. Tom, perhaps because of his deep emotional connection to Catherine as a child, possessed a strong bedrock of Anglo-Saxon pragmatism. Klaus’s airy language and slithery traps could not be escaped—not by any of the powers Tom at that time possessed—but he simply refused to accept them. Tom could be arguing with Klaus, notice that he was suddenly neck-deep in quicksand, but would simply take a deep breath and carry on. These traps are all illusions—even if I do not know how to break the illusions, I will carry on regardless, for my heart tells me that you are false…

Well, false was too strong. Of course, there was something maddening about Klaus. To be able to so casually destroy the foundations of rational knowledge, yet to pursue knowledge in a university—and an English university at that, which retained vestiges of Locke’s rationalism—seemed oddly perverse. None could find the root of this oddness, but it was there nonetheless… Trying to figure out why and how Klaus was wrong was the quest of many an undergraduate—and they all broke themselves on his rocks, and brought that breaking back to their homes, and spread it further.

There were many things about Reginald which were hateful to Tom, but his brother had redeeming attributes as well. In the mad academic scramble for scholarships which followed Quentin’s announcement (Reginald, for all his spiteful rage, realized that 1931 would be no time to be out of school and looking for work), Reginald did try to help Tom.

Tom’s central problem was that he could not, at any deep level, quite ‘get’ any of the modern philosophies. The three most influential modern thinkers—Hegel, Kant, Marx—were completely beyond him. He tried, over and over—and Klaus helped as well, for Hegel and Kant in particular were his specialties—but the ideas never took root in him. There was some idea that was missing, some premise that he could not accept.

“It’s not a matter of intelligence,” Klaus said, after spending two late-night hours trying to get Tom to understand all the meanings behind the word ‘teleology.’ “Your Locke and Aristotle are beyond reproach.”

Tom was so frustrated that he was almost in tears. “They make sense,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

Klaus shrugged. “Of course—you have some sort of affinity for them. But a truly liberal education requires that you master what does not come naturally. Otherwise it would just be a reinforcement of existing bias, nein?”

“I feel like an idiot,” sighed Tom, sitting on his bed and slumping against the wall. “I mean, you and Reginald—the dean will name his firstborn after you both, even if it’s a girl. Your English is almost perfect, and I can’t master that damn ‘der-die-das’ to save my life! I can ask you to recite Corinthians and we’ll be up until dawn. Reginald knows—what, French? German?”

“And some Russian,” grinned Klaus.

“Bastards!” groaned Tom. “Bastards, all of you!”

“Look, I had to master Aristotle, when all I wanted to do was curl up with Plato. Be patient. At once, it all comes together. It’s unpredictable, but inevitable.”

Tom sat up. “You see? It’s that kind of stuff. ‘Unpredictable, but inevitable.’ Where do you come up with that nonsense? It makes sense, in a way, but when you stop and think…”

“But that’s your main problem, Tommy,” smiled Klaus. “Some knowledge comes through the head, and some through the heart. You use your head to fight your heart, which is foolish and self-destructive—and I don’t mean just to your academic career. Why would God give us a head and a heart unless they could in time become one?”

Tom laughed despairingly. “Again—I’d take my hat off to you if I had one on. ‘I use my head to fight my heart’? What does that mean? I mean in concrete terms.”

“But you cannot explain the heart in concrete terms,” retorted Klaus. “It’s like—like you don’t speak Latin, but you want to read and understand Virgil in the original. Then you get frustrated at Virgil for not being clear.”

“More concrete. Come on, you’re the great Aryan genius.”

“All right. The self and the community. The great war. Individualism versus the collective. I want to do such-and-such, the community demands from me its opposite. Now, to your mind this represents an unsolvable problem, nein? A paradox?”

Tom smiled. “Not really. You do what you want.”

“Ah, if you bow to none of its desires, you cannot claim the protection of the community. If you want the protection of your father, you must obey at least some of his edicts.”

“If I had the protection of my father, I would be content with a B average.”

“You know what I mean. Luther solved this beautifully. There are seemingly contradictory messages in the Bible. In one place we read: ‘an eye for an eye.’ In another, we read ‘turn the other cheek.’ What can this mean? Well, Luther says that ‘an eye for an eye’ refers to the right of the princes of man to pursue earthly justice—which the individual must submit to. However, when it comes to wrongs against himself, a man must ‘turn the other cheek’ and forgive. ‘An eye for an eye’ is for the secular government, and ‘turning the other cheek’ is for the private citizen. Lovely! What looks like a paradox, neatly resolved.”

“Only by an appeal to the divine,” said Tom, with the image—which he always got whenever theology came up—of his mother, lying in her airless room, without God.

“Oh, you English rationalists!” laughed Klaus. “How cold runs the blood of a godless universe! This is why your academics—and your life—will remain so limited! Man is far more than earthly reason. Pascal: ‘the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.’ We are flesh and feeling, mind and passion, head and heart. We are in the world, but not just of the world. We are eternal Spirits leaning towards the light, but still afraid of our own shadows. We can live neither in the clouds nor the caves. We stand astride the walls of two worlds, the spirit and the flesh, only able to live fully by drinking deeply from both at once. All the contradictions we see in the world—and in our minds—are reconciled by Union with the extrusions of the World Spirit into our daily lives. Every riddle is solved by Love and Spirit.”

Tom smiled. “You know, I can always tell when you start capitalizing words. ‘Love.’ ‘Spirit.’ Give me something more concrete!”

“You want me to prove faith?”

“Sure.”

“But that would require faith on your part.”

“Sorry?”

Klaus narrowed his eyes. “My dear Tom—you have no proof that the evidence of your senses represents ‘reality.’ A ball falls when you drop it—we all believe that. But we cannot prove that this will always and forever be so—that it must be so. We can only say that when we have dropped it in the past, a ball has always fallen. So, although we have no reason to assume it is an absolute, we have faith that a ball will fall when we drop it. We even have faith that our eyes, which perceive the ball as dropping, are infallible and accurate. What if it is actually rising? And this is my question to you, Tom. If we can have faith in the little things, like dropping a ball, why not in the big things, the great things, the important things?” Klaus’s face shone; his hands flew. “God! Spirit! Love! Beauty! None of what makes us weep and sing and love can be measured by petty rationality. A girl loves a horse—a veterinarian cuts it open and finds only organs—exactly the same as every other horse! What does the girl love? Innards? No! Spirit! Is it rational? Sensible? Measurable? No! But Tom—it is what makes us alive, and that must count for something in any philosophy which considers itself capable of containing all of humanity in its syllogisms! The truth of ‘God is Love’ is no less powerful than that of ‘two and two make four.’ It is more powerful, I think, by any standard.”

There was a pause after Klaus’s passionate speech. Tom’s shoulders rose a little, then sank and squared backwards.

“Dear Klaus!” he smiled.

“What do you think?”

Tom reached up and touched the German boy’s cheek. “Klaus, I think you are wonderfully, beautifully, touchingly…insane!”

Reginald was doing very well. Like Klaus, he had the ability to incorporate all strains of thought and argue them with depth and clarity. Tom plodded along behind them, doggedly shouldering his way through the deep snows they skipped across with such ease. He was viewed with pity by most of the agile minds around him. If Henry Ford had a brother who was dedicated to bringing the horse-and-buggy back, similar emotions would have flowed.

About three weeks before March exams, the three of them decided to go to London for the weekend to relax. Tom desperately needed the break—and Reginald did as well, for reasons he would have been loath to admit. Despite his absolute faith in the value of a balanced perspective, he found that subjecting himself to the continual study of opposing viewpoints (even if, as Klaus always argued, they only seemed to oppose each other, due to the absence of Spirit) had begun to dilute his own sense of being, of personality, of self. He felt inhabited by a jabbering convention of single-minded people, all speaking at the same time, all insisting on absolutes, on being heard, on having the last word. It was very disorienting. His sleep was disturbed by endless inner arguments—and the growing sense, in his dreams at least—that his eyes were becoming less human and more insect-like, with many eyes erupting from his single wet orbs. These dreams were, truth be told, less than pleasant. Reginald did not submit them to Klaus’s examination, because he was sure that the Germanic view would be that these dreams represented his petty resistance to Union with both Union and Non-Union. Teleologically speaking, anyway.

One Friday afternoon, the boys cut classes, and took a train into Victoria station. When they emerged, the bustling life could not help but remind them that there was a vast social world beyond their books and rarified intellectual stratosphere. It was a comfort to both Tom and Reginald—though they could see Klaus looking at the scurrying, overburdened porters, plodding poor and crying children with anthropological curiosity, and knew that he was turning them over in his mind, inserting and removing them into various categories, seeing where they fit in the General Evolution of the World Spirit.

However, they decided to work on Earthly Spirits (as Tom called them) for a time, and forbade the discussion of any abstract topics. They went to Quentin’s club (Reginald for a moment resenting that he had to scrabble for a hated scholarship while Quentin kept his membership), sat in the vast rust-brown leather chairs and played the old undergraduate game of guessing what each man around them did, based on appearance alone. A young Labour MP tried to involve them in a discussion of unemployment, and the concomitant need for the Nationalization of Key Industries for the Sake of the National Good, but Reginald reminded them that they had sworn to avoid abstract topics, and the number of Capitals embedded in the MPs arguments were too many to count. (Tom was tempted to argue that paying out-of-work men unemployment benefits was akin to bribing them to accept society as it was, but decided against it, partly because it would arouse too much disagreeable debate, and partly because the word ‘unemployment’ is a notoriously difficult linguistic challenge to the mildly drunk.)

After the club, they wandered downtown to see if they could get any cheap tickets for a stupid comedy. Tom was very emphatic on the last point: “Nothing dealing with class conflict, socialism, communism, revolution, capitalist perfidy, robber barons, fascism, the healthy earthiness of peasant life, the thin-nosed unreliability of middle-class intellectuals, or the glistening muscles of hearty factory workers. Nothing where the poor sing or suffer. Nothing where women drag their young across the snow, or gaze through a window at the meal of a wealthy family. Nothing where a fat factory owner picks out pretty female workers for forced affairs. Nothing where a landlord throws anyone out. Nothing where anyone suggests that farmers should barter instead of using money. Nothing where anyone cries in front of a sympathetic but unmoved banker. Nothing where an offensive fat man lectures the poor on the virtues of self-reliance. Let’s see something by Oscar Wilde or Noël Coward. Nothing serious.”

So it was agreed: they were to become conscious bourgeois, at least for the afternoon. Klaus found this acceptable, as long as they remained conscious of their role-playing.

They were crossing the Strand, about five o’clock, when something quite extraordinary happened.

There was an odd noise—a distant slithering sort of rumble—and the street seemed to clear of its own accord. There was the high keening of a battered bugle.

“Look!” cried Tom, grabbing Reginald’s collar.

“I say!” protested Reginald, turning around.

His jaw dropped. A line of horsemen were gathering at the end of the street. A chilly gust of spring wind blew down the empty road, causing bunched newspapers to come apart like snowballs hurled against a wire.

“Um, let’s flee,” said Tom.

Klaus held up his hand. “We wanted to get away from the university. Here we are. Something will happen, something we will remember.”

Reginald scowled. “Yes, but…”

“Go if you choose,” interrupted Klaus. “I’m staying.”

The brothers stood irresolute.

“I say!” shouted an officer from the far end of the street, drawing his sword and waving it. “Clear off, you lot!”

“He has a rather unfortunately large mustache,” said Reginald.

Tom shook his head. “I didn’t want this on the stage, why would I want it in my face?”

“This decision is beyond us,” said Klaus, his eyes glazing over with foreordained rapture. “Spirit has placed us here.”

“And feet might remove us,” muttered Tom, his shoulders hunching of their own accord.

They turned, and a wide column of ragged men came around the corner. They moved slowly. They did not sing. They carried no banners. They walked arm-in-arm, and Tom suddenly remembered childhood games of ‘British Bulldog.’ But with snipers this time…

“Clear off, you fools!” cried the officer from behind them. Klaus raised his head, beatific, like a saint before an Inquisitor.

The men came closer. There was something awful, implacable, about their slow, steady steps. Tom squinted. A running man can be diverted; a marching man must be cut down, he thought.

Another trumpet rang out, this time from behind them. Horses snorted and stamped impatiently. The officer cupped his hands around his mouth.

“You men must disperse! You cannot be allowed to pass! Your petition will be read in Parliament tonight! You have been heard! I urge you to respect the rule of law! Nothing can come from a riot but the disgrace of your cause!”

The men did not slow perceptibly. Tom could see a few of them hesitating—and perhaps some in the back slithered away—but those in the middle were swept along. Some part of Tom—even in this possible extremity—strained to understand. Some of the men’s faces were afire with hatred. Some were indifferent, swept along by the hatred of the others. Some were excited. Most were afraid.

An arm at the front was raised. As it fell, the flowing carpet of ragged men surged forward, shouting with one voice:

“JOBS!”

Reginald flinched. Klaus leaned forward, his fingers curling, as if trying to feed a wild animal.

The men continued their forward march, and behind the three young men, there was a row of clicks as rifles were cocked.

“Good Lord, they can’t be shooting!” cried Reginald, turning back and forth between the soldiers and the protesters.

“A whiff of grapeshot,” said Tom. “Come on boys, let’s get out of the line of fire.”

“You do not think it is our war?” asked Klaus.

Tom shook his head. “It is not the British way. We write petitions, boycott goods, and blockade countries. This is all too French.”

“It is the New World,” said Klaus, and Tom’s heart sank. The Capitals were back.

The column of men was close, now, no more than sixty, seventy feet. The street was filled with stirring papers, random garbage. Wide-eyed faces stared from opened windows, hands to mouths. Crows flapped down on the cornices on top of the buildings.

“We already have your demands!” shouted the officer, trying to control his horse. “Bloodshed will not help your cause. We have our orders: you cannot pass.”

There were no returning cries from the men, and Tom felt, all of a sudden, with a terrible shock, that jobs were not on these men’s minds. It was something else, something which couldn’t be defused. What section of the poor are they? he wondered. Certainly there are many millions without jobs who have stayed at home today…

“Come on, you idiots!” he cried, retreating up some steps to just outside the lobby of a block of flats. “Save it for the essays!”

Klaus remained rooted where he was, his hands still repeating that vague ‘come hither’ gesture. Reginald looked up at Tom, scorn and fear warring in his eyes. Even brothers who do not get along know what each other is all about. Come on, mouthed Tom. Reginald looked at Klaus, then up at Tom. His eyes were wide, and Tom could read them without effort, from some place deep in his spine. In his brother, sensible British empiricism warred with magnetic German idealism.

The first line of men stopped about twenty feet from Reginald and Klaus. Tom could see the effect on those bringing up the rear. There were about eight hundred men in the street, with rounded brown caps; it was like looking at a river of cobblestones. The end of the column had not been reached; it still flowed around the corner, about three hundred feet back. Those at the front of the line hesitated, eyeing the soldiers, the horses, the raised muskets. Those in the rear continued. A few men at the front broke away and fled to either side. One ran up the stairs Tom stood on, glancing at him with apologetic brown eyes, before racing into the lobby of the flats.

A couple of men turned at the front of the crowd, shouting: ‘slow down’ or ‘go back’ or ‘hold up.’ But those in the rear continued to march forward, and the men at the front began to stumble back. One went down, swallowed up by the inexorable cobblestone tide. Men began cycling in and out of the front rows, desperate to avoid being the first in line against the soldiers.

Klaus threw his arms wide, leaning forward, looking for all the world like a conductor about to tap an unemployed chorus into song.

“Come on, Reggie,” shouted Tom, his heart hammering. In the periphery of his vision, he seemed to see the crows all lean forward as one. Reginald did not look up. He skulked a little behind Klaus, his shoulders hunched, his head down and forward. He stole a glance behind him, at the soldiers.

The officer barked an order. A glitter of light rippled along the row of soldiers as rifles were raised. The churning mass of men at the front of the row—the foaming edge at the head of a brown river—was being pushed forward, and was only forty feet from the soldiers. The voices of men began to rise, to cry out, panic gorging their throats. There were a few genuine screams—which, like the cry of an infant, electrified the passions of the street. The crows ruffled their feathers. Across the street, a mother pulled her protesting children back from the window, slamming the rust-red shutters closed. In a shadowed window next door, an old woman crossed herself and turned away. Two young men on a roof shouted down at the surging, out-of-control crowd: “Turn back, you fools!”

But there was no stopping the tide. Men were still coming around the corner. An old physics problem popped into Tom’s head: an unstoppable force, an immovable object…

There was a deafening series of cracks, and another—smaller—ripple of light ran along the row of mounted soldiers as their rifles discharged. Cracking echoes bounded around the street. The crows rose as one, but did not fly away; they lifted, spread and then circled slowly over the street as men exploded into a boiling mass of sheer terror.

A river dammed rises, and then is no longer a river, but just a confused spread of water, seeking escape in every direction. Tom lost sight of his brother, who had brown hair, and was quickly lost in the roiling storm of mud-colored coats and waving arms. He could see Klaus—the blonde hair was unmistakable—being tossed through the crowd, a great grin on his face, making no resistance to wherever he was going.

They’ll all turn back now, thought Tom, wanting to throw himself into the careening mass of bodies in search of his brother, but knowing that he would be lost—and likely knocked down—immediately. But more men began piling into the street. Why are they coming? thought Tom frantically, his head pounding with excess blood. The dissolving column of men was almost at the hooves of the horses—Tom saw one young lad take off his cap, throwing a look at a soldier, as if to say: sorry about the mess!—before being pulled down by another random stampede. The soldiers fired into the sky once more. The echoed rebounded, and Tom suddenly realized what the problem was: those around the corner don’t know where the shots are coming from. They heard the shots as coming from behind them, and surged forward, dooming the men at the front.

The horses whinnied, the sound piercing the general shouting. The crows lowered their flight. Tom could almost imagine their black tongues licking their beaks. He held his hands to his head, his mouth wide, frantically scanning the crowd. Where the hell is my brother?

A number of men were scrambling up the steps. Tom grabbed them by the shoulders and pushed them into the lobby, then reached out and helped more up. The wild terror of the crowd seemed like an undertow of sorts; men climbing up the steps often had other men hanging from their legs, their backs. Tom tried to get as many out of the street as possible. One man’s hand flailed at him, a ring catching him on the forehead. Stinging blood ran into his eyes.

As he wiped his brow, he glanced up and saw that the line of soldiers seemed slightly thinner. Suddenly, a soldier went down, throwing his arms up in an almost-comical fashion. The officer with the huge mustache—almost standing up in his saddle, his face contorted with strain and indecision—barked out another order, and the soldiers reined in their horses, moving back slowly.

Thank God! thought Tom. The street seemed like an abscess which had to be drained, and by retreating, the soldiers were relieving some of the pressure. The officer must have also recognized that the gunfire was only adding to the confusion and terror, for no more shots came.

Through the strange, coincidental alchemy of mob thought, the tide was at last beginning to turn back. The idea of danger ahead; safety behind had spread enough that, slowly, and at first almost imperceptibly, the crowd began to return from whence it had come.

Suddenly Tom saw Reginald. He was against the far wall of the street, obscured by a wall of men’s backs. Something was going on—Tom craned his neck forward, as if the inch or two would make all the difference… A back convulsed. Reginald’s hair flopped backwards, and a spray of blood rose into the air.

Something very primeval rose in Tom’s breast. His eyes narrowed, and he noted a yellow shutter above Reginald’s head. Then, he threw himself down and forward into the crowd. His hands charged ahead of him, like pincers, slapping and pinching and gouging and pulling whoever barred him from his brother. Returning blows thudded into him, but it made no difference. A man threw himself on Tom’s back, but Tom shrugged him off, stamped on his hip and surged forward, keeping his bloodied eye on the yellow shutter.

After no more than a few minutes, he came to the place. From behind, he grabbed a man’s neck, feeling the hot flesh under his fingers, dragged him back and threw him down. A part of him—a rather new part of him—wanted to kneel down and choke the last life out of the bastard, but a grim crunching sound diverted his intent, and he saw, through shifting, kicking legs, his brother go down, curling into a fetal position, his hands over his genitals, his face trying to burrow into his chest.

“Goddamned toff!” shouted a man.

“Give ’im what for!” cried another, kicking Tom’s brother in his rounded, prostrate back.

An even blacker pit opened up in Tom’s chest. He threw himself forward, through the men, tearing at their hair, their ears. His muscled rower’s arms had some impact. The men parted for a moment, confused. But then a huge man simply stepped forward and pinned Tom’s arms by his side. Tom jerked his head from side to side, straining his shoulders to free his arms, but the man—probably a miner—had a laborer’s strength that vastly outmatched that of an amateur athlete.

“Easy, my son,” growled the man.

Tom threw back his head. He felt the salt of tears mix with the salt of blood. “He’s an—an expert!”

There was a pause in the circle of thwarted, vengeful men. Reginald’s head lolled on the ground, thick red spittle drooling from his mouth.

“He’s an expert!” shouted Tom, willing himself to stop struggling in the bear-man’s embrace. “He’s studying history and economics. This—there—you have no work. He’s trying to solve the problem! You must let him! He is your friend! Don’t be—don’t be like… When there’s famine, don’t go out and kill all the farmers, or there’s no hope for any of us!”

The men frowned. Tom took a deep breath. Where the hell did that come from?

“How do you know, toff?” demanded one of them.

“He’s my brother.”

Another scowled and spat. “Your fucking commie brother, or your family brother?”

“Family.”

A sudden, shuddering laugh ran through the man holding Tom, lifting his feet off the ground a little. “Well, fuck me, but he’s got a brave brother! Lift him up.”

Two men leaned down and hauled Reginald up off the ground.

“Lean him in,” said the huge man.

The men leaned Reginald forward. His head lolled, and ran against Tom’s, so that their foreheads pressed together. “So, my son,” said the huge man, leaning forward. “Are you a friend of the working man?”

“Ye-es,” whispered Reginald, nodding slowly. Tom’s head, pressed against his, nodded as well.

“Then you be sure you stay a friend of the working man. And if you break faith with us, then your life will be broken from above. You’ve caught this?”

There was a pause. Reginald nodded slowly; Tom’s head echoed.

Some sort of signal must have been given—or perhaps it was the approach of the soldiers—because Reginald was suddenly thrust into Tom’s arms, just as Tom was released. He staggered back under the dead weight of his brother, but held onto him. The men around them turned and scattered.

Slowly, Tom sat Reginald down against a wall. The yelling in the street was dying down. Tom pulled out a handkerchief and gingerly wiped Reginald’s face. He stole a look over his shoulder. Most of the men were gone. A few lay prone. One cradled his arm in his lap, sitting and weeping. Another crawled forward, crying out with each advance. And… And… Tom blinked and wiped his eyes, unable to believe…

Klaus stood in the middle of the street, shaking his head slowly.

“Klaus!” shouted Tom. “Klaus!”

There was no response. Enraged, Tom picked up a pebble and threw it at him. It struck his cheek, and Klaus raised an arm to rub the welt, turning his head.

“Klaus!” shouted Tom.

He shook his head—more rapidly—then ran over to them.

“Mein Gott!” he shouted. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know. Go get a doctor.”

“No—his injuries could be internal. We have to get him to a hospital. Where is the closest?”

“I…don’t know.”

“I will go and find out. Make sure that he is not moved.”

Klaus leapt up and ran away.

Tom suddenly burst into tears, and leaned his head in towards his brother’s. Their foreheads touched again.

A crow croaked and landed in a black flurry of flapping, about ten feet away. Tom raised his head, saw it gazing at Reginald, and threw a pebble at it. He did not hit it, and it did not move.

Chapter 17

Reginald had a broken nose, two cracked ribs, a split chin, a bruised spine, a cracked forearm, two chipped molars, and a nasty bite on his tongue. There was little to do but set his nose, bind him from head to toe and dull him with morphine. But, Tom felt, there was always something comforting about hospitals; the white, crisp starchiness seemed to envelop and heal somehow.

They got a private room at the Home for Incurables, which was a blessing, because a large number of the demonstrators were brought in for various ailments, and there was a great deal of shouting, drinking, cursing, fighting, and coarse flirting.

Reginald’s face was a mess. Angled metal hung on his nose. A black eye, bruises all around, a stitched chin—he was almost impossible to recognize.

“Poor Reggie,” murmured Klaus, patting Reginald’s forehead with a wet cloth.

“I still can’t believe you were entirely unhurt.”

“Well, he fought them, and I did not.”

“What d’you mean?”

“He was trying to turn the tide before its time.” Klaus dipped the cloth into a cup of water. “It was a collective phenomena, open to control by no man. It has to spend itself, like a fever.”

“Hm,” said Tom. “Could have been chance.”

“Equally so. Yes. I don’t feel that, though.”

“When did you lose sight of him?”

“Immediately,” sighed Klaus, his voice softening into lax dreaminess. “The crowd hit us like surf. There was no point trying to swim. The passion of every heart, pumping wildly all around me—we were more than men. We were cells in a python, a python striking for the future. Individually, no man knew what he was about. Together—ah, Tom—together we were one. No ‘I,’ no ‘thou,’ only a ‘we.’ I mean, look at the results! Their voices have been heard, and not a single death. Flailing arms, flying bullets—and no deaths! It is beyond belief, unless one remembers that even—or perhaps especially—a mob has a Higher Purpose. God moved in that street today.”

Tom sighed. “Well, he left quite a mark on my brother.”

“Things so much larger than the individual cannot be fought. The only destruction is in resistance. Water flows around and over rocks; we follow it, or smash. Tom, I cannot tell you what I felt in that—I cannot even say ‘madness,’ because it only looked like madness, from the outside, from above. We all thought as one. If I stumbled, a hand came out and propped me up. I flailed without thinking, a man ducked. But—but it was more than events, more than just men. I don’t know… I have never felt such ecstasy, such escape… I felt my whole being, my entire span of skin, every pore I possess, opening up into the white light of purest Godhead. Every difference fell away, and I seemed to merge into the universe itself… It was as if, through surrendering to Man, I opened myself up to God. Such passion, such courage—and terror. Such terror! That kind of emotional power is a current which lights the eyes of the divine! We all saw God today.”

Tom was a little irritated at Klaus’s speech. There was something off-putting, almost narcissistic about wallowing in divine ecstasy while limbs were being broken all around him. But he was too tired to protest. He sighed. Klaus turned to him and smiled.

“You don’t believe me, because you are as pragmatic as a surgeon. But that is all right. Perhaps I am wrong. But I will leave off with one thing, and then we shall return to the mundane world of grief and the knitting of bones. If God was in the street today, then Reginald was struck down by the staying of His hand. And that should give us some comfort. This day will leave its mark on his soul—and if that mark were allowed by God, we cannot but believe that it will be beneficial, in time, to the world at large. In this view, mourning is just a lack of faith, of perspective, of love for the universe.”

Klaus smiled a dazzling, gorgeous smile—and then, just as Tom were about to lose patience with his friend completely, Klaus redeemed himself.

“But what is this nonsense, when we have not eaten since two,” he cried, then leapt up and shook himself violently. It was a habit Tom had noted for some time—whenever Klaus returned from his Realms Of Pure Thought, he shook his whole torso, like an otter spraying off water.

Klaus winked at Tom. “I will return with sandwiches.”

Tom smiled despite himself. “Well, surely if we were to have sandwiches, the Universal Will would have supplied them.”

“Through me, He will,” retorted Klaus, then turned and strode into the corridor.

Tom closed his eyes for a moment, then turned back to his broken brother.

Chapter 18

Reginald awoke with a start; his consciousness did not rise like a bubble; it erupted like a geyser.

He had been struggling in a frozen world of hanging meat, breaking his nails against swinging flesh as cold-hard as concrete. He struggled through, to a clear patch—then realized it was the edge of a cliff, and fell and fell…

He looked around the little room. A radio played softly beside his bed. Some gumshoe was on the trail of a shadowed killer. A dame spoke caustically. Everyone drank too much, fenced with tired words, and never slept.

Reginald drifted in and out of consciousness. It was as if, erupting so high from some murky morphine depth, he now bounced.

He turned his head. Tom lay in an awkward angle in a folding chair, his brow furrowed, as if he had to concentrate to stay asleep.

Reginald felt it coming; it was a rush of tears too wide, too foaming, too insistent to be stopped. A sudden wracking sob—which he barely stifled—jerked his head off the pillow. He wept so deeply and harshly that it felt as if he were being turned inside out. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

I saw him coming, through the bodies, as I lay like a child… Reginald remembered lying on the pavement, among the newspapers, folding in on himself, as the blows drove his body to and fro. And he came through them, and made it stop… Something even more painful slammed into him. Would I have done the same for him? If he had ignored my advice? Of course not—I would have told him that it was his own damn look-out. He would have had to fend for himself. Learn his lesson. Like a boy, with a football…

Through a squinting aquarium of tears, Reginald saw Tom shift in his chair. He hasn’t got a mark on him! What did he do? I heard words, but my ears were crackling, like I was chewing glass, from some blow… He did something, and saved me. Words. And all this time I thought he was weak. A dreamer. Without substance. Who would amount to nothing. Who knew nothing of the real world. So I follow that German idiot and am soundly thrashed—yea and it may have been almost unto death, at the rate they were going, and I was saved by this brother, this brother of mine, who knows nothing about the world…

Something else came along; something broken and cold, something so early and dismal that it had no words. But it’s such a little fragment, fifteen minutes perhaps. Should I be judged a coward for lying on the ground under the blows of ten men? Should he be a hero for stepping in, for once doing something decisive? We cannot judge men by fifteen minutes. Character is habit, not happenstance. He will revert, my young sibling, to all his wastrel ways, to all his sad jokes and vain moralizing. He will amount to nothing in the world of men. He shall cry out his credo from the mountaintops, and not even the echoes shall return his words.

Reginald frowned. What the hell am I talking about? What ‘credo’? But the tears began again, and he could not stop them. Because we are at war, you know. We struggle for the soul of the world. We are so composed that only one of us can be right. Either I shall win, and all will be as I decree, or he will win, and all—and all… But he could not imagine what the world would look like if Tom’s beliefs ruled. And what the hell are his beliefs anyway? They are too tender, too trusting, too naïve, idealistic, dualistic… He wants to kneel before his perfect historical heroes. He wants to live among those who do not put their trouser legs on one at a time. He wants knights and round tables, damsels and bright swords. Crusades. Empires. A world where men do not die, but only ‘perish.’ Where there are no illnesses, just ‘fell afflictions’ which ‘carry men off.’ No shit, only ‘offal.’ A fairy-tale world where evil men can be killed without regret. Where each man is separate, responsible, and can be judged whole. Where there is no subtlety in biography. Black and white. A world of passion, certainty, and condemnation. A world without compromise. A world of war, in fact…

This last thought struck Reginald very forcefully, and dried his tears, at least for a time. A world of war… This was the worst that could be thought, but the idea rose within his breast. In his mind’s eye, bomber aircraft blotted out the sun; bombs fell continuously, and cities belched up fire, and smoke, and the ashes of their children. And somewhere in there, Tom is screaming in ecstasy, finding at last a tangible enemy to strike at, to wake himself from his lethargy. But there will be no world after another war.

Reginald’s head rolled on his pillow; the starched cotton and little blue lines scraped against his cheek. His ribs were aching. These sobs are killing me!

But another image unlocked more. He was young, two or three. He was dancing around Tom’s chubby, sitting frame—Tom could not walk yet, he was sure of that. And Reginald was dancing around Tom, feeling a mad rage in his heart. He wanted to drive Tom’s soul out of his little body, to replace it with an inert puppet. He was dancing around his younger brother, snarling, chanting ‘Tommy is a baby, Tommy is a baby….’ Tom’s face was wide, bewildered; his eyes followed Reginald’s every step. Reginald pressed his face right into Tom’s, barely resisting an urge to twist Tom’s ears off, only because that would leave a mark, and result in punishment. The thought came to him, now, in his hospital bed: I must destroy without a trace… And back in that nursery, so long ago, he remembered Tom’s thin voice, crying out: ‘Nooooo!’—and Reginald remembered being well satisfied with the madness, the tension, the endless frustration of that cry. All was proceeding to plan…

“Reginald?”

Reginald’s heart took a staggering lurch. He wiped his eyes convulsively.

“Does it hurt very much?” asked Tom, struggling to his feet.

“Sort of. A little.”

“Do you want anything? A glass of water? Are you hungry?”

“No…”

Tom smiled, leaned forward and imitated a gruff rugby coach from boarding school: “‘Been to the wars, have we?’”

Reginald did not smile. Tom’s face loomed above him. All memories seemed to scatter from his mind, and he felt cold fear.

“What’s the matter?” asked Tom. “You’re not badly hurt. Nothing broken, thank God, except your nose. A few weeks, you’ll be right as rain.”

The tears came again, and Reginald turned his face away, feeling a helpless rage at his lack of control.

“Now, now,” murmured Tom, reaching forward tentatively to stroke his older brother’s hair. Amazingly, Reginald let himself be comforted.

“Tom,” he sobbed. “You know, I couldn’t stop myself. I knew it was wrong, and hateful, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

Obscure topics between siblings, spoken with enough emotional force, require no explanation.

“You were a bastard,” murmured Tom.

“I was a bastard… I don’t know why! I woke up every morning wanting to—treat you better, but nothing ever came of it. I struggled against—even worse things…”

“I know.”

“But it doesn’t matter, that I saved you from what was more terrible.” Reginald’s voice broke completely. “Because I didn’t save you enough. I could never—turn myself around. I have such black thoughts! I could not stop them. I was always on the edge.”

Tom took a deep breath and frowned.

“I don’t suppose there is forgiveness…in you, Tom. Tommy. I have no right to ask for that. But I did not want to do it, any of it, and if I had had my choice… But it was not my choice. I had no choice, except to fight against what was even worse. I don’t know why. I don’t know why…”

“Reginald,” said Tom softly. Reginald’s voice stopped; his whole frame froze. Tom tried to turn his brother’s face towards him, but the neck was frozen, locked in place. “Shhh,” he said, keeping pressure on Reginald’s chin. “Look at me.”

Reginald’s left eye—all Tom could see—was wide. It stared from a dark welt like a tiny egg in a black saucepan. Reginald’s neck did not move.

“I tried!” whispered Reginald fiercely. “I tried!”

Tom withdrew his hand. Reginald’s head did not move. Tom sat back in his chair and lowered his head. His heart stewed in petty irritation. The son of a bitch asked nothing about me, he thought, his head thudding. How was it for you, Tommy? How do you feel? No, it’s nothing but ‘I hurt,’ and ‘it was so hard for me.’ Bullshit. Bull-goddamned-shit!

And so brother turned from brother. One stared at the wall, feeling terribly exposed. The other stared at the floor, feeling terribly ignored.

Chapter 19

Klaus’s family was from Dresden. The Heppner men had all been Protestant priests, who could trace their own lineage back to Martin Luther’s time. They had held firm to their faith despite the tides of religious wars which had flowed back and forth across Germany since the seventeenth century.

Klaus’s father, whose name was Martin, had all the standard beliefs and prejudices of the German clergy. He hated the French for their rationalism, envied the British for their Empire, pitied Americans for their decadence, and loved Germany for its destiny.

For Martin, the Bible was not metaphorical or allegorical. It was the Truth, every word whispered from the mouth of God. Translation errors? Impossible! God whispered into the ears of the translators as much as He had whispered into the ears of the original writers. Three hundred years from the death of Christ to the first recording of his life? Immaterial—time means nothing to God! The idea that the word ‘virgin’ was a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for ‘young woman’ was nonsense! If the Bible said ‘Virgin Mary,’ then virgin she was.

Contradictions in the Bible only seemed like contradictions to the limited mind of man. For instance, it was a pressing question in the Heppner household as to whether Adam had a belly button. Martin posed this to Klaus when his son was quite young. Klaus had replied:

“No, father, Adam did not have a belly button.”

“Why not, my boy?”

“Because Adam was made in the image of God, and God, being eternal, was never born, and so could not have a belly button.”

“Very good. Now, are we made in the image of God?”

“Yes, father.”

“So why do we have a belly button, if Adam and God do not?”

“Because of Original Sin.”

“Go on,” said Martin, tapping his pipe slowly.

“When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God cursed Adam with work and Eve with childbirth. So we have a belly button because of Original Sin.”

“But we are made in God’s image, nein?”

“We are—our souls are made in God’s image.”

“So the purpose of the belly button?”

“Is—is to remind us of the Fall, and that we are sinful and degraded by nature.”

“So why do children—who cannot sin—have belly buttons?”

“Because although children cannot sin, they are innately sinful, by being human.”

“Very good!” beamed Martin, handing his son a licorice.

There was great intellectual rigor in the Heppner household. Klaus’s mother, Renata, was silent and pious and tireless and prone to scrubbing things until her fingers bled. She was one of those mothers—and there were quite a lot in Germany at the time—who took one phrase, and organized their entire lives around it. Renata’s was: Cleanliness was next to godliness. This edict was so ground into the Heppner children that Klaus clearly recalled believing that angels had wings in order to be able to dust and sweep heaven better.

There were a number of sensations which, for Klaus, defined his childhood. The first and foremost was itchy. This, he only found out much later, was because his mother was incessantly scrubbing at him. His skin was forever sore, raw, and as dry as the moon. Klaus itched so much that he could never sit still. It was torture—and was exacerbated by the danger that, if his mother caught him scratching anything, even the backs of his hands, he was back in the icy tub of endless scrubbing. (One of Klaus’s greatest childhood pleasures was to steal away to a place he could never be found—the rectory washroom was a favorite—and scratch himself until he almost fainted with joy.)

Another sensation was, unfortunately, rectal itching. This emerged with puberty, and probably had something to do with his relentless sausage-and-bread diet. Klaus had a hemorrhoid at the age of fifteen. He walked slowly, like a cowboy. Having a bowel movement was agony; it was almost impossible not to cry out when his sphincter clenched to pinch off his excrement. His attention was also drawn to the obscure uses his body had for rectal muscles. They contracted when he sneezed, coughed, squatted, got in or out of a chair—even when he jerked awake during a falling dream.

Another sensation was midnight gas. This odd sensation—also related to a poor diet—involved lying in bed and feeling that his innards were about to burst. Shifting gas caused sharp pains within his abdomen which caused him to leap up out of bed. Farting made him weak with relief—it meant that he would not be jabbed by gas for at least ten minutes. The randomness of this affliction caused him considerable loss of sleep.

And, of course, there were the good old German beatings.

There were seven children in the Heppner household. And one wife. That meant, on average, at least one beating a day. Of course, it was right there in the Bible: ‘spare the rod and spoil the child,’ but there was so much more to it than that! The Good Book also contained the ‘rule of thumb’—that a man could not beat his wife with a stick of a greater thickness than his own thumb. Discipline was love, of course. God threatened man with hell because He really wanted man to get into heaven. And what did the body really matter? What was a thrashed buttock compared with everlasting fire? This was all made very clear.

To Martin’s credit—or detriment, perhaps—he was no hypocrite. He genuinely believed that his calling was to drag sinful people through the barbed gates of heaven. Sometimes he dreamed of himself as a firefighter, rescuing people trapped in a burning building. You do not stop to argue, he thought, you just grab and drag and forgive all kicking! For Martin, God was real, and present, and watching, and judging, and remorseless.

He hated his own body; its recesses, lusts, infections and stenches, and the indignity of its endless gases and excretions. It was all so ignoble, so base, so revolting! He yearned for heaven, for the end of all inner wars. To be finally out of the reach of the flesh, of the world, of Satan—Sweet Jesus, what relief! In his waking life, Martin sometimes felt that he was on the run from predators, from demons who loped along on horned knuckles, sniffing the silver scent of piety… One does not rest when one is pursued; one does not turn around or compromise or negotiate. He also felt, with his children—and sometimes, with his wife—that they were a horse he was riding—also with the baying demons not far behind. I whip them as I would whip my horse, so that we may both escape the horned wolves…

After whippings, Martin was very solicitous of his children. After beating his eldest daughter for giggling during one of his sermons, he spoke thus, over her prostrate form:

“Gretel, my sweet, you do understand the sin of anger.”

“Yes, Father.”

“And you do understand that your father is not driven by the sin of anger.”

“Yes, Father.”

“So can you tell me what your father is motivated by?”

“By justice…”

“And?”

“And—by righteousness.”

“Do we condemn God for the sin of anger because he sends sinners to hell?”

“No, Father.”

“Why not?”

“Because God does not send people to hell. Because—because of free will, we send ourselves there.”

“Exactly. God gives us every chance. He has given us the Bible, which contains everything we need to know to be good Christians. He has given us priests, to explain it all to us. And he has given us free will, so our choices have value, and so that we may further thwart Satan when we reject him. Now do you understand why I have beaten you?”

“Yes, because—because it was the devil who made me laugh, and the devil is in my flesh, and the devil can only be punished in the flesh.”

“And my punishment—does it arise from the sin of anger?”

“No, Father. Only out of the virtue of justice.”

As he grew, Klaus became quite a challenge, because he drove his father close to the sin of despair. Klaus was talented, it seemed, at everything. He sang, he danced, he played every musical instrument. He read French—damnable French!, with its humanists, its rationalists, and atheists!—as well as Latin and Greek. He loved archeology, geology, and fossils. He was an excellent storyteller. (Martin could never quite believe that his eldest son’s recounting of biblical tales was not without its subtle mockery, but could never find any objective reason for punishment, and so stayed his hand.)

With every new talent, Martin felt more and more excited. Clearly Satan has chosen me for special testing! He knew that the kind of worldly abilities that Klaus possessed would be great temptations for them both. This level of excitement could scarcely be maintained without courting emotional exhaustion, and so Martin veered from hysterical excitement to pathetic despair.

Martin truly believed that mankind was in danger of being laughed out of religion. The rise of science, the temptations of Darwinism and the evidence of fossils, the material successes of secular societies, the growing agnosticism of Western leaders—all this smacked of a certain elemental showdown between the truth of the Bible and the pleasures of worldly Constitutions. Surely, he felt, it was clear that a Final Battle was shaping up, the whole world over. Satan, squatting in his stinking lair, scratching complex diagrams into sulfurous rock, had surely come to the greatest fruition of his genius! By injecting base science and earthly reason into the churning mix of human thought, he was surely preparing for his greatest triumph! Mankind will believe that God was an immaturity to be outgrown. Scientists, doctors, and psychiatrists will replace the most Holy Church! France and England, beaten back physically since time immemorial, will have finally won by sending over their invisible armies of shallow philosophers! The greatest danger to our souls is not hatred of God, but indifference to religion! Satan, gnashing his teeth because his great seduction of man through sex and greed failed utterly, has now devised his greatest, final assault on the City of God! He no longer wants to seduce us by provoking desires which must be sated, but by drugging us with physical comfort and all the playthings of modern science! Cinemas. Travel. Ships and cars and airplanes. Radio. Man’s love of little pleasures. It is no longer our great lusts which will undo us, but our little luxuries. Man will no longer trust in God and pray for his soul, but rather trust in doctors and take penicillin.

Klaus was interested in science—and did very well in mathematics and physics (though less well in biology). Through his son, Martin learned a good deal about modern ways of thought. What was wonderful—what gave Martin such hope about the future war between science and God—was that Klaus seemed perfectly indifferent to the attractions of science. He enjoyed physics, but never seemed to consider that physics sort of did away with God. He loved mathematics, but never considered that the strict logic of geometry could destroy God in one clear afternoon of thought. Klaus was perfectly split, perfectly poised. There was the world around him, which had its interests, intellectual challenges, and pleasant pastimes—and then there was the world of God, which was perfect, eternal, and the only final focus of a worthwhile intellect.

The great danger, in Martin’s eyes, was that his son was also impervious to physical punishment. He almost seemed to relish it, which meant that his son had the attention of a very strong demon. Pleasure in pain, thought Martin, lashing his son into a kind of bloody oblivion, is the pleasure of a demon who loves being mastered, since it will make his final mastery all the sweeter.

Of course Satan would be interested in Klaus. Even his mother could see that. If Klaus, the son of a priest, came down on the side of science, humanism, and reason, then Satan would have struck a great blow for evil. But if, on the other hand, Klaus, who knew so much about science, came down on the side of God, then there would be great joy in heaven, and Satan would have to take a snarling, smoking step back.

This is why Martin was in such a state of tension about his son. Klaus was certainly important—and, sometimes, Martin felt that his son might be the one who could tip the balance either way. (This felt similar to Martin’s seminary days, when he, like every priest-to-be, imagined what it would be like to be the Second Coming.)

Late one night, when Klaus was seventeen, Martin had the following conversation with his wife:

“It is my belief that the boy must go to the West.”

“Yes, Father?”

“To be truly tested, he must be dropped deep in the camp of the Enemy.”

There was a pause. “That carries great danger.”

“Yes. Yes, I know. Yet if he is destined to write Christ’s words across the sky, he must go into the desert.”

Renata’s knitting halted. “He shall be beyond our reach.”

“Yes, but that is true—or will be true—anyway. Besides, it is not our reach which is important, which will save him. God will protect him.”

“Is this what is in your heart? Because…”

“Yes? Do not be afraid.”

“Because I know that he is a great strain to you. God may be placing this desire in your heart—but Satan may also be at work. God may say: send him into the camp of our enemy, that he may be tested. But Satan may also be saying: send him to me, that he may be mine.”

There was a long pause. Martin felt very sad then. He turned and stroked his wife’s cheek.

“I am a very lucky man,” he said. “You are an angel, sent to watch over me and keep me from hasty judgements.”

Renata smiled. “God speaks through me as well.”

“Of course.”

“And the only answer is in prayer.”

Martin kissed his wife’s forehead then, and they knelt down to pray. It took six straight hours—and by the time it was over, his knees were red, his back was in agony, and he could no longer loosen his neck muscles, but the answer had come to him.

Klaus was to go to England, to the camp of the enemy, and there would he either love God the more, or serve Satan the better.

Chapter 20

It seemed almost foreordained that Tom was going to fail at All Souls. He was intelligent, creative, and a hard worker, but could not—or would not—grasp Marxism, and so had no chance.

After Reginald’s brief breakdown in the hospital, things had rapidly cooled off between the brothers again. Tom’s natural loyalty was without reason, since it was without reciprocation. It is perhaps the eternal lot of younger brothers to treat older brothers well, in the hopes of undoing cruel histories. At the age of six, Tom had been rolled in a barrel by Reginald and his friends until Tom had vomited all over himself. Later, Reginald had jumped off a go-kart going down a hill, leaving Tom to plow into a thick iron railing. The following year—and these are just the highlights—while Tom was swinging from a rope under a railroad bridge, Reginald had pushed him back out when Tom’s arms were failing—despite his younger brother’s protests—and Tom had fallen onto sharp rocks. Reginald, disgusted by Tom’s ‘blubbering,’ had gathered the other boys and left him wailing by the stream, to dig the stones out of his own flesh. The following year, Reginald had hit their tennis ball on the roof of a garage. He had convinced Tom to go and get the ball, and then had told Tom that he would easily be able to jump down. Tom had tried, but his legs had buckled, and his front teeth had gone deep into his left knee. This sort of thing happened year after year, and while it was certainly not to Reginald’s credit, it was not much to Tom’s, either. Reginald’s sadism remained constant, but it could not be said that Tom’s learning curve rose to meet it.

This was, perhaps, because Tom had no other real allies within the family. Quentin cared little for him, and Ruth’s rather obsessive fawning had little to do with any desire on her part to get to know her youngest child. So he trailed Reginald around, hoping against hope to turn a heart which had no purchase.

Reginald saw Tom’s academic struggles, and took great pleasure in them. He was not without sympathy, but could not understand why Tom was having such trouble with such simple topics. Reginald’s personality flowed with the times—in the early thirties, people who were demanding, acerbic, abstract, and decisive did very well. Tom, having none of these qualities in any great quantity, did not do as well.

One evening, about a month after the riot, Tom, Reginald, and Klaus were sitting in the common room, about a week before a midterm on Modern Economics.

“Look,” Reginald said, “it’s not really that difficult! A man works in a factory, he makes something worth one pound. The factory owner then sells it for two pounds. The surplus value is one pound. Marx says that that should go into the pocket of the worker!”

Tom scowled. “But why? The factory owner built the factory!”

“Sure, but he did that by underpaying the workers who built the factory, so that’s not valid.”

“All right,” said Tom, making another note. “OK, so ‘alienation’?”

“Well, a capitalist makes the most money out of an assembly line—that was the great discovery of Henry Ford, that Jew-hating son of a bitch. Instead of one worker making a whole car—which would require real skill, and be a real craft—now one hundred workers make one car. Each one only gets to tighten one bolt. So their skills as craftsmen are destroyed. They are alienated from the process of building the car. They are turned from craftsmen into machines.”

“But Ford pays the workers twice what they were making before, right?”

“Yes, but he’s still making much more than he’s paying them.”

Tom shook his head. “But—if society wanted workers to be happy, for one worker to make each car, then they would buy cars which cost twice or three times as much.”

Reginald snorted. “No, they wouldn’t. That’s the logic of capitalism. People are selfish—that’s what Marxism is designed to eliminate! People would rather have a cheap car and miserable workers than an expensive car and happy workers. Everyone’s cheap, everyone’s greedy, everyone’s selfish!”

“Then—the government takes over the industries, right?”

“Yes. Nationalization is key.” Reginald put on a Russian accent. “Workers control the means of production.”

“But—if everyone’s selfish and greedy, then won’t those in the government also be selfish and greedy? And the party?”

“Well, that seems like a paradox,” interjected Klaus. “But you have to remember that, with the rise of Marxism, you also get the destruction of false consciousness. Human nature has been corrupted by class conflict—when you get rid of class conflict, you change human nature.”

“Wait—is that a theory, or a fact?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if a Marxist says: hand over your rights—and don’t worry, human nature will change after the revolution—he’d better have some sort of proof. I mean, it’s called ‘Scientific Socialism,’ right?”

“Well, yes.”

“So let me ask you this. Marx called himself the ‘Darwin of Society,’ in that he felt he had explained history according to a new science of his own invention. So did he collect facts and then invent a theory, or invent a theory and then collect facts?”

“Why would that matter?” asked Klaus, glancing up from his book.

“It’s—more scientific to look at facts and then come up with a theory. Otherwise, it’s likely to be mere prejudice. I mean, in our classes all we hear about in nineteenth-century English history are the lower-class uprisings: the Peterloo massacre, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and Bloody Sunday. These are sort of—unusual events in English history. And the death toll is plain silly. Peterloo: six deaths. None of the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ were put to death…”

“But they were disgracefully humiliated, and ‘transported.’”

“Yes, but martyrdom is not exactly defined as being sent to Australia, right? And Bloody Sunday? One death. One. So we have seven deaths in one hundred years. And class conflict is supposed to be the basis of society? So my question is: did Marx look at these few deaths and say: ‘I have found the basis of world conflict’? I can’t see how.”

Reginald smiled. “Oh, my dear brother… Our purpose here, tonight, is to help you pass this midterm with enough panache to secure a scholarship. We can wrangle over Marxism all we want, but that will scarcely serve our aims.”

“But why can’t I argue against Marxism? I mean, a physics teacher won’t fail you for disproving some theory he believes in.”

Reginald laughed out loud. Even Klaus smiled.

“I mean,” Tom continued, “according to Marxist theory, by the end of the nineteenth century, capitalism was supposed to be a complete failure. Capitalists should no longer have been able to expand production; their profits should have been plummeting, wages should have been falling, the proletariat were supposed to be starving and desperate. Nothing of the sort occurred. Living standards continued to rise.”

“Until the War,” murmured Klaus.

“But the war was started by Germany, no offense! And Germany was by far the least capitalistic country in Western Europe! Germany had the welfare state, progressive taxation, a huge Government, income redistribution, state loans and grants of every kind—and state-protected unions. That’s not capitalism!”

Klaus sat up, his cheeks flaring red.

Reginald held up a hand. “Let’s not get into the ‘who started the war’ debate again. We have no time. This is the point, Tom. Do you want the scholarship or not?”

Tom’s face was pale. “If I have to argue something I think is false, then… Oh, God—I don’t know.”

Reginald smiled. “Tell me what else you think is false about Marxism.”

“It just seems deep, on the surface. It’s actually shallow deep down.”

“Come on!” cried Reginald, snapping his fingers. “Rigor!”

“All right! So in Das Kapital, brother Marx says he has discovered the ‘Natural Laws’ of capitalism production—and these laws, and the results they dictate, are inevitable, right?”

“Yes.”

“So, what is the middle class doing on the landscape? We’re supposed to have two things: a tiny, wealthy elite of capitalists, and a growing, impoverished horde of workers. No middle class in Marxism! How is it explained?”

“Quite simply,” said Klaus, propping himself up against the wall. “The rich have invented the middle class to save themselves. Marxism came upon the scene, and the rich realized that the jig was up. So they have allowed some wealth to trickle down to the poor, to allow the creation of the middle class, in order to maintain their own privileges.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, you have a theory, saying: the rich will do this, society will do that. And none of what you predicted has come to pass. And so now you say: oh, the rich have changed their behavior! But your theory did not predict that! And even if the rich have changed their ways, to protect their power, how do you know? Have they had big meetings at their country clubs and said: ‘all right, now the way to handle this damnable Marx fellow is to allow some more wealth to fall into the hands of the dastardly proles!’ You’re just making things up to save your theory! That’s not scientific—that’s just—a cult!”

Klaus laughed. “You are a real pleasure to listen to, Tom.” He took a deep breath. “Look, you are a member of the privileged classes. It’s all right—so am I, in a way. My father is a priest—not exactly a natural bride of Marxism. So our thinking is conditioned by the circumstances we grew up in. We cannot escape the mental habits of our class. We cannot see class conflict because we manage it—through our inability to see it! That’s the essence of ‘false consciousness.’ We think that we are examining Marxism impartially, but we are really just defending our own economic interests.”

Tom smiled. “All right, so if I were defending my economic interests—which right now means getting a scholarship—wouldn’t I agree with Marxism?”

“It’s a little larger than that, Tom,” said Reginald.

“And what about my brother?” demanded Tom. “If all our ideas come from our class, why do you both agree with Marxism? You should be as blinkered as I’m supposed to be!”

“I don’t agree with Marxism!” cried Reginald hotly. “I mean, not specifically. It’s just another tool, another way of looking at things!”

“Exactly,” nodded Klaus. “Dear Tom, you are a hopeless Manichaean. Hegel’s dialectic is quite clear on this point. Values are just a pendulum. First, you have untrammeled capitalism, which is one thesis. Then, you have absolute Marxism, which is the antithesis of that idea. The final result will be a mixture of both. Mild socialism. Controlled capitalism. The middle way.”

Tom ground his teeth. “The middle way! How I hate that phrase. Let’s say you have a man who believes in equal rights for all—and you have a man who hates the Africans, and wants them all dead. What is the ‘middle way’ there? Just beating them up a little every day? Killing only half of them? Some things cannot be compromised!”

“Sacrifice is essential for society,” said Klaus. “The age of the individual is over. Collective man has seen the light, and will not be denied. Money, goods—even thoughts—are common property. They cannot be left to the control of the individual, who is selfish, and will use them only for personal profit, not the common good. It is time for people to cast aside their own petty needs, and work with their brothers for a common goal. To join to something larger than themselves. We are all so in love with ourselves! Our ego is our treasure, we guard it and feed it and steal for it. Vanity! I dream of a world where the individual ego is cast down, trampled, derided as rank selfishness, and seen for what it is: the source of all corruption. That is the coming age. When we submerge ourselves in a group, for the sake of general joy. When we say to our brothers not: what can you do for me, but rather: what can I do for you? And that will be a perfect age…”

Reginald and Tom exchanged glances. They had their disagreements on Marxism, but always found Klaus’s dreamy reveries about the coming age just a little creepy.

“All right,” said Reginald, opening his copy of The Communist Manifesto. “Back to the sex life of the bourgeoisie. Apparently, they all slept with their workers, with prostitutes—and shared their wives like candy to boot!”

Tom grinned. “And all the while, Marx was diddling his maid, who was by any definition one of his proletariat workers!”

The next day, Tom was reading in the smoking lounge, enjoying the rank air of the many pipes, when Hart came up to him.

“Tom!” he cried, sliding with a slippery creak into a leather chair. “How’ve you been?”

“Busy,” muttered Tom. His desire to keep reading fought with his distaste for rudeness.

“Look, I wanted to apologize for the other day. Last month. I’m a little volatile at times.”

“Think nothing of it.” Tom looked up, putting his book aside.

“Are you getting ready for exams? Sorry, that was stupid. How is your swotting coming along?”

Tom hesitated, then decided to take the plunge. “Well, I have to tell you, I don’t think I’ll be around next year.”

Hart’s face fell almost indecently. “What—why—not?”

Tom gestured at his little pile of red-bound books. “I can’t stomach this socialist stuff.”

“Of course you can!” cried Hart indignantly. “How self-indulgent can you be?”

Tom almost laughed—it was the last thing he expected Hart to say. “All right.”

“Of course it’s all rubbish—if it’s consistent, it’s proven—if it contradicts itself, well, then it’s the ‘dialectic,’ and it’s proven as well.” Hart leaned forward, lowering his voice. “You should try Freud. Looks like an Oedipus Conflict? So it is true! No evidence of one? It’s repressed! Something completely opposite? A reaction formation! There’s no way out of these modern mazes. The only question is: what do you want to do with your life?”

Tom smiled. “Well, that’s rather personal…”

Hart’s hands escaped from his lap. He grimaced. “Of course, I know, but still… All right, don’t tell me, but listen. You have to have a degree to get anywhere. I want to teach. So I have to learn rubbish in order to teach sense. That’s all right. You’re disarmed on a battlefield, you damn well take up a weapon of a fallen foe!”

“Fine—shh, you manic fool!”

“You just have to relax your mind for a while. Forget about logic. It’s like getting an injection. Just pretend that it’s good for you. It is, and there’s no other way, for now.”

Good Lord, thought Tom. Everyone is a revolutionary except me!

Hart shifted in his seat. “Marx is simple,” he continued, his voice slightly lower. “Property is theft. The rich screw the poor. When the poor rule, everything will be wonderful. It’s not too difficult. Unless—oh, you’re an atheist.”

“Well, yes, but what has that got to do with…”

“Marxism is just Christianity, with the state replacing God. All right, a pretty Old Testament God, but nonetheless… Why do you think old Marx’s ideas have spread so quickly? Anything which catches on fast is just the same old thing, in a new suit. Only things that are slow and grudging are really new.”

“Good Lord, I must be the thickest person in the room,” sighed Tom. “But at least I can row.”

“Well, you have this huge Stone Age slab of common sense,” said Hart eagerly. “I can spot it a mile off. It’s very Anglo-Saxon. No wonder you can’t get this German stuff.”

“German?”

“Well sure! Kant in philosophy, Hegel in history, Marx in economics, Freud in psychology, Nietzsche in ethics—well not ethics quite, but you know what I mean. Everything we utter comes from the Germans. So no wonder you’re having trouble with it. Won the war? Like hell!”

“Am I the only one?”

“Well, you are sort of ‘old school,’ so maybe… No, I don’t think so. Are you happy? No, don’t answer that. Look, I’ve pressed on your time enough—too much—as it is. Listen—good luck on your exams. If you need anything, just let me know.”

Hart jumped up, shook Tom’s hand, then vanished into the hanging smoke.

Tom took a deep breath, then sank back in his armchair.

He recalled this moment for many years afterwards. For the first time in his life, a thin tendril of empty sadness rose slowly in his chest. This tendril was cold, deadly, hopeless…

A shudder ran through his body. He felt a chill, despite the stale warmth of the room. Outside, a group of grubby rugby players ran past the window, their cleats beating on the concrete. Tom closed his eyes, and the sound was transformed into the endless marching of an endless army.

Tom’s depression lasted for exactly nine days. It never took hold of him completely—he could drive it back with the image of Catherine, but it kept creeping back, when he was distracted. As the days passed, he became very afraid that it would become a permanent fixture of his inner life if not combated most strenuously.

Four days after its first appearance, after his brief and rather manic conversation with Hart, Tom took his exam on Modern Philosophy:

1) Discuss whether in The German Ideology Marx does what he thinks materialist history should do, i.e. "not explain practice from the idea but explain the formation of ideas from material practice."

2)

a) Describe clearly Marx's account of the materialist-idealist conflict given in The German Ideology. (12 Marks)

b) Discuss the implications of Marx's account for the study of philosophy. (13 Marks)

3) Marx & Engels argue that systems of ideas and beliefs derive from economic needs and class interests.

a) Describe the basis of their argument. (15 Marks)

b) Does their argument constitute a strong criticism of systems of ideas and beliefs ? (10 Marks)

4) Marx stated that "the philosophers have only interpreted the world differently, the point is to change it". In the light of this statement discuss Marx's criticisms of Feuerbach and describe what you consider the statements implications are for the study of philosophy.

5) "For philosophers one of the most difficult tasks is to descend from the world of thought to the actual world."

a) Explain what Marx meant by the distinction between "the world of thought" and "the actual world". (10 Marks)

b) How successful is Marx himself in making the descent from the world of thought to the actual world in The German Ideology (15 Marks)

6) Discuss the importance of Marx's concept of Production in The German Ideology.

7) "All ideology is pure illusion." In what ways in The German Ideology, did Marx and Engels believe this to be true?

8) "The German Ideology emphatically rejects the idea of human nature or human essence." Discuss.

9) In what senses is The German Ideology concerned with what Marx calls the "Liberation of Man"

10) "The communists do not teach morality at all." (Marx) How much moral discussion do you find in The German Ideology?

Tom stared at the questions, and the bottom just sort of fell out of his personality. He felt unable to move his arm. It was impossible to concentrate. The sounds of all the other scratching pens were horrible, the kind of hissing scraping which brings on nausea and vomiting. All his knowledge seemed to have fled—or where it had not, seemed to hang in the night sky of his mind like so many senseless constellations.

Tom shook his head and leaned forward. A story came to him, about a student who had taken cocaine before an exam, and wrote feverishly for three hours, and was interviewed by his examiner a few days later. ‘Can you explain this?’ the examiner asked, opening the exam booklet to the first page, where the first line was chewed through, black with ink. The student realized that he had written all his answers on the same first line…

Come on, Tom! He frowned. Hart’s question returned to him: what do you want to do with your life? The response was startling: not this, not this—and seemed to drive his depression back a little.

Come on, you coward! Pen to paper! A clock chimed. A quarter hour has gone by! Finish this, and you can daydream all evening! But bargaining did not seem to work. His thoughts did not cohere.

Write! Anything! Tom scribbled a few catchphrases on the inside cover of his exam booklet:

-the alienation of the division of labour

-surplus value

-man as machine

-root of class conflict: all value extracted from the labourers

-price fluctuates around ‘value’ as determined by labour theory

-(but profit could as easily be defined as a result of capital—or labour + capital)

He had to scratch that last one out. No heresy in the House of Marx!

I cannot betray my country! Tom suddenly felt his gorge rise. England was the land of the free market, and he knew some really nice, decent chaps who were capitalists. Anyone can start a company—many poor folk become rich, and many rich fall from grace…

He took a deep breath. Now is not the time for inner debate! He found his brother’s head, bent down, and imagined all the thoughts passing unimpeded through his brother’s arm, his fingers, his pen… With all the limp flexibility of a broken machine, Tom thought oddly. He leaned back, lifting and squaring his wide shoulders, then leaned forward. Well, if I’m going to go, let’s go with an honest flourish!

He picked up his pen, licked the tip and wrote: ‘The Mensheviks were doomed to failure because of their dislike of violence, which the Bolsheviks were more than willing to use to attain power…”

Tom’s first brush with depression lasted nine days in total. It started four days before his exam, peaked on the day of the exam, and the ended four days later, when his marks were posted, and he realized that, not only would he not get a scholarship, but he would never be allowed back.

And so, in the autumn of 1931, Tom found himself ejected from structure, and free to face his future without preconceptions.

And so, like many before him, he began to fall.

Chapter 21

Martin was a priest of the old school, which meant that for him—as for millions of men, women, and children across Germany—God was alive.

God was alive, and God was everywhere. Hell was as real as a car crash; heaven as possible as a good night’s sleep. And not just God in the abstract, but God as a vital Christian. God was not a crutch for times of crisis. God was not vaguely present at marriages and funerals. God was not something you dressed up and gossiped on the church steps for. God was not ‘what all religions basically worshipped.’ The Muslims and Jews might share the Old Testament, but anyone who denied the divinity of Christ was wrong—sinfully wrong. Against God. A heathen. Going to hell.

Now, this kind of faith had its last holdout in certain countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Germany was one. France was not. England, Spain, and Italy were not.

In Germany, God was the final arbiter. There was no room for doubt. Doubt was evil; it was the cloak of Satan before the sun of God. Germany was the home of the Reformation, the spark in the mind of Martin Luther which set Europe ablaze for a hundred years. Hundreds of thousands died in religious wars. And what of it? Saving souls was grim work. To save the soul at the expense of the body was a virtue. No moral man, no Christian, could stand by and watch his fellow men marching over the cliff of error into the fires of hell. Compassion demanded that error be corrected, before it spread, before it ate like a cancer into the souls of the undecided.

Martin had been called to the priesthood early, when the fires of childish imagination were at their strongest. There was hatred, tension, and terror in his heart. He hated the world, hated sin, hated the devil. He walked the tightrope of having a pure soul trapped in a fleshy case of sin, in a body which could be played by the devil like an infernal organ. He was terrified of hell.

There was love in his heart as well. He loved God. He prayed and wept; his soul soared high as his tears fell. He loved his fellow man, and feared for the errors of their ways.

Martin was not a humanist. He did not believe that there were many roads to salvation. God did not allow each man to pick his own path. There were endless paths to hell. There was but one path to heaven. The Protestant path.

People were weak. That much was clear. People were weak, and the devil was patient and cunning. To set oneself against the devil was the highest calling of all.

Martin had laid low all his doubts. Any which remained had long since left the light of day. He knew that he was capable of error, of misplaced sympathy and false compassion. His particular weakness was a desire to forgive where he knew that God would never forgive. This was true for women in particular. Women who came to him broken in mind and heart, weeping over tainted desires, infidelities, jealousies, and thwarted hopes—his heart ached to wave their terrors and losses away. He always hesitated to cast their souls into the pit of despair—though he knew from his own experience that this pit was required for salvation. His own heart contracted agonizingly in the face of their pitiful requests for absolution, for the word from him which would save the remainder of their days.

The words always came to him: ‘sister, be forgiven, and go in peace.’ They rose in his throat like sugar, but turned to bile on his tongue. For he knew that they were not his to give. Forgiveness was only God’s to give.

And the rules were clear. The rules were clear.

Chapter 22

Tom did not fail his courses—even the Marxist ones—but his final marks were not enough to keep him in university. As is so often the case, the agony of waiting for bad news turned out to be far worse than actually getting it. He required a ninety-two; he got a sixty-six. It could be worse, he thought. I could be only a few away… And a worse thought followed, but he could not quite fix his mind on it, because that would bring him perilously close to judging Reginald: I could have received the scholarship by arguing for things I did not believe in…

That was the attitude taken by the brothers, in order to preserve their fragile proximity. He has his way, and I have mine. A myth arose between them, which was that Tom was a sort of nineteenth-century throwback, a Classical Liberal, an absolutist of the oldest, monocle-wearing, Burma-road-marching, imperialist kind. Reginald, on the other hand, was a modern egret, a stylish, self-referential and flexible water-walker of new ideas. An arrogant liquid. A master of multiplicity.

It was odd, how the brothers approached their differences. Their beliefs were elemental, opposite, yet laughed off as quirky, inconsequential. Their differences could never be far from their thoughts, because they were so basic. However, they were also never explored in all their depth and complexity (or was it complexity?). It was as if Tom had taken up the habit of wearing plus-fours and a deer-stalker’s cap, while Reginald preferred a banker’s suit. A cute divergence of tastes, nothing more… But it was a nothing that they could not leave alone; not now, not ever.

Hart turned out to be a good companion during those last few days. Tom’s differences with his elder brother were too deep to ever be truly comfortable, but things were different with Hart. Hart respected Tom, and knew something about what motivated him. Hart had a kind of dancing, intense perceptiveness which propelled striking insights from his mouth like a fish shooting water at an insect. They had their differences, of course, but they did not take them too seriously. In those days, all young men thought that they were only discussing ideas, when they were in fact creating their entire futures, down to the last details.

Hart was genuinely heartbroken to find out that Tom was not going to be returning to All Souls. He demanded that Tom come and visit him over the summer, and often broke off conversations with welling eyes, murmuring that a chapter of his life was coming to an end.

For his part, Tom knew that Hart was greedy for him, but also recognized that Hart was more than capable of paying for his own greed. Hart’s ideas were strange, striking, beautiful—and often strangely irrefutable. One day, sitting in Hart’s little room, they were talking about women, and Tom was quite startled at his friend’s ideas. He knew that Hart was a virgin—such things did not need confirmation.

“There is something sad about women,” said Tom. “Something mournful, I can’t really understand.”

“Of course,” said Hart.

“But—why?”

“Well, imagine that you are a midget, three feet tall, and you live in a world designed by and for men all five feet, seven inches tall. Through no fault of your own—and no matter what your capacities—you seem physically foolish, even in your own eyes. Not quite made to fit the world. And no matter what happens, you will always be lesser. And then imagine that you know, even from birth, that you will be struck down by a debilitating physical condition which will render you helpless for a year at a time. And that, due to your physical weakness, you can be bullied and taken advantage of at any time. And you wonder why women are sad?”

“Because they are not as physically strong? That seems…”

Hart interrupted him with a grin and a punch to the shoulder. “Well, you are the original Anglo-Saxon ox, aren’t you? What would you know about physical weakness? But me, I’m here because I was too weak for the mines.”

Tom nodded slowly. “Hmm. Hmm, I say. Hmm, indeed. But you agree that women should have the vote.”

“Yes—and I also agree that young men should be allowed to drive cars without passing road tests as well.” Hart threw up his hands. “Hand out the licenses like candy, I say!”

“Ah. You are being obscurantist.”

“No, just snidely metaphorical. Look, men have had thousands of years of experience in the realm of tribal, political life. Women haven’t. Most of the important things in the world are not intuitive. We go around the sun. The selfish pursuit of individual wealth benefits society. Industrialization reduces poverty in a way that charity does not. Time slows down when you go really fast. There are a lot of ideas which, because they are counterintuitive, took forever to root themselves in our minds. Women haven’t been exposed to them.”

“And your predictions, Nostradamus?”

“Not hard, my broad-shouldered ox. Not hard at all. The movements are already in place. What do women want? Abstinence! Help for the poor, the aged, the infirm, the unemployed. Clean living and good charity! So they petition to ban alcohol, and lo and behold we have old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, all the new-fangled notions of the welfare state. But they won’t work.”

“No? Why?”

“Because all the best answers are counterintuitive. You set up a group of people living out of the pockets of taxpayers, they’ll always be agitating for more. And the more the state taxes and gives, the more will be drawn to get in on the action. There’s no end to that process, except bankruptcy and dictatorship.”

“You sound very sure. Prognosticators are supposed to be humble.”

Hart laughed. “But, you see, I’m not talking about the future. I’m talking about the past.”

“The past?”

“Well, not our past.”

“Well?”

“The German past.”

“Go on.”

“Bismarck, 1871. He did it all. National health insurance, social insurance, accident insurance, unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, the whole lot. It takes about sixty, seventy years to collapse. More if there’s a war.”

“So Germany is destined for dictatorship? Nonsense!”

“You think so? Let me tell you what life is like in Germany at this moment in time, on this day of our Lord, May 2, 1930. Their first Republic, the Weimar Republic, is on its last legs. And why? Because state socialism is strangling the lifeblood of the country. The state robs the taxpayers blind, then uses the money to pay off the special interest groups which were responsible for voting it in. The unions want protective legislation, big business wants loans and trade barriers. The farmers want subsidies, the schoolteachers want the closure of private schools and earlier retirement. The peasants hate foreign competition; the students want the government to pay for their education. The army wants rearmament, the old aristocracy want the monarchy re-established. The bureaucrats want job security and endless raises. Everyone wants something that someone else will have to pay for. And if you don’t want to join in the feeding frenzy, then the mob will turn on you and rob you blind. And you know what else?”

“What?” murmured Tom. Something moved him about this, more than just the politics of it all.

“It’s like—death by a thousand mosquitoes. Look—imagine you’re a farmer. What do you do? Why, you lobby your friendly Reichstag for a ten-thousand-mark subsidy. Lovely, right? You sway the Republic, you get ten thousand marks free and clear—which, assuming it’s not 1923, is a good amount of money. But what if you’re the taxpayer who foots the bill? Suppose you’re Otto von Burgomeister, the local industrial hearty. If you oppose the farmer—and win—you save maybe a couple of pfennig. It’s a matter of imbalance. The incentive for the farmer to lobby for a subsidy is huge—and the incentive for the average taxpayer to oppose it is tiny. Not a good foundation for social peace and stability, I dare say. So look at what happens—everyone lines up for their little vial of blood, and soon the social body—the economy—collapses. The moment of collapse comes as a great surprise, of course, because there is a mountain of debt which has staved off the disaster. But it comes, it comes… And then, the worst thing in the world happens!”

“And what is that? The worst thing in the world?”

“Well, society has collapsed—the old society, the old way of doing things. And what were those things? The pillaging of the productive by the lazy. The corruption of democracy by the brutal redistribution of wealth by the government. State socialism is not freedom. Communism is the total ownership of property by the state—in Germany, as we speak, the state owns or controls more than half the property in the land. So it is already more communist than capitalist. And when all this corruption and money-grubbing comes crashing down, what do people say? Do they say—well, this state socialism, this creeping communism, has not worked very well, so let’s take some of these powers away from the government? Do they say: let’s repeal the tariffs and subsidies and special privileges for unions and big business and all the thousands of special interest groups? Do they lower taxation and privatize services? Heavens no! People almost never think that freedom is the solution for creeping tyranny. And imagine the fight they would face, from all the entrenched bloodsuckers! What they will say, in Germany, is that freedom has been tried and failed, and that capitalism does not work, and democracy is anathema to the German soul. They will turn to dictatorship. And that, Tom, is the worst thing in the world. And do you know why?”

“Yes,” said Tom, who got it in a sudden rush.

“Why?”

“Because in a dictatorship, we would be murdered for having this wonderful conversation.”

That conversation brought something home to Tom, something very important. He’s not kidding, he thought, staring at Hart’s pale face. And that phrase was crucial; it went to the very heart of things. Hart knew something about ideas—and the expression of them—that Tom did not. People aren’t kidding.

But he was afraid to ask Hart about it at that time, because he felt that something terrible would occur if he did.

So Tom did leave university, and he went home for a few days, and then he decided to take a room in London.

He had no idea what he was going to do. It was important to get away from home. He packed lightly, took a day-train into the great city, stored his belongings in a locker, took a bus downtown, and began to wander.

Everything he saw troubled him. The clumps of brown, stained men—not stained from work, but from dissolution and numb despair—jarred his sense of proportion. It was midafternoon; these men should not be wandering about or lurking in doorways. The guilty shuffle of the employed jarred him. He saw one woman walking out of a shop who, after passing one of the unemployed clumps, crossed herself and shook her head. The shops were bright and spanking clean, but there was something wrong. Everything was marked down. There aren’t as many shoppers, thought Tom. I much prefer a world where a storekeeper can look at you askance, and throw you out if you loiter. These men are too much like prostitutes with many mouths to feed.

On every corner, too, it seemed, the dolorous bell of the depressing Salvation Army tolled, and a dark-suited, peaked-capped man or woman (waist-up, it was hard to tell from more than ten paces) stood stiffly, ringing out the end of civilization. Although he was handsome (or perhaps because of it), Tom tried to avoid judging other people on their looks, but the thought came to him nonetheless: I have never seen an attractive person in a Sally Ann uniform. Once, as a young teen, wandering into a Salvation Army hall by mistake, he had watched as a couple publicly dedicated their wailing newborn baby to the Cause. Ugh. Cry, little one.

There was something missing from the streets of London, and it took Tom quite some time to realize what it was. The old were almost nowhere to be seen. There were some old workers, but… And then he realized that the market crash had probably destroyed the retirement savings of many a life-long worker. So where have they gone? It was a chilling thought, and Tom contented himself—a little guiltily—with thinking of a friendly family far in the country. Or that they just stayed at home, afraid of the unemployed.

And there were fewer babies. That was the other thing. Toddlers, sure, toddlers by the score. But they could all walk, or looked a bit too big for their strollers. But no babies. This, combined with the absence of the elderly, seemed rather brutally Darwinian. Some predator has been at work, and the helpless are no more…

Tom loved libraries, and went into one. Here was something nice, something which spoke well of the symmetry between learning and compassion. There was a tray of jam butties in the entranceway, and pitchers of water, and a hand-scrawled sign pointing to the toilets downstairs. Men lounged unmolested; a guard only chastised those who tried to stuff their pockets. Tom was surprised that this gentle remonstrance worked every time, often producing a guilty grin and a replacing of the food. This reminded him of something that happened when he was about eight. He was riding his bicycle on the pavement, weaving in and out of people, when a curly haired man of about twenty stopped him. Tom had thrust out his lower lip, expecting a clip on the ear, but the man just leaned down and said softly: “You know, if you ride your bicycle on the sidewalk, it’s quite likely that you will hit someone who is not quick.” An elemental compliance—surprising to a boy who fancied himself a rebel—arose in Tom that day. He never rode on the pavement again, and forever remembered the power of a soft tone.

After a light supper, Tom picked up a newspaper, averting his eyes from the grim news on the front page—banker kills self!—and scanned the adverts for rooms. He went to a few, before settling on one in the back of a house with a little garden. It was a nice room; the paint was new, and the closet fairly spacious. It had one window, which opened onto a view of the Thames, and a slovenly landlady, which seemed sort of inescapable.

The next morning was bright and clear. Tom lay in his bed, his arms clasped behind his head, feeling… Well this is odd, he thought. I don’t feel much of anything. He felt empty, but not unhappy. Poised, as it were, like an endlessly patient predator. My future will not be walking through that door, not anytime soon… Already he felt that university was thousands of miles away. They were already speaking in other tongues there. The thought: what will become of me? held no terrors.

What shall I do with my day? he wondered. Anything I please. I have to go to the bank, to arrange for the transfer of my account from home. I have the five hundred pounds a year; the rent here is minimal, my needs few. I can wait indefinitely for what will become of me. That prospect gave him a deep thrill of pleasure. It was only now that he realized what a load he had been carrying in university. It is Reginald’s realm there; I would never have found a proper place. The idea of getting a degree now seemed incomprehensible. To get a degree, to become a professor or a civil servant, to build capital, find a home, breed a family… What nonsense! Tom smiled. It wasn’t that these ideas were bad in and of themselves; they were just for others, for those without… Well, what? Without what? It seemed like a very deep instinct which gave him peace of mind, as he lay there in the brightening day. He settled on a tautology, which was: well, those without whatever gives me peace of mind, lying here with no plan.

Tom lay and let his thoughts wander for almost an hour, then decided to get something to eat. He rose, bathed, shaved, dressed and went down into the street. He felt like an anthropologist, noting how each city dweller earned their bread. Everyone had a story, and he wandered the streets, imagining the personal histories of each odd person he saw. That man has no friends, and is in love with his dog. That woman has the heart of a hero, but is too busy to notice it. That old man saw terrible sufferings in the Crimea, and has never recovered. That man was the most agile man in his unit, at rugby, and in the trenches, and has only lost a leg because he dodged the worst of the incoming shell. That girl is being taken out by a detested uncle; she angles away from his tight hand.

Tom laughed at himself; he wanted to stop everyone he thought about and see if he was right. To create the encyclopedia of everyone, because each life is a thousand worlds…

He took a seat in an outdoor café, ordered a tea, and gazed surreptitiously at those around him.

What should happen now is that I should be reading a newspaper at brunch, and a shifty-eyed young man will ask for the sports section (because shifty-eyed men always want the sports section). He will ask me if I am new in town, and befriend me, and lead me step by step into the underworld, and I shall learn all the dark ways of my soul… Or a woman in trouble will attach herself to me with desperate and flirty ways, and will ask me to do some awful deed, to free her from a man… Or a nun will notice that I have no nimbus of God around me, and will inquire in soft tones about the state of my soul, and we shall war over the invisible for many days… Or a child shall come and tell me that there is a fight, and lead me to a place where I will be robbed…

Tom put down his tea, looking at the people around him. Or, more likely, everyone will go about their business and barely give me a second glance. The dramas of the world so rarely drop bombs on innocent bystanders.

Chapter 23

The time that Tom spent in that little back room was the sweetest that he had ever spent in his life. He knew that this was the case—he even knew that he would gaze back later in his life and always remember the time he spent lying and reading, or walking and thinking, or eating and singing.

He spent two years in that room. Something in university had awakened him, something which put Catherine at one end of the pole and the modern world at the other. He grew to love knowledge, and dreamed of the nineteenth century, as a place he would have been truly at home. He grew misty-eyed over stories of heroism, of righteous war and stern peace treaties. The word ‘honor’ became very important.

And, he began to love the Empire.

This was most odd, and most against the grain of his times. He loved what England had done for the world. He loved the peace that ruled a quarter of the globe. He loved reading about the downfall of cruel native despots, and their replacement with inflexible, friendly, authoritarian British rule.

Of course, he had to go pretty far back to find his love of the Empire. For all modern commentators, it was nothing but brute colonialism. But there was something about the nineteenth century which moved him beyond words… The British had a mission—a crusade, one might almost say, if the word had not been so corrupted by Christianity—and that was to bring civility to the world. The British encountered other countries while trading, and grew quickly sick of the depravity of foreign rulers. They grew sick of bribing and waiting and having to perform every species of senseless abasement. But most of all, they were horrified at the treatment of the helpless in these countries. India, with its caste system, bride-burning, endless raping of women, and constant molestation of children. It was one thing to want spices; it was quite another to hand over gold to a merchant whose wife flinched when he raised his hand. The Western tradition of defense of the helpless, which arose after the bloody wars of the Reformation, was truly something to be proud of. The idea of equality of law, of the separation of church and state, of rights for women—all the most noble virtues of the Western tradition—the absence of these could not be ignored.

The nineteenth century was the last time that, for England at least, morals stood above mankind. The idea of burning a woman alive because her husband had died—now considered a valid quirk of a foreign culture—could not be stomached by any who encountered it. It was barbaric, primitive, ghastly and evil. None could stand by and watch it happen. It was not just a Christian thought, but something deeper, more dignified. It was an affront to all that was good and noble and true in human nature. It was subhuman. It had to be stopped.

But there was no common ground for stopping it. Tom encountered one idea which seemed so foreign that he had to read it over a number of times before it made any kind of sense. In the Sikh culture, in India, the actions of a woman reflected on the honor of the family as a whole. Thus, if a woman wanted to marry a man of a lower caste, she could be legally killed, in order to protect the family honor. Tom let his head sink deep into his pillow after reading about that.

Where does one begin negotiating about that? How does one go into a village and say that this ghastly practice is no more? Ah, it is a matter of honor. The white man has no idea, the white man lets his women run wild. Women are naturally dishonest, willful, disobedient. And how could we tell them otherwise? Shall we tell them that women are equal to men? Preposterous! Can a woman hunt a boar? The scent of her menstruation would tip the animal off! Can a woman push a plow? Too weak! Can a woman wield a sword? No! Women are dependent on men, thus men own them! Can you point to one women here who is equal to a man?

And, of course, no one could. For women to be equal to men, strength has to be removed from the equation. That means: no farming, no hunting, no wars close by. India has been in a state of civil war for a millennia! A thousand princes vying for a hundred kingdoms! How could women ever be thought of as equal to men, when they are prizes of war? It is like saying that livestock should be allowed to vote.

So for women to be equal, we would have to force India to industrialize. And then introduce the arts. Education. Remove strength from the equation. Women can write, think, speak, reason, and argue as well as men. But they cannot push a plow.

But how does one industrialize a country? Enforce property rights. But you have upper castes which have existed for a thousand years. Are they going to give up their rights? The lower castes have to sweep the floor behind them as they leave a room, so the upper castes do not have to mingle even their footprints with these vermin. Are they going to defend their right to property? Of course not. So what is one to do? Put all the upper castes in jail? Without due process? You have to have a jury system, which will never convict them. And all the educated people are in the upper castes—they will never defend the lower ones…

It was all so impossible. And, starting after the Great War, a new thread moved through the literature, which was that India was the Great Mystery, an age-old continent with strange foreign rituals and unfathomable social complexity. It was like Africa, the Dark Continent—a riddle that the small-minded white man could never penetrate. It was foreign, and should not be meddled with.

To Tom’s mind, this was very strange. What is mysterious about oppression? Every myth exists to grant power to some group. The caste system, with its religious underpinnings, just propped up the dominant social group. Who cares if their dances are very difficult to learn? It’s like saying that the Mafia is an impenetrable mystery because their secret handshakes are very complicated. Nonsense. Criminals, that’s all.

And, after the ‘great mystery’ came its natural result: national self-determination.

Tom could never quite fix his mind on this concept. Basically, it seemed to be something like this:

The majority should be able to do whatever it likes to its minorities.

Or:

No matter what you want to do, if you have enough people behind you, it’s good!

It seemed very primitive. It had originated after the Great War, and was the foundation of the League of Nations. One of the great questions of history is: what is a community? Now, for the nineteenth century—and for Tom—a community was defined by voluntarism. It was a community if you joined it of your own free will. It was a valid government if you submitted to it because its ethics coincided with your own.

But that didn’t really work after the Great War, because voluntarism had largely gone the way of the dodo. Conscription was introduced in 1915, for the first time in the history of the British Empire. Income tax was introduced in 1917, as a temporary measure that seemed destined to measure its temporary nature in geological time. The government swallowed massive sections of the economy—and people’s lives—piecemeal, without even a burp. The welfare state was underway. Are we then going to champion voluntarism, given that we have already established that using force is a valid way of achieving something good? Taxes go to the poor, whether you like it or not. Stand back from your wallet—we will take what we want and do what is best.

So, the concept of voluntarism—so central to the foundation of the United States, and in the free-market debates of the nineteenth century—had been destroyed by German militarism. What, then, was the justification for the existence and protection of the nation-state after the Great War? Well, it was a geographical area containing an ethnic or cultural majority. What made it moral? Well, that was a tricky question. Basically, it was moral because it expressed the will of the majority. And what if the majority decided to do something immoral? Theoretical—next question please!

And the strangest thing about the end of the Great War was that national self-determination was considered the moral basis for the existence of states—and then was completely ignored by the Allies in the framing of the Treaty of Versailles!

Tom read about this with a growing sense of foreboding, as if he were not reading about the past at all.

In his mind, something began to formulate. It was of central importance, and it was something, something like… Well, if they have an idea about what justifies a nation-state, but they find that they cannot put this idea into practice, then they should have stopped and looked at the idea again… I mean, you can’t just have an idea about nations, and then say: ‘well, now that we are dealing with the creation of nations, we have to abandon that idea.’ You say, instead: ‘well, it would seem that our idea is not helping us very much, so let’s put our actions on hold until we have a bit more clarity about what we’re doing.’

Tom was not naïve. Of course, that almost never happens. Mankind goes on and on saying: ‘of course sand is the best material for building houses,’ then uses bricks anyway. Of course, though, if you dream of sand but build with bricks, you are still building on sand, and so nothing will stand.

Nothing will stand… Tom could not really conceive of that. What would that mean…? War could no longer be thought of in rational, calculating or practical terms. Even the slaughter of the Great War was as nothing to what was coming.

It is a great illusion of mankind that technology will save society from moral confusion. The invention of the long-range bomber was supposed to put an end to war. It was widely estimated that half a million deaths could be expected from the first night of full-scale bombing of a city. And there was no defense, no defense at all. Anti-aircraft guns might get one bomber in a thousand. Fighter-planes were useless in the dark. Small bombers would come first, dropping incendiaries which would be visible up to 20,000 feet. Then the masses of bombers would come, their target clearly visible in the flames below. There was no way to stop them. All experts were unanimous: The bomber will always get through.

So why did they take so little care over Versailles? wondered Tom. It was most odd. The British and French had this vision of what a country was, and then seemed to ignore it completely.

It was partly a question of plebiscites. The British and French approached various nationalities around Germany and said: do you want to be part of Germany, or your own country? But they only did that when they were sure that the vote would go against Germany. There were no plebiscites in Alsace-Lorraine, or in most of the lands given to Poland. And Austria? Well, that was the most cynical of all. The Allies knew that Austria desperately wanted to reunite with Germany. The polls were clear about that. But in the Versailles Treaty, such a union was expressly forbidden. Most odd! Why spend all that time coming up with a theory about national self-determination and then ignore it completely?

But all these dangers, it seemed, paled next to Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was a monstrous mongrel. Less than half its population were Czechs. The Slovaks were a significant majority. There were three million Germans in Czechoslovakia, mostly in the Sudetenland, in the West, sharing a border with Germany, who desperately wanted to ‘go home.’

So something was wrong with the theory, but the theory was neither questioned nor applied, thought Tom, lying back on his bed. This is important, but I am so sleepy…

Tom had a bad habit of seducing himself in to a nap by ‘sagging-studying.’ (Well, it would be bad if he was not studying solely for his own pleasure.) It was quite a subtle progression. First, he would be sitting upright at his little desk, his back erect, taking notes and marking pages. Then his back would sag. Then, he would put his feet up. Then, his lower back would get sore. Then, he would sit up on his bed. Then, he would lie down and read, propping his head on his arm. Then, he would close his eyes for a moment, just to reflect on what he’d read. This last phase usually lasted no more than two minutes.

This process, which once took over an hour, he had now gotten down to under fifteen minutes. Although he grew to love knowledge more and more, it could not be said that his learning curve about his own habits was very high. He was still always surprised when he woke up after a good study-nap. I guess I fell asleep…

Naps were always dangerous for Tom. Well, if not dangerous, at least risky. First, they tended to be long—at least ninety minutes. Second, they made it impossible for him to go to sleep before three a.m. And third, they were not always refreshing. After a nap, he often felt that his well-oiled brain had been sucked out by gypsies, sold on the black market, and replaced with rather damp and moldy wool.

Occasionally, he would nap well, and these occurrences would stay with him enough to keep his doubtful faith in the restorative powers of napping. (The fact that this only happened about once out of ten times did not alter this; math, after all, was not his strong suit.)

Also, he was a great fan of Winston Churchill.

Churchill was a great napper, and usually spent the hours from three to five in peaceful slumber. Tom took some comfort in this, because it is always wise to imitate an idol while young.

Tom’s affection and, frankly, his pining, for the nineteenth century, found great root in Churchill, who was a nineteenth-century man to his very bones. He loved reading Churchill’s speeches, and greatly admired Winston’s courage when he broke with the Conservative Party over the Party’s desire to grant self-rule to India.

This was one of those issues which opens wide, hissing veins of lava over the contradictory ideas which so often undermine great societies. The granting of self-rule to India coincided completely with the new respect for the idea of ‘national self-determination.’ The reasoning was fairly simple. If self-determination was the great definition of a nation, then ruling over India was wrong. They should run their own house, as every nation should. The British should never have been there in the first place.

However, there was something which was never quite discussed, except where Churchill was concerned, which was: were the Indians capable of running their own country? This was a most heretical idea, smacking of much racism and the unconscious, patronizing colonial attitudes so endemic to the thinking of the white man. However, the fact that England was, for instance, not actively considering invading America and undoing the Revolution, was important. England was quite content to let America run itself because America was, demonstrably, quite capable of running itself. (And, of course, it could be argued that, after having to come to the rescue of free Europe in 1917, America was actually better at running itself than Europe was at running itself.)

But Marxism had taken hold too deeply. No young intellectual could argue that England took over the management of India because the Indians were manifestly incapable of running their own country in any moral manner. No, there was no virtue in human motivation—Marx had proven that. (Well, except for the Marxists, of course, whose motives were pure.) The English may have thought that they were trying to do good in India, and protect the lower castes, women, and children from rape, murder, and exploitation, but that wasn’t the case. They were actually trying to expand their markets and keep control of the trade routes. Why, then, did they impose the rule of law in India and spend millions of pounds and hundreds of British lives to protect the minorities and keep the women off the funeral pyres? There was probably some Marxist explanation, but it was doubtless too tortured even for the Party faithful to follow. Though doubtless the dialectic was involved.

So, there was no moral reason for the British to be there. And national self-determination was the only valid justification for a state. Well and good. So the British must go. And if the Indians return to caste warfare, Muslim and Hindu massacres, the persecution of the Pakistanis, the genital mutilation of children, and endless barbecuing of brides? Well, said the new thinkers, if that’s what they really want, then who are we to interfere? The question of what the lower-caste and women might want went unanswered. Brute majority rule, as in ancient Greece, would do. Those who found it a tragedy that Athens could vote to murder Socrates found little difficulty in advocating such majority rule—unbounded by human rights—for other countries far from home.

These were the thoughts going through Tom’s mind, early in the year 1932.

Reginald’s mind, on the other hand, was rather less full of thoughts than it was of plans.

Chapter 24

Reginald had caused a great academic sensation at All Souls. His language skills were so extraordinary that arguing with him was almost impossible. His abilities were centered in two main areas: the first was scorn, and the second was agility.

His scorn was a force of nature, something which had to be seen to be believed. Reginald was of the opinion that every moral stand was a mere posture, and he mocked earnest young men without mercy. He dismissed theoretical constructs as a waste of time, constantly insisting that focussing on practical matters was the only useful approach. He did not believe in bad men, but conceded that some people were in fact ‘misguided’ about their own interests. He was a great fan of Gandhi. He was not optimistic about human nature, but was optimistic about the future. People were squalid, grasping and only concerned with their own welfare—but that very selfishness was what would save mankind, he felt. Now that the bomber had brought warfare to the homes of the leaders, no one would dare start a war. He had no love of democracy, but respected its historical roots in England. “It is our way,” he would say, with an ironic smile. “And we are stuck with it.” He liked Mussolini (“There is a man who knows what he is about!”) but knew that fascism would never take root on British soil. “Our local, gin-sodden worthies—who can no more write books than they can fly—are, for some unfathomable reason, most attached to their freedom of expression.”

Reginald had a prodigious memory, (in great contrast to Tom, who had great difficulty keeping all but the broadest abstractions in his mind), and was a past master of the ‘oppositional quote.’ In debates, he would dig up some obscure reference by a great thinker, toss it at his opponents, and watch them writhing under the challenge of opposing genius.

(Of course, there was a faint pattern to the kind of knowledge which Reginald retained, but that did not become evident for some time.)

Certainty was quite hard to come by in the early thirties. The only way to approach it was to be dogmatic, and Reginald was far too vain for that. He disliked communism as Messianistic German idealism, but conceded that it would probably never work because man was too selfish. “The theory is very nice, but the problem is that mankind is not very nice, so it would never work.” (In this he was in the same camp as the Vatican, which said that, although communism would in fact be heaven on earth, it was impossible, because the framers of communism forgot to take into account Original Sin, and so that mankind, due to his innate sinfulness, could never achieve heaven on earth.)

So Reginald was not dogmatic—he made gentle fun of communism, and gentle fun of democracy (“You don’t even have to be able to read to vote!”) and counseled by his very nature the middle way of analysis, inaction, and—inevitably—compromise.

Reginald was very certain of the rightness of his path, and since certainty was at a premium, he gained great respect. He was associated with practicality, with common sense, with the admirable British virtue of seeing both sides of an argument. He was seen as a little pedestrian, a little middle class, but that was not perceived as a bad thing. The nineteenth century was the age of adventurism, of upper-class Empire building, of all the errors of the perfumed warrior-classes which culminated in the sobering slaughter of the trenches. And there would be no more of that. The world had grown too dangerous for saber-rattling. Braggadocio, posturing, all the chest-thrusting of old-world competition—all that was to be no more. The age of honor had passed. Now what was required was the age of compromise. The age of rationality. The age of common sense.

Reginald was made the head of the Student Council, and got almost perfect marks on his essays, and performed admirably on his exams. (His oral defense of his Honors thesis was such a friendly chit-chat that he regretted not bringing some scones.)

Reginald was a thrilling, impressive and dangerous student, because he was a master of details. He knew every little fact, every little opinion—and scorned all attempts at theorization. He could, for instance, argue all of Luther’s arguments about the corruption of the indulgences at the opening of the Reformation (and he actually knew all the ninety-five arguments that the venerable monk nailed to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg)—and then Reginald could turn around and argue the Vatican point of view with equal passion. “Everyone is certain of their viewpoints, but that is impossible. Not everyone can be right. Thus, is it not most probable that they—and we—are all wrong?”

It was the “and we” that was the essence of Reginald’s charm and danger. He scorned others, but he also scorned himself, and that put a velvet glove on his punch to the solar plexus of the ego. All certainty is illusion, he smiled, but then added, winningly, even what I am saying.

Reginald was that rarest of breeds: the smiling nihilist. All his preferences were based on mere momentum. We English have seen fit to develop and defend democracy (“although it should be remembered that the Magna Carta gave rights only to nobles”), and so we should hang onto the institutions which the peculiarities of our soil and air gave life to. They cannot be transplanted, but they are ours as our aunts and uncles are ours. Out of habit, coincidence, and history, but we love them still!

There was great weariness in these formulations of Reginald’s—even his listeners, as they laughed in their relieved, uneasy way, could feel it. But this weariness was seen as world-weariness, as the exhausted wisdom of a world traveler who has seen so much persecution, intolerance, and foolishness that he views all beliefs as extremism. (Thus a man who has only seen cavalry thinks that banning horses will put an end war!)

A great war raged across the campuses in the late twenties and early thirties, and it had to do with war, and guilt.

German historians, for obvious reasons, had gone to great lengths to persuade other scholars that Germany was not to blame for the Great War. This was called ‘revisionism,’ and was the revolting product of a rot that went far deeper.

There was enormous mistrust between the generations. Everything which the older generation said to be true was automatically believed false. It was not a question of facts—they had little relevance. The great naval arms race between England and Germany before the War was clearly started and accelerated by Germany—but that did not matter. Within Germany, mounting civil unrest between the socialist deputies and the right-wing military leaders was a major factor in prompting Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg to issue his ‘blank cheque’ to Austria to support her in any move she chose to take against Serbia. In the nineteenth century, Germany had developed a ‘two-front’ war plan designed to allow her to survive war against France and Russia simultaneously. The evidence was clear. Opposition to the evidence was surreal. It got to arguments as ridiculous as saying that if only England had told Germany that Germany’s actions would provoke war…!

The problem was not that there were disagreements within the fields of historical interpretation. The problem was that proof and records did not lead to truth. Truth was no longer something to be derived from what was. ‘Truth’ had arrived in the West once more, for the first time since the religious wars of the seventeenth century. This ‘Truth’ was not empirical. It was ideological; it bowed to neither facts nor reason. This ‘Truth’ was ethereal, perfect, unconstrained by petty reality. It was immoral to even doubt it. Ideology had met faith, and their offspring was a thing most terrible to behold.

Marxism and socialism were to blame. The great danger of the intellectual world—the belief that there is a ‘secret motive’ which cannot be proven or even defined—took its terrible, thorny toll on the tangled and violent student debates. Shouts of ‘class enemy’ and ‘tool of the bourgeoisie’ and ‘Trotskyite’ or ‘Lovestoneite’ rang through the air—and that was just among the Communists. The Communists called the Socialists ‘Social Fascists.’ When Roosevelt came to power in 1933, he was also a fascist. Trade unions were fascistic, because they tried to wring concessions from the existing order, rather than taking it apart brick by brick. Parliament was fascistic beyond words. Every word it spoke dripped of smug, contemptuous, self-satisfied self-interest. Society was a sham. Everything was a cover for strings being pulled behind the scenes. Everyone over thirty used every trick in the book to keep the young silent, productive and in their place. If they counseled patience, it was so they could continue pillaging for just a few more weeks, months, or years. If they said that they were helpless to solve problems, it was because they profited from them. If they supported a student rebellion, it was because they wanted to ‘co-opt’ it. If they put it down, it was because they had to smash what threatened them. (This last part quickly became a point of pride for revolutionary movements—if the police did not crack their skulls, it was because they were not revolutionary enough.) The inevitable, intractable class antagonism dictated by Marxist paranoia also dictated that the young wage war against the old.

It is true that the young students of the early 1930s had, as Fitzgerald put it, “grown up to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in men shaken.” They had been born in the shadow of war, and knew little but wild instability, social upheaval, and the financial collapse of 1929.

And by heavens, they were educated.

It is an odd and unsupported notion in society that education results in knowledge, tolerance, and understanding. This may be true when education is sober, reflective, and honest, but that has been true for only a tiny portion of human history. For the most part, education inflames the resentments of youth, strips students of their capacity for empathy, and kills all possibilities of peaceful negotiations.

In the 1930s, society had a great problem with its young—especially its educated young. The greatest problem was that it had no place to put them. Throughout the West, up to a third of young men were unemployed—including those who had been to university. A popular song went:

I sing in praise of college,

Of MAs and PhDs,

But in pursuit of knowledge

We are starving by degrees.

Society had no place for its young, and so the basic intergenerational contract was rendered null and void. Obey, cry the previous generation, and all that we have shall be yours! But now they had nothing to give. No jobs, no security, no future…

And the young went in search of answers. And the arms which opened for them were red to the marrow.

But why? Why did the students of the 1930s turn to the Socialists and Communists? Why did they not become free-market revisionists?

The term ‘radicalization’ does not help. When society goes seriously awry, it is natural for students in particular to act, but problems do not dictate the nature of solutions. The Americans did not like George III’s excessive taxation, but they did not set up a dictatorship in response to it. The English did not solve the problem of Cromwell by setting up an absolute monarchy. The need to solve problems does not dictate the nature of those solutions.

So why? Why did these students turn away from everything in the Western tradition and become slaves of Germanic and Slavic absolutism? It wasn’t as if they had no examples of how to deal with social problems. They had the example of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. They had the separation of church and state—why would they not think of the separation of state and economics, since the state management of the Western economies had proven so disastrous since the Great War?

Their thoughts did not turn that way. It was inconceivable—and, if it had been suggested, would have been sniggered away as about as relevant to politics as leeches are to medicine.

Why? Why were German solutions so attractive?

Ahh, that is because of German philosophy, which had taken root about a hundred years before. Kant, Hegel, all the sniveling Germans who wailed from the mud that man was impotent, helpless, blind—and had to submit to the group to have any chance of virtue. All the sick ethics of the Christian Middle Ages returned to the sunnier West of reason and empiricism. Nothing new had occurred. All young people think they are being so radical, when they are simply acting out slogans from three generations past.

And why had German philosophy survived? How had it crept back into the West? Ah, that is a sad, sad tale.

In the eighteenth century—the height of the Age of Reason—religion was in mortal danger. Compared to science and reason, it was revealed as impotent, brutal, endlessly destructive. The Church had opposed every single advance in human thought, from the new atomistic theories (Galileo was attacked more for this than his argument that the earth moved), to chemistry (one of the ‘seven devilish arts’), to physics (banned by Pope Alexander III in 1163), to empirical experimentation (one of its first practitioners, Roger Bacon, was hounded for ‘sorcery’ and imprisoned for fourteen years), to medicine. The casualty list went on and on. Marco Antonio de Dominis: tried, tortured, and murdered for his investigations in the phenomena of light. Cornelius Agrippa, Weyer, Flade, Loos, Bekker, and many others suffered confiscation of property, loss of position, and torture and death, for their scientific research.

Thus, the creation of the great Republic of America was explicitly non-religious—the framers of the Constitution were not Christians, but largely deists, who believed that God had (at most, perhaps) wound up creation like a watch, and intervened no more.

The separation of church and state was no small humiliation for Christianity. Christians had proven themselves so virulent in their internecine wars that society simply could not survive where Christians disagreed. So the state was taken away from the Church, like a hammer from a boy breaking windows.

But it could hardly be expected that the Church—and all that it represented—could be dismissed so easily. A certain group of incompetent mystics—incompetent in that the rigor of their thought could scarcely be compared with the matchless achievements of the Enlightenment—who had ruled mankind for thousands of years had had all their power taken from them.

Rational men of goodwill are not much given to driving the final nail into the coffin of a vanquished enemy. Out of misplaced sympathy, they allowed God to live on, albeit in a distant ghost-like form. They had neither the stomach nor strength to go the final distance, and reason God completely out of existence.

So God retreated from the West, and bided his time. Stung and rejected by a growing majority of mankind—his lack of existence outlined by the new lights of science and logic—God slunk back to Wittenberg, and decided to make Germany his new home, his place of convalescence.

Germany was a good place for God to hide and recoup. The light of science and reason did not shine over the mental skies of the Germanic peoples. They hated France and England, and spat at the new ideas, defining themselves as proud medievalists, anti-rational mystics. After all, Luther was one of them, and Luther—good monk that he was—was no friend of reason: “Whoever wishes to be a Christian, let him pluck out the eyes of his reason.” “We must refrain from consulting reason. We must bid reason hold its peace; we must order it to be dead. We must gouge out its eyes and pluck its feathers.”

So mysticism, irrationalism, and superstition ruled the dark Teutonic forests, where God made up his illusory lair and sent out his spies and agents to undermine his enemies.

The simple fact, the fact that the West had never fully appreciated or realized, was that they could not have both science and religion. There is no synthesis between: ‘two and two make four’ and ‘two and two make whatever the priests tell us.’ A good example is the conflict between atomic theory and the Catholic Church. Galileo was a great fan of Democritus, believing that matter was composed of tiny particles whose nature was not open to change. ‘Ah,’ said the Church, ‘but where does that leave transubstantiation? The wine and wafer are supposed to change into the blood and flesh of Christ, yet your theory says that this is impossible! To the rack with you, old man!’

These positions are without compromise. Faith and reason are enemies. There can be no détente. Science and religion cannot coexist without one of them superseding—and eventually destroying—the other. There is no middle ground.

All right, but what about Marxism?

Well, Marxism is a faith-based system of thought, and as such is, philosophically, indistinguishable from religion. Both Marxism and religion take their premises as absolutes, which require no proof or corroboration. Both view the world through the lens of their premises. Both promise some ill-defined paradise in the future if obedience is tendered in the here and now. Both posit that all failures in the world result from malevolent enemies (since Communism is perfect, all crop failures, for instance, can only result from spies and insurgents; since God is perfect, only Satan and evil men produce evil). Adherents to both systems are immune to rational argument. (The only person who would argue against communism, for instance, is a class enemy, and therefore immoral, and therefore wrong. Only the devil would try to disprove God.)

Both systems are absolutely moral—and so are not open to experimentation. If a religious man is unhappy, it does not invalidate religion. If millions of peasants in a Marxist country starve to death after the collectivization of farming, that does not invalidate Marxism in any way. You want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. The results of the system have no impact on the validity of the theory. The system is perfect; all imperfections are the fault of others.

God was most cunning about this. God knew that he might have to wait for another few hundred years or more to mount his full return. Clearly, religion had been exposed as violent, sectarian, repressive, and fundamentally unable to advance the human cause. Oops, said the Eternal One. Let’s kip in Germany and regroup.

How to return? This was a great problem. But God, being infinitely intelligent, naturally came up with the answer before He had even asked the question:

Since science is killing off faith, the solution is to keep faith alive in a scientific guise…

This is why God is God. It was brilliant. The traditional Christian hatred of the rich was transformed into class warfare. The dominance of the collective over the individual which was the essence of the Church was transformed into the Absolute State. The Church had always hated capitalism—which it virulently opposed throughout the Middle Ages by banning usury and absolute property rights—now, under Marxism, capitalists became the Great Satan! It was all too beautiful. Charity is the greatest virtue, said the Church. The individual must give up everything for those less fortunate than himself, said Marx. (God made His joke quite clear by making Marx adopt an Old Testament beard and nicely glowering eyes.) ‘Though this may seem oppressive,’ said the priest, ‘you can only get to heaven through obedience.’ ‘Give up all your rights,’ said Marx, ‘and the state will wither away at some undefined points, and we shall all live in bliss.’

It is quite remarkable that the West did not hear God’s infinite Giggle, but this deception of genius passed by without attention. But that was because God was too cunning to just throw Marxism out there without preparing the way.

Oh yes… The world had to be ripe… This is what God did to pave the way for socialism:

First of all, reason had to be destroyed. Theologians truly understand this. They do not mess around. They have had to change a little since the Middle Ages, when reason was considered an open enemy, which had to be continually stomped on. Since the Renaissance, science has proven too powerful and productive to be considered an absolute evil. However, reason could be delegated to a second-place position, which had its uses, perhaps, in the material realm. But it was not the Absolute Truth.

But reason was really, really good at dealing with material reality. How could this be dealt with?

Well, thought God, drifting through German oaks, far from sunlight, we’ll just have to do away with material reality.

God did not mean doing away with reality per se—it probably crossed His mind, but that would be admitting defeat, like a losing football team calling in an air strike. What He meant, in His infinitely subtle way, was that reality had to be destroyed as a criteria for truth.

Reality gives rise to reason, because reality is consistent. Get rid of reality, you get rid of reason, except as a kind of happy, coincidental trick for dealing with those deceptive atoms.

But how to get rid of reality? Well, God knew, He had to create doubt about man’s capacity to perceive reality. Sure, let’s have a go at the senses, of course—I made them, but still the Devil seems to manage them, ah yeah! But that’s not going to be good enough. I have to—ooh, this is a good one… Let’s create a standard for perception which the senses cannot possibly achieve. Need a term which cannot be understood or explained—ooh, ‘things-in-themselves.’ Nice. It’s good to be Infinite!

So God tickled the brain of Immanuel Kant, and he went about writing the Critique of Pure Reason, wherein the senses were damned for failing to comprehend ‘things-in-themselves.’ (This was because they could not see every atom of a rock, or the rock as ‘God’ saw it .)

And so reason was undermined, limited—made the handmaiden of faith—and so faith regained its position at the pinnacle of human thought.

How could the triumph of faith have been opposed? Well, there was no way for it to be opposed without going straight to Germany, finding God, and putting a stake through His heart. God would have to be completely rejected. If reality is real, and perceivable, and reason is absolute, then God—and many other things, from ghosts to telepathy to the collective—are revealed as nothing more than historical fantasies.

But which warriors had the strength for that kind of final exorcism? The elimination of God is a light which remains too bright for the eyes of mankind, crusted as they are with the greed of the mystics.

And so Reason was toppled from the top of the tree, and that was all well and good, and God was much pleased.

Yet there was so much more to do. It was all very well for God to strike out at His eternal foe, Reason, but it was not enough that people thought that they didn’t know rocks because they didn’t know everything about a rock. It wasn’t exactly activist, and God always liked to get involved. His hands tended to itch when they weren’t getting dirty.

So how could faith return to society? It could not come back as religion, not yet—and probably not for quite some time. This was where God truly confirmed His genius. I shall dress faith up as science, and then we shall march back to the world together!

And so He turned His attention to one K. Marx. Once more the hand of God dipped into the clear waters of thought, muddying them almost beyond repair.

Marx put forward Scientific Socialism, which was the Church in jackboots (well, more openly in jackboots). And all those who had been prepared by the murder of reason flocked to the banner of Prophet Marx, and questioned him not at all.

Now religion was greatly feared as a social force—the wars of religion were still not so far away. Thus, God was prepared to even besmirch His own good Name for a while, so that he could return in time. And so he caused a great hatred to arise in Marx’s breast—a hatred for the Church. Now it was true that no secular dictatorship can coexist with a strong Church, because the two forces would be forever vying for the throats of the helpless. Thus, thought God, if I want to keep faith alive as a social force, I shall have to do away with the Church for a while. (And such was the dedication of the Good Lord that he even suffered his priests to be murdered by the thousands when the Communists seized the throat of Russia in 1917. It is for the Greater Good, thought God, which is all for the good, since I am the Greater Good…)

Now once Reason had been killed, and Active Faith had returned to the world, the stage was set for the great, bloody feasting of the twentieth century. Once nothing had to be proved anymore—and once no social movement had to be judged by its consequences—then the gates were thrown wide open to the kinds of barbarians not seen in Europe since the Fall of Rome. Fascists, Nazis, and Communists arose and choked the old arteries of Europe, strangling freedom and all the liberating air of the nineteenth century—the century which had, for a hundred years, seen no war in Europe.

God was no stranger to the suffering of Active Faith, and looked on in equanimity. He was finally free from his dark home in the German woods, and could stalk the world—silent, invisible, but still there—and enjoy the fruits of his labors.

Reason was silent. Individualism was dead. Capitalism was in full retreat. Democracy was shaky, trembling. In their place was all that God loved and needed to return openly, in all His glory. Irrationalism. Faith. The crushing of the individual under the boot of the tribe. Emotionalism… He heard, over and over, the most beautiful words His ear was capable of absorbing: I believe it because I feel it! He felt his strength grow. Proof is dead! Long live God!

Chapter 25

Reginald was a vain man; that much was clear, but he had some basis for his vanity. It can take a young man with abilities a long time to turn the manure of vanity into the rose of pride, but there are worse first steps.

Reginald finished his Master’s degree in Economics (with a minor in History) in 1932. He did very well, and there was great clamoring for him to continue on to a PhD, but his higher calling came calling, so to speak, and he could not resist it.

Reginald had always recalled his father’s advice: marry well. And it was a strange but true reality of upper-class marriages (especially aristocratic ones) that a certain reversal had come into unions, ever since the Great War.

The Great War had been the end of the patriarchy—and in more than the physical sense. In England, men had gathered great wealth to their bosoms, before gathering shrapnel to their chests in France. This wealth then flowed to the women, who found themselves in possession of money, land, and—very soon—political power, for the first time in the history, not only of England, but of the world itself.

Not only did no one believe the edicts of men anymore, but there were very few men left to speak them anyway. As a new class, women arose, and could not be resisted.

Among the titled classes, the concentration of wealth was truly something to behold. As a warrior class, the aristocrats were used to leading the charges, and so were the first to be fed to the machine guns. So their wives and daughters now had money, and became great objects of desire to those with a ‘higher purpose.’

Wendy had more than wealth. She had a smattering of education—just enough to appear knowledgeable at parties. She could play music, of course, but rarely did, because she felt that it made her look like some ornamental thing from a Jane Austin novel. She read quite extensively, but randomly. (She loved closing her eyes and pulling books from her father’s library, and then reading through them no matter what, even if they were works of etymology or primers on French verbs.) She was very tall, willow-like (women did not like standing next to her, because her waist was their ribcages.) She had long, supple hair, which could look as good lashed back on her head as she rode, or spread over a pillow. Wendy was also one of a small group of women whose appearance left no doubt that they came from an illustrious, aged blood line. (Blood, in England, was like a kind of blue wine; connoisseurs preferred it old.) She had high cheekbones, dark, perfect eyes, a surprisingly sensual mouth, a strong—but not manly—chin, and a high forehead.

Wendy also had a rare vivacity, as well as a staggering ability to attract men. She was all that was bright and fleeting in feminine youth. As a teenager, she was a constant, flitting prize for the young officers stationed near her house. In the 1920s, they vied for her hand at dances, and arranged for their brass bands to pass by her house when she was breakfasting. (Once, tragically, a young flier had crashed and died after attempting to do a victory roll over her house, which sobered her for days.) Wendy enjoyed all this attention; she had a manic intensity and physical fearlessness which worried her parents, since they associated it with lesbianism. However, although Wendy could not be said to actually like boys (they clustered around her so tightly that she could scarcely tell them apart—all those yearning, lusty eyes!) she was not attracted to women.

Her beauty was a kind of blinding light—her looks (which, sadly, were destined to die with her youth, since photographs were never able to catch her at the right angle) were almost supernaturally invasive. Wendy irradiated men; they were like brave sandcastles to her pounding surf. Certain women’s faces are so constructed that they dissolve the personalities of those they gaze on. Well, ‘gaze’ was scarcely the right word, because Wendy never seemed to gaze. Her eyes challenged, or scalded, or mocked, or flittered to and fro. They never seemed to rest in their sockets.

Her hair was—literally—honey-colored (either hard or soft honey, depending on the weather—such was her fortune). She had an admirable figure. Her arms were a trifle muscular, but her legs were long and her waist narrow. She bought a diary to record her thoughts, but it turned—within the span of two weeks—into a record of what she ate, who came to call, and the thickness, in inches, of her thighs. It was not that she did not have any thoughts—or was unintelligent—but that there was a kind of mania within her which seemed to call all the greedy souls in the world towards her, and she was so consumed with managing the ‘cult of Wendy’ that she scarcely had time to notice and explore her own existence.

She was the secular champion of a large group of wild girls. Wendy, like Reginald, and most of their friends, had grown up in silent, fearful houses, long on handkerchiefs and short on fathers. All the natural vivacity of early childhood had been buried under an impending rain of expected coffins. And—and there was a sense in the twenties that mankind had been given a singular reprieve from all rules. Youth was to triumph—youth and inconsequentiality and intense, casual sensation. Giddy laughter, wild driving, dawn dancing, long, pointless stories; sudden, giggling wrestling… Young women loved to dress up as ladies and act like men; they sat on the hoods of cars and kicked up through their wide dresses. And also, there was all the sad absolutisms which come from a youth culture. The disdain of wisdom, the love of the moment; a contempt for planning and scorn at the deferment of pleasure.

The tribe of youth had great physical vanity, which was utterly at odds with their studied dissolution. It was not enough to be rakish and modern—one had to look rakish and modern. The Great Gatsby was a great hit—everyone wanted to be Gatsby, because he was beautiful and rich and threw great parties. A criminal? Surely that didn’t matter, not so much, not any more, not after… And of his thwarted loves and fumbling failures of intimacy? Well, it was sort of cool to be hopeless at relationships. It meant that you were full of energy—and that you could forever milk the elusive giddiness of being pursued.

These youths had great hopes, which they knew nothing about. They hoped that they would never have to grow up. They hoped that being wanted was the same as being worthwhile. They hoped that having wealth was the same as having value. They were brutal with each other. They clawed at tenderness with casual flings. They were utterly dependent on naïve, trusting newcomers. There was a hard core of permanent wastrels, and an ever-oscillating orbit of comers-and-goers. They had wild fun; they skidded off roads and tore their clothing and laughed at car crashes—all the more so if it belonged to one of the newcomers. They promised to pay for things, but never did.

And—what was so attractive about them? What drew the naïve to them, to drown among their shallow pools? It was impossible to see, once one scratched the surface. What looked like fun at night looked pale and scabby in the chill light of dawn. It was like the liquor—sweet going down, acrid coming up. The wit and wildness of midnight was replaced by the tired sniping of seven a.m. This jaunty crew swelled past the bursting point, fed by the wild desires of other people to claw their way into the inner circle of emptiness. They were a test, a test of darkness—and their cynicism was not helped (or, rather, was helped) by the number of dupes and rubes who were drawn into their fiery, demonic, and unsustainable world.

They were pretty, vivacious people, who milked their looks and vivacity with a lifestyle which was certain to make them ugly and exhausted in time. They were like a man who becomes poor by living rich, or a farmer who eats his cattle and then is enraged because he has no milk. They believed, deep down, that youth was a moment which lasted forever. But youth is not a moment, and it does not last forever.

And here is what it meant, and why it was horrible. They called themselves the ‘Lost Generation,’ which was about the most narcissistic joke in history. They had been handed their sufferings, of course, and this was sad. The pre-war world was no more. Something had gone wrong. But—but they did not stop to sit and talk and write and think about what had gone wrong. And—they had not themselves suffered at all, not directly. It was not they who had given up their blood to save the world from the Germans. The ‘Lost Generation’ drank and sniped and pitied themselves—they felt no gratitude or relief at the simple fact that it was far, far better to be a part of the ‘Lost Generation’ than to have been a part of the ‘Slaughtered Generation.’ No, of course not! That would have meant that they would have had to do something to make the world a better place, rather than just squander their senses—and their sense—in a silly orgy of blind cacophony. But it is ever the lot for pretty people to pity themselves, and lash out at others.

When Wendy met her future husband, she was spiraling fast. Wendy had lost her virginity at the age of fourteen, and had dated a lot of boys since then. Like any addict, she went through random phases of chastity, but then would slowly slide back down the greasy ladder of ‘bit-by-bit,’ from kissing with tongue to letting her breasts be touched, to touching his penis through the trousers, then fingers-to-flesh—and so on, this ladder is widely known—until full intercourse occurred, often in some uncomfortable place. (It could never be a comfortable place, because that would require planning, a conscious decision, ever the bane of the addict.)

But what was Wendy addicted to? It was not so much sex, which was just OK. No, what Wendy enjoyed was the desire of the boy. It structured entire evenings for weeks at a time. She could feel it from the moment of approach. She could read his thoughts the whole time. Am I getting closer? What do I have to say or do (or even think, for the more sensitive boys), to get in?

There was an odd paradox in Wendy, something which would have stunned her if she had been fully aware of it. She was, literally, there for the taking. Any man who cornered her honestly could have her. She was beautiful, exotic, sexy, and vivacious—and available for the asking. (Well, not quite ‘asking.’ She wanted to slap the odd sensitive boy who seemed to think she was some kind of exotic goddess who could barely be breathed on, let alone touched. If a boy was insistent, and a little cruel, then she would always open, slow and curled, like the claw of a dead bird.)

This would have stunned the stunted phalanxes of boys who worshipped her from afar. These boys were so intimidated by her beauty and dangerous presence that they were often in danger of fainting when addressing her. She was able to blow them away, like a fly from her arm, with a sigh and a bored, distant gaze. She always misheard them, enjoying their discomfiture. What? Pardon? Sorry? So much fun! Or, she would drop a sexual word into a sentence, and watch them squirm in confused, indecisive excitement. You cunt be serious! (This word, although fine to inflict on stammering, red-faced admirers, was not allowed among her girlfriends—if absolutely required, it was referred to as the ‘see-you-next-Tuesday’ word.)

But it was another kind of boy who always got inside her. (Inside her body, of course; if a woman’s soul has an inside, it requires more than insistence to get into.) It was most ironic, and Wendy would have laughed had she noticed it, before driving and crying. Most of the boys are so obsessed with picking my locks that they never just try yanking the lid open! For that was how it occurred. A boy who did not respect her (well, they had started out as boys, but were now graduating to men; they had grown from seed to seedy); a boy who did not seem to care or notice that she was bright, vivacious, verbal, and playful—why then he found almost immediately that she had no other defenses, and could be undone with a sexy sneer.

And sneer they did.

When she first met her future husband, Wendy was going through one of her abstinence phases. The past year had started off badly. She had been abroad, in Spain, and had fallen hard for a swarthy sequence of Spaniards. Within a week of entering the country, Wendy found their combination of deference and rules-based conquest almost irresistible. They were very respectful; they opened doors and folded their hands while she talked, and bristled when other men looked at her—and then, at the end of the evening, they felt it their absolute right to have her. I have been deferential all evening—and now it is your turn!

This combination of princess and whore shot black lightning through her whole being. It was unbearably exciting, waiting for the moment when ‘Prince Charming’ was replaced by ‘Olaf the Spanish Viking.’ It was indescribably sexy. It always reminded her of one of her first boyfriends, who had been manic and funny, and would make jokes while she pleasured him. She always loved that little tense fulcrum when he stopped joking, and began sliding inexorably towards orgasm. She loved her power to stop his laughter. The power to change his mind, his whole being…

In Spain, the masculine combination of charm and invasion almost proved Wendy’s undoing. For some reason—but probably because of their deference in public and dominance in private—she did not imagine that the Spanish men were capable of gossip.

They were, of course. A broken English flower had washed up on their fortunate shore, and they were not about to leave their luck unspoken. It took Wendy a moment to realize that she was descending—the first fall is always so soft and unassuming—but it soon became clear that the deference of her dates was diminishing, but that their aggression at the end of the evening was not.

Finally, she had a terrible hour of near-wrestling in a car with a slightly overweight man of over forty. As soon as the combat began, she realized that she was in a terrible bind. To reject a man when he already knows that you’re loose is a terrible insult, which is why so many loose women come to bad ends. All too often, they decide to mend their ways in situations designed to deeply incense immature men.

Wendy had to fend off his advances—for some reason the insistence of a Spanish man was no longer sexy, but made her feel like vomiting. There is my pussy, and his cock, but we are not involved, not the rest of us, not at all. And then she began to feel a great rage within her, a coiled snake of past violations and, without warning, drove the heel of her hand into his nose, which broke far more easily than she would have imagined.

The man howled, and raised his hand to strike her back, but she was scrambling back over the passenger seat, clawing to open the door. Goddamn these clothes—which wolf designed these heels for us sheep?

And then something terrible had happened. It was worse than anything she could have imagined.

The man began to laugh.

Wendy could have taken anything else—even, even… But the sight of the man laughing, his dank skin, cupped hand, and escaping, spraying blood—it was an image of the most intense madness, and it haunted her. This is a man who was about to get inside me… There are many kinds of pregnancies, she realized. She always made a man wear a French letter, but a man can plant a seed of madness.

I would have had a giggling, mad child with a broken nose growing within me, she thought later, walking home. The man had let her get out of his car, then driven away slowly, carefully, rolling down his window as he turned the car (making her realize that he had to let go of his nose, and was only doing it so she could hear his gruesome laughter, which was his greatest weapon).

Wendy had been left by a river, a few miles from town. She had not noticed the route—she had been teasing him about his mangy mustache, she recalled, calling him a twelve-year-old little Hitler. And enjoying his discontent, his desire to silence me warring with his desire to have me… What is it about me that gets so giddy when I provoke others into impossible situations? The time when I told the theology student that I was an atheist, while he was undressing. Or the time I told the Jewish boy that I thought the National Socialists had some good ideas. How I love that moment, when the hypocrisy surfaces. I am a most unholy angler! A word so close to ‘angel,’ but in me, so far!

Lying in her dank, slowly fanned hotel room that night, Wendy had a long and, for her, fairly frank look at her own life. Something odd had happened—more than the near-attack, but less than that awful laughter. In the past, near-escapes had always increased her sense of bravado. The gods protect drunks and little children… And the story, the next day, was always enhanced by whatever narrow escape had almost cut her off from the future. The universe is my friend, and I cannot be killed…

But there was something inescapable about a broken nose. Would the universe have been my friend if I had not hit him? I think not, I think not…

It is hard to escape the brute fact of violence. And the first outbreak of violence is so often the last chance of escape… Because if I accept that, thought Wendy, then what is left for me to reject?

But to reject—to reject her life, as it was, as it was going to be (for its path was becoming quite clear) required that she accept her future. To give up something now, I have to believe that there is more to come…

But what was she giving up? There was no easy answer to that, and Wendy rolled over in her hot sheets. I would love a drink right about now, and if it were last night—or any night since I was fourteen—I would just leap up, and go in search of one, and then tell the story the next day. ‘Sure, it was three a.m., but a girl gets thirsty!’

No, that had to be restrained, at least for a time. When she had stumbled in, her feet swollen and bruised by the straps of her shoes, she had gone to wash her face, and noticed a fine spray of blood on her white blouse… White! she had thought derisively, her emotions going into a grim spiral. She stared at herself in the mirror—a cracked mirror, spotted on the edges—and had a random, mad desire to pound her face into the glass, to disfigure herself beyond recognition, beyond recovery, beyond… Beyond men, she thought, and certain series of faces were recalled to her, like an orchid recalling the thunder of a stampede, and she flinched visibly. Who has not gone through me? Who has not grunted and splashed sweat and semen and liquor on me?

The feeling was sudden. Wendy vomited into the sink.

When she was done, she pressed her forehead into the glass, looking down. These are the entrails of bad man and a bad slut, which I have removed and will leave alone to rot in Spanish plumbing… Turning the tap on, she watched the little colored bits and stringy mucous flow down the rusty sink. But the water is also diseased, so it will do no good…

Leaning back, she put her hand on her scant cleavage, feeling the bone beneath, and her heart which could not stop its wild beating, as if it hoped to shake itself loose and roll away. Escape! From what? From the men? No—from you!

What do the men see and want so much that they risk all? she wondered. Marriage, career, jail…? What do they want to possess? I thought it was me, all these years, but no, but no—it is not me. Because the man in the car had me before he tried to take me, and then he left me…

A beautiful woman is a tricky, trapped, and mirrored castle. Everyone wants, but not for her. Everyone wants a trophy, not a treasure. Men are cannibals; they consume her flesh in hopes of gaining her soul, but the consumption is soulless. She is trapped, pre-judged, as are all who sport visible afflictions.

And all this happened to me when I was the most young, the least able to survive such predations… Wendy was, at this moment, twenty-four and three-quarter years old. And if I do not stop it while I am still pretty, it will never stop. ‘I’ will become an ‘it.’

An impulse shivered through her forearms, to grapple her breasts from her very body… Taking a deep breath, Wendy took a step back from the mirror. Undressing quickly, climbed into bed, a deep and sickly shiver rolling through her.

Being unused to inner revolts, she thought she had eaten something disagreeable. And it may have been so, but there is truth in fever, as well. The faces of past lovers flowed over her, like rotting lily pads over—over—she felt like Ophelia, lost to the under-trickling of a slow, deadly stream. Where are they all now? she wondered, afraid to turn over, for fear of being ill again. Poised on their haunches over some sweet young thing? They fish with dynamite…

But the nausea did not go away, whether she fantasized about killing them, or scorning them from the unassailable vantage point of some unfathomable wealth or prestige, or returning to their spider-embraces.

Because—because you were not a victim. That thought made her less nauseated, but more terrified. A kind of evil had taken nest in her, an evil which caused great pain in its host and in others, but which blamed only others. Other boys’ faces passed her by, in a flowing mass, and she saw tender, young, hopeful boys, reaching for her hesitantly, and she recalled putting on her acerbic, bitchy, demanding and sexy mask, daring them to come closer, within reach, to be brought down… I hurt them…

But really! Wendy threw her covers aside. She stared up at the turning ceiling fan, exhaling on her, like a slow, slow waterfall of dank air. It needed speeding up, but she had tried that, with the fan at the last hotel, and it had stopped completely, so she just lay there.

She snorted aloud. It was too ridiculous! The shy boys were just slower predators! They would possess me with endless deference and jumping up whenever I shifted or squeaked! Running around me in a hypnotic blur, until I pinned them to the wall, substituting ‘plaster’ for ‘spine.’ They did not want to get to know me, any more than those who narrowed their eyes at me and gripped my arm too hard when we crossed the street.

But why? she wondered suddenly. Why did I never taste the more subtle fruit? Why did I spurn the shy boys? Wendy frowned, trying to remember if any of them had ever attracted her. She smiled humorlessly in the dark. Well, really! How could they? How rakish would it seem, to be dashing young me, with such sops hanging from my arm, like puppies from a rising stick?

Ah, she thought. Then it was also my vanity… I wanted to show off as well. I wanted to be thought of as a wild, snorting, lovely horse, running with my own kind, not ridden by pale boys sliding to one side or another… I was to be a force of nature!

All right, so there was a price. But those sniveling boys were just too much! One of them, in upper school, had left little poems and love songs on her tray in the dining hall. They always enraged her. Sometimes, she would force herself to read them, and feel a freezing contempt icing her innards. What does he have to offer me except little rhymes and rank fantasies about my worth? To be so loved, when so unknown—how could that have produced anything except rage? But I never stopped dressing up. I wanted the shy boys to cast themselves at me. I offered my crinoline as a parachute, and then kicked them out of the plane empty-handed…

Wendy frowned. This was getting her nowhere. Bastard or sap. Good choices! No, it had to be more than that. Where are the nice, strong, decent men? The men who open doors and smile at your habits and kiss you firmly but gently? She tried to remember. You know, they don’t seem to be around, not at all. And those—those I remember turned out to be not so nice after all. Does that mean that my beauty is a corrupting force? Am I like a permit to a bureaucrat? Just a shiny chisel to widen and dissolve the decency of others? They went to war over Helen; does that myth endure because beauty sets brother against brother? Because no one comes out of this pearly pit alive…

There had to have been some nice young men… Not lower class, of course; that’s just the decency of deference. But nice young men. Where were they?

Wherever they were, they weren’t attracted to me… Now that thought made Wendy very sad. She had an image of herself as a wailing child, abandoned on the steps of the boarding school by her mother, who had made a mistake and had to catch a train. These boys weren’t attracted to me. Why? Well, her beauty couldn’t be responsible for it all. Beauty didn’t count for everything. So—perhaps they were not just threatened by my beauty, but did not think that I was a very nice person. That I was vain, and perhaps a little cruel. That—that I used my beauty to attract men, and so just wasn’t very appealing to decent men. That—that I would not be very pleasant to grow old with.

The last thought brought a tear to her eye. She touched it in wonder. I would not be very pleasant to grow old with, and I would be a bad mother, a bad wife. I would be demanding, and never satisfied, and shrieky, and feel that I was wasting my youth on petty domesticity. I would overdress my children and demand that they answer me in unison and cut their food with impatience and always imagine that some dashing set was having great fun in some wonderful nightclub which I could just step into. No—I am not going to be that woman, not that way, not in the way which spreads my hips and bakes my pies and widens my arms, or heart…

It was like a sentence of death, thrown down by some white-suited Spanish judge, fluttering down into her dark, hot hotel room, where the bed creaked and the rattan was half-broken and the taps leaked and the mirror had spots. But I hate all that stuff anyway! she thought angrily, wiping a tear away. What am I going to be, homemaker of the year? And children? Do I want stretch marks? It’s like leaving the Mona Lisa out in the rain! No, I will age, but I will age like a raisin. I will become compressed and spidery and have tiny wrinkles which cannot deepen because I have no subcutaneous fat left. I will be emaciated, and lever myself like a pair of walking scissors along the beach. I can be lovely for maybe another fifteen years—maybe twenty if I’m lucky. Forty-five. So I live until seventy. I have twenty-five years of fun, thirty-five of decline. Because it won’t all end, not all at once. My standards will just lower. I mean, it’s like a sunset. Sure, there’s a time when the sun definitely winks over the horizon, but before that, it just gets darker bit by bit. No kids, but that’s a lot of fun.

And—and, there’s also the Final Prize. The rich man who doesn’t want children, who’s not too attractive but is content to sleep around overseas. Who gives me a long financial leash (no, she didn’t like that thought—too ‘pet-like’)—a lot of money and just wants me to hear about his troubles and maybe rub his feet once in a great while. And we will have cynical asides about each other’s lovers, and make love very rarely, but when one of us falls sick, the other will rush to their side and we will realize that we did love each other more than we really had a right to…

This was about as close to tenderness as her imagination could roam without great ruin. He will hold me as I die, or cancel his flings if I break a leg. There was something dry and movie-like about this fantasy… He was always in a tuxedo; she always swept from the room, perfectly groomed. They were never naked, they never flossed. She thought of this fantasy man, in a tuxedo, at the dentist, and almost laughed. Hard to be urbane with your teeth coming out…

And they would sit, in their declining years (he always switched to a navy blue sailing suit at this point) and they would not speak much, sipping Turkish coffee in a bright sunny café, where the young people would point them out and whisper of their history…

Would it be worth it? wondered Wendy. Something deep pulled her in this direction, towards this kind of marriage, defined more by grim loyalty than tender love. Because there would be no children. I get to keep my figure, my breasts, my skin—and twenty years of my life! But could there be a decent man who does not want to have children? Or could I pretend that I was infertile, reverse my menstrual period, refraining from sex when I was actually ovulating. No—he would notice the blood, of course—perhaps that is why the blood is there.

But really, why do we rush to reproduce? Are we such habitual livestock—or so vain?—that we cannot imagine leaving the world without our little replicas? I mean, there is the life of the mind, a little, or the life of sensation, conversation and travel. It’s not all about squatting and groaning and squirting.

Wendy shuddered. Birth and children are—just—so—I mean, I love my looks! I would feel robbed! How could I love such little thieves? And if I am not going to have children, why not enjoy the equipment a little? So I’m not going to be an artist—I can’t play around with the paint?

Ah, but that little trial balloon phuttered and fell quite quickly. The problem was that Wendy did not really enjoy sex, so the role of pleasure-loving dabbler in the fleshy arts did not hang naturally on her. She had little flickers of urgency, but it was not a connecting experience, not something which left her satisfied. Her satisfaction seemed to rise and fall with the man’s desire. She was satisfied when he wanted her, and dissatisfied after he had his orgasm. Her sexuality was the exact opposite of her lovers.

So if sex is not the big draw, then—then what? What would keep her from settling down into the plump little outfit of ‘compliant wifey’?

Oh, God, but how I hate it! thought Wendy savagely. She got up, knowing that this was going to be a night of lying down and getting up. She went out onto the little balcony, looking out at the night. An electric light leaned out of a window, illuminating a black cat, sitting on a patch of gravelly grass, licking its paws. If I had not gotten up tonight, I would have slept right through that black cat. I would never have known that it existed—and yet… What is the point of me knowing that it exists?

There are thoughts common to all who look upon a sleeping town, thoughts quite different from those of the daytime. Who else is awake? Who is fighting? Making love? Under which roofs are crimes being committed, even as I gaze over them? Rape, murder (no, not murder, thought Wendy; this town is too small for nightly deaths!) The molestation of a child, the self-mutilation of an addict, the stealing away of a burglar, who might well come back for breakfast and ‘tut’ and sigh in sympathy with his victims.

Nights were charged for Wendy; she gained in energy as the sun went down, like some oppositional plant—but tonight was worse than usual.

Why do I not want to be a wife? she thought. There are ten thousand placid wives in this town. They wash clothes by hand and cross themselves and fear black birds and screw with earthy squatting passion—but that is not for me.

The ancient English/Mediterranean dichotomy arose in her mind. One is either a body without a mind, or a mind without a body. I would not be like English wives either, she thought. All catty and spidery and restrained and shedding friendships with tight sighs and warding off their men with resigned, toothy restraint.

And motherhood… Wendy shuddered. Another chill swept through her body. She felt as if the earth was flying away from under her, as if she had become the only fixed thing in the universe, and that the world fled from her, in its endless orbit. And the sun’s orbit, she thought. And the galaxy’s orbit. Stand still, my daughter, and the world flies away…

But my looks are designed to seduce, designed to bring me much seed. I am rank pollen, the red bulge of a bird’s throat. And I want none of it! None!

Her hands were gripping the cold stone of the balcony wall. Wendy loosened them, brushing the granite grit from her palms and taking a deep breath. If I were a man, I would go and walk and walk until I collapsed. Then I would get up and drink until I collapsed again. Then I would get up and go in search of war.

Terror was in her soul. As nonchalant as I am, I still broke a man’s nose tonight. I called him a little Franco, and made him bleed. These facts cannot be denied.

So—her options? Get married, become a trouser-wearing suffragette, kiss ladies with penciled mustaches and rail against the indifference of men? Go into business? Oh yes, I could see myself rising at dawn to go and scribble on carbons all day. I offer myself as a typist! Qualifications? Very long nails and a very short attention span!

The air began to brighten vaguely, with a forgotten smudge of light, in the east, over the town. Wendy leaned against the parapet, feeling the rocky grit pressing against her hips, craning her head. The horizon returns!

Or—just to—continue? That thought had appeal. To be sexy, but celibate. The thought had richness, but it fell apart almost instantly. Wendy knew, deep in her watery bones, that one cannot be celibate and decadent at the same time. Which values are the most pleasurable to destroy? Celibacy and sobriety—there is little else. Nihilism needs the senses to destroy sensation. I cannot offer myself to the gods of random pleasures without letting their priests have at me.

But—could she drink and keep her vagina to herself? But then why drink with men? Drink is the oil of their slithering, lock-picking fingers. Everything is smooth, baby—why resist? “Those greasy fucks!” Wendy whispered, her voice hoarse. The goddamned dishonesty! In my world, everyone lies! ‘You are precious, nothing matters, fuck me, I never say goodbye, our paths will surely cross, everything comes and goes, don’t be so uptight, relax, give in give in give in—not to me, but to the devil we all serve…’

“Somebody, tell me the truth,” she said, to the night, the empty town, the sky without stars.

Finally, the sun came up. Wendy had brought out a rusted metal chair and sat on it, still in her nightgown, her elbows on the parapet, her hands cupping her cheeks.

As she watched, feeling all the inner grime of a morning without sleep, of a daybreak without change, a young man in navy shorts came out from the back of her hotel. Although the street was deserted, he stretched in a self-conscious manner which evoked a thrill of pleasure and recognition in Wendy. After a few minutes, he jumped up and down a few times, than ran up the street.

He had the stiff, high-kneed gait of a runner who cared about time and distance. His hair was dirty brown. He was English, like her. Wendy saw that in a moment. His hair could only look good after at least a month of sun. He was well tanned. He possessed a lot of will. He was intelligent. Everything was clear to her, after only a few seconds of watching him run. He needs approval, but he will never get it. He would be pleased to know that I am watching. He likes passing fat Spaniards, lolling in their undershirts. He likes to think of them gazing in dumb envy at his trim, British, imperial form. ‘This is how the Empire was won,’ he thinks—though I do not think he likes the Empire.

Wendy frowned. The young man turned a corner and ran up a street, away from her, up a slight hill. The crunchy slap of his feet. His tight pumping arms. This was a new kind of man to her. A decent man? she wondered. Well no, not quite. But a man who wants to settle down. A man with propriety. A man who would never keep her waiting. A man who would take pleasure in defending her. A man with will, potential, and a defined future. In that, he was a new kind of man. He could no more be dissolute than give birth.

She smiled, and waited for almost an hour until he came running back. As he turned the corner at the bottom of the hill, he could not help but see her. A recognition passed between them, and she felt very naked, very vulnerable, very excited. He ran into the hotel. She turned from the balcony, showered as best she could, scrubbed her face, changed into something conservative, and went downstairs.

Wendy sat in the little restaurant. It was a low-ceilinged room with too many tables. Some form of state subsidy seemed to be in place, because there were three waiters for eleven tables, and the service was terrible. The waiters stood by the kitchen, bantering, gossiping, joking. They laughed in wracking cackles which sounded almost like sobs. Their uniforms were unpressed. They drank a lot of water. There did not appear to be any management. They looked quite different—one was overweight, one short, one tall—but Wendy suddenly realized that they were brothers. Probably the sons of an owner who had died at least six months before, and had left the hotel in the hands of his children, who did not care for it.

That would explain why the hotel had deteriorated so much. The last time Wendy was here—eighteen months before—the place had sparkled with homespun charm. (That was a phrase from the advertisement—‘homespun charm’—which Wendy detested. What did it mean?) She had arrived just over two weeks before, and found that the hotel had fallen from grace. Whatever ‘homespun charm’ meant, it had vanished. The woman Wendy was traveling with had gone on a week’s hiking tour, but Wendy had stayed behind, feeling great lassitude. ‘Why not change hotels at least?’ her friend had said. But Wendy didn’t want to. Allegiance to memory, perhaps. It was once a very nice place.

Finally, the fat waiter came and stood over her, eclipsing a bright window.

“Something for madam?” he asked, his eyes twinkling from the fading light of some ribald joke.

“Coffee and bread,” she said, squinting at him.

“English marmalade?”

“Yes…” Wendy had to consciously block the ‘please.’ Why be polite to the incompetent?

The fat man brought her food and coffee, and she ate quickly, hungry all of a sudden. After finishing her bread and marmalade, she looked up at exactly the same moment that the young runner came in. His eyes were fixed on her, as if he had seen her location through the walls before entering the restaurant.

He nodded, and she nodded back, her heart pounding. I cannot move!

The man went over to the back of the little room, and Wendy’s heart sank. He talked with the trio of waiters; she could tell that he spoke Spanish, and approved. Did he gesture at my table? she wondered. Yes! He came over and bowed slightly.

“Good morning,” he said, in English.

Wendy smiled, her heart full of some strange, sticky substance. Happiness? “Good morning.”

“Would you mind if I joined you for breakfast? I am terribly worried that I am losing the ability to speak English.”

Wendy paused, then nodded. “By all means.”

He sat down, brushing his hair back from his forehead. She noticed that he was still perspiring a little, from his run, and was pleased. It means that he came down before fully cooling off, to increase the odds that I would still be here…

“My name is Reginald Spencer,” he said, leaning forward to shake her hand.

“Wendy Moulinex,” she said.

The waiter brought Reginald coffee and bread. “Gracias.” He took a sip. “French. Norman?”

“1066,” she said. “We came over with William the Conqueror.”

“And what are you doing in Spain?”

“Traveling.”

“Alone?”

“I have a friend, but she has gone hiking for a few days.” How delightful, to see the play of fear in his eyes in the moment between me having a friend, and that friend being a ‘she.’ “And you?”

Reginald took a tiny bite of bread and chewed for a moment. Wendy thought that his bite was so small—and his chewing so rapid—that the bread would more dissolve than be swallowed.

“I’m joining the Foreign Office in the autumn,” he said, “so I thought I’d spend the summer going through Europe, to get a look at the goods, so to speak. It was going to be a coach holiday—or I thought I might hire a car—but it turns out to have been a running holiday.”

“‘Have been’? Are you almost finished then?”

“Well, I was hoping to get to Germany and the Eastern European countries, but it’s mid-August, and so far I’ve managed to run through France and a bit of Spain.”

“So, tell me about a running holiday.”

He smiled. “It’s smashing! You travel by day, and cramp by night. I always wanted to see the night life, but I can’t walk very well after getting to a new place.”

Wendy noticed that his smile was a little strained. Something was askew in his personality. She began to relax, and smiled back. “So, you run all day, and then fall into bed at night. Well, as a taxpayer, I confess to being most relieved.”

“And why is that?”

“Well, if this is your idea of a holiday, I believe that you will work very hard in the Foreign Office, and I shall get my money’s worth.”

“Yes, I imagine that I will. This is going to be a very important decade.”

There was a pause for a moment. Reginald took a sip of his coffee. “So tell me about yourself,” he said.

A spasm passed across Wendy’s face. Oh god, I believe I have lost the capacity to lie! “I am a very sad girl,” she said, almost afraid to breathe.

Reginald’s eyes widened, then seemed to sharpen. He put his cup down carefully. Wendy watched him dizzily. A kind of panic seemed to be radiating from his skin.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “That sounds entirely more lonely than it is. Than I am.”

“Well,” he said, leaning forward. “Perhaps not ‘entirely.’”

Wendy held his gaze, and felt a certain aspect of her personality crumble and give way. Beyond this wall of tension was a great, poised, waiting space. “So, tell me about you,” she said softly.

“I am…” He stopped, then laughed. “I am intrigued, I suppose. Travel is not usually the time for truth.”

“Don’t,” she said softly, and Reginald suddenly looked terrified. “Don’t be glib.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Wendy smiled. “Let’s just say this: the moment you tell the truth, you can stop traveling.”

They talked for over an hour, in the empty wooden restaurant, and their conversation kept stalling, sliding into banalities, and then spiking into sudden, unmasking honesty. It was exhausting, and after agreeing to meet for dinner, they retreated back to their rooms after breakfast, both needing a lie-down.

As she lay, Wendy thought of Reginald lying down in another room, probably not forty feet from her own, and when she slept, she dreamed that they were two balloons, trying to join inflated hands as they bounced in fear over a jagged and spiky land.

When Wendy came down for dinner, Reginald was standing in front of the check-in desk, dressed in a suit that did not fit him very well. He smiled apologetically, and Wendy’s eyes stung with little tears at the realization that he had gone out during the day and bought a suit for their dinner. The poor boy… He has not had much experience with women.

Reginald walked forward to take her hand as she stepped down. It was a tender, protective gesture, and it filled her heart with a strange peace. This deference will not end in a broken nose. A broken heart, perhaps, but that is infinitely better!

“You look—lovely,” he said.

Wendy nodded slowly, almost shyly. He’s looking into my eyes! “Thank you.”

“I, on the other hand, look as if I have grave robbed a Spanish undertaker.”

“No, you’re fine.”

“Thanks. Now I know how you look when you lie.” He opened the door for her, and she tried to glide through, like a princess.

Outside, the air was hot and thick. Wendy had put half a handful of talcum down her underwear, and felt glad. Not because I expect to grant access though. He wouldn’t know what to do with it!

That last thought was an old, cynical echo, combined with a sort of holy fear of a man who did not know his way around a woman’s plumbing. He will put me on a pedestal, and not just to peek up my dress!

Reginald was looking at her in wonder, tempting all her devils with the white face of an acolyte. “Don’t,” she said.

He looked away. “What?”

He knows, she thought, but needs a moment to compose. And so, he will say:

“Sorry.” Silence. His brow furrowed. “You don’t like to be stared at.”

“No, I don’t.” Wendy suddenly noticed that she was taller than Reginald, but that it didn’t bother her at all. As long as he doesn’t go bald!

“I thought,” he said, guiding her arm gently, “that we might walk up to the castle at Olite. It’s not far.”

Wendy nodded. Her lips twitched, but she didn’t know what kind of smile fit this kind of happiness.

They walked onto a stone bridge. She wandered over to the edge. He trailed behind. Dark forests, little insects, slow ripples.

“So, tell me about yourself,” he said, staring at the water, “other than that you’re sad.”

“I am an eldest sister. We lived in the country when we were young. Now we live in London. My parents want me to get married so bad that they smell like sulphur. Sorry, don’t know what that means. I was never very good at following the rules.”

“So you don’t want to get married?”

She almost laughed. “Well, funny you should mention that…”

“What do you mean?”

“Just—I was thinking of it when I saw you running away. This morning.”

“Oh! You saw me go?”

“Like a little white rabbit.”

Reginald frowned. “Hm.” He was not too pleased with that, it seemed. Wendy tried to rally him.

“You must be enormously fit.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose so.”

“Have you always been a runner?”

“Oh, no. No—that’s the odd thing. My brother is the sportsman. I am the man of letters. I just thought—let’s do something different this summer. Something I will remember. Something to bully my future children with when they’re lazy.”

“‘I ran through Europe, so you can darn well go and get some tobacco for papa.’”

He smiled.

“Are you close to your brother?”

Reginald took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Well, that’s no simple question. Sometimes, it’s like we’re the same person. Other times, we’re mortal enemies.”

“What does he do?”

“He sits in a room and reads.”

“Is he ill?”

“No. He—he just doesn’t know what he wants to do. He can’t focus, can’t organize himself. He’s an idealist.” Reginald cocked his arm, holding up a mocking fist. “‘No compromise! No surrender!’ He’s the family Torquemada.”

“That’s my youngest sister. ‘Wearing dresses oppresses the workers.’”

“What would the workers do who make the dresses, if no one bought them?”

“I shall use that on her. On second thought, no. She has an answer for everything.”

“That’s not Tom,” said Reginald reflectively.

“Your brother?”

He nodded, taking a deep breath. Overhead, the darker stars were coming out. They walked on, into a narrow stone street with thick cobblestone shadows. “He’s—paralyzed by questions,” said Reginald after a while. “No answers satisfy him. I mean, I tell him: Tom, each age has its own answers! The age we live in has certain answers. Take some. Take one! Why question everything? Why be utterly robbed of the capacity for action! I hate to see him rotting away in that little clapboard room, reading and questioning and throwing his best years down the drain! It’s such a waste!”

Wendy noticed that Reginald’s hands were shaking. “He’s younger?” she asked.

“Younger, yes.” He took another deep breath. “Sorry. He frustrates me no end. So much potential. He could have been anything.”

“Well, he’s not dead.”

“We didn’t have the money to finish school,” said Reginald suddenly. “Sorry, that’s most un-British. I’ll have to turn my passport in. ‘Hullo, pleased to meet you, my family has had money troubles.’ Most uncouth.”

“Everyone had their difficulties in ’29.”

“Yours too?”

“No, we’re land-based.”

“I see.”

Something was churning up in Reginald; Wendy could see that. She could not resist poking at it. It was cruel, but it was her.

“So?”

“So Tom didn’t get a scholarship. I did.”

“What a shame.”

Reginald shook his head. “No, that’s not it. He’s more intelligent than me, in so many ways. He couldn’t march to the socialist drumbeat.”

“Hm.”

“He could have though. He’s self-destructive, I think. Didn’t want to succeed. His aversion to socialism was just an excuse.”

“Why wouldn’t he want to succeed?”

Reginald paused. “We’re just walking—don’t you want to eat?”

“Not yet,” said Wendy. “Tell me.”

“Our mother. War widow…” He pursed his lips. “This is probably familiar territory.”

“No, we’re a clan of women,” said Wendy. “Queen bees. My father was too old when war came. He did get some terrible paper cuts, though.”

That was a dangerous joke, even thirteen years after the war. But Reginald took it all right, she saw with relief. “My mother fell into a ten-year depression. More than ten—eleven, more like. Twelve? Anyway, she sort of fastened onto Tom. I kept my distance.” He shuddered. “She was like quicksand.”

“And your father?”

“Dad?” Reginald smiled. “He’s a good sort. Brusque, but his heart’s in the right place. He’s entering politics, yea even as we speak.”

They walked. Spanish insects circled them, lazily bumping into the stone walls. A laughing peasant couple walked past, arm in arm. Reginald and Wendy simultaneously envied an imaginary simple life. Neighbors, food, priest, death…

“Are your shoes all right?” asked Reginald.

“For walking?”

“My mother can’t make thirty yards, even with aspirin.”

“I’m fine. I am a sensible girl. One does not travel with stilettos.”

He glanced at her sideways and smiled. “Sensible walking shoes. You are an old maid in the making.”

It was his turn to make a dangerous joke. And her turn to take it all right.

“So, your brother does not want to succeed because your mother was depressed.”

“That’s the thesis,” shrugged Reginald. “Stated baldly, it doesn’t have quite the same ring.”

“How would you put it?”

“Tom is stalled because—because he’s got sort of a religious soul. Putting Tom in the modern world is like putting a monk in charge of a factory. Or diplomacy. He has all these pure, perfect, impracticable standards. He would never accept any metal because it would never be one hundred percent pure. I swear, I’ve thought of pointing out that his clothes will always have a little dust in them, even right after they’re washed. If I ever got him to believe that, he’d live naked for the rest of his life.”

She laughed, and it was an odd laugh, thought Reginald. Something a little tinny about it. And—desperate?

“So, you’re more comfortable with an alloy, so to speak?” she asked, glancing at him sideways.

“Nothing is pure except maths!” he said, his hands coming up in fists. “And maths do not exist in the real world. The air we breathe is not pure. The water we drink is polluted. We are always sick, just a little. After eighteen, we die a little each day. We die a little more, and then a lot more. Babies are lovely, and poo themselves. The sun has spots. Beautiful skin, under a microscope, is like the moon. It’s all nonsense, this purity, his idealism. So he’s perfect, but he cannot act. I am imperfect in his eyes, of course—perhaps worse—but I shall save his skin nonetheless!”

“Hm,” murmured Wendy. “And that is why you have joined the Foreign Office?”

Reginald’s face was red.

“To save him?” she prompted. His anger—or was it rage?—pulled at her darker instincts. How I love to provoke the enraged! This was familiar ground.

But Reginald broke the pattern, and it was probably then that she fell in love with him. He shook his head, so rapidly that it appeared to shimmer in her peripheral vision. Then he turned to her and said:

“Wendy, I think that I would far rather go to dinner, light a candle, and talk about you than discuss my brother.”

“All right,” she said in a small voice, and allowed herself to be led away.

Chapter 26

Quentin was elected on Tuesday, 27 October 1931, with a fairly narrow margin. His opponent, from the Labour party, kept hammering at him on the issue of unilateral disarmament. Quentin opposed this, because it would cause even more unemployment.

Ever since his son had been attacked in London, Quentin was very focussed on unemployment. To his credit, he had never used the attack in a speech, but it became general knowledge anyway. Rather than undermining his credibility, it helped his cause. People said: “Quentin is one of the few rich people who has suffered more than financially.” They assumed that he would fight hard to restore employment.

By the end of 1932, the situation was becoming truly desperate. Solutions abounded. Free trade! Protectionism! Unions! Breaking the unions! Government spending! Raising taxes! Lowering taxes! Deficit financing! But everything seemed intractable. Nothing worked. Society reformed itself again and again, like a mouse in a lab contorting itself to avoid random blows. Still the ranks of the unemployed grew.

And everything changed with it. Youths lived with their parents longer. Marriage declined. Children were postponed. Creativity in the workplace declined. University students stayed in school. The regular rhythms of life were undermined. The allegiance of the youth fell away. Mired in habits and slogans, elders were revealed as impotent. Society had nothing to offer the young, and so could command no obedience. The social contract weakened.

And yet, there was a salvation in society. All was not lost. In desperation, thinkers of every stripe turned towards the government to solve the problems. Freedom had proven too unstable. The concept of the ‘benevolent state’ was born, and it was a very new beast.

For most of human history, of course, the State was a rapacious predator, providing meager protection at a most terrible price. Ordinary men quailed in its presence. War, repression, random punishments, and the denial of basic rights—the State was military in nature, endless in authority, murderous in practice. Governments were not born from the desires of the ruled, but from outlaws too lazy to move on.

And the free countries—the countries which had tamed the State, and made it serve the individual—they had been attacked by a militaristic, statist Germany, and now, shuddering and bleeding under the wound, even fourteen years later, they turned to the State to protect them again. Thus can the body weaken further, even after throwing off the infection.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Churchill and others had been involved in the great debate of protectionism, and it was a debate lost to the memories of the younger generation. The protectionists they opposed had a simple argument: we can help English workers by taxing goods coming into the country.

It was such a simple argument that it seemed hard to oppose. Certainly English workers favored it, as did English manufacturers. English consumers would have opposed it, but the problem was that the rise in costs—and subsequent fall in employment—only occurred about two years after such tariffs would go into effect, and it was hard to fight for a few pounds a year some years in the future.

Churchill and the free-traders had replied with a more complex argument, so it was quite surprising that they had prevailed. Their argument was, as all sensible arguments are, in politics and economics, the denial of short-term gain for the sake of longer-term gains in both prosperity and stability:

“If you allow the government to create preferential policies for discrete sectors of the economy, then the government will end up being run by industrial concerns, who will bribe, threaten, and cajole it into giving them benefits. All the energies thus expended will fail to be expended in improving productivity, or creating new methods of manufacturing, or decreasing investment in failing industries. The voice of those who benefit from government favoritism will be everything; the voice of the average voter will be nothing. It is profoundly anti-democratic. The government should never have the ability to hand out specific favors to specific groups. The rule of law applies to all, or it applies to none!”

At the time, this reasoning had won the day, and so England’s increasing wealth prior to the Great War became taken for granted. The freedoms which allowed England to become wealthy were forgotten, and so its future became more threatened thereby.

And so, in the 1920s, there was great agitation by business owners, unions, and individuals who still had their jobs. Everyone wanted something from the government. Everyone wanted action, and this was, for Quentin, the most surprising aspect of being an MP. He received over two hundred letters each and every day. He was collared on the streets by endless, grasping, desperate hands. He felt a little like God, held aloft by streaming, begging prayers. Everyone felt that if Quentin only understood their plight, he would surely do something.

Wide passions roamed England’s green and tranquil hills. Every day, Quentin rolled up to his office in a taxi cab, and every day he rolled a little closer to the door. He had originally allowed himself to be driven only about two-thirds of the way, but as his fame grew, he found that he could spend an hour or more pressing through the endless bodies of those in need. Rank, stinking children were thrust into his face; babies with sores were held aloft; young men showed him their ribs; old women showed him their bald spots. (Once, horribly, a woman with an infant cried out that her breasts were dry, lifted her shirt and grabbed them right in front of him. ‘Nothing!’ she cried out, over and over.)

However, once he got to his office, all was not over. Other politicians came to see him, in various degrees of despair and belligerence. They needed help passing their bills. They cared nothing for him, only his vote. They had a hundred other men to see. They had no time. They asked him what he wanted. They offered eternal allegiance. They mocked his inexperience. They wanted to show him the ropes. Everyone had an opposing, absolutist version of ‘how things were done.’

Quentin found the whole process dizzying, overwhelming. Nobody wanted him to review the facts. Everyone pressed him with assurances, and then railed against him when he hesitated.

As the first few weeks passed, he began to see how things really worked. It was quite simple, actually. There were two rules. One: groups gave you money to get elected, and then you paid them back with favors. Two: you got as much government money for your riding as you could. If you got a lot, you got re-elected. If not, you were gone.

At first, Quentin tried to put these two rules into a business paradigm. The groups who had funded his election campaign were like investors. The favors and money they wanted in return were like returns on investment. The need to secure government money for his riding was like getting a larger market share.

This helped briefly, but there was something else within him, something which never lay still… It twisted below his heart uneasily, like a dozing, windblown hat. Everything here is just words… When he had been in real estate, land changed hands. Before that, he had used military contacts, sure, but at least, at some point, an airplane was bought and sold. But what moves through my office? Words and laws and distantly, darkly, inevitably, the police…

It was a lovely office, and it swelled Quentin’s heart considerably. It had stained glass windows six feet high. An enormous globe, circa 1790, which had been pilfered by some MP in the distant past, stood by his huge mahogany desk. He had seals and stamps and endless leather-bound volumes of law and parliamentary procedures and Hansard recordings of past debates. He had two assistants, two secretaries, a researcher, and a salary of six hundred pounds a year.

It was not enough for him to live on. At the turn of the century, British MPs were not paid. This was, oddly enough, popular because it was believed to prevent corruption, since it kept anyone without a good income away from politics entirely. (This was not the case with Churchill, who was perennially broke, but then he made a reasonable fortune from his writing, and so was beyond the temptation of bribery.) One of the reasons for England’s success in the nineteenth century was that the lawmakers had little interest in capitalism—or capitalists. They had no need for money, and little respect for money-men. So the money-men left them alone and, having no chance of increasing market share by manipulating the law, had no choice but to become—and remain—productive on their own merits. And so England leapt forward as an economic power.

Another aspect had changed, but it seemed churlish to speak of it. Throughout the nineteenth century, there were property restrictions on voting. The reasoning was simple: there are many more poor than rich people. If everyone has the vote, all that will happen is that the poor will vote to take away the property of the rich, and so all will become destitute within a few generations. It would be like having patients and doctors having equal votes about whether or not medical bills had to be paid. A majority of guilty, happy souls—and soon, no medicine at all.

But that was all gone. The poor could vote. Women could vote. And with this landslide of suffrage, the whole delicate machinery of the long-term benefits of society was torn apart by the endless grabbing of endless hands. Everyone who had a problem wanted a legal, punitive solution. Cheap cloth is coming in from India? Well, we could innovate and risk all our capital, or we could get it banned and rest easy. Innovate, ban… Innovate, ban… Let’s get old Quentin on the phone!

Or: we want to go on strike for more money, but there are a lot of unemployed men who would take our jobs for less money! What to do? Wait until conditions improve, or get the government to ban scabs? Wait, ban… Off to London we go!

In short, everyone wanted the golden egg, and soon there was no more goose.

Quentin was surprised that so few of his supplicants approached him with the air of someone seeking a favor. Oh, no! Rather, they barged in an leaned on his desk with their fists and he could see them wanting to raise their voices and their eyes flashed and it did not seem that they were asking for his hand in marriage, but rather saying: we shall be married, or I shall have my way anyway.

This shocked Quentin, who had grown up with a great respect for authority. When he was young, one did not go to one’s headmaster and ask for an exemption from an exam as if one were going to collect a debt too long unpaid. Quite the contrary! One went, cap in hand, grateful for the time, and hoping against hope that one’s petition would be approved. And if not, why then one thanked, bowed, and left in silence.

But not anymore. All that civility had gone the way of the dodo. Now, everyone represented something else. Something greater. Something which could not be denied. Businessmen wanting Quentin to level taxes against a competitor did so under the banner of the ‘national interest,’ and had endless charts and documentation to prove it. If Welsh porcelain production is allowed to diminish, one man asserted, the Empire would surely fall. Unions did not want to retain their paid dues and strangleholds on shop floors. They did not petition for the sake of themselves, or their workers, but rather for workingmen everywhere. How could he argue against ‘workingmen’? Everyone said that whoever they represented would remember every decision Quentin made in their case, when re-election time rolled around again.

It felt, to Quentin, as if he were standing in a broad and endless battlefield. He had the morphine, the bandages, and the expertise—and was bound by his Hippocratic oath—and thousands of arms tore at him, screaming and demanding that their wounded brethren were the most in need of his succor. If he questioned anyone—or stood still in mute indecision—why then he was damned for a fool, a blackguard, a wilting Nancy-boy, a stumble-John. Didn’t he know that it was an emergency, that everything was in crisis, and that dillydallying was tantamount to letting people die?

Everyone had their own, singular need, which was their whole life, their future, their livelihood, the very food on their table. Everyone was in a panic, in a rage, in extremis, and knew nothing about the arguments forwarded by those whose demands were in direct opposition to their own. The workers wanted job protection; the owners wanted to lower wages, since they were selling fewer goods. (Actually, Quentin noted, the owners generally understood their workers’ desire for more wages, since one does not become a successful entrepreneur by becoming indifferent to wealth. But the union reps all believed that the owners were just ‘using the present crisis—a crisis which they brought on, mind—to stick it to the workingman! They cook the books to make it look bad, and then try to roll back a century of union gains!’ No proof could be brought to bear on the question. The union leaders would accept no proof. They knew all about the logic of the system, thank you very much!)

His constituents seemed to know nothing of compromise. If I save you, who shall I damn? That meant nothing to them. But, of course, those who knew about compromise would probably never end up in my office…

It took about five months before Quentin felt disgust towards those who came for his aid. They just needed, and wanted, and there was no end, no bottom. If the country hadn’t been in the depths of the depression, then he would have seriously considered pitching it in and decamping to sunnier climes.

But then, the past caught up with him. If a man lives long enough, it always does.

This was one of Quentin’s typical days.

He arrived at his office at eight o’clock in the morning. He read the newspapers, as well as the transcripts of the previous day’s speeches and resolutions. His secretary, Clara, also informed him of any House business that day. Then, the Great Procession began.

The Great Procession was the modern pilgrimage, except that there was no respect for the great modern god, the politician.

Quentin had become so used to the combination of deference and rage people used to pry favors from him that he had internal monologues which he used on each person who came sat in front of him.

To a woman, wearing a loose floral dress which was completely asexual, who sat, her back rigid, her voice tense, her face immobile, he wanted to say—before she had even opened her mouth:

“Yes, yes—you want the government to give money to pregnant women. You also want the government to provide daycare centers for working women. Now, this is not presented as beneficial to working women, or pregnant women, but women as a whole. It is a ‘women’s issue,’ you say, but let me ask you this? How do the higher taxes required to pay for these programs benefit a woman with a good marriage, raising her children, whose husband has a job? Could we not say that women with children who cannot find or keep a man—to say nothing of the women who have children out of wedlock—are irresponsible? To have children, when one cannot get or keep a husband, is surely the height of capriciousness. To ask women with stable, happy marriages to pay for the children of single women is not a ‘women’s issue.’ It is an ‘irresponsible women’s issue,’ if it is anything.”

But he did not say any of the above. Instead, he made sympathetic noises, slow, nodding assents, and no commitments.

An older man in a top hat came in, ostentatiously not removing his top hat until he sat down. The argument rose in Quentin’s mind:

“You are a representative of the carriage makers, and are in a froth about the advent of the automobile. You believe that, because your business has existed for five hundred years, that it has become an institution. You employ thousands of workers, who all vote, and you will demand that I do everything to ensure that such a valuable contributor to England business, society—and, not incidentally, to the Conservative Party as well—remains a viable concern. You do not tell me that you, your workers, and your shareholders will lose money if you do not survive. You do not ask me for a personal favor. Oh no—you come as a representative of Tradition, Continuity, and the National Good. But let me ask you this: were you to focus your efforts on upgrading your industry, instead of resting all your hopes on government intervention, could you not quickly outstrip the fledgling automobile manufacturers? Also, why should the consumer be penalized for the invention of a new and very popular mode of transportation? If I give you money, or suppress the car manufacturers, then everyone pays more. Where is the justice in that? And—last, but not least, if you are so important to the fabric of British society, consumers will doubtless agree, and purchase your carriages instead of the new automobiles. But, if the average Englishman does not care to support your products of his own free will, why should I compel him to do so?”

Another man would come in—also well dressed, but usually younger, and often more aggressive.

“Ah, my young friend, you represent linen manufacturers, who are facing dangerous competition from America and India. You want me to raise tariffs against these evil foreign businesses, who have access to child labor, protective subsidies, and favorable climates. You also represent the thousands of English workers whose jobs are threatened by this influx of cheaply made foreign goods. But if I raise the price of cotton, then more money flows to you—and less to every other industry. You get to keep a few thousand jobs, but many more would be generated by leaving the money in the hands of the consumer. Because, save from placing his money under a mattress, there is no way for a man to avoid helping the economy with money he has. He spends it, good. He buys stocks, good. He puts it in the bank, the bank lends it out—good! And is there nothing which can be done to improve the efficiencies of your business? And again, if you feel that your cotton is so important, then take the campaign to the public. Instead of spending money lobbying the government, buy adverts to inform the public that if they don’t buy British cotton goods, it is a very bad thing. And then, if the consumers agree with you, you are fine. If they do not, who am I to compel them to act against their will? Buying Indian cotton is no crime.”

And—ah, the teetotalers. They were very special. They were inevitably matrons, radiating tense unfulfillment with every sharp breath and short snort. They had been cruelly disappointed by men. They had a father who drank. Or a brother. Or a husband.

“So,” Quentin imagined saying, “you want to get rid of a substance which ninety-five percent of the population either abstains from or enjoys responsibly, for the sake of the five percent who do neither. Thus we must ban sugar for the sake of obese people. Or you want me to ban alcohol because you neither like nor appreciate it. Thus we must ban meat for the sake of vegetarians; cars for the sake of poor drivers, complex novels for the sake of the uneducated, and sports for the sake of asthmatics. And a drunk is a miserable and committed man. He will always get his drink. But the social drinker will not. You will not help those in most in need of aid; just deny an inoffensive pleasure to those with self-control. No help for vice, just the punishment of virtue. And the very idea that private vices are under the purview of the state is abhorrent. The government is not a parent. It is not a social worker. It is not a governess. It exists to protect the property and lives of those who cannot protect themselves. It exists to restrain criminals and repel invaders. It does not exist to snatch the martini out of the responsible man’s hand.”

And, to the Scottish man, insolently underdressed:

“Ah, the union man! Welcome! Come and tell me endless tales of capitalism perfidy! Helpless workers, caught in the rending machinery of bottomless greed! Men without choice, without self-respect, who toil and toil and are spat at without compassion! You represent the workingman! And then you sit and tell me that you demand that the government pass laws enforcing closed shops and the imprisonment of replacement workers. Or enforce seniority! You want a world where your workers are taken care of, at the expense of the general welfare. A man cannot work in a factory you control unless he pays you your union dues—and then you complain about the monopolistic greed of the capitalists? You force union dues from a worker, and then channel it to the Labour Party, or the Socialists or Communists—which he may violently oppose. Forced association is a violation of freedom of association. And what about replacement workers, the scabs? Surely these are workingmen in an even more desperate position than the workers you claim to protect. But you want them thrown in jail for offering to work for less money than your men. How, then, can you claim to represent the workingman? You do not. And seniority? In a changing economy, how could it ever be argued that someone who’s been around for decades is more valuable than a new man? And if an older worker is more valuable than a younger one, why would he need the power of the state to protect him? All labor laws exist to protect the incompetent. No, my friend—if you want to argue that scabs are evil, then bring your argument to the consumer. Say: this company uses scabs—do not buy their product! If the public agrees with you, you have won. If not, how am I justified in compelling them?”

There were, generally, two kinds of supplicants who made the Great Pilgrimage. The first were the moralists, and they were endlessly, inevitably, insane. They had all the monomania of displaced emotional damage. They had sacrificed too much for their cause. Their opinions were unalterable. Their demands were chillingly anti-democratic. Their view of human nature was appalling. They never begged for personal charity, but demanded universal justice. Quentin was always reminded of a boy at his school, many, many moons ago, who had responded to losing an argument by starting a fistfight. Everyone broke up the fight, and looked at the belligerent boy with scorn from then on. To resort to using your fists when your tongue has failed is the most humiliating admission of impotence…

But it happened every day, in his office, right there across from his desk. The argument was always the same, in its essence: others will not give me what I want voluntarily, so you must force them!

Now, Quentin had tried to explain this, many times, to the endless representatives of ‘universal morality’ which descended on him, like scabrous seagulls on a hunk of bread. But over and over, he found that expressing reservations about methods was interpreted as a lack of compassion. When did this perfidious virus enter the social bloodstream? he wondered. It seemed inescapable. Every time, it was the same. It was a three part argument:

-This is a terrible problem

-Using force is not the answer

-Don’t you care about the problem?

It was the ‘force’ part which everyone had a problem with. Actually, Quentin found, it was more than a ‘problem.’ People really, really, really could not see that the government was nothing but an agency of violence. The government had become some sort of genial, wise, fair, and omnipotent father figure. Have a problem? Talk to a politician!

But they really don’t understand the issue of force, Quentin thought in amazement, as yet another discussion ended up in belligerent incomprehension. No one likes to be thought of as an agent of violence; they all wanted to believe that they were right, so right that enforcing their rightness at the point of a gun was completely just. They wanted to be right in the way that victims of crime were right, beaten children were right, cowering women were right. They wanted to be so right, so cornered, that levering the infinite cannon of the state towards the ramparts of the general population was the only moral and acceptable action.

They were always in a panic. The panic was easy to detect on the part of the women, because they generally got shrill when contradicted. The panic of the men was more subtle. They listened reasonably and carefully to all of Quentin’s arguments, and then returned to their original points. When this was pointed out, they agreed—and then returned to the same points again. Their panic only really showed up in the blank inflexibility of their positions. (One man, after listening and agreeing with Quentin’s arguments that state subsidies to the coal industry would damage the economy, changed tack and argued that, instead, subsidies should be offered to the steel industry.)

Quentin was a man with secrets, and obscurations, but he had a strange shortcut to truth, which was probably due to his lack of experience in politics. He felt that if you could not state your position simply, there was probably something very wrong with it. You want state subsidies? Then are you comfortable saying: My industry should be allowed to take money from an unwilling population at the point of a gun?

Very few of the men were willing to go so far, and Quentin should be given much credit for this. Not many of them changed their minds, but he changed their hearts, which took some of the wind out of the sails of their subsequent pitches to other MPs. The women, on the other hand, were much more—what? Well, ‘shrill’ was unfair. ‘Dogged’ was closer—and even closer was ‘consistency,’ but it was a word with unfortunately positive associations. When Quentin pointed out that they wanted to use state violence to achieve their social goals, they often took it quite in their blue-stockinged stride. They smiled and nodded, in their ‘it’s a shame that the world forces us to do such things,’ but they had some sort of moral justification which entirely legitimized the use of force. Quentin could never figure out what it was, but did realize that he was unable to take the wind out of their sails in quite the same way as the men he opposed.

There was another kind of supplicant. This man—and it was almost always a man—was not at all interested in morality. He was usually a hail-well-met type of fellow, who was eager to clap hands on a mutually beneficial bargain. This supplicant usually represented financial interests, and had the backing of one or more Conservative MPs. The group he represented had given a lot of money to the Party, controlled a significant voting block, or owned a newspaper.

These supplicants—the ‘pragmatists,’ as opposed to the ‘moralists’—were not initially as interesting to Quentin, but became more so as time went on. Their interest was openly stated as a fee-for-service, the return of a favor. They lied to themselves, of course. They tendered bids when they knew that there was no possibility of competition. They cloaked naked self-interest in generalized do-goodery. But they did not claim to represent the Universal Good; they were not supercharged with some Holy Mission. They were more than willing to compromise. They were not hysterical with haste; they took their time. They laughed a lot. They saw nothing wrong with what they did. It was a game.

The moralists were hard to take, but easy to understand. The pragmatists were easy to take, but hard to understand. Quentin did probe them, at first, a little. They were equally curious about their own motives, but utterly unable to penetrate them. ‘Huh,’ they would say, when questioned about the ethics of their position, ‘that’s an interesting point. I would say that I try to provide the best possible service to my clients. I do the legwork. I know the paths of power. And I appreciate what they’re trying to do.’ All of this was earnest, glassy-eyed, and utterly unrevealing. It was the mission statement of an assassin: Client Satisfaction! Reasonable Prices! Punctuality! A Swift Cleanup!

After six or so months of this, Quentin became weary of it all. Truth be told, it was not the most ennobling of Pilgrimages through his office. People who are happy and self-sufficient rarely fasten their fangs onto the powerful. People who are their own masters do not enjoy the deference of supplicants. He became tired of it, and began to crumble. Endless, insistent, belligerent need is a hard force to withstand. He found himself agreeing with the pragmatists and swelling with self-righteousness with the moralists. At first, he shook his head, to clear it. After a time, though, he found his own eyes becoming glassy. It was easier to go along than have the same argument every single time someone sat down across from him. I keep getting wiser, but each new one is as stupid as the last…

In the Conservative Party, he was viewed with amusement. Most of the other MPs were career politicians, with no experience in—or aptitude for—other fields. ‘Never,’ remarked one bitter Labour newcomer, ‘was the House so full of men who could never earn six hundred pounds a year any other way.’ These men had no interest or desire to antagonize their constituents. They agreed fluidly, murmured inconsequentially, denounced magnificently, and scorned openly. They considered themselves forces of nature, filled with all the hopes and desires of those they ruled. They rarely argued, but were masters at impugning motives. Of a man who counseled an increase in defense spending, they said: ‘He enjoys rattling his saber—and, to give him his due, he does it well!’ Of a man who opposed self-rule in India, they said: ‘He is a throwback to the nineteenth century, and does not realize that the Age of Empires is over, poor man!’ Of a man who opposed state intervention in the economy, they said: ‘He is quite out of step with the times, and represents all the vain tragedy of those who fail to adapt to their circumstances.’ Of a moralist, they said: ‘He is posturing for his own conscience.’ They sneered at all ideals, considering themselves pragmatists. They said, of the long-term: ‘In the long-term, we’re all dead.’ They considered the belief in the virtue of the British Way was a Noble Lie, designed to distract and entertain the masses. Essentially, they did not differentiate between political systems. They found Mussolini charismatic, and struggled to find ideas of his which might work in England, to show their broad-mindedness.

They appreciated that Quentin deflated the moral righteousness of some of the lobbyists, because that allowed them to focus on pleasing those who would help them most, regardless of their moral outrage. They called him ‘The Vicar,’ because they thought that his morals were of the small-town, small-church variety. They thought him an amusing, inevitable—and often quite useful—fool.

Quentin quickly gave up arguing with them—not the opposition, but members of his own party. Quentin was not a moralist, not exactly, but he liked things to be out in the open. (This mental habit was, perhaps, a reaction to over ten years of living with the obscure ailments of his wife, or having been exposed to Tom’s bottomless desire for clarity.) He took politics seriously, and hated facing the jeers of his fellow Conservatives. As far as Quentin could see it, the amorality of the other MPs came down to a double, circular argument:

-we are in power to do good

-in order to stay in power, we cannot do good

This was most helpful. They picked a cause they considered ‘good,’ then compromised it endlessly, in order to stay in power, to be able to pick other causes and compromise them endlessly. It was all rather silly, in fact.

Silly, but not without its reasons. Long summer breaks. Good pay. A lot of attention. The scabrous seagulls, always hovering, descending, begging and bullying—it was heady to be the focus of so much need, so much desire… It made every day an exciting adventure of fencing with parasites.

One morning, after listening to a representative for the Women’s Christian Union (‘Ten thousand votes, Mr. Spencer… You would be wise to remember that!’) who grilled him for a half an hour about his views on banning alcohol, Quentin took a few minutes break.

Now, it was an odd thing, but the truth of the matter was that Quentin did not really like people that much. He did not like to argue with them. He disliked their emotionalism, their irrational, absolute convictions. Their greed. And, they’re pathetic! They come whinging into my office, demanding that I help them, that I damn well have to help them—and they do nothing to make themselves appealing in any way. They treat me like some goddamned underling, when I have achieved more than they are ever likely to!

He did not mind the businessmen so much. They were less emotional, less belligerent. They strove to offer something of value in return for his aid. Fine, so it was still corrupt, but it was corrupt like ancient Rome, which felt better—more civilized—than the kind of stick ’em up he got from the moralizing petitioners. They wore nice suits and sat properly (chin up, shoulders back!), had usually been to war, and were quite eloquent. They argued for the common good and, if that failed, they appealed to goods of a more personal nature. They promised that he would be re-elected. They offered to give money to charity. Twice, he was offered direct bribes, but they were, both times, from linen manufacturers from Liverpool, so he put it down to regional differences. He turned both offers down, but did not prosecute.

Bribes were just so unnecessary, but it was hard to explain just why. A bill became a law, or it did not. If it became a law because of bribery—an unthinkably risky and expensive proposition—then it would not last. Any law which distorted economics which did not have the protection and maintenance of substantial, long-term group would be struck down within a few years by those who were harmed by it. So bribery was nonsense.

There were threats, of course, which were, generally, political or personal, but their value was limited. Political threats were only effective if they were limited in number. If a hundred groups streamed through Quentin’s office, each threatening to prevent his re-election, pleasing any one of those groups—and he could as best help only a small number—doesn’t matter. So I convince one of seven snipers not to shoot me? Also, if enough people became abusive, the job of MP became less pleasurable, and the retention of office became far less of a treat to be dangled. Oh, I could have another few years of life in a cage without you lot? Thanks, but… Also, the more groups threatened Quentin, the more possible became the Great Counterstrike. If all demands became impossible, and no one could be satisfied, then he could play his vox populi card, appealing directly to the voters, who had, after all, voted for him, not for the local union or Society of Cotton Traders. Yanking up the political veil could send all these roaches scurrying, and gain him great repute as a kind of shining British sheriff.

Personal threats were much more difficult, of course. It was impossible to become an MP without taking money and making promises. It was just too expensive, and resulted in too much power. The rewards for an individual group which found out something provable and unpleasant about a politician were so great that it had become a common strategy.

Naturally, it had to be something bad. An affair with a pretty woman was not enough. The English have always had a soft spot for their rakes; it allows them to pretend they’re Italian. An affair with an ugly woman is better, because it seems to indicate perversion. An affair with a boy is very good, and more common than it was suspected when the practice—post-Wilde—began. It shouldn’t have been, but then few of those looking for such things had gone through boarding school.

Financial scandals were only middling. The average voter found them hard to understand, and the educated—especially among the young—had become so immersed in Marxism that they considered owning a house to be a financial scandal.

No, it had to be a good, old-fashioned criminal problem. Something which indicated a lack of character in a way that an affair did not. Something which could not be brushed away with a ‘publish and be damned’ flourish. Something which stank no matter how it was expressed, or from whatever angle it was regarded.

The question of self-rule for India was Quentin’s first exposure to the true machinations of Parliament.

The Great War had murdered the Empire. That was the simple fact. Everyone knew it—but also failed to know it. This kind of maze was very confusing. When Quentin was in the army, it was a habit as certain as breath that anytime anyone took over a project, they would stare in disgust at how everything had been done before, pour scorn on the fool who had preceded them, tear everything up, start with a clean slate—and repeat every mistake of their predecessor. This same pattern, he found out, took place in politics. The British rule over India—the Raj—was just wrong. No one took the time to understand why it had been put into place originally. What were the British trying to achieve when they began their rule over the Indians? What were the conditions like in India before then? What kinds of groups in India agitated for self-rule? Responsible, rational groups, or packs of religious hysterics with itchy, dusty swords? Was it people who wanted mature self-rule, or disaffected, dictatorial groups who had lost power under the egalitarianism of British rule? What kind of society were the Indians proposing to create? What would happen to all the people that England had sworn to protect?

These were questions that Did Not Matter. It was right to let the Indians rule themselves. Why? Because of the right of national self-determination. The Indian nation was seen as an unjustly imprisoned man, and the British as his jailer. Freedom!

But it was not so. India was not one person. India was a seething pit of warring tribes. Old wounds bred fresh hatreds. India was not unjustly condemned. India, if one man, was a man given to wild rampages, child abuse, and self-mutilation.

But that, also Did Not Matter. It Did Not Matter because the idea of national self-determination was a Holy Right, and could not be reasoned away.

But why India? Quentin wondered this sometimes, when he sat in his office, smoking a cigar, feeling too exhausted by his day to go home and walk on eggshells around Ruth. The answer was disarmingly simple. India was a most expensive colony, and we are almost bankrupt. (It still struck him as odd—but pleasing—that when he now said ‘we,’ he no longer meant ‘the British,’ but ‘the British Government.’) We have no money, and must cut expenses.

For some reason, however, this could not be said. Everything was wrapped in abstract lies. It would be, Quentin thought, as if I had gone to Tom and Reginald, when I could not afford to keep them in school, and said: ‘Boys, all your education is just capitalistic propaganda, and I cannot in good conscience fund it.’ He had not expected that his life in politics would be more honest than his life in the military, or in business—but he had not expected that it would require so many more lies.

But—but not lies. That was the damn problem! It wasn’t that lies were required, or disseminated… That would have been all right. One could have fought that. It was, rather, that being in politics required a staggering devotion to blindness—and then blindness to that blindness. We cannot afford India. Could that be spoken? Could that be the basis for discussion? Boys, I cannot afford to keep you in school… Sorry, India—our crusade to keep you civilized has been undone by the Hun, and we must retreat back along the Channel once more. Our world-reform has been stabbed in the back, and we must recall our police. For some reason, that could never be said. Why?

Quentin turned the cigar on his ashtray, rubbing the ash off in a slow circle. They cannot speak pragmatically, because they are nothing but pragmatism in practice… Everyone in Parliament spoke about The Good; their devotion to interests over and above petty ambition, but everyone acted to advance their careers. It was a vicious circle, clear to a newcomer. Everyone wants to pursue The Good, but pursuit of The Good requires being in power—and so The Good becomes staying in power.

Quentin sighed and shrugged. He didn’t care much about India, he just wanted everyone to speak the truth. He knew the truth—we cannot afford India—and tried bringing it up in discussions, but was ignored, or sniggered at, or had eyes rolled at him, and the conversation flowed on regardless. At first, his helplessness in the face of this contempt had disarmed him. I am not normally such a fragile hibiscus! But it became clear to him one evening. It’s that damn wife of mine!

To give Ruth her due, she had willed herself into a kind of brittle, cardboard political wife. She gave him the impression of an animal in a zoo, which had finally resigned itself to captivity, but dreamed of African plains in heaven. Patience, quiet, and then—release. It was quite an odd notion for an atheist to have, but there it was.

But the years of her depression… Quentin sat, weighing his doctor’s advice with the pleasurable waste of time involved in having another cigar. He decided to waste time by postponing his decision. Ruth had been depressed for—twelve years? Certainly when he came back in 1919. What the hell had he done during all that time? Not professionally—that was obvious, he had clear memories of all that. I mean—sexually? Well, he admitted, he had had some sympathy sex, with alienated wives. Poor Quentin—he practically lives without a wife. But, like all such charity, it left him empty and unsatisfied, and worse off than before. Even his orgasms—which had to be brought down like elusive game—seemed like little spasms of elegy. And the afterwards… Ugh! The disentangling. The throwaway promises to be in touch. As he went down the stairs, he thought of the women going to the bathroom to bathe him away, then repairing their makeup and having a nap. The exhaustion, the lack of energy of it all!

And his anger! His endless anger towards his wife. Quite early on, Quentin had come to the conclusion that Ruth was suffering from a case of terminal self-pity. Others lost fathers, but carried on… His basic belief was that Ruth had been raised as a princess, and her vanity could not stand the sudden demise of all who admired her, all who deferred to her. Her complete inability to negotiate was one source of the anger that raged within him. Every time he tried—most reasonably, he might add—to sway her fixed opinion, she turned away, or wept without sound, or stared at him, a thousand maddening miles away. At first, he had been sympathetic. Her loss had been absolutely catastrophic. But after about eighteen months, when she seemed to be getting worse, not better, he began—at first against his will—to take it personally. What, one living husband cannot compete with five dead relatives? The fact that she preferred to lie with the dead than live with him offended him beyond words.

And then he was caught in a terrible crossfire. His sympathy began to drain away, drop by drop, displaced by a liquid of a more acidic nature. He stood over the prostrate form of his wife, wanting to hold, wanting to hit. He felt that a lack of sympathy would not help, but his sympathy was fading. He tried, in a spasm of rather cloying concern, to sit with her, ask her questions and rub her hand, to infuse her with his waning regard before it dried up completely. She appreciated it, of course—she appreciated everything. But it achieved nothing. The more he tried to help, the more his desire to help disappeared.

And then, like a businessman pouring more and more money into a fading concern, he went bankrupt, all of a sudden. It was irreversible. Absolute. And it felt like the worst defeat of his life.

How the hell did I get here? he wondered, reaching for another cigar, another half hour of empty peace and quiet. Of course—India. My colleagues. Why they cannot see the truth. Why I cannot understand that they cannot see the truth. My wife…

Halfway through his cigar, Quentin’s phone rang. He picked it up without thinking.

“Dad?”

“Reginald?”

“Yes. Thank God I found you.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Euston Station.”

“Back so soon?”

“Yes, and I’m not alone.”

“All right. What’s the matter?”

“I need to come and see you.” There was a crinkly pause. “Sorry. We need to come and see you.”

“Who?”

There was another pause. “We’ll talk about it when we get there.”

“I’m almost finished. Why don’t you just meet me at home?”

“No, that’s no good. We’ll be there in a half an hour.”

“All right.”

Half an hour. Why was Reginald home? He was supposed to be in Europe for another three weeks. Half an hour. Quentin settled back in his chair. Well, it seems that the Fates really want me to have just one more cigar!

Reginald entered without knocking. He came in to his father’s office, followed closely by a tall, thin, lovely woman in her midtwenties, who wore a floral print dress that Quentin could see in a moment was a deference to their idea of what he would like. Not her style at all, no sir!

“Father!” cried Reginald, coming around the desk. For the first time in their relationship, he shook his father’s hand with two of his own wrapped around it. Quentin felt it immediately. The hard coldness. He glanced down as their hands separated.

“I see.”

Reginald followed Quentin’s downward glance, at his wedding ring, then threw his head back and laughed giddily. “Oh, and here I thought—we thought—that we were going to have to tell you!”

The woman leaned forward, saying in a low, musical voice: “It is a great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Spencer.”

“Father, this is Wendy Moulinex.”

Quentin shook her brittle hand. He glanced at her waist, unable to help himself, wondering at its capacity for fertility. I know that all the young men want this waspy waist, but it is most impractical… Weak wrists and thin waists do not bode well. Add lustrous hair and a lovely face, and we become most likely to end up exchanging a daughter-in-law for a grandchild.

Quentin sat back in his chair. Wendy coughed slightly, and Quentin became aware of how much smoke congested the air. He leaned back in his chair, twisted around, and pushed open a window. Though somehow I don’t imagine that this is the first time she has been around smoke.

The two of them sat down across from his desk. Wendy’s demure posture and clenched thighs spoke well of finishing school, though this did not surprise Quentin. This girl oozes money—and not new money at that! Oh, Reginald—why did you not do this damn fool thing when I really needed some money, when I was on the campaign trail? Then, by God, I would be independent of all demands!

“Father?” asked Reginald.

“Yes.”

“Thought we’d lost you there for a moment. It must be quite a shock.”

“I’m sure it was very romantic.”

“Oh, yes!” cried Wendy.

“That’s good. Now, since I was not present at the wedding, you must tell me every detail.”

“Well,” said Reginald, “we’d known each other for three weeks, and spent every day together…”

The story did not take long. They fell in love quickly, and had the idea that their personalities interlocked in a way which made them far stronger together than they could ever have been apart. There was something a little desperate in the formulation, as if, by finding each other, they had managed to dodge some terrible—but essential—ordeal. They seemed happy, but it was the giddy daring of having made an impulsive decision. But it will be good for his career, thought Quentin, then reproached himself.

“Now, Miss Moulinex…” he said. “Mrs. Spencer.”

“Wendy, please!”

“In time,” said Quentin, a little tightly. “I have not had the chance to have a fatherly interview with you—I shall not say ‘denied the chance,’ since I want to leave your mother some originality—and so I shall have to ask you some questions now.”

“By all means.” She did not glance at Reginald, but gazed straight at Quentin, which pleased him.

“Your family?”

“We have lands south of the Scottish border. We have a considerable income. We were immune from the crash. I have been well educated. I have a younger sister, and an even younger brother. I have never been engaged before, though I have been asked. I—and forgive me, dear—I wanted to wait. My family will be appalled. They—and I—cannot help but fear that my siblings will take their cue from me.”

“Why not wait, Reginald? Other than the obvious.”

“Oh!” said Reginald, coloring. “Not—that. It was—because…” He smiled apologetically. “I never suspected myself of having a sentimental streak, so was taken entirely by surprise. It was—that we met in a specific place, and fell in love in that place, and I did not want for us to come back and be married in a completely different place, which had nothing to do with our meeting or—falling in love.”

“Hm,” grunted Quentin. “Your mother may have different ideas, but I for one have never gone into all the pomp and nonsense of weddings. It’s barbaric and medieval. And feminine. Women can vote nowadays. They are educated, accomplished, and may pursue careers. They grab and hold every pleasurable aspect of equality with men. But then—ah then, when it comes time to get married, suddenly they want to go back to the Middle Ages. ‘Kneel before me!’ ‘Father, give me away!’ ‘I want to wear white!’—not that I am making any assumptions. And then, after marriage: ‘I want to be equal now!’ It’s all foolishness and vanity. And I cannot fathom why modern men put up with it.” Quentin paused, noticing their slightly shocked faces, then smiled ruefully. “Dear me. I am sorry. Now that I am a politician, I am always giving speeches, even where they’re not wanted. My apologies. Come, stand, let us stand and shake hands on your union.”

They stood, and shook hands. Quentin kissed Wendy on the cheek, and then he called for a taxi to take them to see Ruth. As they were leaving Quentin’s office, Wendy put her hand on Reginald’s and said: “But, isn’t there another interested party?”

In London, in his room, Tom was slipping from reading into dozing when the downstairs bell rang. No one else was home. He jumped up, feeling guilty, as he always did, when he was caught napping before bedtime. (Although the number and length of his naps often meant that he slept in fits of one to two hours, three to four times every twenty-four.) He glanced in the mirror over his desk, noticing his dark hair spiking up, and licked his hand and tried to rub it down. Damn—the one day I did not shave!

Smoothing his shirt, he went downstairs and opened the front door. Quentin, Reginald and a tall woman stood there.

“Not interrupting anything, are we Tommy?” asked Reginald with a thin smile, and Tom went from calm to clenched in a heartbeat.

“Come on, old sport,” said Quentin, taking Tom by the hand. “Home we go.”

“What’s up? Hullo,” he said, inclining his head towards the dark-haired woman.

“Hullo, Tom,” she said, extending her hand. “My name is Wendy.”

“I was going to do that in the taxi,” said Reginald irritably. He turned and walked to the curb, then threw open the taxi door and got in. Quentin and Tom exchanged glances, which was rare for them. Tom’s said: What’s going on? Quentin’s said: He should have opened the door for her.

In the taxi, the suddenly augmented family sat across from each other on facing seats. The lights of London played over the glass around their heads like fireflies in a high wind. A spray of dust and grit rattled one of the panes of glass by Reginald’s head, and he jerked it back.

“Is everyone all right?” asked Tom, frowning at his brother. “I mean, you’re back awfully early.”

Reginald looked away. Quentin said: “Reginald has just gotten married.”

“I…” Tom paused. He glanced at Reginald, who returned his gaze painfully. “Well, Reg! Congratulations. I hope it wasn’t in London, or I shall be most offended!”

There was another pause. “It was in Spain, actually,” said Wendy, staring at Tom and touching Reginald’s knee.

“Gosh! What happened?”

“Well, we’ve already told Father once,” said Reginald. “We might as well wait and tell you and Mother together. I’ll feel like a broken record.”

“We’ll have to get used to telling the story over and over, dear,” laughed Wendy—and there was something a little brittle in her laugh, and Tom’s heart suddenly dropped a few flights. “It’s not going to be the last time. Unless we send out a typewritten synopsis…” She paused. She was going to say more—and not a little scornfully, Quentin and Tom knew, with all the sensitivity of having lived with Ruth’s mood swings. But Wendy stopped, closing her mouth in an odd manner. Her pink lips closed—and then kept compressing, to the point where they turned almost white. Quentin and Tom had the same two thoughts simultaneously: We have probably only a month or so before she stops closing her mouth, and: We are rapidly becoming outnumbered!

They spoke little during the remaining twenty-odd minutes of the taxi ride. Just before turning onto the driveway, the taxi hit a rock, and lurched to one side. Sitting next to Quentin, and across from the newlyweds, Tom noticed that Wendy reached out to hold Reginald’s forearm, but Reginald moved it away—almost simultaneously. It wasn’t as if he saw her hand approaching, and moved his arm away. The two events happened at the same time. Turning around to look at the house, Tom suddenly remembered the first car that he had ever driven in, and his fascination with its windshield wipers. Sitting in the back seat, when he was ten or eleven, late at night, he watched the white dance of rain on the windshield, and became fascinated with the wipers, slithering back and forth, and it seemed to him that they were like two men, the right one taking from a pile in the middle which should have been shared. The left wiper noticed the theft, and came back to defend the pile, just as the right wiper withdrew. Then the left one retreated, and the right one darted back and stole again… Although it was cool in the car, and very late, and he was buried under his own anorak and his father’s coat, Tom had been unable to sleep. He kept opening his eyes, hoping against hope to find the windshield wipers in the middle at the same time, pressing forehead to forehead and sharing their loads…

“All right,” said Quentin, after they disembarked, their faces pale red in the departing light of the taxicab. “So, how do our new lovebirds want to approach this?”

“Well,” sighed Reginald, “we make the big-people decisions, we have to take it on the chin.”

“That’s a mixed metaphor if I ever heard one,” murmured Wendy, but only Tom heard her. She spoke up. “We have three options, si? Mr. Spencer talks to Mrs. Spencer. Reginald goes in to talk to her alone. Or Reginald and I go in together.”

“Not that,” said Tom, feeling a little shiver. “She’ll need a chance to digest.”

“If this undoes all my hard-earned work…” warned Quentin, then glanced at Wendy and closed his mouth, compressing it in a similar manner as she had done in the taxicab.

Reginald murmured something.

“Pardon?” asked Wendy, leaning towards him.

Reginald scowled. “Tom is the golden boy. If she has to hear bitter news, he is the only messenger she would never shoot.”

“Reginald!” cried Tom, almost laughing. “I’m not going in to tell mum that you up and got married in Spain. Not when you’re standing out in the hallway!”

“Well, it was just a thought,” said Reginald. “I mean, if it’s an imposition…”

“It’s not that,” said Tom, shaking his head and smiling.

There was another pause. None of them really wanted to go in. In Reginald and Quentin’s minds, various stratagems were being turned over, all of which involved hiding Reginald’s marriage for some undefined period of time. But there were two problems. One was that Wendy would probably not react well to the idea. The other was that there was no endgame to the strategy—or rather, that the endgame would be Ruth finding out about the marriage months after the fact, and turning Reginald’s Spanish Romance into her own Spanish Inquisition. Quentin also thought: She was easier to manage when she kept to her room… No chance of accidental congratulations wafting out from the bodies in her closet!

“You and I, Tom!” said Reginald eventually, with a forced, hearty tone.

“Your marriage, Reginald. I’ll come in after you’ve talked.”

Reginald sighed. Tom and Quentin both tried to remember the last time they had found both Ruth and Reginald in the same room at the same time. Tom’s memory trailed off; Quentin’s meandered back to the giddy days of breastfeeding. Not that he ever took the nipple, the tricky bugger!

“All right then,” said Reginald. He took Wendy’s hand, and they all mounted the gray steps to the front door.

Chapter 27

Ruth liked having a headache when she was going over her correspondence; it made her feel like she had a real job. As the wife of an MP, she received the kinds of letters which, it was imagined, men would never be able to understand.

Over the past year, she had grown used to a number of catchphrases.

First, were the openers. There was the standard ‘Mrs. Spencer.’ There was the feminist ‘Ms. Spencer.’ There was the overfamiliar ‘Dear Ruth’—or just ‘Ruth’ or, horror of horrors, ‘Ruthie’—as if the letter were a note scribbled in haste from her oldest friend. There were also the amusing: ‘To The Power Behind The Throne,’ or ‘To The Person Whose Husband I Voted For So I Could Send You This Letter.’

The opening sentences were also repetitive—and would never be addressed to a man. There was the desperate: ‘I am truly at my wits’ end,’ which Ruth did not like particularly, because of its assumed chummy female solidarity: Men don’t notice such things, or care if a woman is at her wits’ end, but you, as a woman, will care! There was also the falseness of: ‘I really don’t know who else to turn to.’ If you are turning to strangers, you have surely widened your options to more than just one stranger! There was also the instant intimacy of: ‘As a woman, I know you will understand when I say…’ Or the backstory of: ‘When I was young, I never expected that this would happen to me.’ There was also the uselessness of: ‘I have not written to ask anything of you, but thought you might find the following history informative…’.

There were also the paper-cutters. A surprising number of people followed her career, and sent her photographs of herself in the newspaper, often with fashion or makeup tips. An elderly woman in Yorkshire disapproved of almost everything Ruth wore, circling with a heavy-inked pen all the flesh left exposed by her outfits. It seemed that Ruth would only find her approval by appearing in public in a burka, or a small pup tent. Instructively, a divorcée in Cheltenham thought that Ruth’s costumes did not show enough skin, and warned her that ‘men do not like to stick around a woman who is not appealing, and if he leaves you, you lose the power to strike blows for women.’ Obviously, thought Ruth, her parting with her husband was neither mutual nor amicable. Another woman was always giving her advice on how to manipulate Quentin: ‘Just wriggle up to him, sit on his lap, cup his cheeks, kiss his forehead, and ask for a little favor in a breathy voice. Don’t be afraid to pout!’ she added helpfully, though that made Ruth sigh deeply, toying with her hair. I think that Quentin has had quite enough pouting from me!

There were, occasionally, simple, direct appeals. ‘My husband was lost at the Somme, but he enlisted too young, and they keep cutting off my benefits.’ ‘My neighbor’s dog keeps barking.’ ‘They start construction on my street at six a.m., and I am a shift-worker.’ ‘What do I do if am owed money by brothers of mine?’ ‘My son is missing, and the police are doing nothing about it!’

It was a little perplexing to Ruth. When Quentin had been elected, she had thrown herself into learning about politics, economics, law, and parliamentary procedure. She had emerged from her cocoon to help him on the campaign trail, and then she had begun receiving all these letters, and thought that she should filter them before presenting them to Quentin.

At first, she thought it was just a blip in the general trend. But almost all her letters were from women, and they were all so—so resolutely personal. She had never once received a letter saying: ‘You just march right off and tell your husband that the problems with the economy all started when England went off the gold standard in 1932.’ No—they were all about how the government was supposed to help these women deal with difficult neighbors, runaway husbands, pregnant daughters, rude shopkeepers, and all the petty crusades of petty people… And there were a lot of abandoned mothers, turning in extremis to the clammy arms of the government. This filled Ruth with a vague disquiet. Why, in my day, when I was young, this was all handled by the Church, fathers, and the brandishing of firearms… But now, women had the vote, and they wanted to use the government to save their children, and Ruth was anxious that this should prove to be a rather unholy union. Combining the amoral passion of women for the protection of their children with the legal power of legislation! Ahh, I wonder if we shall not all be enfolded in the dark arms of the State before long!

In her youth, Ruth had been a fairly competent mathematician, and knew that the odds of her receiving an economically aware letter from a woman were less than stellar. For the first few months, she had simply assumed that the more erudite female letters were being addressed to her husband. After all, no one would assume that I know anything about economics.

So, she had asked him about it, one evening, after dinner (she always kept political discussions away from the table, to aid digestion). They were sitting in the living room, before a comfortable fire, and Ruth truly felt—and it was a wonderful feeling—that the house was a kind of huge, soft bird, and they were nestled in its belly, safe from the world and quite at peace. She glanced over at Quentin, who was reading, his eyelids lowering (Except for Reginald, she thought, is there anyone in this family who goes to sleep in their bed?), and she suddenly saw that he had aged. It came to her in a little rush. Aging happens so slowly; it is like the fading of a painting; colors are lost so slowly that one is never sure that the brighter colors of the past were not just painted by imagination. But he was aging. His forehead was folding over his eyebrows in a slow, Cro-Magnon droop. His long, thinning gray hair now looked like the hollow outline of a hairstyle. She admired the thick tenacity of the remaining strands; They’re like an army spread too thin, which still refuses to give in, she thought, enjoying the rhythm of the words.

Tears appeared in Ruth’s eyes. The political discussion was going to have to wait. She thought of his patience over the years of her depression. He never once pressed himself upon me. He was always there. He bought me biscuits. Sent me postcards. He helped my mother when she died, when I could not… Ruth was, without a doubt, a sentimental woman—and that sentiment had no small relation to her depression, since sentimentality is brutalized by the natural losses of mammals in a wild world—but her sentiment, having forged an avenue of lost statues where her future was supposed to be, could also work in reverse. Her history with Quentin had not been peaceful. He had withdrawn more than he had comforted—she knew this, but now questioned whether she could have been comforted in the first place. And would it not be galling for him, the consummate man of action, to be helpless in the face of my…my… I have been far from the perfect wife. To help him, I demanded that my son be bribed. And still he comes home and takes my hand before dinner.

It had not been perfect, but it could have been much worse. Sometimes, that is all the soil that sentiment needs to flower, high and wide.

“I love you,” she said, deep into the ticking of the hallway clock.

His eyes jerked open. Their blue had faded over the years. Quentin did not look at her. He stared into the fire. His brows contracted together, very slightly.

“I—don’t know that…” he whispered.

“How could you?” She felt as if she were standing too close to a precipice, with a buffeting wind behind her. How did we, to such a degree, lose these words? “You have been very patient with me.” I want him to cry! Ruth realized suddenly. I have cried more than enough for both of us! “I have been a poor wife.”

“It was a hard decade,” said her husband. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and reclined his head, resting it on the back of the armchair. Without warning, he turned to Ruth and opened his pale eyes. Seeing his head at such an odd angle was eerily intimate, as if they were waking up together.

“I am too much of a…female,” she said, brushing her hair back above her ears. “I was lost in the War, but I wanted—had to—please everyone in the here and now. I felt your suffering, your loss, every single day. I—want you to know that. I felt it, and I was helpless to prevent it. I could not manage it.” Ruth shook her head slowly. “I want everyone to be happy. It’s the curse of womanhood. If anyone grieves, I grieve tenfold. If anyone bruises, I bleed. If anyone bleeds, I break. If anyone breaks, I die. If anyone dies… It is entirely wrong, but it’s not even a choice.”

“But the boys…” he said. She could hear the tentativeness in his voice, the fear of offending her.

“Now you really want to break me in two,” she said, with a wan smile.

“No, of course not.”

“I was joking.”

“Sorry.”

“But…” Oh, these complications! Nothing simple can be said simply! “But it’s not the boys I am thinking about. They and I will have to talk, in time, hopefully before they get married. But now, I am thinking about you. I am very happy now, with you.”

He closed his eyes briefly, and then opened them slowly, little balls of wet blue. Ahah! she thought. We have struck salt! But then she felt awful about the thought. He is crying because he was terribly afraid that he had made me unhappy! She frowned, then smoothed her face, not wanting Quentin to misinterpret her expression as disapproval.

“So, is…?” she said, then stopped. There was no way of asking whether her happiness was so important to him without sounding critical. We do not have the trust for such questions, she realized, and felt very sad. But his tears were real, and he was not a weeper. That was Tom’s occupation. And her own.

“I am happy now,” she repeated, and then, in a burst of warmth and kindness. “And—whenever I was not happy before, it was almost never your fault.”

His eyes narrowed a little, and she could sense his next question, the question he dared not ask. So whose fault was it? Ruth knew that it was a question which could not be answered, at least not until she met her father in the next world. Father, why was I so unhappy? she imagined asking, and then she imagined his slow, backlit, angelic reply: Because, my Ruthie, you ignored my last letter, and you turned your back on God…

Ruth shuddered. Quentin had said something. “Pardon?” she asked.

“We can take care of each other from now on,” he said, his head still at that odd angle. “You have been a wonderful Mrs. MP.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And—I’m sorry that I bullied you about Tom. I was—I was just so fearful for him. Not everything turns out well.”

“He’ll be fine,” said Quentin—A little too quickly, Ruth thought. But her husband had never been keen on discussing his younger son.

They settled into another silence, but it was a silence of hearts eased a little by the honest oil of new words about old deeds.

“Quentin?” she said, after measuring the silence by the chimes of the hall clock by a half hour.

“Yes, dear?”

“I want to ask you something about your correspondents.”

“You mean the people who write to me, or the letters I receive?”

“Both.”

“All right.” He did not open his eyes. “I’m listening, but my eyes are tired.”

“When women write you letters, do they ever talk about economics?”

“You mean, the price of milk?”

“Not home economics. National economics.”

He smiled, almost laughing. “Oh, no.”

“Never?”

Quentin did not have to think about it—which meant, Ruth knew, that he had either noted it already, or considered it impossible. “Never.” He smiled suddenly. “I thought maybe you got those letters.”

She returned his smile, which further eased her regrowing heart. “No, you didn’t.”

“Why?”

Ruth leaned forward. “Well,” she said, in the slightly conspiratorial tone she knew he liked so much. “I’ve just noticed that economics is not so hard, but I never get any letters from women on economics. Why is that?”

Quentin thought for a moment. He was not thinking of what to say, but rather organizing his thoughts. Ruth was pleased. She had given him this advice, after seeing his first few debates in the House (and he took it well, realizing that, having had ten years to organize her own thoughts, she truly knew of what she spoke), and was happy to note that it also now applied to his private conversations.

“Well,” he said, after a minute, “why did you learn about economics? No, forget that. What do women expect from figures of authority?”

“Submission to our manipulations.”

He smiled again. “Once more unto the breach.”

Ruth suddenly remembered him whispering this phrase over her, on their honeymoon, but that was another life, another body, another world… “Mmm. All right. What do I want? Protection, of course. A certain amount of…resources.”

“Because of biology.”

“And the fact that men are supposed to provide them.” She recalled her father and elder brothers, but kept her course. “So, you’re saying that women have not outgrown their faith in male authority, and now expect from the government what they used to get from the patriarchy.”

“Well, I haven’t said it yet, but it’s close. How would I put it?” Quentin tapped his glasses against his teeth, opening his eyes briefly. Before, when his eyesight was better, he did it with pens, Ruth remembered.

“Women now have the vote,” he said, “but they have only ever had a personal relationship with authority. So naturally they now have a personal relationship with the government. Women can no more explore the effect of changing interest rates on the national economy than men can explore reducing the deficit by clipping coupons.”

Ruth sucked in a breath. “That’s harsh, but well put.”

“Since I entered politics,” he sighed, “I have become unbearably pithy.”

“I was wondering this, about women. It seems odd. Women wanted the vote because they thought they were as rational as men…”

“They are.”

“Wait, wait… So we got the vote, and then we throw away all our credibility by wanting the government to take care of us, the poor, the aged, our children. The nanny state is not far off.”

Quentin smiled. “I, at this moment, am very glad that my ‘eeny-meeny-miny-mo’ method of choosing a party did not end at ‘Labour.’ If I may say so, you’re right, and you’re wrong.”

“Thanks, and no thanks.”

“It’s not women who are the problem. They’re just part of the problem.”

“Ah. Good.”

“The poor want the wealth of the rich. There were property restrictions on voting throughout the nineteenth century, for one simple reason. The poor outnumber the rich, so if everyone has a vote, all that will happen is that the poor will end up voting to take away the property of the rich, and everyone will end up impoverished. The sick want the money of the healthy. Manufacturers want to squelch unions. Unions want to squelch outside workers. Domestic companies want tariffs. Importers want no tariffs. Old companies want subsidies for obsolete products. Young companies want subsidies for new products. And women…”

“Ah—what women want. Finally—an answer!”

“Women want protection and goods. They used to get it from men. Now they want it from the state.”

“Why now?”

“There are fewer men, since… And there are always women falling through the cracks. They will agitate for what they need.”

“I see. And your solution, Mr. Candidate?”

“Solution? There’s no solution. Doctors don’t say: we have a solution for dying. It’s painful. It’s sad. And it’s inevitable. All we can do is manage the pain and hope for the best.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall finding that argument in any of your campaign literature.”

“I think it was more than implied by the word: ‘compromise,’ which was displayed most prominently.”

“So—if all these people can vote, but know nothing about economics, what will happen to us?”

“What? Well,” he yawned, “we’ll—we’ll just keep muddling along, the same way we have—the same way that the world always has.”

“But—don’t you think that, if things are set up poorly, that everything shall come to a bad end before long?”

“I think that you and I will come to an end long before England does,” said Quentin, yawning again. He did not like her to be apocalyptic, even a little, even politically. It was too much like the Bad Decade. He smiled at her. “Geologically speaking, the odds of the world coming to an end in our lifetime—or even changing significantly—are statistically insignificant.”

And with that, he kissed her forehead, then went up to bed. Ruth sat in the ticking silence, watching the fire fade into ashes. She did not feel depressed, but was filled with vague anxiety, an apprehension that she could neither comprehend nor shake. The captains are confident, but the rudder swings unmanned, she thought, over and over. But it did not make her depressed. In the Great War, the world had surprised and undone her. Now—now, she was out of bed, ready, alert and more than willing to have a go at surprising the world.

However, the next night, the world surprised her once more.

The next night, voices roused Ruth, as they always did. Since recovering from her depression, she had rearranged the furniture, and occasionally, she got out of bed the wrong way, hitting her head. This is not a sign! she said to herself, sitting on her dark sheets and rubbing her forehead.

She heard voices downstairs. Throwing on a terry-cloth bathrobe, she thought she heard Reginald’s voice. Well, it was not so much that she heard Reginald’s voice, but her heart froze a little within her, and her blood flow increased, and she surmised from those inescapable facts that he must be home.

Ruth padded downstairs, and found the men in the living room.

“Reginald!” she cried. She always tried her best to make him feel welcome. Coming into the living room, she consciously uncrossed her arms.

“Mother!” he exclaimed, his face mortified.

Goddamn it! she thought, drawing back. How could I have possibly embarrassed him now?

“Ruth,” said Quentin gently. “We have a guest.”

Turning her head, she saw a young woman standing awkwardly to one side of the door.

“Mother, this is Wendy,” said Tom, coming up and kissing Ruth on the cheek.

Ruth glanced down at her own unkempt self, then up at the young woman. Come on, she thought, throw me a bone, a smile of sympathy for my predicament… But Wendy seemed to be embarrassed as well.

Ruth took a deep breath. “Well, I shall go back upstairs and dress properly for a visitor.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter now,” said Reginald. “What’s done is done. Sit down, Mother.” He took a seat in one of the plush armchairs across from the dark-night glass of the bay windows.

Quentin stood hesitantly for a moment. “Come on, Tom, let’s rouse Catherine and get Miss—Wendy—Mrs.—some cocoa.”

“That’s not really necessary,” said Wendy. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Spencer.”

“Likewise,” said Ruth.

Reginald coughed, narrowing his eyes. Tom, Quentin, and Wendy left the room. Reginald remained seated. He cracked his knuckles, staring out the black window, as if a wondrous view kept his attention.

Ruth took an involuntary step towards the doorway, to follow the others. She was unused to being in the same room as her eldest son. But something was afoot. Reginald cleared his throat. Ruth took another deep breath, willing her heart to slow down, and sat in a loveseat across from Reginald, who sat behind a wide potted fern, half in shadow.

“Hullo, Mother,” he said with an odd, pointed smile, as if she had not greeted him.

“Hullo, son,” she replied.

“I am home early,” he said.

Is this supposed to be a prompt? she wondered. Oh, yes! “Why are you home early?”

“I met a woman in Spain,” he said slowly, as if this should be obvious.

“This Wendy… What is her last name?”

He leaned forward. “What happened to your face?”

She touched her forehead. “I banged it.”

“Been to the wars, have we?” he smiled, recalling a wounded-soldier phrase of his childhood. She smiled back gamely.

Ruth heard Catherine, in the kitchen, complaining about the late hour. The new woman’s voice murmured something. The sound of a kiss puckered through the air. That’ll be for Tom, thought Ruth, then turned back to her eldest son. The shadow of a leaf cut across his cheek, making him look like a savage who had painted half his face with darkness.

He stood up, and she felt slighted again. Some agitation had a hold of him, and she was so used to being the cause of that…

Reginald spun on her almost violently, scattering her thoughts. “We got married, Mother,” he said flatly. “I wanted you to hear it first. From me.”

The room spun a little for Ruth. Several thoughts followed, in quick succession: Before I had a chance to talk to you about…who you are? I am not the first to be told. A Spanish priest was the first to be told. If it was a priest. Perhaps they were joined by a Communist, to breed reactionaries. He is too young, too immature, too ‘Reginald’ to be married. I could be a grandmother, within a year. So much of my life is behind me…

“Mother?” he frowned. “Are you all right?”

“I’m…” She faltered. Answer him—don’t irritate him by hesitating! “I’m—surprised.”

“We met in Spain, and fell in love, and wanted to get married where we met.”

“Is it legal? Here?”

He blinked. “Is that the most important thing?”

“What—what is the most important thing?”

“Being happy for me.”

“But…” But I am happy for you? I am not happy for you! “I—can’t imagine that you want my approval, Reginald.”

“Why not? Isn’t that the proper thing?”

“Well, if you wanted my approval, you would have asked before…”

Reginald smiled indulgently. “You mean, asked your permission?”

“No—but no one likes to be rushed!”

“I’m not rushing you, Mother,” he said, leaning back and touching his fingertips together. “Take all the time you want.”

Ruth felt a rush of anger, but it shorted out within her in an alarming manner. She frowned, trying to think of… “But—you want a reaction from me,” she said finally.

“I want whatever you see fit to provide,” he replied instantly, ever-ready with an answer to stymie her. “But tell me this—did you want me to have a big wedding? Like yours and Father’s?”

A freezing vice seemed to be closing around her heart. I cannot be angry with him! It will never end! She could not bear to look up at her eldest boy. Her hands clenched. A kettle whined, in the kitchen. She wanted to be in there, having coffee with Tom, talking this over like the impulsive madness it was.

Suddenly, Ruth felt a strong impulse to smash the little light on the side table. She wanted to tower over her son in the darkness, force him to the floor and demand obedience. She was a Hindu goddess, six scimitars in six hands. He was a sinful priest… Then the vision faded, in an instant.

“Tell me all about it, Mother,” smiled Reginald.

Ruth swallowed. “I am not happy with this.”

“I see. Why?”

“Because… Because you cannot act unilaterally and then tell me about it and not be happy with my response.”

“Who says I am not happy with your response? To tell the truth, I would have been shocked beyond words if you had jumped up, hugged me, and said: ‘Oh, Reginald! I am so happy for you!’”

“What does being a husband mean to you?” she asked, almost involuntarily.

There was a dark pause, which she could not help but taste as a minor triumph.

“I suppose,” he said slowly, taking his seat again, sliding into the bladed shadows of the shaggy fern, “that I can best answer that in the negative. I want to love my wife. I want to love my children. I want to raise them correctly. I want to accept them for who they are. I want them to love me back. I want them to know that I am proud of them, no matter what they do. I want my family to be gripped by love, but…” He raised his hand, then let it drop on his lap. “Ah, what’s the use?”

Ruth swallowed. “I—why is that an answer in the negative?”

He just stared ahead, lower lip thrust out.

Because you think I never gave that to you, thought Ruth, but the words were impossible. It would be a fight without end. But it already is a fight without end…

“Tell me about her.”

Reginald shrugged eloquently, to say: All right. We shall not talk about anything important then. “Wendy is a free spirit. She was traveling with a friend, who acted as our witness. We were married in a small stone church. I knew that you wouldn’t have liked that. She has a good sense of humor, and seems to understand me. She is not fussy. She has a strong constitution. Her family was unscathed by the war. She is going to face hell when she tells her family. I am very glad that Father is an MP now, otherwise… It’s a step up for all of us.” He smiled. “Something for Tom to aim for, mayhap, assuming she is not disowned.”

Ruth frowned. “Tom?”

“Well, if he ever digs himself out of living in a shoebox—which seems to be a family trait, at least among the more…feminine among us—then he will have to settle down sometime. It is unlikely that he will have much to bring to a match, except some old rowing trophies and a handful of rusting charm. But he might learn something from being around a woman like Wendy. A woman who…” Reginald paused delicately.

“Who?”

“Well, who has some… Standing. Class. History. Substance. He will have to surmount his history, of course, but it could be done.”

Does he mean me? she thought.

“Catherine, mother,” said Reginald patiently. “I mean his affinity for sweet washerwomen.”

Ruth loosened her hands, which were like white rocks. “You should not do such things for the instruction of your brother.”

He laughed. “Oh, that’s just a passing notion. Unthought of until now. It’s a fringe benefit, if it’s anything. Wendy has a younger sister, a stunner by all accounts. All right!” he said, clapping his thighs. “Well, I have acted, I have come home, and I have told you. The ball is now in your court, mother. Shall I call her back in?”

Chapter 28

A month later, in his room in London, Tom awoke to find Gunther sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed.

The German had aged well over the last six years. He was in his early fifties, and was developing the lined, detailed features of late middle age. His eyes were wide and kind, and his cheeks and forehead were cut with deep, sharp creases, as if he had won his wisdom in a vicious and protracted knife fight.

Something flickered in his gray eyes when Tom sat up. Tom frowned, shook his head slightly, and then threw himself across the bed and hugged Gunther tightly. For Tom, there were two people whose embraces had always fitted him perfectly. One was Catherine; the other was Gunther.

Life is a complex web of justice, and Tom was very interested in justice. Gunther, to him, had always represented justice. The German was fair and implacable. Manipulation is the great enemy of justice, but Gunther was immune to manipulation. Sometimes, when Reginald’s sneering overwhelmed him, Tom would sink back into the memory of Gunther, and it would help. He thought of that day when Gunther disciplined Reginald for failing to pick up his toys, or many other days, other times, when Reginald’s spite had thundered like an impotent wave against the breakwall of Gunther’s will. Tom thought of the odd times when Gunther had engaged Quentin in an argument about some political or philosophical issue, when he was nearby, and the clarity and rationality of the German man’s position.

Gunther had gone back to Germany in 1928, when Tom was 18. They had not seen each other much for the few years prior to 1928. When they did meet, Gunther came to Tom’s boarding school, and they had lunch, or spent a Saturday together. The first time, Reginald came along, but found the conversation so boring that he had excused himself ungraciously early. That evening, he had insinuated that Gunther had some sort of homosexual interest in Tom, which almost caused a fistfight. (The only reason it had not occurred was that Reginald had taunted Tom by saying that Tom only wanted to fight him because of his suppressed sexual desire for Gunther.)

Tom found Gunther fascinating. He was a scientist, specializing in radio waves, but spoke very little about his work. They had a number of topics which they enjoyed: European politics, Ruth before the war, philosophy. Gunther had a merry way of challenging Tom’s beliefs, which made Tom race along unguessed paths of thought like a mad hare. The atheism which Tom had inherited from his mother had, as it turned out, been implanted in her mind by Gunther.

“Oh, if you had only known your mother then,” Gunther had once said, as they walked along a narrow, tightly hedged byway a mile or so outside of town. The day was cool, pleasant, cataract-foggy. “She was always my favorite, ever since she was a girl. So smart, so sensitive. Every discovery of every bad thing in the world came at her like a personal insult, a challenge to be faced down with great willpower and tiny fists.” Gunther paused. “She had an elemental kind of purity, something so rare… As you get older, you’ll realize. There are maybe twenty people like her a century.” He laughed. “Listen to me, the scientist! They’re rare, that much I know.”

Tom enjoyed hearing about his mother’s early life, but it was painful as well. So might an archeologist fall in love with a long-dead civilization, and love the life that has fled to dust.

“She was very original,” continued Gunther. “I think that’s what I loved most about her then. When she was young, and I got her to enjoy the endless length of the question ‘why,’ she was a holy terror. ‘Why?’ ‘Why?’ It was like there was only one letter in the alphabet for her. Of course, she was very well protected, and that seems to be essential for the true flowering of the feminine soul. So protected, and so loved. Deferred to as something special, but not in a way which made her vain or spoiled. As a princess, but a princess with responsibilities.”

Gunther sighed. “And oh, my God, did she love her father. And her brothers. You have no idea—you have had to love the memory of a mother… She had this great personality—there was nothing that she could not do. Learned the violin—two months. Chess? Excellent, third try. Horseback riding—a natural. I know. It’s always surprising to hear about a parent’s early, untapped abilities. But they pass on, Tom.”

Tom blew his nose with a handkerchief. The day was so foggy that it was more condensation than congestion.

Gunther tapped his chin with a forefinger. “This is my theory, and I believe I shall take it to my grave. Your mother was born with uncanny gifts. She was sheltered, respected and protected enough to begin fully extending herself along the lines of her talents. Supported by her men, she flew. And then—and then, there was a time when she was very far aloft, very high, and it was before she had really learned how to fly—and then everything fell apart.” Gunther frowned. “Actually, that’s not quite true. There was something before that.”

“What?”

“She only ever hinted at it. But there was a betrayal first.”

“By—by her father? I can’t imagine that.”

“No, Tom. Not her father.”

Tom stopped. Gunther walked on a few more steps, then turned around. An old pain was rising in him, like a crest of lava through historical rock.

“My father,” said Tom.

“Yes. Your father.”

“What—all right, an affair?”

Gunther nodded.

Tom whistled, long and low. “Should’ve been her. Her and Satan. That would explain Reginald.” He immediately regretted the joke.

“Oh God,” said Gunther, waving a hand. “He’s just a pawn. But I must say, you’re taking this awfully well.”

“I’ve—had this before,” nodded Tom, with the frankness that Gunther had always loved. “There’s a great mystery about unhappy parents. I mean, I know—I probably know what is causing them so much pain, and they are both unhappy, but I can’t speak it. It’s too deep. But when you say: Father had an affair, I feel that it’s true. Because I have lived with the effects for eighteen years.”

Gunther nodded approvingly. “It’s always a difficult question. When you know something about a family, and the children ask you frankly—and you did ask me frankly, over the years—it is impossible to know exactly the right course. Speak too much, you are banished. Too little, and the children grow up under a load they don’t even know they carry.”

“Again, very scientific,” smiled Tom, taking a deep breath.

Gunther squinted suddenly. “Are you close to your father, Tom?”

Tom’s heart started beating fast. He wanted to stop, to spill… something. But he was suddenly afraid of eye contact. “We’re not close, Uncle.”

“Call me Gunther. You’re old enough.”

Tom laughed, but it was forced. His words came lightly, tightly, without emotion. “No, and we never have been. We’re yin and yang. He says ‘tomahto,’ and I say ‘tomayto.’ He and Reginald are like a goddamned little coven. ‘Ah, pater, can I get you anything?’ ‘Nothing other than your beneficial presence, son!’ And there I am, trapped upstairs, bleeding the venom from my mother. I am overfull with words, Gunther, I swear to God. Overflowing.”

“You are close to your mother, though.”

“I have to sit down,” said Tom, plopping down on a small grassy patch where two paths met. A cow lowed against a fence, its nose snuffing through the wood. Gunther took off his coat, folded it, and sat on it, right in the middle of the path, facing Tom.

“My mother…” murmured Tom. “You damn Germans!”

“Do you love her?”

“Well, of course, in the social sense. But that’s… I love bits, the bits I see sometimes. I love the bits that are like the woman you talk about. The prewar mother. The pre-me mother. But there’s almost no conversation, you know? When I’m home, she keeps sending for me. Every day. Twice sometimes. ‘Go on, Tom,’ Dad and Reginald say, sitting and smiling. Deep in conversation. ‘Go on up.’ So I go, and it gives her some relief. She holds me tight. She talks and talks and talks. But with every word, I feel like I’m dissolving a little.” Tom leaned back into the hedge, then realized that it could not take his weight, and sat back up again. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

Gunther nodded slowly, pain tightening his features. “She does love you. I mean, she can’t open her heart to you, so all you get are these—words. Which are a poor substitute, I’ll grant.”

“Why? Why can’t she open her heart to me? And why is it me all the time? Why never Reg? Why does he get off scot-free? It’s so humiliating! Does she pick me because I’m weaker? Because I don’t tell her where to go? Because I never refuse? And why do I never refuse? It’s impossible even to imagine it! And that other goddamned pair, they’d rather throw me into the quicksand. ‘Spread yourself wide, Tom, so we can walk on your back! Remember—it’s a team effort!’” Tom could not help but laugh at that last line. “Some team.”

“Well, they are a team, Tom,” said Gunther softly. “But that doesn’t matter. She won’t be free in the foreseeable future.”

“From what?” demanded Tom, oddly cross. “From them?”

“I am going to be cryptic and irritating, Tom,” said Gunther, standing suddenly and extending his hand. “But remember: it takes great integrity to make great mistakes.”

Now, five years later, Gunther was back in his room.

“Good morning, Tom,” said Gunther, after they hugged. “I was about to give up on you and go in search of a coffee.”

“Gunther! Good Lord! Where have you been?”

“Germany. France. Czechoslovakia, very briefly. But I’m back now.”

“For how long?”

“For good.”

“Well! Welcome back.” Tom threw his legs over the side of the bed. “What say we go in search of that coffee?”

“No—I want to talk to you here.”

Tom paused. “No catching up, then.”

“No.”

Tom nodded slowly, smoothing his pajama bottoms along his thighs. Then he looked up. “So—what is it?”

“You’ve been here for two years,” said Gunther, leaning back in the chair. “Tell me about it.”

Tom frowned. “It’s—it’s right for me. At the moment. I have enough to live on.”

“Girls?”

“A few,” said Tom, staring at his knees. Gunther seemed like such a monk that discussing women seemed a little—base.

“Nothing serious.”

“Oh, no.”

“Plans?”

“As in: after the room?”

Gunther nodded.

“I don’t know yet.”

“So,” said Gunther, gesturing at the books piled over all of Tom’s room. “You read.”

“What did Erasmus say? ‘I buy books, and then, if anything is left over, I buy food and shelter.’”

Gunther smiled. “What else?”

“I read. I think. I write a little. I walk. I’ve done just about every street in London now. One side, at least.”

“Friends?”

“One or two come from school. Hart in particular. But not many, no.” Tom sighed. “You’re not here to hit me with the old cattle prod of ambition, are you?”

“Not in the way you think.”

Tom held up a hand. “All right, you can’t be gone for two years, return like a thief in the night, and then be cryptic to boot.”

Gunther laughed. Tom was startled. He’s not much of a laugher.

“All right,” said the German. “I suppose I was hoping to lead you to it gently, by the nose, to spare your feelings, or prepare you for it. But—all right.” He leaned forward, and suddenly his eyes were intense, and Tom felt a little cold, and very excited.

“Tom,” said Gunther softly. “You are sitting in this room because there’s going to be a war.”

It was the most charged pause in either of their lives. It lasted for over a minute. Their eyes met and held. They blinked twice, right after one another.

“Do you want me to go on?” asked Gunther finally.

Tom’s brow contracted slightly. He neither nodded nor shook his head.

“Do you want me to get you a coffee?”

Tom shook his head, very slightly. A tear rolled down his cheek.

“Here,” said Gunther, burrowing in his pockets for a handkerchief. He pulled one out, and dabbed Tom’s tear.

“All right,” said Tom, shivering suddenly. He sat back in his bed, pulling his blankets up around him. “What the fuck.”

“Do you read the newspapers?” asked Gunther.

Tom shrugged. “A little. Not much.”

“That helps, actually.”

“Good,” murmured Tom, his eyes gazing far beyond his surroundings. “A war.”

“I’m going to be clearer,” said Gunther. “There is no fate in human affairs. That is for physics. When I say: there will be a war, I don’t mean that war is inevitable. I mean that war is inevitable unless good men act.”

A spasm of pain crossed Tom’s face. He sobbed suddenly, loudly. He took a deep breath, and pressed his blankets to his face.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” said Gunther gently. “There is no worse news under the sun.”

“All right, Svengali,” said Tom emptily, after a while. “Where does this come from?”

Gunther smiled. “From you, of course!”

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “Do that again, I’ll plain thump you one!”

Gunther held up his hands. “All right, all right. Why are you stalled? Why are you sitting in here? You are brave. You saved your brother from the mob. You are intelligent. You are athletic, charismatic, handsome, popular. You love knowledge. You have integrity. You gave up school rather than argue for something you detested. So why are you here? Why are you not participating?”

“In—life?”

“No. You’re alive. I mean—why aren’t you participating in society?”

Tom shuddered. “You mean, like a businessman or a politician?”

“Yes. Or an artist or philosopher.” Gunther paused very briefly. “Or reporter.”

Tom frowned. “Do you know, I’ve never really thought of that…”

“What?”

“Not the occupations themselves. I mean, why I am not participating. I feel better here. More relaxed. I’m not sure there’s room for me, out there.” He gestured at the little window.

“Go on.”

“I seem to disagree with everyone I meet. They like me, and I like them. I mean, on the surface. Everyone can be funny. But there’s this—dead spot, at the center of things, of people, whenever anything of importance comes up. Everyone freezes, gets uncomfortable, makes bad, dismissive jokes, or strikes out verbally. But that’s what I love the most. That’s the air I breathe! And I don’t know if the air I breathe is too rare for everyone else, or the air everyone else breathes is too rare for me. All I know is that we can’t ever breathe the same air. At the same time. I mean, they’re all Reginald, to some degree. All of them.”

“Like who?”

“Oh, everyone,” said Tom, his voice wispy with despair. “Teachers. Father. Professors. Coaches. Everyone at school.”

“Your mother?”

Tom paused. “No,” he said softly. “No. She’s striving for something…else.”

Gunther nodded. “What?”

“Oh, she wants to make friends with the world again.”

“And you don’t.”

Tom smiled sadly. “It’s not that I don’t. I do. I love the world. I’m just not such a fan of the people in it.”

Gunther smiled. “We have much in common, you and I.”

“But what has that got to do with war? Am I supposed to wage war against England?”

That’s Reginald’s way, thought Gunther, but held his tongue. “Name me the people you know with honor.”

Tom pursed his lips. “Well, you, I think, unless you’ve changed.”

The German smiled grimly. “I haven’t changed.”

“All right, well…” His eyes flashed. “Wait a moment, you tricky German! We haven’t even talked about what ‘honor’ is!”

“We know, you and I,” said Gunther.

“Tell me.”

“The courage to stand up for what is right. To go against the crowd. To fight for goodness. To tell the truth, though the sky falls. To suffer the agonies of justice.”

“All the little things,” murmured Tom.

“All the little things,” agreed Gunther.

“I don’t know anyone like that. Not that…”

“Well, what about you?”

“Me?” Tom laughed. “I don’t really think about myself… I mean, like that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not a soldier. Sorry, that’s not what I mean. I mean, I’m a little book-mushroom here.”

“What I see,” said Gunther, “and have seen for twenty-two years, is a boy who always fought for what was right. Who refused to compromise on issues of integrity. Who had honor. Who has honor.”

Tom frowned. His tears had dried up completely. He seemed to be standing on a high mountain, before a view of endless, icy peaks. He shivered, and laughed. “All right. I can see that. I mean, I try to do the right thing. When I can.”

“So, it comes down to you and I,” said Gunther. “And that is why there will be a war. Unless we do something.”

Tom laughed again, louder. It was a little hysterical. More of a giggle, actually. “OK, now I really need that coffee!”

“I am serious, Tom. Why are you here?”

“I…can’t imagine that it’s for that!” cried Tom.

“Germany will collapse,” said Gunther.

“They said that in 1923, with the inflation. She muddled through.”

“They have been building an air force.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“They have been training pilots and chiefs of staff in Russia since 1921.”

“I don’t doubt that Germany wants an army again,” said Tom. “Why not? They had one for the last thousand years, until we took it away. It’s not a toy they’re likely to stop missing.”

Gunther rolled his lips over his front teeth. He drummed his fingers on his knee.

“Go to Germany,” he said finally.

“What?”

“Go to Germany. I will pay.”

“My God, man!” cried Tom, throwing his covers aside. “Sorry if that sounded disrespectful, but my God! Go to Germany? Why?”

“Because it will set you free.”

“Why? It’s not my goddamned Fatherland! Sorry. I’ll stop swearing. It’s a bad habit of solitude.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to go? Go visit the friend you wrote me about. Klaus?”

“I was never terribly close to Klaus.” Tom giggled again. “That sounds funny. ‘Close to Klaus.’”

“Think of it as a holiday. Do you have a passport?”

“Yes,” said Tom. “We were supposed to go on a debating tour, before I left Oxford. But that…” He paused, looked down at his hands, then looked up again. “Do you know, I have absolutely no idea why I don’t want to go to Germany.”

“That’s better,” nodded Gunther. “That’s my boy!”

“It’s a very generous offer. Thank you. Sorry I was so ungracious.”

Gunther smiled, then leaned forward and patted Tom’s knee.

“It’s not a generous offer, Tom,” he said. “Trust me. It’s an investment.”

Tom looked up, skepticism warring with fear.

“Really?” he asked.

Gunther nodded slowly. “Of course. I was only half-right when I said that you are sitting in this room because there is going to be a war.”

Tom opened his mouth, said nothing, and did not close it.

Gunther’s gray eyes turned to chill stone. “You are sitting in this room, Tom because you know there will be a war, and you think we will lose. You think that goodness will lose. You think that goodness is weak. Because you don’t understand evil.

“Wh—why? Why not?” stammered Tom.

Gunther said: “Because you grew up with evil, Tom.”

PART II

Chapter 29

It is odd, thought Tom, that I have so few people to tell that I am going away for two months. He had to tell his family, of course, because he was going to be away from the end of November to the end of January, and so would miss the holidays.

The truth was that Tom was actually quite relieved to be out of England for Christmas. There was something terribly complicated and messy about his relations with his family. He had to avoid even thinking about them, since it generally made him either cry, get angry, or give up and be depressed. There was a great hole in his heart where his family portrait should have hung.

The primary problem was his mother. This was one of the great disappointments of Tom’s adult life. He had felt depressingly special with his mother. She had always called on him to ease her pain. She got very skittish on the rare occasions when Reginald came sidling into her room, and usually had to take a nap after he had left. But she grew florid and torrential when she was alone with Tom. Tom, Tom, Tom was the constant salve to her wounded heart.

Tom hated this, but he also loved it. Well, not quite ‘loved.’ It was more—more as if…

His choices had always been twofold. First, he could have a mother who shied away from him as if he were carrying a bomb, or about to burst into acid, or was a wolf in child’s clothing. He could have a mother who fought with him without words, without quarter, without end. He could have a mother who recoiled from his very presence. He could be Reginald.

Or, he could have a mother who clung to him like a choking vine. Tom could not help but remember, whenever he thought of his mother’s logorrhea, the time when she had cornered him in his room, late at night, when he was about nine. He was idly working on a maze game, drawing his exit routes in light pencil, unable to find the way out. She sat and talked about her courtship with Quentin; all the things they had misinterpreted, all they had assumed that later caused them troubles—and hinted very broadly about something untrustworthy that her husband had done, early on, shortly after Reginald was born.

Tom had glanced again and again at the maze game he had been working on. This memory stayed with him for years, because he could never figure out how to shut his mother up.

She had a sort of desperate inability to be alone without collapsing into herself. She needed Tom, in a way which she did not need anyone else in the family. Lying alone in his bed, before sleeping, with his heart hammering from another bare escape from his mother’s claws, he imagined that he was away, and that his mother drew Reginald into her nest. He imagined Reginald’s incomprehension and withering scorn. He imagined his mother trying to climb the fierce, crumbling walls of his brother’s half-closed eyes. He imagined all these things, and he hated himself, in his heart, and he respected his brother. Reginald doesn’t let her pillage him that way, he thought. Reginald doesn’t let her pillage him in any way. She keeps her distance from him. He has put the fear of God into her. So much the better. She does not keep her distance from me. I am a soft village of little girls. She is a Viking horde. Well, that’s a rather creepy image…

Tom did not hate his mother, not the way that Reginald did, and that was the problem. Tom fought with her in his own way. When she drew him into the endless folds of her endless words, Tom found his way out, after a time. He said that he was tired, or had some schoolwork to do, or had to go to the bathroom (she would never follow him out of her room), where he would hide for half an hour or more. He tried to walk the line between his need to flee and his mother’s need to talk.

Ruth could get angry, that was the problem. If Tom struggled too hard to free himself from her web of words, she would strike out at him. These stings were deep, hurtful, and brought instant obedience from Tom. Ruth hated using them, and only allowed herself the luxury of poisoning her young if there was really no other way. If she had to either talk at Tom or go mad, then she would keep him there. And really, no one suffered like she did. She was no strict disciplinarian. Why could he not spare her a few more minutes? What was more important than helping her? What kind of child would want to squirm away from a suffering mother to play another stupid game with his stupid tin soldiers! His wandering eyes, desperate to flee, made her feel terrible. He was making her feel terrible—and what had she done to him? She was only trying to talk to him! The little heartless fiend!

And so Ruth would snarl at him. Her voice would instantly change from the insistent monotone of logorrhea to a savage, tension-whipped cry:

“You are not listening!”

And then the tears, or the turning away, and he would have to climb out of himself and wander the wasteland of his mother’s heart, in search of her lost and hidden soul.

Since Tom had gone to Oxford, he had lost his special, tortuous relationship with his mother. His parents had reunited, to some degree, based on some change which Tom did not understand, and his mother had left him in the wake of their resurrected relationship, churning in an abandoned froth. And it was not that he missed her talking, or her insistence, or her sudden questions, which snapped him out of a tense, dreamy haze… It was that it was hard for him to escape the fact—the opinion, he kept telling himself—that she had gone over to Quentin and Reginald’s side.

Tom and Ruth were the broken hearts of the household. That much had seemed clear. The sorrow of the home was the mourning ground of their mutual fusion. They gathered to mourn birds flown, brothers lost and fathers fallen away. The wild grief which sprayed from Ruth’s pores, drowning Tom’s young sapling like an unholy burning rain, was their secret connection. Her fear of war (which had something to do with his fearlessness, he knew that even as a teenager), his fear of her, their mutual hatred of Reginald and disappointed distance from Quentin—all this, Tom thought, would unite them for life.

But it was not to be. It did not turn out. When Tom went away to school, he looked for his mother’s letters every day. She did write wonderful letters, and the welling sadness which Tom felt intermittently, like an inner tide of oiled and sightless otters, rolling slowly in and out, could always be released by his mother’s words. They were manageable, in writing. He could pick them up or put them down. They made him cry, but it was good to cry.

But they did not come. Well, they did come, of course, but when they came they were, in comparison to the endless fields of words they had formerly roamed together, utterly empty. Details of Quentin’s electoral campaign. Comments on the newspaper. Books she had read, preparing to be a political wife, which she recommended. Greetings from neighbors. News of their children.

And—and weather. Tom had never known his mother to comment on weather, not once in their whole experience together. But paragraphs of details on the skies beyond her former walls. And this weather broke Tom’s heart, in secret shameful places. For he knew that she had been healed by his leaving. He fell into a depression, every time he got one of his mother’s rare letters. I have gone, and she is better, he thought, gnashing agonized teeth into a wet pillow.

And all the overeloquence of her former heart, that was all gone. She has stopped talking to me, and she is better, he thought, and had to almost wring out his pillow. I thought I was helping her, but I was hurting her. And last, most galling: Reginald was right. He was right to keep his distance. If I had kept my distance, she would have been healed years ago, and we should have a dozen more family portraits without a smiling hole where our mother should have been.

It was a pact of silence. Tom knew that. He was never to probe the end of her endless tongue. He was to accept that all garrulous castaways had been thrown overboard, without mercy, without regret, and the ship had changed course therewith. He was never to speak of this new, shiny silence.

When he was packing to go to Germany, Tom’s mind kept returning to his mother. He kept pausing as he folded, standing stock still for, sometimes, fifteen minutes at a time, thinking. So I shall not be home for Christmas, and so I have changed my habits with my family, and so I am beginning to really feel my family, for the first time. But the fact was that he really did not want to go home for Christmas. Ruth, quicksand that she was, had at least embraced him. Sometimes right to the end of his oxygen, true, but it was a holding nonetheless, and it was enough.

But now, he could go home for Christmas, and he could sit and choke on his food under the indifferent gaze of his family. He had no more secrets with his mother. There were no more alliances. Everyone had chosen their side. And no one has chosen mine, he thought, dropping a sudden tear onto his favorite jumper. It really was too close to self-pity… He tried to be stern with himself, but sagged onto the sagging bed, closing his eyes, feeling his lashes merge into oozing wetness, shaking his head slowly. What have I done that is so offensive? Oh my mother! He had never expected, not really, as far as expectations can really die within a family (sometimes Tom expected his uncles and grandfather to come back to life, or for their deaths to have been a mistake, and rescue him from his mother, his mother from herself); he had never really expected for a thawing from Reginald or his father. They spoke a language which admitted no reversals. Their tongues were dry, like little pillows, and they stroked Tom into a stupor. Their laughter was never inclusive. They always provoked tenterhooks, glances behind and a fear that loo paper was stuck to his shoe, or that his fly was undone. They found his flaws and laughed them into absurd prominence. No, there was to be no quarter from them. There was no room for his lake of tears. No room for a blubberer. He was better off upstairs with his mother, twirling each other’s hair and whining about the injustice and coldness of the bad, bad world.

“You always play the victim,” Reginald often said, which was true enough to hurt, but not true enough to help. Tom had a terrible, crippling inability to hurt others with his words. He was constantly wounded and defamed by his brother, in his early years in boarding school, before he discovered his abilities as a sportsman and rose socially. He could never say anything in return. He always felt paralyzed, helpless in the face of his brother’s rage. Reginald was impervious. He was an armored giant before Tom’s petty peashooter.

Tom used to imagine how he could hurt his brother. He was not naturally virtuous (at least not in any sense he knew then)—he really wanted to. He fantasized about it. He wanted to hit Reginald with a chair, a cricket bat, a tree. More than once. Until it would have to be a closed coffin. And he felt that destroying his brother was more important than just hurting his brother. He felt that destroying his brother would save the world. Somehow.

But it was impossible. Some of the words imagined by Tom (with Reginald’s probable responses):

-Mother doesn’t love you! (Who wants the love of that broken wreck?)

Actually, that was about it. Tom was unable to come up with anything else which he thought might get under Reginald’s skin.

Reginald, on the other hand, had a varied and effective arsenal:

-Mummy’s boy!

-Always, always playing the victim.

-You’re just embarrassing yourself.

-I pity you.

-You’re just drifting away from everyone.

-You’re obsessed with morals because you don’t trust yourself. That’s very sad.

-It might be time to consider joining the world of adults.

-You can’t hide behind mummy’s skirts forever.

-There’s a whole big world beyond your preconceptions. You really should explore it.

-You can’t be a leader until you can gain at least two people’s respect.

This was just the tip of the iceberg. Reginald also had specialized weapons for specific occasions. He was a master marksman. He fired from the hip, casually, almost without looking, and found Tom’s heart every single time. Tom would falter, dizzy with deadly, impotent rage and fear. Son of a bitch! warred with what if he’s right?

And the world did seem to fit Reginald, in a way which it would never fit Tom. Reginald’s casual nihilism, amoral pragmatism, and expert social manipulations—these would all bring him great renown in this modern world, his new world of the twentieth century. Not so much in the nineteenth century, Tom would think, wagging a mental finger, but it seemed worse than futile to say it. ‘Not if we could go back in time’ never struck him as the most wounding of rejoinders. The once or twice he had uttered a lame comeback had been moments of great, dancing joy to Reginald, who had told the story of Tom’s response to everyone they met, with great glee, for over two weeks. He stopped just short of it starting to look pathological. He was brilliant that way. He needled just enough to humiliate. Not enough to evoke sympathy for the humiliated. Unless they were in private, in which case there was no point in self-policing.

Tom had to stop packing. Not going home for Christmas was bringing on a dizzying, pressing throng of old memories. He lay back on his bed. Image after colorful image pressed against him, like aggressive flowers crowding a bee.

He fell asleep, then woke in the dark, and almost missed his flight.

Chapter 30

Tom arrived in Germany on November 30, 1932. Klaus met him at the airport in Berlin, and they drove to a small hotel right in the heart of the city. They were going to see the sights in Berlin before taking a bus out to the small town where his family lived.

Berlin was magnificent. Tom knew all about big cities, having lived in London. But London had been muted since 1929, since the crash. The soft ash of depression had fallen over its mythic energy. But Berlin was nothing like that.

Berlin was insane.

Far underneath the madness, a dim bourgeois body could still be seen. Berlin was like a senile grandfather who occasionally tells stories of a lost and dynamic history. Tom arrived at three o’clock in the afternoon, with a pack of other scratchy, yawning, vibration-dazed travelers. Klaus was waiting in the concourse; Tom found him after spending an endless time in a customs lineup.

“Destination!” the short, squat official had barked in English, after glancing at Tom’s passport.

“Berlin,” replied Tom.

“Anywhere else?”

Tom had switched to German. “I will be visiting a priest in the country. A friend of mine’s father.”

“Your accent is bad,” said the German man, glancing up. But he closed Tom’s passport and handed it back. “Welcome to Germany, Mr. Spencer.”

Klaus had hugged him extravagantly. He had graduated from Oxford in May of that year. He was taking a year off before deciding whether or not to go back for his PhD. He was very emotional. He had always been emotional, but now it seemed beyond all civilized bounds. He was in tears as he hugged Tom.

“Sweet Tom,” he cried, “it is so good to see you!”

“Steady on!” laughed Tom, attempting to extricate himself. Klaus only held him tighter. Tom shrugged mentally and grappled him back. An odd sensation possessed him. It suddenly felt as if some sort of energy were flowing from his own body into Klaus’s lean form, something warm and stable and reasonable and friendly.

He’s in a panic, thought Tom.

After a while, Klaus drew back and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. An English man would apologize for his outburst, thought Tom.

“How many bags do you have?” asked Klaus.

“Let’s speak in German,” said Tom. “I’m a little rusty.”

“All right. ‘How many bags do you haff?’” asked Klaus, in a mock-German accent.

“‘Drei,’” said Tom.

“It’s too far to the hotel; we’ll take a cab.”

“There’s something odd here,” said Tom, rocking on his heels and staring about the airport.

“What’s that?”

“No—what’s the word? No—cults?”

Klaus laughed. “Here, everything is political. We have an election in January. No self-respecting German fanatic is going to waste his breath on foreigners. There will be plenty of time for that later.”

Tom laughed, but there was something disturbing about Klaus’s words. Not the last sentence, but the phrase ‘self-respecting German fanatic’…

In the taxi, the great, mad city of Berlin was arrayed around them.

There were too many people about, too many for the languorous time of midafternoon. No, thought Tom, gazing out the window. It’s not that there are too many people about; it’s that they are all moving and arguing. The unemployed in England lounged, or sulked, or milled—and, very occasionally, marched. They did not gesticulate in doorways. Tom saw one man arguing with another, and his face was twisted in hatred, a hot, biting skull. Flecks of foam flew from his mouth. The man he was arguing with pushed him against a wall, and then the cab turned a corner, and Tom lost sight of them.

Prostitutes were everywhere. The women were ugly, with thick ankles and shapeless dresses. Tom scarcely saw a group of young men who were not marching in some vague formation, or singing, dressed in brown shirts, black shirts, or white shirts with red sashes tied to their arms. Their arms were stiff. Their faces were masks. They had the mad resolution of men who will always march after the man in front, until their shoes dissolve, even if they stream off a cliff, still singing.

The taxicab brought them through the theatre district. Half the billboards seemed to be advertising onstage nudity. The other half proclaimed their commitment to ‘radical experiments in social realism,’ and had monochrome portraits of weary-looking men and women. These pictures were either close-ups of hollow eyes, or of a line of proletariat workers walking along the horizon, various farming implements held over their sagging shoulders.

Priests argued and harangued from almost every street corner. Even through the glass, Tom could hear their phrases:

-God will not tolerate such decadence, such debauchery, such decay!

-The future of Germany cannot be built on foundations of sin!

-Enough of petty self-interest! Duty to the group is the heart of the Fatherland!

-Capitalism is Jewish materialism! Man is not good enough for Communism! The middle way is all!

-German impotence is God’s punishment for secularism!

-Down with the French Enlightenment!

-We must castrate our reason to regain our faith!

There were also Communists. Some lectured from street corners; some from balconies, some from the low roofs of small stores. Tom recognized them instantly. The British type were no different. They were all thin, feral, with pointy little beards, uncombed hair, prominent teeth, wild gesticulations, and had no compunctions about sharing their spittle. Their phrases mixed with the priests’, the vapor from their mouths puffing like little cannons:

-All power to the Soviets!

-We demand an end to the tyranny of capital!

-Germany can only be revived through collectivization!

-We must show the rest of Europe what socialism can look like!

-Individualism is dead! Long live the collective!

-Property only benefits the rich!

-Sacrifice will set us free!

-Unions will not liberate you!

-Only Communism can give you jobs!

And, there were the Nazis. When the cab stopped for a light, a swarthy man ran up to the cab, with a few other unkempt youths behind him.

“Lock your doors!” snarled the cab driver, pulling out a gun from under the seat. The group of youths swarmed around the cab, jeering and shouting slogans. (The only one which Tom could discern was ‘Carriage of the bourgeoisie,’ which he thought rather poor.) One man pressed a pink sheet of paper against the dirty window of the taxi. It was a picture of a fat, Jewish-looking man, crucified on a swastika. Above the drawing, read: Death to Capital! As the cab lurched forward, the picture jerked across the glass, smearing the dirt.

Next to him, Klaus giggled. His face was pale, nervous, excited.

“My God,” he whispered. “What excess!”

“Goddamned Communists,” muttered the cab driver. He half-turned in his seat. “Where are you at, brother?” he asked Klaus.

“I am an observer,” replied Klaus.

“No time for that anymore,” grunted the cabbie. “Take this,” he said, handing over a pamphlet. Tom began to panic. There were too many people on the road, and the cabbie was not looking ahead.

“I’ve seen this,” said Klaus, “but my friend might be interested.”

He passed it over to Tom. Tom glanced at it. It was a blood-red booklet, with the crest of Germany on the cover, and a swastika. He opened it. Klaus looked at him intensely. It read: ‘Platform of the German National Socialist Party.’

Tom flipped through the booklet. It was surprisingly professional.

“7. We demand that the State shall make it its first duty to promote the industry and livelihood of citizens.

“15. We demand extensive development of provision for old age.

“16. We demand creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, immediate communalization of department stores, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders.

“20. We demand development of the gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.

“21. The state must see to raising the standards of health in the nation.”

Tom closed the booklet and turned to Klaus. “It’s a fantasy,” he said.

Klaus grinned. “Yes, but that doesn’t make it false!”

They were sharing a room in a small hotel, one step up from a hostel. The proprietor—a man in his late fifties, overweight and red-faced—was almost obscenely obsequious. He followed them into their room, a torrent of empty speech spraying from him like cold water from a burst pipe. He referred to them only in the third person plural. “The gentlemen will no doubt wish to…” “If the gentlemen have any doubt about our sincerity in this manner…” “Arrangements can be made for said gentlemen to…”

After a few minutes of this, Tom stopped listening. (An old skill, of course.) Klaus threw himself in a ratty yellow-green armchair. He regarded the fat man with amusement, but that amusement slowly faded into contempt. Then, he yawned.

“All right,” he said, waving his hand, “you’re boring me now. Go away.”

The fat man did not stop babbling, but backed out of the room, ducking his head. Klaus got up, following him closely, and said: “yes, yes, yes”—and closed the door on the man while he was still explaining the schedule for the communal bathrooms.

“Good God!” laughed Klaus.

“I say,” said Tom in English, unpacking. “That was a bit much!”

Klaus threw himself back into the armchair, twisting a blonde forelock. “These burgomeisters never know when to shut up!”

I meant you, thought Tom, but kept quiet. They were going to be spending a lot of time together.

“Listen,” said Klaus, wallowing back in his chair. “I have to tell you a few things about Berlin, before we go traipsing around. Germany is in the throes of a World-Historical Moment, so this is no time for fucking around.”

Tom thought: He never used to swear, and also: I haven’t heard Capital Speech in a while…

“First, and most important,” said Klaus, “don’t, for the love of heaven, get involved in any discussions. You will be accosted three times a minute. Just nod, take their pamphlets and shout: ‘Down with whatever you dislike,’ or speak English. We like the English. Empire builders. Good model.

“Second, if anyone hits you, just take it and keep walking. These boys are all itching for a fight. Especially university men.”

“Really?”

“Yes. There are a lot of them. They’re all in gangs.”

Tom laughed. “What do they do? Give you paper cuts with their manifestos?”

“I’m telling you,” said Klaus. “Don’t fuck around. Germany is by far the best-educated country in the world at the moment. The gangs with degrees are the most dangerous. They go all the way. They are uber-committed. Give them a wide berth. Don’t wear expensive clothes.”

“No fear of that,” said Tom, putting his worn clothes away in a low, stained dresser.

“Women will grab you on the street…”

“Well, that’s nothing new,” said Tom, to hide his growing apprehension.

“We have ten million unemployed. Women are desperate. But it’s important to remember: if you want it, you don’t have to pay for it.”

“I’ve never really thought otherwise.”

Klaus smiled. “They’re just desperate, and depressed. It’s a dry well, but a bottomless one.”

“Well, we share a room…”

“Oh Lord!” laughed Klaus. “I don’t go in for any of that anymore! That was for seventeen.”

“Hm,” said Tom. “Anything else?”

“Well, storekeepers will grab your arm. Especially if you look like a tourist. It’s very Jewish. Just push them away. Don’t restrain yourselves. If you touch a Communist, a pack of them will jump you and break you up.” Klaus smiled. “No one comes to the defense of the shopkeepers.

“Also, there’s the donation business. Do you have any small change?”

Tom shook his head. “I changed my money before coming.”

Klaus nodded slowly. “All right. I’ll go downstairs and get you change. You can’t walk around without pfennigs. Men will want you to donate to their cause. They are rather trigger-happy. Do you know the German word for ‘proletariat’?”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Come on—I studied German at Oxford!”

“Just throw them a pfennig or two and say ‘proletariat’ over and over. That usually gets you away.”

“Anything else?”

Klaus smiled, his eyes glittering. “Look, you are a rather punchy Anglo-Saxon, so I know you’ll only take a little of this advice. But for God’s sake don’t fight back, no matter what. Everyone under thirty who is in the streets during the day is just itching for a fight. And they don’t care about rules. If you get into a fight, watch your balls. Go for the eyes. Get it over with quickly. Don’t fuck around.”

Tom shivered. Suddenly, he missed his little room, his naps, his books and long reveries. What the hell am I doing here? He thought of his family, sitting down for Christmas, a month hence, and thought that he would be stung with emotion. But he wasn’t. This place, while very passionate, was not conducive to his kind of feeling.

“So—what’s on the agenda?”

“Well, some of my stuff, and some of your stuff. I have to go to a few meetings. Well—I don’t ‘have’ to, but I want to. Everything we read about at Oxford is happening right here. But I think you’ll find it interesting. The second thing is that I have to go get my pilot’s license. We’ll do that at the end of next week. It’s at a little airfield about an hour out of town. Then we go to my father’s place.”

“Sure.”

“As for your stuff, we’ll go and watch the death throes of Parliament…”

“That sounds appealing.”

“Oh, it’s not like the British Parliament. It’s just this weird abortion foisted on Germany in 1919. We have the most ridiculous, mongrel constitution. It might not end in January’s election, but probably, probably…” Klaus trailed off, his eyes seeming to lose their focus. “So, we’ll go watch a few debates.”

“Great.”

“And we have to see some art. Art is, actually, the main reason why we’re here.”

Tom smiled. “You mean, on the planet, or in Berlin?”

“I’m not going to say ‘both,’ because that’s just too glib for my palate. But everything will be answered in January. All the artists will die then. Creatively. We have to see things now, right on the edge of the precipice. That’s when everyone is the most naked. Screams the loudest.” Klaus’s mouth loosened. “And it’s dirt cheap during the day. Subsidized by the state. For students, the unemployed.”

“Good.”

“We’ll look at the cathedrals, of course. The museums. Anything else you want.”

There was a short pause. Tom sat down on the edge of the bed. His eyes were only about four feet from Klaus’s face.

“Klaus,” he said softly.

“Yes, Tom?”

“I have two little questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Shoot.”

“First of all, what did you mean when you said, about the shopkeepers grabbing people, ‘it’s very Jewish’?”

Klaus smiled. “I was wondering if that would offend your English sensibilities. Look, to put your mind at ease, let me say that I have nothing against the Jews per se. It’s a German phrase. It has—it doesn’t have much to do with Judaism. It’s about materialism, or grasping selfishness, or obsessing about yourself, or your own little tribe, instead of the good of the nation. If someone profits from general misery, they’re said to have ‘Jewed’ the Germans. But it’s more of a description of behavior. German Catholics can ‘Jew’ the Jews.”

“So why call it ‘Jewish’?”

“Well, it’s a Jewish trait,” said Klaus serenely. “Not exclusively Jewish, of course. A Jewish man can be a good man. An honorable man. But he has to give up certain aspects of his religion.” Klaus leaned forward, crossing his legs under his body. “In Christianity, for instance, the commandment is: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ In Judaism, the belief is: ‘If you get cheated, it is your own damn fault.’”

Tom stared at Klaus.

“So there are moral differences between Jews and Christians, which is the source of endless conflict. Endless problems. And we can see from the Middle East that it is almost impossible for opposing religious groups to live in harmony. Eventually, all but one of them has to go.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Tom.

“Nothing radical. Either we will convert them, or they will convert us. I respect the contributions of the Jews to abstract thought. Marx, Freud, Einstein, Spinoza, von Mises. All very progressive. All very modern. All morally empty. All just—abstractions. But that is not what calls to the German soul. That is not what sets our blood to pumping. We are a myth-based race. Wagner knows that. We will always choose a demanding ideal over a dry abstraction. We live passionately. We don’t like to analyze our emotions.”

“Hm,” said Tom. “I can understand being against a Jew because he is a criminal, or a terrorist. But to be against a man because of an accident of birth? That is not rational.”

“No one said it was rational. We’ve gone beyond the desert of the syllogism. But I’m not arguing that Jews themselves are bad. Just that—certain types of thought are bad. Those thoughts may be a little more concentrated in the Jewish community. We dislike selfish individualism, or those who put their own tribe above the national good. Maybe five percent more Jews are like that than the general population. But that’s enough. I mean, if there were no negative characteristics common to the Jewish community, then why would the word be used as a pejorative? Sometimes,” smiled Klaus, “you have to work from the conception backwards.”

“All right,” said Tom, thinking: I can probably live with this, if we stay away from the topic…

“What was the other question?”

“It’s less—thorny. What’s this about being a pilot?”

Klaus’s face suddenly dropped its cynical mask. He rubbed his cheeks violently, bringing a flush which looked like a cross between being chilled and embarrassed.

“Oh, Tom!” he cried in joy (allowing Tom to remember what he liked about Klaus), “It’s the most wonderful thing in the world. I always loved my flights to England. I got to know the pilot. He explained everything. It’s just like driving a car that can go up. All right—parking is slightly more complicated. But there are no roundabouts. And such freedom. You have never known anything like it. You are a mile tall! You can be upside down in a heartbeat! And above the clouds—it is like a world of blue above a land of snow. It almost feels like I’m crashing when I flow down into a cloud. I love it to death!”

Tom smiled. “You’ll have to take me up.”

“I’d love to. I’ve been training for the last month—that’s why I am in Berlin. I go out every day. I love the old Junkers-Larsen JL-12 monoplane. I’m almost ready for my solo, which is in two weeks.”

“Um—do you have to go every day now?” asked Tom, picturing wandering the wild streets of Berlin alone.

“No—I took two weeks off. I’ll need to do a bit of studying every day, just to stay fresh. And we’ll be at the airport for two days. I want to practice before my solo.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll do fine. Congratulations in advance.”

“Thanks,” said Klaus, jumping up. “But enough of this. You did not come to Berlin to stare at the walls of a cheap hotel. Let us go and see the sights!”

So, they went to see the sights, and this is what they saw:

Packs of young men roamed the streets. There was a confusing array of shirt colors; red, white, black, brown. Klaus pointed out the various groups—the Communists, Fascists, Nazis, Social Democrats—and described the various alliances and hatreds between them.

“Earlier this year, Hitler seemed to be on his way out, so there was this huge tide of men from the Nazis to the Communists. Now, he’s doing better, so they’re all coming back—with more behind them. They’ve actually joined forces. You see that group over there? Both Communists and Nazis. They’re collecting—I can’t read it from here, but I assume that they’re collecting money in support of the striking public transportation workers. The Soviet Comintern has told all the communist leaders to attack the trade unions, and forget about the Nazis. Moscow considers the trade union leaders to be the real traitors, because they want to better the working man’s lot under capitalism, which they think is impossible, of course. That will all change when we get closer to an election. Then they fight like dogs. But really, there’s not much difference between the Communists and Nazis. A Nazi is like a beefsteak: brown on the outside, red on the inside. Same difference. The Communists agree that the Republic has to be destroyed, after which they destroy the Nazis. It’s the dialectic. The Republic is the thesis; Nazism the antithesis; communism the synthesis.”

Tom frowned. “How is communism the synthesis between a Republic and Nazism?”

Klaus laughed gaily. “Heavens, Tom! You’re in Germany now. You’ll have to leave all that analytic British empiricism behind!” Tom did not respond. Klaus sighed, and said, with a smile: “It is the synthesis because it is believed to be the synthesis. What is happening now is that the capitalist powers that be are fighting a political war against the Nazis and Communists. The capitalists want to hold onto their power; they give the government money, and the government gives them grants, favors, and preferential trade policies. But it’s not working. Since for over two years the government has been trying to jump-start the economy. Tariffs, unemployment insurance premiums, and taxes have been raised; they’ve poured money into public works; restricted foreign exchange, and now all the youngsters have this lovely, time-consuming, twenty-month ‘voluntary labor service.’ They’ve mostly socialized the banks, cartels—even the labor unions. Private property is almost gone. The profit motive is no more. It’s all been very heady. But everything still keeps getting worse. That’s why people are panicking. All this government control is failing. So they’re getting sick and tired of the endless uncertainty.”

“And?”

“And, well people are focussing more on—letting go.”

“Letting go?”

“I mean—turning things over.”

“To the state.”

“Well, nothing has worked, not really, for twenty years. Do you know, I remember, being a kid and having to run from doorway to doorway in 1923, because people were just taking to the rooftops and shooting at anyone they saw?”

“During the Great Inflation?”

Klaus nodded. “My father’s savings, all of them, were in a fixed-interest mutual bond. It matured in January of 1923. When he cashed it in, he had just enough to buy a cup of coffee. No tip. Of course, for him it was a punishment from God. Something to do with greed and usury. Very sad.” Klaus shrugged. “So we recovered from that, somehow, and then the crash of 1929. Now, three years later, things just keep getting worse. We have ten million unemployed. Ten million. Young men who can’t get married, can’t have sex… What are they going to do? They see all this half-hearted meddling with the economy isn’t working. They’re getting impatient. They want action, results, change now. I think, as a whole, they’ve been very patient. They see all these rich Junkers, fat men in waistcoats, and they want some of the action. And every gang, every special interest group, is hanging off the neck of the state. The taxpayers. Capitalists versus shop owners. Unions versus capitalists. Farmers versus city dwellers. Importers versus domestic producers. Lower classes versus upper classes. Creditors versus debtors. This Republic of ours stopped working a long time ago. If it ever even did work. It’s just a war of all against all. The government can’t please everyone, so it borrows. Our crash came about because the Yanks called in their loans when their stock markets fell. People are tired of it all. They just want jobs, homes, peace and quiet. Liberty doesn’t work. Enough. Enough…”

“Hm,” said Tom, glancing at his friend. He couldn’t tell where Klaus’s dry, almost sociological tone, had gone. His narrative seemed very personal, all of a sudden. Tom wondered if Klaus was employed.

“So,” continued Klaus, “almost all the university students are Nazis. More than half of them card-carrying. In March, in the vote for President, Hitler got more than eleven million votes. In July, in the Reichstag votes, he got twice the votes he got in 1930. The Nazis are now the largest party.”

“What was the percentage against?”

“Against the Nazis?”

“Yes.”

“Almost sixty-four…” said Klaus. Tom tried not to hear any regret in Klaus’s voice. “But the Communists mostly vote with the Nazis, so it’s not as big as it seems. And besides, the Nationalists, the biggest party before, are in league with Hitler. My father and I argue about this all the time. It’s one reason why you and I are here rather than in Königsberg. The centrists are trying to use Hitler’s mass appeal to keep their own power. But they have nothing to offer. They just want to stay in government. Von Papen got on the radio and said that we’ve got to stop arguing about ‘socialism versus capitalism.’ Fine, we say. What are your solutions? The Nazis, whatever one thinks of them, have solutions. They know where they want to go. Where we should all go. Democracy has no convictions. Nothing to stir our blood. Nothing we would be willing to lay our lives down for.”

“Are you back in university?” asked Tom, turning away from the sight of Klaus’s face. “I mean, what are you going to do next year?”

“I don’t think there will be universities next year,” said Klaus simply.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re too violent, right now, even for… They beat up professors they disagree with. The government does nothing. No one believes in freedom of thought.” Klaus raised a mocking fist. “‘Everything for the revolution!’ I can’t really learn anything there.”

“So—come back to England.”

Klaus nodded slowly, his eyes glazed. A great lassitude seemed to be folding over something terrible in his soul. “But—this is my homeland. This is… The world is changing right here, over the next year, everything will be… I can’t not be here. I am a witness, and in my witnessing, I might have an effect.”

“These Nazis—what if they get into power?”

Klaus shrugged. “That will just be the next thing for Germany. The next stage. I mean, it wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t supposed to…”

Tom smiled tightly. He had been involved in enough arguments with Klaus before, as an undergraduate, about the ‘best of all possible worlds’ to have any optimism about uprooting it now.

“I mean,” continued Klaus, “all these passions have to come from something—authentic. Something real. April, they ban the stormtroopers and Hitler’s personal army. June, they make them legal again, after a deal between Hitler and Von Papen. Wave upon wave of political murders. Madness in the streets. So in August, they make political murder a capital crime. That night, a Nazi gang kicks a Silesian communist to death. Leave with his larynx. They’re arrested. Hitler threatens and demonstrates. They are not put to death. Who can fight for such milksops? These kind of diseased, futile old men should not be allowed to survive. It would be indecent.”

“Klaus,” said Tom, his voice shaking. “Are you a Nazi?”

Klaus smiled. “Yes, no, yes, no… Ah, you English! Who can answer such a question? I like, I don’t like. Some good, some bad. Some understanding, some recoiling. I am an observer.”

“And if there was a ballot in front of you, right now, who do you check off?”

“Oh really, Tom!” cried Klaus. “I think that I am just a bit too subtle for that kind of democratic horse race.”

Goddamn it, thought Tom, but he’s an oiled devil when pressed.

“I don’t like violence,” said Klaus, “but I understand frustration. The question is not: ‘What have they done?’ but rather: ‘Why have they done it?’ Root causes are final answers. The Nazis are expressing something in this country. What? Are we all just bad people? Toilet trained too harshly? Itching to rape our mothers and castrate our fathers? This is a spontaneous explosion of something—something unconscious. It is very powerful, very deep. We can only understand a little of it intellectually. It is something which must be grasped with the heart. It cannot be held in the head. Everyone is just—reacting to each other. No one is striving to understand. What do the Nazis want? Or, rather, how did they end up in a position where their desires are even important? Eleven million Germans voted for them. Were they trying to say something to the people in power? Maybe no one had listened to them, so they turned radical in a desperate desire to be heard. ‘Ahah!’ said the government, ‘well we cannot listen to you if you take such a path!’ But of course they took such a path because they weren’t being listened to! So, no one steps back from the line, and now, perhaps it is too late. Pride is the great enemy of human relations, Tom. If we only understood each other, we should all be brothers…”

Klaus’s voice trailed off, and Tom had the idea that he was continuing his conversation in his own mind. His use of the word ‘brothers’ suddenly brought Reginald’s face to mind. This is my brother’s best friend, he thought, feeling a little dizzy, and my brother wants a job in the Foreign Office…

That night, they went to see a play called Islington. They sat in the back. The audience was very noisy. There wasn’t much to hear onstage.

A man came out in a tight, motley chessboard outfit. His hair was lacquered back, his face was heavily rouged. He had an air of sniggering insolence. He bowed in an exaggerated manner to the audience, and said, in a thin, high, sneering voice:

“Gentle friends, it is with a heavy heart that I approach you this evening. We had planned on giving you a play, but find instead that we must give an explanation.

“It is heard in the conservative” (and here the man pretended to spit to one side) “press that our offerings are decadent and incomprehensible.

“We find this most distressing. We have never aimed to be incomprehensible. True, we have aimed at something slightly higher than simple bourgeois drama. But we have also escaped the Communists. Neither the kitchen sink nor the drawing room are for us. We have deigned to be explorers, and invited some of our good friends along for the ride. We do not claim to have all the answers, but that should scarcely be offensive to the conservatives, who cannot claim to have any of them!”

There were some catcalls and jeers, and the thin man leaned back, pretending to stroke an imaginary mustache.

“Thus, boys and girls, we have decided to provide a running commentary on our little piece tonight. Now I do not for a mooo-ment believe that there are any conservatives in our pretty crowd tonight—I see no bloated waists or narrow viewpoints—but it might come to pass, my lovelies, that you shall have to describe what you saw tonight to your parents—or friends of your parents—and all that I ask is that you are gentle with what your eyes have beheld, and make sure to bury the bodies properly!” The man winked, and then ran to the back of the stage and retrieved a tall, slender bar stool with a tan cushion. He leapt up on the stool like a spider, and sat on it like a gargoyle.

“Now,” he said, “the first thing we do is lower the lights, to allow the audience entrance to our world, and to hide any blowjobs being performed in the back row.

“The next thing is that we must present an opening motif.” A man came wandering out, dressed in the ragged clothes of a tramp. “Now this man is our first metaphor. Does he represent the Republic? Why no, of course not. If he represented the Republic, he would be in a top hat, and we would be in rags. Does he represent the Depression? No—you can see,” said the man, leaping off the stool and approaching the tramp. He lifted the tramp’s lifeless arm, and let it drop. “He is quite lifeless, and thus cannot represent the Depression. If he were to represent the Depression, he would have to be armed.” The thin man pulled a gun from behind him and handed it to the ragged man. "Now, perhaps, he represents the Depression. Does he represent capitalism?” Here the man pointed his gun at the audience. “Or, does he represent the anti-intellectualism of the honest and hearty German peasant?” The ragged man turned and pointed his gun at the thin man, who laughed nervously and shook his head. “No, let’s not have him represent that!” He reached up and tried to push the gun away, but it kept returning to point at him, each time. “Let’s have him represent the toiling masses? The world-spirit? The hopes of the Lutherans? The poverty of the human condition?”

The ragged man started advancing on the thin man, who ran around the stage, shouting out various metaphorical possibilities. Finally, the ragged man grappled the thin man to the stage and sat on his chest. The thin man wailed in terror as the gun turned towards him. “No! No!” he screamed. “I—I must demand that you represent the Republic after all!”

The ragged man stared at him, then shrugged, shouted out: “i hate you, father!” and shot himself in the temple.

The lights went dark.

There was a short pause. Then the thin man’s voice said, softly.

“Is that long enough? That was so the man in the back row could come.”

Another pause. A chorus of sexual groans from the men in the back row.

“Excellent,” said the thin man’s voice. There was the sound of a finger snap. The lights came on, glaringly.

The thin man stood up. The ragged man was gone.

He said: “You see, we are now out of the realm of metaphor. Because if I were still to be within the realm of metaphor, I should say that getting the Republic to kill itself is a wonderful thing, because then there’s no body to dispose of.” He smiled. “All right—now I am outside the realm of metaphor. Really. Except this thing is itchy,” he said, reaching up and tearing off his wig. He had a crude swastika on his bald head. “And this is only symbolic,” he said, using the wig to wipe away the swastika. “Now we are done,” he said, “purely out of the realm of metaphor. Except…” He reached down and pulled open his own top. A pair of half-crushed breasts popped out. A woman’s voice came from the performer, in relief, as she massaged them. “Those were really getting crushed. And now you know that when the ragged man screamed ‘i hate you, father,’ he could not have been referring to me. Unless he thought that his father was a woman.”

The woman smiled. She lifted her fake breasts out of her open top and started juggling them.

The lights went dark.

The play gave Tom a headache. Lights kept going on and off. The thin woman (man?) changed sexes, roles, accents and was in and out of the action in a most confusing manner. The audience roared in good humor, seeming to be in on some sort of joke which his British brain could not fathom.

Twice, Tom truly believed that the play was over. He applauded, and then found that the thin woman started applauding back. He stopped, and the woman cried out that his applause had been wonderful, and incited the audience to start applauding Tom. And then, Tom thought that the play was over, because the lights had been on for ten minutes, and everyone was getting their coats. But it wasn’t. The lights went off again.

It was easier when the play was truly over, because everyone onstage was naked, and applauded the audience with fake hands tied to their knees, breasts and testicles wobbling.

Tom and Klaus went out with a group of other young men and women, some of whom Klaus knew well. There seemed to be some sort of running gag about whether Klaus was gay or not. The odds were openly discussed.

“Look at this,” cried a heavyset woman, counting down her raised fingers. “He keeps his room spotless…”

“Count that fucking finger back up, slut!” said a red-haired woman. “He’s the son of a goddamned Lutheran!”

“Half, then. He’s been to England.”

“Yeah!” sneered a fat man, “boarding school in England. I’m sure that straightened him out!”

“Limp handshake…” said the woman, counting down another finger.

“Could be from hetero masturbation!” protested the red-haired woman.

“He’s got the waist of an Olympic gymnast,” said the first woman. “And not the male kind. He never dates.”

“Have you noticed that German women are getting less and less attractive?”

A sallow-faced man made a two-finger mustache, thrust out his hand and imitated an Austrian accent. “In the Reich!” he shouted, “every woman will haff a husband!”

“Shut the fuck up!” hissed the red-haired woman, grabbing the man’s arm and pulling it down. He treated it as a game, and kept it up, shouting, “In the Reich, there will be no spinsters! All ugly women will be fucked, if I have to do the dirty job myself!”

There was a sudden silence. It seemed almost absurdly melodramatic, and Klaus giggled. A group of three men stood in front of the table. They wore black shirts.

“Something funny about the Führer, friends?” asked one of them, a chisel-faced youth with a missing earlobe. His tone was not friendly.

“Heil, Huns,” said the sallow-faced man. He stared at the men, then took one of the fingers he was using to make a mustache and stuck it up his nose.

The three SS men laughed. The laughter went on and on. Tom edged back from the table. Great fucking town, Berlin. He did not like this laughter. It was the laugh of a sadist with privacy, instruments, soundproofing, a victim, and lots of time to kill.

“Klaus,” he whispered. “Move away.”

The first SS man turned to one of his comrades, laughing uproariously. “He is picking his nose with the Führer! Did you see that? Staggering!”

“Does he wipe his ass with Mussolini?” asked the other man.

The third one frowned and leaned toward the first. “We like Mussolini right now, right?” he whispered.

Tom slunk back, out of view, then got out of his chair and went to the bar. The barman, a fat (although so many Germans were fat that Tom found that he had to be constantly re-calibrating), bald man, came up to him.

“Nazis,” said Tom, his eyes wide. The barman leaned in, breathing through, it seemed, only one working nostril.

“Thanks, comrade,” he said, winking. Tom glanced past him, and saw a framed picture of Lenin hanging over the bar.

The barman rang a bell, pointed, and half a dozen youths sprang up from the bar and threw themselves on the SS men. Tom saw the yellow flash of brass knuckles. The barman pulled a baseball bat from over the hanging glasses and gave it to Tom.

“Go to it, boy!” he wheezed.

A piercing whistle cut through the shouting melee. A spray of blood rose in the air. Tom was reminded of a time when he had trodden on a paintbrush resting in a can. Same arc, same droplets.

And then—then he saw Klaus.

Well, he didn’t really see Klaus. He recognized Klaus through his friend’s mask of hatred, of ferocity. He had taken the glass pitcher of beer and was thudding it down on the head of the lead SS man. Blood and hair mixed with the froth of beer.

“Goddamn it!” cried a man, grabbing the bat from Tom’s hands and beating his way through to the fight.

The whistle sounded out again. The door burst open, and a stream of black- and brown-shirted SA and SS men came running into the bar. One was so tall that, as he ran in, his head slammed into a low ceiling beam, and he dropped like a bag of wet cement, seeming to have knocked himself out. Tom almost laughed, then he saw that Klaus was leaning back, over his prey, his lips loose in predatory exultation, his eyes closed in a kind of unholy ecstasy.

Scraps of singing rang out through the battling crowds. Tom clawed his way through the bodies—the memory of his day in the London street with Klaus and Reginald was clear, strong—and grabbed Klaus, who was now looking down at his foamy, bloody hands in horror.

“My hands have gone rabid,” he said, holding them up to a feral-faced SS man.

Tom saw the SS man draw his hand back, and caught the diamond gleam of a blade. He grabbed Klaus’s jacket and pulled him away.

Dragging Klaus back through the crowd, his head down and shoulders hunched, Tom felt icy terror as something sharp jabbed into his side. He shifted his grip to the middle of Klaus’s collar, feeling his own side, half-expecting to feel the sloppy sausages of his own intestines hanging out. But it was just a piece of broken plate, jammed under warring bodies.

The barman was roaring and hurling beer bottles—rather senselessly, Tom thought, given the complexity of the melee. Tom wrestled Klaus around behind the bar. Klaus’s eyes seemed to be clear.

“Called me a goddamned choirboy!” he snarled, then his eyes widened. “Tom—Tom, how do they know?”

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes,” said Klaus, feeling his own torso. “I’m thirsty.”

“You should see the other guy,” said Tom, suddenly wanting to laugh again.

“I hope he’s all right,” said Klaus.

“I’m sure he’s… Listen—do the police ever come?”

Klaus cocked his head. “What?”

“Do the… Are the police coming?” shouted Tom.

“No, not really. Not here.”

“So what do you do?”

“Haven’t been in town in a while. I was with my father. Wait until it dies down.”

“What if the Nazis win?”

“What?”

“What if the Nazis win?”

Klaus shrugged. “Then we’re Nazis.”

Just as he said this, there were two gunshots, sharp and clear. Something wet poured on Tom’s back, and he prayed that it wasn’t… But it poured on and on, and he realized it couldn’t be blood, not that much. Although some of these Germans are very fat, he thought, and then thought that he should stop obsessing about their weight, at least for a little while.

From his vantage point, Tom could see some men running out the door, Nazis and Communists, doing little gymnastic leaps and whooping. They did not seem overly concerned with their fallen comrades.

Gingerly, slowly, Tom got up. Klaus’s hand was clutched to his trouser leg, and Tom disengaged it absently, peering over the bar.

All the energy of the fight seemed to have gone out of the room. Groans, coughing, shifting bodies. A brief song, a flailing arm, a curse. It was quite dark. Many lights had been broken.

“Do you want to check on your friends?” asked Tom, looking down at Klaus. He heard a noise to his side. He turned his face. The fat barman glared at him in infinite Teutonic contempt.

“Fucking coward!” he snarled.

A huge fist appeared. Tom disappeared.

Chapter 31

Wendy wanted a baby, and this was a terrifying thing.

Wendy had never really thought of babies. Her vagina was one way. She never had any pets. She did not care to hold puppies. She was not sentimental.

Due to his status as a married student, Reginald had managed to get a small flat in the graduate students’ building. He and Wendy had moved in together, and there was much sex. There was sex and missed classes, missed deadlines, missed food. There was sex and hiding under little tents of blankets. There was sex and groaning jokes about re-rising penises.

Reginald was erased by sex. Wendy was not. Wendy knew how to manage desire. Reginald lost himself in his orgasms, her flesh, the darkness, the mix of slapping sweat. He pinched his thighs, feeling the need to restore some kind of circulation. He tasted her vagina over lunch. Her essence mixed with his food, and he lost himself.

He lost his friends. He lost his family. He was only for Wendy, and everything was perfect, and beautiful. He told her things about himself. He wept. He grieved. He curled into a fetal position, like a wet worm under hard rain. He begged her forgiveness for things long lost, long past. He felt joy for the first time in his life. He probed his joy, like a child’s hand explores a dark hole. He thought that he would get lost in it, that it would close behind him and trap him in wet airlessness. He went in, and came out quickly, dizzy, half-blinded.

He could not think. He felt lost to daydreams. He felt sudden rage at Ruth, Tom—at everyone who had, surely for selfish reasons of their own, denied him this pleasure beforehand. He thanked God for his running; thanked Him with clasped hands and teary eyes. For if I had not been running, this angel might never have seen me, from that broken balcony.

He was strangely uncurious about his wife. Every time she told him something surprising, he replied that he had expected it, or knew it already. He loved the idea that he knew everything about her. It made her more beautiful, their union more perfect.

His schoolwork slipped. His thesis advisor smiled, and warned him that ‘honeymoon’ was two words; you start with sweet, and end with depression. There was a good reason for that, but it seemed cruel to say it, to puncture such bursting ecstasy.

As the weeks wore on, Reginald began to wear out. He became snappish. He became terrified that he was going to lose everything; his wife, his career, his soul. All commitments terrified him. He stopped sleeping. He would stare at Wendy, asleep beside him, and feel anger:

You want to take away everything that I am. It is a kind of witchery. You will not rest until you have consumed me entire. Until nothing is left. Less than nothing. Just what you want. Nothing of me. And you sleep, so innocent, knowing nothing of what you are up to…

And he would be in tears, and he would rub his face, too hard, leaving red welts from his wedding band. He felt that she did not understand him, but merely placated and manipulated him.

He would recognize the irrationality of these thoughts, and waged a pitched, terrible battle against his fears and rages. He reasoned with them, pleaded with them, begged them not to take away his love. But they came back, like bees in an endless dream. He could not fight them, or run, or accept them.

He became more than tense. He became cold glass. A fragile toy tossed between teasing children. He tried to stroke and soothe himself, with shaking hands.

But I have not changed, he thought, struggling madly to understand, to stave off… I have not changed, but everything I feel is changing… He felt that he was sliding down a snowy cliff, losing fingernails, fingers… What is happening to me? What the hell are you doing to me, Wendy? Why do you never speak of your past? Why do you take so long to respond to questions? Why have you stopped asking me about myself? Why am I doing all the work, coming up with conversations, bridging all possible gaps in understanding? Why do you sit there and work on your goddamned cuticles while I wait in agony for a taut and closing devil? Why can you not see me for what I am? I have never lied to you, but you remain unable to see the truth. Why have you lost interest in me, so quickly, so completely, so soon? What am I here for? What are you doing here? What sick joke keeps placing us in the same room, at the same time, forever more? When we chose each other, what did we know? We knew only what we wanted. It was all fantasy. But I want the truth. I want the truth, and you just sit there doing your fucking nails!

How strange it was to be sitting there, his hands clenched, his heart pounding, while a clock ticked slowly and Wendy’s pucker swung from side to side as she filed her nails. Reginald felt a tension that was close to going mad. I shall end up in a little room, like my mother, and Tom will come and mop my brow and I shall weep, and clutch him… ugh! he cried out, in the prison of his thoughts.

He could not sit still anymore. He almost jumped up.

“What, dear?” smiled Wendy. “Sit on a pin?”

Reginald stared at her. Can she not see the rage? he wondered. He did not know which was more terrifying: that she did not see the rage, or that she saw it but smiled anyway. Either way…

“I’m going out,” he said, wanting to punish her.

“It’s…” Wendy glanced at the clock. “A quarter of eleven.”

Why does she say ‘a quarter of’? he demanded of himself. A quarter of eleven is less than three! Say, like every other sane human being on the planet: ‘Quarter to eleven!’ ‘Quarter To!’ ‘Quarter To!’

Something of this raging chorus passed between them. At last! She glanced down, a tiny hinting scowl knitting at her features. “You are in an odd mood.”

“Odd,” he said, smiling tightly.

There was a pause. “So, if you’re going to go, go,” said Wendy.

She does not care if I go, or if I stay! Now who is punishing whom? Reginald whirled on his feet and stalked towards the door.

“Reginald Spencer!” she cried suddenly, her voice taut.

She cares! he thought, in little triumph, pausing at the door.

“If you are going to storm out of here for reasons of your own,” said Wendy, “you are free to do so. But at least be civil enough to wish me good night.”

In his chest, talons seemed to be tearing at his ribcage, at his hammering heart. Reginald wished that they would either withdraw or find their final mark. But he could say nothing. Nothing except: “Good night.”

He dressed quickly, feeling that his wife was staring at him in scorn, through the very floor. He wants to go, he imagined her thinking scornfully, but still he dawdles, trying to make some obscure point. As he buttoned his waistcoat, Reginald thought of a short article he had seen in Punch, something about storming out of a fight with your wife, but leaving your pipe behind, on the mantelpiece, and what you could do. The final picture, of a man standing hesitantly outside the door, pausing for futile effect, drove him almost mad, and he broke a button. He cursed viciously, under his breath, wishing he were a thousand miles away, hacking at vines in a Burmese jungle.

As he went downstairs, Reginald wondered how to pass his wife on the way out. The hallway went past the living room, where she still sat. Probably working on her toenails now, to make some obscure point I’m sure… If I pass by without greeting her, I shall be chastised. But if I greet her, she will return the greeting in such a lackluster and critical manner that I shall be struck down in my steps. I could nod—yes, that’s it. I could nod, and say, later, if she says I did not greet her, that I nodded, and thought that she saw I nodded. And she will have no proof. No proof, but only suspicion.

But, as he passed by the living room, and prepared to nod, Reginald saw that the chair she had been sitting in was empty, and he felt a sudden, awful stab of abandonment. And more rage, of course.

He walked for a few minutes. The air was cool; there were sodden leaves underfoot. A low fog softened the treetops, scaling up the branches in a fading haze. It was like looking at night after swimming in a public pool. Beamed shadows cut through the trees as he passed under the street lamps. There were very few people about. Reginald had always loved the clack of his heels against pavement as he walked. It seemed to make the swing of his hips imperious, commanding. I stride the world! he thought. He imagined how he looked, striding along, and swung his umbrella jauntily. Young man marching forth to great things! He imagined his image, but could only picture it as an advertisement; two-dimensional, monochromatic. He could not lift himself out of the flatness.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, he had calmed down quite a bit. He checked his pockets for money, nervously. If I find none, I shall rail against the universe, for I shall not allow it to thwart me at every—single!—turn!

But he found a note, and walked to a streetlight, to check the denomination. Ten pounds! he thought in triumph, and imagined the devils in his heart conferring in confused disappointment: Who was supposed to misplace the tenner? There would be much beating…

After walking for about fifteen more minutes, Reginald wandered over to the student pub. They would be closing in about forty-five minutes. Reginald hated arriving anywhere alone. He wanted to explain to everyone who saw him come in, who saw him sitting alone, that he had many friends, but they were all busy at that time, or that he really liked his own company, and had come for a quiet drink, to think over something important. Or that he had just come from a date. No, he was married now. He clutched at his finger, feeling the hard band, how inflexible it was, compared with the soft underbelly of his finger. No, you are married now, Reggie-boy. Now, when you come for a drink, everyone knows you have had a fight with your wife.

Reginald scowled. How dare people imagine that they know anything about me? How dare people jump to conclusions about my life, my motivations, my purpose? Goddamned insolence! His teeth were almost grinding together when he opened the wooden door to the student pub.

It was a place which seemed to be perpetually smoky. All colors were faded. The signs advertising beer only appeared colorless through the blue-gray air. An old and ragged Union Jack, from some eighteenth-century ship manned by Oxford men, hung on the wall. (Everyone at Oxford hated the Duke of Wellington’s statement that the Battle of Waterloo had been won on the playing fields of Eton. They had endless statistics proving that many more Oxford men had given their lives for King and Country than those civil-servant pansies out at Eton. Their argument was that Etonians generally fought the natives of the Empire—scarcely a challenging business—and that Oxford men took on the greater challenges of European and Slavic armies.)

Reginald walked towards the bar. He was weighing an option. Should I order a pitcher and two glasses? That way, anyone coming in will think that I am drinking with a friend who is either in the toilet, or had to leave suddenly. But that will mean that people who stay for the whole course of the next forty-five minutes will think that I believe I have an imaginary friend. ‘It’s all right—he’s driving,’ they’ll imagine me slurring, waving at an empty chair. Reginald shuddered. That was no good. He ordered a half-pint of lager. That way people will know that I am not planning on staying long, that I had a slight desire for a wee snort. He liked lime and lager, but only had the courage to ask for it occasionally, if he were sitting with a woman. It was a girly drink. (Shandy was out of the question, at least until he had teenage children.)

Reginald took his drink to one of the tables. He didn’t like how he felt the same size, in relation to the table, as when he had first arrived at Oxford. There ought to be a separate pub for graduate students, he thought. It’s not enough to just have separate residences. That’s not obvious here. As a recompense, he assumed his world-weary, cynical, and slightly amused ‘graduate-school’ expression. He smiled at a table of undergraduates, with their silly drinking games, and hoped that someone—anyone—would notice how wistful and wise he looked.

“Reginald?” boomed a voice. “What’s an old married man doing at a student pub, eh? Had a fight with the wife?”

Reginald turned, and saw Frederic Eggerton, who was a tall, wide man of twenty-eight, with a most illustrious line behind him, and a staggering future ahead of him.

Frederic Eggerton was prematurely balding, but never sweated. His high forehead seemed to be as dry and featureless as an off-white egg. His hair was just retreating over the horizon of his skull, and he had, regretfully, just that week given up trying to style it. Now, it grew long and backwards, like lengthy black threads over a baby’s bottom. Secretly, Frederic could not wait until he got some gray around his temples, which would, he hoped, make up for the hair loss. Soon, most of his friends would join him, and then they would all be equal. The waiting was hard.

Frederic had two odd obsessions. Well, only one was odd. The odd one was that he could not allow a car to pass him in the street without turning to count the number of exhaust pipes it had. He had tried, on occasion, to alter this habit. It was impossible. If he let a car pass by without checking its rear, he felt acutely uncomfortable for some hours. And it seemed quite odd, for a man of his bulk, to be running around a corner to find and scan the car he had let go past.

The rules of this obsession were quite complex. He could let a car pass him if he did not look at it directly. He could, for instance, take a taxi and bury his face in a newspaper. As long as his eyes did not catch a car, he could let it go. But if he did, it was a disaster, because it was often hard to see a car’s exhaust in traffic.

At first, reflected cars did not count, but now they did. Originally, he thought that they were not real cars, just beams of bouncing light. But then he began to experience his sharp discomfort even after seeing reflected cars, and had to regretfully include them. This made things more complicated, for when he had to look across a street, he could no longer use shop windows. He hated shielding his view of the cars with his hands, so he would often use a newspaper, pretending to check something in the text at eye-height, and steal a glance across the road. This was a most delicate operation. If he saw the wide glossy roofs of cars, he could spend fifteen minutes checking the exhausts of each one.

His other obsession was an interest common to all balding men: the state of other men’s hair.

This was the first puncturing of his own sense of justice. He saw men with thick, lustrous hair, and imagined that life could, really, do nothing to hurt them. They may be broke, abandoned, living on rainwater, but they could still stand over a puddle and run their fingers through their thick hair. Even with mites, it is more attractive than my own… He hated men with great hair. He hated them, and pitied and hated himself. He felt himself deferring to them, laughing too loud, nodding too quickly—and hated himself for his obsequience. He wanted to be their friends, to buy them hair-care products. (When in drug stores, he would sometimes wander through the aisles of hair oils and combs, and imagine writing to the manufacturers, telling them that they would have a far larger market for their products if they could find some safe way to re-grow hair. He also mentally calculated how much he would spend on new hair—how many pounds a month. It was surprisingly high. He also imagined the side effects which he would suffer to restore his hair. They were surprisingly painful. He drew the line at the paralysis of his writing hand, but that was quite far down the list of ailments he could live with. He dared not imagine what he would do not just to get his former hair back, but to have hair like Reginald’s brother Tom. He dared not, because he started with amputation.)

He also imagined shaving his head, and getting a tattoo of stubble where the hair was gone. This would say: ‘I could have hair, but have chosen to shave it, for non-medicinal purposes.’ This would indicate that he lacked vanity, which was the most he could hope for.

He was an expert in the art of good lighting. If he combed his hair just so, and moved a light into such-and-such a position, and squinted, he had a hairdo. These vectors usually ran through his head when he was meeting a woman. Throughout his early twenties, during the phase of ‘hiding the widow’s peak,’ he would run his fingers through his frontal peninsular of hair, dragging the strands over the balding corners. It was only later, when he saw some photographs of himself, that he realized that it was rather futile. It was this knowledge that kept him clear of the dreaded comb-over. That, and the fact that he had seen his father once, coming out of his bath, with his own comb-over hanging down over one ear, like a skinned and leprous rat. No, short on sides, and long and wispy on top. That was the only option.

Frederic was from the nobility. He had gone hunting with the King. He was a one-time friend of Randolph Churchill (as were all of Randolph’s friends). He disdained his own title. He had flirted with communism in his youth, secretly loving the stern lectures he got from every male relative over forty. He had dipped his toe into fascism. He still loved the idea of Russia. The only real aftereffect of his leftist views was that he allowed himself a certain amount of proletariat heartiness.

He had met Reginald in their second year. He had been drawn to Reginald because of Tom’s hair, which was universally admired by those with recalcitrant follicles—even professors, who sometimes even forgave his nineteenth-century views for the sake of his lustrous mane. He had not gotten along too well with Tom, who seemed to be forever distracted, and irritated him no end with his tender eyes and trusting questions.

Reggie was far more to his taste. He could never quite understand Reginald’s infatuation with that strange German boy (actually, Frederic had always thought that the word ‘strange’ was rather unnecessary when talking about German boys), but accepted it, because Klaus also had great hair. Frederic was a fan of blonde hair, but felt that it demanded the kind of jawline which Klaus did not possess. Or a tight uniform and strict marching. Also, when he first met Klaus, the German had grown a beard and let his hair grow long, because otherwise he made his Jewish professors nervous.

Reginald and Frederic, though, made a good couple. They were both decent looking; Reginald was more aristocratic looking; Frederic had a sort of ‘lumpen-proletariat’ heaviness, but they avoided the inevitable ‘Laurel and Hardy’ comparisons by being relentlessly sophisticated.

Well, perhaps not ‘sophisticated.’ They loved nothing more than to discuss the personalities of others. They could sit for hours, talking about the flaws and self-blindness of everyone around them. So-and-so had no idea how hostile he was to women. So-and-so did not know how ridiculous he appeared to others. Did so-and-so really not hear his own accent? It was like the grating of rock on rock. Oh, and so-and-so and his goddamned supposed sense of humor. He was about as funny as gout. And did so-and-so really imagine that he was impressing everyone with stories of his endless travels? Really, it was indecent to see such insecurity, to have one’s face rubbed in it. And so-and-so, with all his drawling and cigarette holders, did he really think that anyone believed his stories of womanizing? It wasn’t possible. It was laughable! And so-and-so—did he imagine that we think he really speaks all those obscure, untestable languages? Ha!

They could spend hours in this manner, their voices and scorn mounting with their caffeine intake. And, if they were in their rooms, something quite odd would happen to their wandering hands. They would creep over their own bodies, over their own exposed flesh, seeking little pimples and blackheads, and squeezing, removing, poking, and scratching. Pink crabs in search of food, each man disgusting the other, unable to stop talking, unable to get up and leave.

It was quite a comfort, talking in this way. They felt that their own personalities seemed to knit together, as their words flowed, in a way which never seemed to happen when they were silent, or alone.

Frederic had had a few depressing affairs, with drab women who dressed nervously and rapidly after intercourse, hoping to hide their flesh from his eyes, although they had surrendered it to his hands. They rarely talked again, but saw each other often, lacking the energy or attention or respect to avoid each other. Frederic always recoiled from some sort of need in the eyes of these women. He imagined that they might want to get married, and laughed inside. Marry me? After that? What sort of man do they think I am?

Frederic had left Oxford in the spring of 1932, after completing his degree in history (with a minor in economics). He had gone on a short, pan-European trip, but had found that he did not enjoy scorning things nearly as much when he was alone. He had tried to lure other cynical young men into his circle, but found that, in places where his own nobility had little weight, he held little attraction to others. So he had come scuttling back to England, where his father had sat him down for a long, father-son chat. The conclusion had been that Frederic had been forced to apply for a position in the Foreign Office. He had a good understanding of the facts of history, and theories of economics, and had decided on the FO because it was a sleepy center which suited his lack of ambition. The FO dealt with European relations, which were fairly quiet. There was a disarmament conference in Geneva, wherein Germany was pressing France and England to disarm, according to promises in the Versailles Treaty. There were a number of disputes over tariffs which had been raised in response to the Depression. Diplomatic relations with France were shaky. England had, as yet, no policy regarding the new dictator nations. But nothing was looming, nothing earth-shaking. Certainly, there was no prospect of war, and that was really the only time the FO became a fast-paced place.

Given the lack of applicants for FO positions (the most able tended to go into politics proper, or business), they were happy to have an Oxford man. Frederic got the position of undersecretary to the French ambassador, and set about polishing up his indifferent French.

There were a number of positions opening up, as men in their sixties retired. There were few applicants. After seeing the ‘walking abortion’ (one of Frederic’s favorite phrases) who became the assistant to the Czechoslovak ambassador, Frederic decided to take the matter into his own hands.

He came up to Oxford, and ran into Reginald.

“So how the hell are you?” he boomed, levering himself into the wooden chair opposite Reginald.

Thank God I didn’t get the second glass, thought Reginald, or I would be open to all sorts of embarrassing questions! “I am quite well,” he said.

“How’s the wife?” Frederic winked. “Or is it a bad time to ask about her?”

“No, she’s fine,” scowled Reginald.

“Excellent. Splendid.” Frederic wiped the back of the table with the edge of his hand, shook the excess water off, then set down his glass of port. “And do you know why I’m here?”

“I never liked your guessing games when we were here together,” said Reginald.

“You are such a spoilsport,” said Frederic, pretending to pout. “Say, you graduate this year, right?”

“Yes. From my master’s.”

“And then? And then?”

“I don’t know. Depends on children. We have, I work. We don’t, I PhD.”

“And where do things stand? In regard to plowing that field, so to speak?”

“Don’t know.”

“You are quite monosyllabic this evening,” grinned Frederic.

Reginald was slightly irritated at his friend’s tone. “And you? Why are you back?” he asked, then added: “…Tonight, since that is a word with more than one syllable.”

“You know, it is impossible to describe words with one syllable without using words with more than one syllable. The polys have quite cornered the market. It’s most unfair.”

“Quite.”

Frederic took a delicate sip of his port, his paw-like hand reaching almost all the way around the glass. “I am here, mon ami, to pillage Oxford for the FO.”

“Hm,” said Reginald. “What are you looking for?”

“All junior, but with potential. Most of the European countries. Assistants, but to elderly diplomats in shaky health. Perfect for a resolute Hamlet.”

“Your speech has become slightly more formal,” noted Reginald, taking a sip of beer.

“Yeth, it hath,” laughed Frederic, pretending to lisp. “Occupathional hathard.”

Reginald smiled. “And you used to have a good sense of humor.”

Frederic looked genuinely hurt for a moment, then shrugged it off. “Interested?”

Reginald wrinkled his nose. “Bit of a dusty corner, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps, but I think it’s going to have a future.”

“How so?”

“Well, protectionism is all the rage right now. We have some fascinating problems in the area of tariff negotiations.” He laughed at Reginald’s expression. “All right, perhaps not ‘fascinating.’ But of interest to a great many people. Important. And there is instability in Germany at the moment. Who knows where that’s going to go? The disarmament conference. Lots of juicy stuff.”

“Hm. What are you working on?”

“I’m helping my diplomat—and they are yours, like pets—to find common ground with France about Versailles. How to let Germany off the hook with honor to all. We don’t want the French going in again. And I’m working on getting us out of some of our continental obligations. All those little landmines that blew up in 1914.”

“You are?” asked Reginald skeptically.

“Well, that’s more of a hobby,” admitted Frederic. “But I’m going to propose it.”

“If the disarmament conference works out, it’ll just be trade agreements.”

“And the Empire, of course.”

Reginald shrugged. “That’s all unraveling anyway. It won’t be any fun watching self-rule turn loose in India. History might not be kind.”

“Don’t you believe in self-rule anymore?”

“Of course I do. But we’ve warped the Indians. They’ll be like first-years at the keg.”

“They’ll be fine,” said Frederic, in the annoying tone of finality which Reginald had almost forgotten. “I mean, you can go straight into another ministry, but they’re pretty hard to get into these days. Lots of graduates looking for places to hide. And so what if you want to go into politics later? Better a good position at the FO than something dismal at Trade or Health.”

“Well, I could stay here. Get my doctorate.”

“Sure, but that has its risks. PhDs are having a tough time as it is. Everyone thinks they’re overqualified. And I don’t have to tell you that they’re pretty insufferable. Put a PhD in some junior position, he’s poison. And it might not be better in a couple of years.” Frederic pursed his lips. “But it’s up to you.”

“If we decide to have kids, I’ll give you a call.”

They were kicked out of the student pub shortly after that, so they went back to the little hotel that Frederic was staying at, and chatted for another hour or so. They discussed the current fates and disappointed expectations of almost every classmate. It was most pleasurable.

As Frederic began yawning heavily—Reginald rarely got tired before going to bed—Reginald began to feel uneasy. Well, I’ll have to be going home now, he thought. Back to sleep in the pit of vipers. He imagined Wendy waiting up for him, in a ragged proletariat nightgown, tapping a rolling pin, and almost laughed.

They agreed to meet for lunch the next day—both slightly reluctantly—and Reginald walked slowly home.

Oh God, he thought, seeing a light in the bedroom, through the side window, She’s still up!

He puttered and loitered in the kitchen, getting a drink, wiping his shoes.

Finally, he heard an agonized cry from the bedroom.

“Reginald!”

He frowned, confused. He went down the hallway. The bedroom door was open. Wendy was sitting limply on the bed, cross-legged, like a lost and tired little girl. She had their wedding album open. She raised her broken face to his.

“Oh, Reginald!” she cried, jumping off the bed and half-stumbling on her long legs to him. She clutched at him tightly. “Reggie, Reggie, Reggie,” she repeated. “This is exactly what I don’t want!”

His anger warred with his pity. Neither seemed like a road he wanted to take. His wooden hand caressed her hair.

Wendy wailed out something incomprehensible. Reginald’s heart jumped. The fear returned, followed by: Dear god, does she have to be so histrionic?

“I am a bad wife!” she wailed. “I am not making you happy, and that’s all I want, all I think about!”

“Shh,” he said. It did not sound like: It’s all right. It sounded like: Be quiet!

“Reggie, at the beginning…” she gulped, into his shoulder. He could feel his shirt getting wet, and hoped it was just tears, not mucous. “…it was so sweet. We were everything to each other. We are at war, some—sometimes, and I don’t know why, or over what, or when—how to stop! I want—I want to get back into those pictures!”

“All right then,” he whispered, patting her back, as if trying to burp her.

“No!” she cried, making him jump again. She took a step back, holding onto his hands, almost making him topple over. “It’s not all right. It’s not how I want us to live together! We deserved more, from the courage of our beginning. My family hated me getting married in Spain! We did that. For each other. But we lost each other.” She dropped his hands suddenly, and half-turned to the wall, hugging herself. “I don’t want to be lost, Reginald,” she whispered, to the air, to nothing. “Please don’t let me be lost…”

Who on earth are you talking to? he wondered. He took a step towards her. “We need some time away, perhaps. I’ve been grumpy. I’m tired of university. What do you think about moving to London?”

Wendy shook her head dismally. Another tear dropped from an eye. A low moan escaped her lips, and Reginald felt a sudden desire to strike her. Rank self-pity! screamed one of his many devils. Stop her before it’s too late! His hands itched most unpleasantly. His breath came short.

She collapsed heavily onto the bed, her shoulders limp, her breasts hanging forward. Reginald suddenly felt excited. All right, this might not be the most graceful transition, but let’s see, let’s see…

He sat down next to her. He put his arm around her, flexing his muscles, so she could feel his strength.

“I’m sorry if I was unkind, dear,” he said. He loved that word ‘if.’ It pushed everything over to her side, her perceptions, her paranoia.

“It’s not just tonight,” she said, in an empty voice. “It’s just—how much do you want me when we’re not making love?”

His cock flickered and fell a few notches. “It’s an expression of love.”

“Yeah,” she murmured—and he hated the lower-class softness at the end of the word. “But everything should be an expression of love. You sitting while I’m filing my nails should be an expression of love!” Her voice was getting hard. Reginald’s cock got soft, and almost shriveled back into his torso. “Running away when you don’t get exactly what you want is not an expression of love!” cried Wendy, wriggling out of his embrace and jumping up from the bed. She brushed back her long dark hair. Her hands were shaking.

“Forget fucking me for ten minutes, Reginald!” she said, her voice like sharp bricks of ice, obscuring her. “Forget about my looks, my body, my tits and pussy. Look at me, just me, just for a moment! We got married so we could fuck. All right. Now we’ve fucked. Now what? Are we going to be best friends?”

There was a pause. Wendy glared at him. “Well?”

“You’re not interested in my replies,” said Reginald, feeling far from his own skin. “You could be having this fight without me.”

“It’s not a fight,” said Wendy, her voice breaking again. She reached out her hands in bottomless supplication. “I just want to get through to you!”

“By yelling?”

“I can’t find any other way!” she said, suddenly exasperated. “What other choice do you give me? It’s either fucking or yelling. That’s all you notice!”

“How…?” Reginald had no idea how to finish the sentence. Or what he might be asking.

“All I ask,” said Wendy slowly, “is that you take a step outside yourself for five minutes—no, I’d even take three—a day, just to check in with me, see how I’m doing. Not much. You don’t have to obsess about me or write me poems. Just check in.” She put a fist on a hip and imitated a little boy. “‘How are you, Wendy?’ ‘Why, I’m just fine, Reginald. How are you?’ That sort of thing. Not a lot.”

“Don’t I do that?” asked Reginald, losing his own fight to refrain from responding. There is no bottom to this hole…

“Sometimes. With your heart a thousand miles away. I don’t know where. Or with who. With your work? Your cock? Another woman?” She shrugged tightly. “There’s no way to know.”

“You think…” said Reginald, feeling his way, “that I might be unfaithful?”

Wendy laughed harshly. “As if you had that kind of virility!” Then her face softened. “That’s not what I mean. I just feel cold inside. Unloved.” She leaned over and toppled on her side, onto the bed. Looking at her profile, he almost expected her to bring a thumb to her mouth and stare emptily into space.

He patted her hip, which was the closest he imagined coming to something sexy. He leaned a little closer, his brows knitted. She was staring into space.

Reginald felt anger then. It was a brittle kind of anger. Anger and terror. He felt as if he were a kind of champagne, and Wendy a kind of vacuum. His soul was streaming from his skin in tiny bubbles, into her void. And when it was finished, when the transfer was complete, he would be empty, and she would be empty. It was like pumping petrol into deep space. Space could not be filled.

“What…” he said, his voice cracking. He paused, and then said: “What do you want me to do?”

“Love me,” she moaned. “Love me, love me, love me, love me…”

“What—does that look like?” he asked, feeling more giddy terror, more helplessness.

“If it’s in your heart, I’ll know…” She began to weep, and it was an awful, sniveling type of weeping. It was like a viscous liquid oozing from a broken vase. He circled his hand on her hip, getting excited again. How I would love to fuck her while she’s crying, he thought, so we could wind ourselves into each other, like the filaments of a rope, and be complete, as one, unbreakable… The thought of rope led him towards the thought of tying her up. Reginald glanced at the bed, at the knobs in the four corners, and thought of Wendy’s long, lithe legs spread, chafing at their confinement, her head lolling, perhaps blindfolded…

Wendy seemed to sense his excitement, like a thick musk in an airless room. She moaned, grabbed his hand and moved it up from her hips, to her side. Reginald’s heart began pounding. Could it be that… He began caressing her side, in long, flowing strokes. He let the tips of his fingers roll over the sides of her left breast just a little, a tiny, tiny bit—it could have been an accident. He was prepared to defend it, as an excess of concern, an unthinking brush in the face of her extremity. But then he saw the little poke through the silk of her nightgown. The magical chilled nipple. He suddenly imagined, cradled in the bow of her curved body, a baby, suckling through the silk, and some sort of fusion of fucking and blood and milk and babies possessed him, and he felt there was something almost Satanic about their bedroom tonight, as if he were being cajoled into a screwing which would produce an Antichrist. And if I were, he thought, with a cynical, inward giggle, I should not care at all!

Almost afraid to breathe, he cupped her breast fully. He held his hand there, without moving, as if it were a leaking bowl. He felt the silky pucker of her nipple. She wept more openly now. With a convulsive movement—which jarred him once more—she writhed up and threw herself into his arms, kissing him passionately, on his face, his hair, his neck. His prick seemed unbearably hard. He wanted her so much that his throat seemed swollen, aching. He threw her back on the bed—even in the extremity of his passion, he wondered if she liked the rough, Viking stuff. He lifted her nightgown, up past her long, long legs. She was wearing a thick pair of underwear. ‘Supertankers,’ she called them. Reginald wanted to chew through them. He ground his teeth, enraged. Fuck all these layers! He tore at them with his fingers. Wendy writhed her hips, her face obscured. He clawed her panties off in a side-to-side seesawing way, leaving little red lines of pressure on her thighs. He leapt off the bed and struggled out of his own clothing, almost toppling over. He left his shirt on, feeling like a pirate. Then he threw himself on her. He grabbed his penis and thrust it into her vagina. She groaned in a kind of frenzy, clutching at him, his back. She grabbed the little rolls of fat on his lower back painfully. Why is there always more pain in fat? he wondered briefly. She put her foot on his calf and raised her hips to accept his thrusts.

“Goddamn it!” he cried, as agony shot through his leg.

She did not seem to hear him. Her head whipped from side to side, her eyes closed, her mind on the dark side of some moon. Reginald closed his eyes. Something crested in him. It was more than rage. It was the desire to obliterate. He wanted to fuck his wife into atoms, and then open the window and let her out, to wander the universe in lost and discontented fragments. He was a cold core of molten lead.

He cried out. His orgasm had no warning. His head seemed wildly inflated, about to burst with dark, measureless pleasure. His body convulsed. He farted.

Reginald collapsed on Wendy. She continued to moan and clutch at him, rolling her hips. She cried out as he slipped out of her. She continued to writhe and pant. What the fuck? he thought. It’s over! He felt anger again, but it was deep, foggy, like a shipwreck far below. He rolled off her, hoping to help her see that they were done. He almost expected her to continue having sex with the air, with ghosts, but her body subsided, and she turned and clung to him, her nails digging painfully.

“I love you,” she gasped.

“I love you, too,” he said.

Something seemed to have been solved, for the moment. Reginald wondered briefly what it was. But the room was dark with devilry, and he quickly fled to sleep.

Chapter 32

One evening, an unexpected visitor came to Quentin’s office. He was a thin, stoop-shouldered man, who looked as if he had stolen his suit from a rather random set of clotheslines.

“I’m sorry,” said Quentin, rising, “but I am no longer taking appointments today. If you speak to my secretary, she will tell you when…”

The man sat down and smiled in a manner which awakened all of Quentin’s newly developing political instincts.

“Hullo, Quentin,” said the man, and Quentin suddenly had a deep, spinal memory of blood. Someone from the War…

“I’m sure we’ve met,” he said, “but you really must telephone for an appointment…”

The man’s smile widened, and he leaned forward. “Grenades.”

Quentin’s heart seemed to widen in his chest. “Pardon me?”

“Grenades,” repeated the man, sitting back. “That were the last time we met. Over boxes. Overnight.”

Quentin sat down, making sure not to collapse into his chair. Damn me, why did I make myself so prominent? “I’m not sure I remember,” he said, touching the knot of his tie, wanting to loosen it, but afraid of showing any nervousness.

“One night, you and me, we put grenades into sausages and sausages into grenades. And d’you know what became of it?”

Quentin’s eyes were frozen, slightly wide. His mind flashed here and there. I have to get him out of here! What if he blabs? It’s just a story. Why is he here? Can I give him something without compromising myself? What does the man know about politics? I could just make anything up!

“It was a bad night, that night,” said Uxbridge. “Not the night of the boxes, but the next night. The Krauts were dug in, and since we had no grenades to blow ’em out, nor not sausages to lure ’em out, it were a bloody night.”

“We met—while I was a supply sergeant?”

The man nodded. “Ah yeah. And to save you time and words, I have a sheet of paper which says that you signed for them grenades and knew that they were grenades. And another which says that you signed for them sausages and knew that they were sausages.”

Quentin stood up, almost shooting to his feet. “Perhaps you could tell me what this is all about, but I have no time today. Put it in writing, come back another time.”

“I’ll be quick then. We both have our businesses. I want a job, Quentin.”

“Then you must leave a CV with Ms. Dawson, and…”

“We both know men like me have no CVs. I want a job where I can put my feet up.”

“Then we shall really have to speak, if I can come up with something for you that…” Quentin moved around his desk and opened the door leading to the corridor. “I am wanted in the House, so I must ask for you to come back.”

“I’ll wait,” said Uxbridge.

“That is quite impossible. My files.”

Uxbridge got up slowly, then turned and cocked his head. “Aye then. Paperwork is important. Tomorrow. A job by tomorrow.” He then shuffled past Quentin and wandered up the corridor.

Quentin watched him go, then hurried back to his desk and pulled out a yellow pad of paper. Rapidly, he wrote:

Pluses

-get him barred from the building

-stall him

-reject his story

-accept his story; come clean

-get him a job

-have him killed

Minuses

-his next step (if any) would be unknown

-same (as above)

-suspicion grows; he might have paperwork

-criminal action—military court? Jail

-more blackmail?

-only joking

And, underneath, he wrote:

what about ruth?

If Ruth ever found out that Quentin had—even with the best of intentions—been responsible for the death of any soldiers (as if I pulled the German triggers!), then he would immediately be transfigured from ‘Caring Husband’ to ‘Callous Murderer Of Fine Men Like My Father And Brothers.’ There is no way that her new-found sanity and resilience would survive a blow of this magnitude…

No, Ruth would fall apart on even the suspicion that Quentin had done anything like deny needed weapons to soldiers in a charge. And Reginald! His son’s career, the job he’s thinking about, at the Foreign Office! Well, that would all be gone!

And—and all that I have done, over the last year, here, in this office. All the parasites I have waved away. They would all be back—doubly enraged, doubly self-righteous. ‘The politician who denied me was a… A…’ But Quentin could not even ascribe the words to the mental voice of a contemplated enemy. A man trying to do right in an impossible situation! A man who saved more lives than he lost! A surgeon who hiccuped at the wrong moment!

A drop of sweat fell into Quentin’s right eye, and he shuddered and rubbed it.

There are no pluses to fighting this one. Many people who will now judge me were never there, never at war. I will be judged by matrons and civil servants and aristocrats and—and by Ruth and Reginald…

I could resign…!

The thought hit him hard, but then vanished almost at once. Uxbridge would not be waved off by that. He found him because of his political visibility—he would not be so hard to find again. He would want money, then. But—but why wait until now?

So if I find him a job? Quentin was quite aware of how to create jobs in the abstract—awarding fat contracts, subsidies, trade protections. But—a job in the present? Here and now? A job which could be handed over, like a card? Quentin had no idea.

But—perhaps I could just ask a friend, a friend unrelated to my political life… But would anyone assume that an obviously unproductive favor from an MP would be anything other than a political favor? Well, I might perhaps approach an old friend, and say that I have to get this man a job for—for reasons unspecified. Oh, I wish I had some old seedy friends, grimy of finger and handy with a pocketknife! Oh, don’t be stupid!

He sat for some hours in his darkening office, and then left around eight o’clock. A few minutes after he left, he tore back into his office and set fire to his ‘plus and minus’ piece of paper, holding it with his fingertips as it burned over the ashtray.

Then, remembering some detective-novel trick, he tore off the next few yellow sheets and burned them as well, so they could not be shaded-over, back into visibility.

Chapter 33

Tom was out for only a few minutes. Klaus revived him by placing shards of ice against his upper lip.

Tom first saw a cracked ceiling. Written on it, with a thick brush, seemingly long ago, was a German phrase which—and it took him almost a minute to translate it—read: If you can read this, you’ve drunk too much! He smiled.

“Tom?” asked Klaus anxiously. Tom turned his head. Klaus’s perfect face came into view. His blonde hair hung down. His blue eyes were soft, worried. “Can you get up? We should go. The police are coming.”

“I thought,” Tom said thickly, “that you said the police didn’t come.”

“Not the police-police, that’s true. It’ll be either the police who like the Nazis, or the police who like the Communists. We don’t want to be here either way.”

“Where is the bartender?”

“He’s tending some of the wounded lefties. He said to say sorry. He didn’t know you were a Tommy.”

Tom smiled again, and they both realized that the German slang for ‘English’ was also his childhood nickname. He levered himself up on his elbows. “I think I’m all right to leave. I assume we don’t have to worry about the bill.”

“I left some money on the bar,” said Klaus, helping him up. “I don’t know who’ll take it, but that’s not our worry.”

Tom looked at the bar. Chairs and tables were cast about, all intact. He remembered, as a teenager, wondering why, in Western movies, chairs broke easily over the heads of the bad blokes. How could they support their weight then? Some of the people lying about, though, had not fared as well as the furniture. Blood was being coughed up. A man tried to get up, clutching a table, then collapsed with a cry, his leg at a terribly wrong angle. The first fascist lay against the table Klaus and Tom had been sitting at, an upside down pitcher of beer sitting on his head. The inside of the foamy glass was spattered with red. His chest heaved. His hands twitched. He cried out that something was wrong with his eyes.

“Fuck!” muttered Tom, staggering over. Half his own face seemed to have gone dead. Even opening his right eye caused his cheekbone to throb. He lifted the pitcher off the man’s head. The man stared stupidly around, then looked up at Tom. His eyes narrowed in hatred. Tom could see his cheeks working, gathering spittle. The man took a deep breath.

“You stupid bastards,” said Tom. Almost gently, he put the pitcher back on the man’s head. The man spat anyway, and just as Tom turned away, he saw the spittle sliding down the foamy inside of the glass, onto the man’s wet black shirt.

“Come on, Klaus,” he said, gesturing.

“I don’t know where my friends are.”

“I don’t know either,” said Tom, touching his numb cheek. “But I’m going.”

Klaus paused for a moment. “All right. Me too.”

Outside, the night was cold. Tom liked the chill—it took the edge off the prickly numbness of his face.

“Do I have a shiner?” he asked.

“A what?”

“A black eye.”

“You will. And a mark. He had a ring.”

“Where to?”

“Do you want to go anywhere?”

“Do I need to see a doctor?”

“I don’t think so.”

“All right then. Back to the hotel.” Tom felt annoyed, all of a sudden. I am your guest! Why am I making all the decisions? Then, another thought followed, right away. So, Gunther, is this what you wanted me to see?

They walked in silence. Black figures scurried from doorway to doorway. Berlin seemed like a city hung under dangerous moonlight. Graffiti was everywhere. Occasionally, young men ran around a corner, shouting lustily. Once, they held burning torches in their fists, and Tom thought of the novel Frankenstein.

“All right,” grimaced Tom finally, his face really beginning to throb. “What the fuck is going on in this goddamned city?”

“You never used to swear,” said Klaus, slightly defensively.

“You don’t want to tell me?”

Suddenly, Klaus seemed very sad. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Tom recalled that Klaus was not a big man, and this was a dangerous time to be small. “Well, the whole thing is sort of grinding to an end.”

“What? The Republic?”

“This democratic ideal. Everyone in charge says: we don’t care about ideology. We just want to do what works. But…” Klaus’s voice broke a little. “But—we don’t think anymore—at least, not many people do, except the old—we don’t believe that you can run a society without ideals. I mean—how can something work if it’s not right? Not right like ‘proper,’ but right like ‘moral’? So the whole thing is unraveling.”

Tom’s voice was grave. “Is it because of the Depression?”

“Yes and no. I know you hate the Dialectic, Tom, but it is ‘yes or no.’ It might be the catalyst. But it’s not enough. If it was just the Depression, then all countries would be like this. England isn’t, right? We saw that the day of the riot, in the street. That wouldn’t even be noticed here.” Klaus’s voice suddenly became like a blade of cold steel. “We no longer care to converse with our elders. They have sold our futures for the sake of their petty palaces. They tell us about the good—and we are good children. We are Germans. They tell us about the good, and we try to do the good. But do you know what we have noticed? We have noticed, on closer examination, that what they said to us was ‘the good’ is only good for them. And we are humiliated, that we fell for such silly lies. The Depression is a crisis. And crisis reveals the truth. And the truth is that our leaders only lead for themselves, and their cronies. They take from us and give to their own kind. They do not care about us. They do not care for the hungry, the idle, sick, weary, and suicidal. They say they do. But everything they try only makes things worse. So wouldn’t you say that they should be honest with us? Shouldn’t they sit down with the young and say: ‘We are out of answers. Take our power. You will have to fend for yourselves. Best of luck.’ No! They do nothing of the sort. They are out of answers, but will not step aside. They are for their own interest alone. So we have no choice but to cast them aside.”

“And what is your view of what should replace them?” asked Tom quietly. They passed a street flickering with yellow light and distorted shadows. A car had been overturned. A pond of petrol was on fire. A group of youths was running through it, whooping and encouraging each other. One of them wore a torn and flopping top hat.

“I don’t know,” laughed Klaus gaily. “I am an academic, remember?” His voice hardened again. “But I do know this: it will have nothing to do with what we have known as the West. What is culled from the Enlightenment, either of the English or French varieties. But neither will it be something from the East. Not Communism, not as it is currently practiced. The Germans dislike anything Slavic.”

“Marx was German.”

“Yes, but he was a Jew.”

“And so?”

“And so his solutions cannot be specifically German. Historically German. As far as a racial solution goes. We are tired of picking up the leftovers of other cultures’ thoughts. We wish to create something of our own. Something unique. Radical. England has had her time of destiny. The nineteenth century was the British century. France, too, had the eighteenth century. We Germans have never had our century, our time of destiny. Surely the end of all this, of all we see around us…” Klaus gestured at the running men, the distant flames, “has something to do with Germany throwing off something which is not our own. Something foreign and suffocating. It will be our time now!” His fists were hard, his voice was thick with exultation.

“Klaus,” said Tom. “Klaus, I don’t think I shall be able to remain here.”

Klaus blinked. “Why? Are you not curious how this shall turn out?”

Tom closed his eyes for a moment. He touched his chest. “I think that, in my heart, I have a good idea.”

“You think German militarism has returned,” said Klaus, his voice scornful all of a sudden. “You think that England has the right to an Empire. France has the right. America. But not Germany. England can impose her will everywhere, but Germany must be chained up in the cellar, gnawing on whatever food the Allies see fit to throw her!”

“Klaus!” shouted Tom. Klaus stopped.

“What?”

“Why do you identify with Germany?” asked Tom, his voice calmer.

“What do you mean?”

“You know how mad the English are for football. When I was about six, some boy came and said: ‘Your team is terrible. They are at the bottom of the Third Division.’ He was a West Ham supporter. I said: ‘But you only support your team because you happened to be born where you were born. If you were born here, you would be supporting my team.’”

Klaus’s lip curled. “So you believe that a nation is like a football team.”

“Don’t be obtuse,” snapped Tom. “It insults us both—and the circumstances.”

“I am proud of my culture, of my country, of my race and its history.”

“But why?”

“Why? Why? Germany has contributed so much to world culture…”

“No!” cried Tom in frustration. “Not Germany! Individuals who happen to live in Germany!”

“So there is no such thing as British culture?”

“There is, but it is measured in relation to what is good!”

“As is ours. And what is good to us is what is good for Germany!”

“Not in England. Not there. There, what is good is what is good morally. Regardless of nationalism.”

“But there is no absolute good,” said Klaus. “No reality, no good, no senses, no individuals. Everyone is just a fragment of the larger social good. We, you and I, are just reflections of the larger Being. A man stands in front of a faceted mirror—what fool would say that each fragment of his reflection is as important as the man himself? Or more important? So it is with society. The individual belongs to the group, because the group is everything, and the individual nothing.”

“And if the individual refuses to surrender his rights to the group?”

“That cannot be. The individual can only realize his identity in service to the group.”

“But if he refuses?”

“Then he is a cancer, and must be dealt with. I dislike such formulations, because they are impossible, under an ideal society, but if you press me, I shall not shrink from them.”

Tom stopped walking, and stood in silence, his head lowered, every sense alert. Somewhere, there was the dim rumble of an explosion. Snatches of violent songs echoed around the streets. An acrid smell of burning meat stung his noise. Harsh laughter broke against the locked shutters. Tom closed his eyes. The very bones of the city seemed to be groaning. It was a city of virulent young. It was a city without law. It was a cage of a city, a city which kept all but the virulent young locked up. It was a city where fast fists and poisoned minds held sway. Uneducated youths broke windows and bones, shouting the slogans of over-educated youths. It seemed, to Tom, that over the sky of Berlin was a bottomless, cosmic sneer. A hatred of the inherited world. A sneer which wanted to blow away the fragile buildings and send everyone spinning back to a time of simple crafts and small cottages. A time of hearty peasantry, cheery songs, and thick-waisted women. A world with woods to spare. A homespun world. A medieval world.

And that was one side of the city. That was the side which fed the dreams of the youths raised on Kant, on Hegel, on Schopenhauer and Marx and Nietzsche and Freud. A side of the city which hated reason and progress and capitalism. A side which groaned under the rational buildings which pierced its skin like wasps, which yearned to throw them off and race free into a fairy-tale past. This was part of Klaus’s fantasy, thought Tom. Part of the fear and hatred of the modern world which had gone so deep into the German soul that it was like the physics of its every movement, every reaction, every plan…

But the other side was purely technological. The other side of the city wanted to spread out like a steel virus, across the world. It did not want the medieval village, but the medieval cruelty. It hated reason, the West, and the Enlightenment so much that it could not stand even the secret thoughts of the village peasant. It sought to overrun the spirit of man, to bury it under the claustrophobic itching of a million marching metal ants. It was a possessive side of the city. It could not stand for a single question, a single opposition, a single doubt. Even the flicker of an eye was cause for destruction. It could not rest. It could not look inward. It had to overrun, because it had no principles of compromise.

Tom looked at Klaus’s pale face. The memory of countless arguments came back to him. He remembered the promise he had made to himself—and kept—in third year: never argue with a religious person who can fall back on faith. It was forever maddening, and it happened with Klaus, although Klaus was not specifically religious. Klaus claimed that religion was only of interest in an anthropological, or social sense. Tom would press him for arguments about the existence of God, but Klaus would just withdraw into statements of secondhand faith. ‘It doesn’t matter whether God exists, Tom,’ he would say with annoying patience. ‘It does matter whether people believe he exists.’ Tom would demand to hear Klaus’s position on the issue, but Klaus would smile, duck his head, and say: ‘I am an academic—I have no right to entertain positions. My only position is curiosity about the human.’

Klaus had never been so irresponsible as to claim that any contradictions in his ideas were just operations of the Dialectic. He was, however, always able to retreat to this, if pressed too closely. ‘In our experience, sensual data is consistent, Tom—I will grant you that. But the operations of the Dialectic do not conform to that kind of consistency. It follows a higher course, which I can no more explain than I can demonstrate. It exists, though, nonetheless. How do I know? Well, sadly, if you have to ask, it cannot be explained.’

Tom had stopped arguing with Klaus a few months before he had left Oxford for good. He gave up the chase regretfully, with great personal pain (and now, staring at Klaus, he suddenly realized that he had argued with Klaus the same way that he had argued with his mother), and still felt the compulsion to throw Klaus against the wet wall and beat some sort of opinion out of him. Something which could be used to build something other than opinion. Nothing Higher and Dialectical and contradictory, but some elemental truth. Something which could be used as a rational measure. Something like two and two make four.

But that passion had never worked, and Tom fought against it now, now that he was deep in the heart of the dying city. That passion was a cliff which could only end in the extinction of them both. Klaus could not be pursued, because Klaus did not run. Klaus could not be fought, because Klaus did not fight. Klaus could not be defeated, because Klaus did not exist.

Tom shuddered, and it felt as if a vast shadow had come between him and the flames. Klaus does not exist… The thought inhabited him, in a rush, like soldiers bursting through the walls of a long-besieged city, finding their own brothers within. Tom’s brow contracted. Klaus’s face grew pale. He extended a thin arm.

“Tom? Are you all right?”

Tom took an involuntary step back. If Klaus does not exist, what sort of world shall his emptiness seek to create? No—that is too far, too fast. Klaus does not have any opinions. Klaus acts on wild impulses. He is full of strange directions. Undigested passions. Nothing holds him together. It is—it is him or me. Either I shall survive, or he shall. My world or his death…

“What, Tom?” asked Klaus, his face softened in genuine concern. But something of Tom’s thoughts passed between them, because Klaus’s white hand rose to his throat. Tom suddenly saw Klaus’s throat torn open, and heard a rasping, terrible breath.

“It’s not true,” whispered Klaus, then frowned, as if wondering at his own words.

“No,” said Tom softly. And then it came to him, what was missing. If Klaus has no fixed opinions, then there can be no way for us to disagree… And then he remembered the sight of Klaus beating the fascist’s head with the empty beer pitcher. This is the only way that he can disagree…

“Tom, you’re scaring me!” smiled Klaus, attempting a light tone.

They entered the vast chamber through a little door. There were a few bored reporters sitting, their feet up on the wooden balcony. They had the resigned, angry look of men who had, through their own incompetence and indifference, ended up in a very poor place, but feel that a more just universe would have spared them this fate. One of them was sucking a lollipop. The other shifted his legs—in manner which made it clear that it was a ducal favor—only when Klaus asked him too.

Tom and Klaus sat in the front. After having lunch with a few of Klaus’s friends, they had come to the Reichstag, to see a debate. Klaus had been, Tom noticed, unwilling to admit where they were going. There were many smirks around the table when Klaus finally admitted their destination.

A thin woman had laughed harshly. “Good Lord—why don’t you just take him directly to the museum!”

Tom leaned forward, putting his elbows on the wide wooden balcony, staring down.

The chamber was huge, well lit, and sparsely occupied. A huge German flag hung vertically against the far wall. Large chandeliers hung down from thick chains, with little electric cables running between the links. A bald man was speaking, his sweaty dome shining like another light. (Tom kept thinking that he was about to wipe his forehead, but he never did, not even after he sat down.) Men wandered in and out, occasionally laughing at something unrelated to the speaker’s words. There was an air of intensity on the speaker’s part and inconsequentiality on the part of the listeners.

But even the bald man did not seem to be quite—intense. It was more like professional desperation, Tom thought. As if he knew what he was saying was useless, but he was paid to be passionate about it. (This kind of bad acting was familiar, at least, from student plays.)

The bald man was saying:

“And it is not that the landowners object to an increase on land taxes. No, indeed! When it comes to the national good, they are as willing as any other group to share the load. But why, indeed, are they considered to be the only source of income? Surely there are other groups which could be more profitably taxed. What about a tax on foreign exchange? Or on millionaires? Or luxury automobiles? These suggestions are not made out of a desire to escape an honorable burden, but rather because that burden is so honorable! Landowners desire nothing more than to contribute to social security! But, my friends, at a time when this awful Depression is at last beginning to lift, when we are beginning to see a light at the end of our long, long tunnel, at such a time, is it wise to inflict another tax on our landowners?”

A catcall came from a lounging, black-shirted group of men. Nazis, thought Tom.

“Be happy they are left with anything, baldy!”

“A point of order—but I shall not press it. For even my friends across the hall can see that if we add more taxes to the landowners, then all that shall happen is that the cost of producing food will go up. Inflation will return. Jobs will be lost. It is not productive, my friends!” cried the man in slightly more genuine desperation. “It will not help our collective national cause!”

“Then let them give up their villas, your precious landowners!” cried one Nazi lazily.

“Or their concubines,” cried another.

“We do not care to hear arguments about the national interest,” drawled another. “Adolf Hitler is the national interest. Take it up with him, if you have the courage.”

The bald man nodded rapidly. “These replies are not to the point.”

“Let them absorb the extra costs,” cried a man in a three piece suit. “Are they so poor that they cannot afford a pfennig a loaf less profit?”

“They are already stretched, my friends!” gulped the bald man.

“Yet still!” cried a communist from the middle ranks. “Still, they can afford you. Return your paycheck, capitalist lackey, and let that be applied to the costs of bread!”

“We are not unwilling to share the burden!”

“Then why are you here?” demanded a Nazi. “What are you saying, except: ‘get the money you need from someone else’? You are a coward.”

“Point—point of order, Mr. Speaker!”

An incredibly ancient man—who Tom had not noticed, perhaps thinking him some kind of well-appointed gargoyle, let a gavel fall most plaintively. “You cannot use such terms…”

“Our apologies,” said the man. “Let us say, instead, that those who wish to throw their loads onto the backs of others are cowards. From this, the House might draw any conclusion it wishes.”

The argument went back and forth for about fifteen minutes more. Tom turned to Klaus. Klaus shrugged eloquently.

As the argument was winding down, a burly man in shirtsleeves and—visible even from Tom’s vantage point—a very poorly knotted tie, came into the chamber. The Speaker recognized him. He took a podium in the middle and began speaking.

“Brothers!” he cried, in a raspy voice. “The solutions which the Trade Unions have put forward are up for voting within the week. I have been asked to come and present the arguments, once more, for the thirty-six hour work week!”

Several groans rang out. Some jeers rang out from the Communists.

“Social Fascist!”

“You don’t deal with the Devil!”

“Join us, and work whenever you like!”

The man waited for the cries to diminish. They did not. Finally, he turned to the speaker, but the sound of the gavel was too soft to help. The burly man began speaking through the jeers.

“If we adopt this measure, then the working week becomes nine-tenths what it was before. One tenth of the work will not be done. This will make more jobs. This will reduce unemployment. With fewer men unemployed, we have to pay out less, as a society, in unemployment insurance. And, with more men working, we will have more income in taxes. It is a foolproof measure, my friends!”

“If it’s foolish, you’re proof of that!”

“What happened since we went down from the forty-five to the forty-hour work week?” shouted a fascist. “Nothing! Worse than nothing! You feed us poison, we get sick. So now you say: more poison will make us better!”

Klaus whispered to Tom: “Since the summer, they’ve had little power. This is mostly for show.”

“For who?”

Klaus shrugged. “Midsummer, the Nazis got almost fourteen million votes. That’s 230 seats. Not enough for a majority; there are 608 in the Reichstag. But they are the largest single party. Hitler went to Hindenburg, demanding power.”

Tom frowned. “Hindenburg? From the Great War?”

Klaus nodded. “Eighty-five, senile—and a monarchist to boot. Instead, Hindenburg gave power to two truly strange men. Von Papen, who never even got elected to the Reichstag, and whose party—the Catholic Center—has completely disowned him. He was named Chancellor in June. He’s got no power in Parliament. He’s just been ruling by presidential decree.”

“Who’s the other man?” whispered Tom.

Klaus frowned. He could not hear Tom over the rising jeers and insults from the floor. Tom repeated his question.

“General Kurt von Schleicher.”

Tom almost smiled. “Really?” ‘Schleicher’ was German for ‘intriguer’ or ‘sneak.’

“It’s quite fitting. In May, Schleicher got Hindenburg to dismiss the last Chancellor who had the backing of a major party. From midsummer, the Reichstag has had no real constitutional powers.”

“So what’s going to happen?” asked Tom, staring at the huge chamber, at the lounging, sneering totalitarians. At the sweaty, shaken appeasers. It was almost incomprehensible. There seemed to be no respect for law, compromise, democracy, or capitalism left. A war of all against all…

Klaus said: “What has happened is that the government has been taken over by special interest groups. You can see them down there. Everyone is trying to wrestle special favors out of the state. Everyone is trying to shift the burdens of paying for those favors onto someone else. It’s like watching a petri dish. Everyone trying to eat everyone else. Everyone out for their self-interest alone. No sense of the common good. We are getting more and more sick of these endless, futile battles. This is freedom. Freedom does not work.”

“Freedom…” murmured Tom.

The argument about the thirty-six hour work week seemed to wind down. Another man got up. He was a young man, just crossing over into German middle-age corpulence.

“Brothers!” he cried. “Let us turn from our petty infighting and confront the gravest crisis of our modern age! To hell with the capitalists! Their desires are part of history!”

“Amen, brother!”

“You have no right to say ‘amen,’ communist!”

“Throughout this great land, we have eight million unemployed men. We have no need to argue capitalism versus socialism. We have only to find work for these men. Let the government beg, borrow, or steal if it must—but let it give bread to these men! Let us build great roads, high monuments, or government housing. But let us build, my brothers. Hell, let us dig ditches and fill them back in again! Whatever it takes. But if we only debate, our heads shall be hung from the highest pikes!”

“What’s your policy?”

“I propose, my brothers, a special inheritance tax, at eighty percent, on estates over a hundred thousand marks. This should net us two hundred million marks in the first year alone. We use this as collateral for borrowing money from the British. They fund most of our loans as it is! We use this borrowed money for great public works—the greatest public works the world has ever seen. Every house, a hanging garden, if that is what is required!”

“What about when it has to be paid back!”

“That can be dealt with when the time comes! The world must get back on its feet someday!”

“What about the long term?”

“In the long term,” shouted the man, “we are all dead!”

Raucous laughter rose.

“Might not be as long as you think, traitor!”

“Point of order!”

The gavel went unheard.

Another man rose, arguing that manufacturers needed to be exempt from ‘at-source’ taxes, that they should be shifted to ‘at-purchase’—consumers. He was derided for wanting to shift taxes from the rich to the poor.

Another man argued that what was required was government subsidies for research and development. He was derided as providing nothing tangible in the present.

Another man wanted more subsidies for the arts, noting that they employed many talented people, and were responsible for a lot of tourism. He was derided for putting circuses before bread.

Another wanted a new tax on diamonds. Another wanted to break the power of the unions. Another wanted to expand the laws against monopolies. Another wanted to require university students to perform manual labor in the summers, for no discernible reason other than rank anti-intellectualism. Another wanted to find and subsidize intelligent children of poor parents. Another wanted to fund the children of pure German couples. Another wanted to impose more taxes on Jews. Another wanted to end the foreign exchange of the mark, to prevent a flight of currency. Another wanted extra holidays for teachers.

The centrist parties were blocked and jeered at by the totalitarian parties. It was clear to Tom what the totalitarian parties wanted. They wanted to cripple democracy, in the hopes that general panic would overrun all debate, forcing more and more radical solutions until a dictatorship was achieved.

But democracy is already crippled! he thought, watching the rolling frustration churning around the great hall. Every one person’s gain is another persons loss. Everyone is using the power of the state to lever money their way. So there is a general loss of wealth. I demand that the government take a pound from you and give it to me; the government takes twenty pence to transfer it. You lose a pound; I gain eighty pence. Net loss.

And his mind seemed to fly above the city, over Germany as a whole, and imagined that the whole horde of entrepreneurial life-givers—the arteries of the economy—were paralyzed by sudden waves of changing regulations. And what incentive would they have to work like dogs building businesses? They are taxed at source—and cannot even give their money to their children. And what if they wanted to hire any of these eight million unemployed? Surely there should be a great incentive to hire them, because they should be very cheap. But they can’t. There are so many regulations involved in hiring someone… And even if they were content with things today, who is to say what they shall look like tomorrow? No, I can see that they would wait it out, wait to see what was going to happen…

The afternoon was wearing on. Finally, about a quarter to five, another man got up. He was very tall, very old, and dressed in an antiquated suit. He said:

“In the nineteen twenties, the German government spent mostly borrowed money. We relied almost exclusively on American loans. The money we borrowed went into public works, blatant vote-buying, and loans to political friends. The banking sector repeatedly warned the government and the public that if the Americans were forced to call in their short-term loans, we would be unable to survive it. When the New York Stock Exchange crashed in 1929, this is exactly what happened. We were required to pay our bills, and we could not…”

Cries arose:

“Ancient history!”

“Do you mean the eighteen twenties, old man?”

“Have you come to write a check, banker?”

“We could not meet our obligations,” said the old man with strange, weary power, leaning forward on his podium. “except by cutting internal spending. And so the entire structure of our economy, which was entirely dependent on excessive state spending, has collapsed. The government has no money left to pay its friends. We are saddled with interest payments which clean out our treasury. Our economy is in ruins. Nineteen twenty-nine: two million unemployed. Nineteen thirty-one: five million unemployed. Today: eight millions. In 1929, our industrial production had just returned to its 1914 levels. Now, it has dropped by fifty-eight percent. In 1931, we came close to bankruptcy, and were only saved by another round of borrowing. As a state, our costs have gone up, and our income has gone down. So what have we done? We have raised taxes. We have passed laws limiting foreign investment. We have strangled the free flow of labor and capital. We have raised the minimum wage. We have granted the unions unjust powers. We have nationalized industries. The German government now controls more of the economy than any other democracy in the world.”

“Thank you, professor!”

“How interesting these statistics are!”

“Go (cough) yourself, old man!”

“Talk on, talk on… We are sharpening our blades for ancient necks!”

The old man’s voice rose over the loutish jeering in sudden power. “We think that freedom has failed? Let me ask you this: who is now free? Not the capitalists. They are taxed at unsustainable rates. They have to try to comply with endless laws, deal with bottomless bureaucracies, shifting regulations. The working man cannot find work except through protectionist unions, who would rather keep their own members in jobs than open the market to the unemployed. The landowner? Taxes strangle him. He cannot freely sell his land. Farmers? They are forbidden to sell their goods overseas. What about the mere individual? He faces all-powerful, government-sponsored interest groups at every turn. He cannot get their kinds of favors and privileges unless he joins them. He must join some group, hoping to grab some scrap from the general melee, or perish alone. How is he free? On what grounds do we condemn freedom? Everything is coerced by the power of the government over the economy, even now. And yet, as we pile more decrees upon more tariffs upon more laws upon more taxes, we find that things are getting worse instead of better. We blame freedom because the power of the government is not working. We blame freedom because compulsion is not working. Freedom has not failed. Compulsion has failed.”

“What’s your point, geezer?”

“My point is that, to restore prosperity and freedom, we must repeal the government controls over the economy.”

“Back to the sweatshops, he says!”

“What about the nineteenth century, old man—you were there!”

“At the beginning, looks like!”

“Down with laissez-faire!”

“Down with the night watchman state!”

“Down with child labor!”

“Down with classical liberalism!”

“Down in front!”

The old man stared at the jeering mob. He nodded gravely, slowly.

“I did not expect to be heard,” he said. “I only wanted to be on record.”

He picked up his papers, arranged them carefully, and walked slowly out of the chamber. Around him, the Nazis and Fascists and Communists pretended to spit on him. He walked with the kind of dignity which belonged to another age.

To my age, thought Tom. To the nineteenth century… Another thought fell on him, and he felt his nose sting with coming tears. He’s going to go home, kiss his wife, and kill himself… And there is something honorable in that!

“Who is that?” he asked, turning to Klaus.

Klaus’s nose wrinkled. “Some capitalist apologist. Have you had enough?”

Tom nodded slowly. They rose, and left the chamber of horrors, without a backward glance.

Outside, the light was almost gone. A chill wind wandered down the street. Dark-coated people hurried along the sidewalks, their faces indistinguishable under hats and scarves. The gray stone of the buildings looked like morning ashes, or evening gravestones.

“You are truly fucked,” said Tom, grimacing in mute apology.

Klaus grinned. “It is truly a heady time to be a German!”

“No, really,” said Tom, leaning in and resisting an urge to grab the German boy’s lapels. “What do you think is going to happen?”

Klaus shrugged. “Hitler will probably get in.”

“That madman?”

“Mad?” frowned Klaus. “On what grounds?”

“Well…” Tom scowled. “That’s a lengthy chat. Let’s do it another time.”

“All right,” said Klaus slowly.

They walked in silence. The life of the city seemed to go on around them. Tom could not sense any real panic. Men and women hurried home for their suppers. There weren’t many children in the streets, but Tom thought that perhaps the houses all had wonderful gardens out back, where kids played tag in the growing dark. However, he remembered that there had been few children in London when he first got there, too.

But—but the wolves were coming out. As night fell, and the bustling, industrious, employed Germans began to vanish into their homes, another sort of loping pack began to emerge. It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, thought Tom. Sensible middle-class white-collar workers gave way to roaming packs of yelping youths, who tweaked the remaining pedestrians and collided into each other with sudden fists.

He and Klaus walked in silence. Tom had a sudden, strange urge. He wanted to take Klaus’s hand. It must be agony to see this happening to your homeland, he thought tenderly. Klaus seemed sort of unable to process what was happening. Tom imagined that Klaus would gaze in curious, split wonder even at his own disemboweling. Death is just the dialectic to life, he imagined him murmuring.

“What’s the recital?”

“Oh, it’s a goof,” said Klaus happily. “A fun piece. It’s…”

“heil hitler!” cried a harsh voice behind them.

Tom suddenly got the impression that Klaus wanted to take his hand. Klaus turned around, his arm snapping up.

“Heil Hitler!” he shouted, his teeth wide and eyes narrow.

Tom turned and saw a group of about eight brown-shirted youths. Their eyes swiveled from Klaus’s raised arm to Tom’s lowered one, like they were watching a tiny tennis match.

“You do not salute the Führer?” asked a tall man in front. He had a shaven head and facial stubble. I always said, thought Tom, that you should never trust anyone whose beard is longer than his hair… The man also had a German Shepherd puppy at his feet.

Tom leaned forward, cocking his head. “Ich nicht sprechen zie Deutsch.”

The bald youth smirked. “Yet you do not speak German with a perfect accent, which is most unusual,” he said, in German. “You are an Englander?” he asked. Getting no response from Tom, he turned to Klaus. “Your friend is from England?” he asked.

Tom did not like the fact that the other young men—a little squall of shaven heads—seemed to be settling into their own hips, as if they were quite content to be there for a while.

Klaus, did not lower his hand.

“Drop your hand, blondie!” snarled the bald man.

Klaus did so, and nodded slowly.

“So, we have an Englander,” said the bald man, turning to Tom. His nostrils seemed to widen slightly, as if scenting something unfamiliar. His dog growled, ever so slightly. “This Englander who does not speak German perfectly. So he will not understand if I say that I want my dog to fuck his Queen.” The man’s bald head came in closer, turning slightly. “I want my dog to fuck his Queen, and myself to fuck his King. And they will sing ‘Deutchland, Deutchland uber alles’ in perfect harmony, as we fuck them together, me and my dog…”

Tom’s eyes did not widen. He forced himself to breathe slowly.

Klaus did not move.

The man paused. Tom expected more abominations, but he seemed to be at the limit of his creativity. The head withdrew slowly.

He turned and slapped Klaus in the face, hard.

“Teach your friend better manners,” he spat. “He is your guest. When in Rome, do as the barbarians do!”

There was a cacophony of laughter at this line, obviously used before. The laughter was not of men who find something funny, but rather of men who think it important to show that they can laugh openly.

After the Nazis had left, crossing the street to accost an old man, Tom looked to Klaus. Klaus returned his gaze. He did not rub his cheek. He said nothing, then laughed suddenly.

“They are just—uneducated,” he said. “Graphic, and uneducated. They’re not representative of every Nazi. There are Nazis in England, you know. And America. And Stalin is no prince.”

“Is this common?” asked Tom.

“Well, I was hoping to be able to take you ten Berlin blocks without running into the ranks of the frustrated unemployed, but there it is.” Klaus shrugged. “They came, they went.”

Tom did not move. His face said: you are too matter-of-fact.

“We cannot give them jobs,” said Klaus, his voice rising. “We cannot give them wives. What are they to do? We have no way to compel their obedience! The contract is broken!”

“All right,” murmured Tom, his voice low, perhaps in counterpoint to Klaus’s tone. “All right.”

“We shan’t let it spoil our evening,” said Klaus decisively. His shoulders jerked involuntarily, as if he were shrugging on a heavy coat which had slipped. “Onward and upward!”

They found the recital hall, which was of medium size, and filled with people of extremes.

This phrase flew into Tom’s mind almost unbidden. The crowd smoking and drinking in the entrance hall were loud, derisive, mocking, funny—and extreme. Tom’s eyes flew from man to woman to man. There were no averages. People were either depressingly thin or offensively obese. They were either glacially beautiful or malevolently ugly. He did not see anyone with what he would consider a normal haircut. Anyone who wore glasses wore the lenses in frames that were either thick and black, covered with glittering rhinestones, or almost nonexistent. He counted five women with bright feather boas, and two men. The men looked either wiltingly homosexual or brutally hetero. The women looked like librarians or strippers. Even everyone’s eyes seemed extreme. They were afraid, or mocking, or scornful, or withdrawn, or shy, or belligerent—anything but polite and receptive. Tom could not find anyone with regular, casual-athlete muscles. They were either painfully anemic or heavily muscle-bound. No one had a simple beard. No one was clean-shaven, either. There was a fantastic array of various tufts, lines, whorls, and intricate designs of stubble. There was not a single natural hair color—or even a hair color found in nature. Footwear was quite ridiculous. Women wore either insane heels or athletic shoes. Men wore thin, ankle-high sandals, or heavy, Dutch black leather pumps with little clasps which looked like cobblers out of fairy tales. No one seemed unconcerned with their own appearance. Even those with messy hair had arranged their chaos carefully. There was very little sexual tension in the room. There was a vague cloud of depression, of hopelessness, of desperation. Everyone wanted to laugh, but no one found anything very funny. Everyone wanted to be attractive, but to be loved for something other than their appearance. Everyone wanted to be sexy, but was too screwed up to have any real desires.

Tom moved into the crowd, just behind Klaus, like a shark into a jittery crowd of wading boy scouts. People drew back. They had to. Into this broken, clutching community, Tom brought such elemental health that they withdrew, casting him looks of uncomprehending resentment. Don’t you know that you’re not supposed to be here? We don’t know that we’re doomed to be here if you are not here!

Tom smiled vaguely at people, trying not to show his distaste. It seems odd, he thought, watching the little blonde whirlpool at the back of Klaus’s head, that Klaus has not succumbed to this… Then an odd thought hit him. These people are still healthier than he is, because they wear their distress and alienation on the outside. They are visible, to others, and in the mirror. Klaus is not. Klaus is not.

Klaus bought him a drink of wine, and Tom sipped it gratefully.

“Klaus!” shrieked a female voice. Tom saw Klaus recoil, as if he were going to be asked to salute the Führer again. A fat, cherubic-faced woman pushed her way through the crowd.

“Where have you been hiding, you naughty country boy!” she pouted, holding out her cheek expectantly. He leaned forward and kissed it.

“How are you, Greta?” he asked.

“I am well,” she said, in mock formality, making a little bow, “and you?”

“Fine.”

“What happened to your face?” she asked, reaching forward and pinching it. Klaus grimaced. “Did you get spanked by a fascist? Remember the salute! Heil Whatever-You’ve-Got! I got confused yesterday, got up with a hangover, and ‘heiled’ myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth. Tore my gum!” she said, lifting her lip. Klaus averted his eyes. “Wha—oo—doon—n—tun?” she asked, still holding up her lip.

“My friend Tom is here,” said Klaus, introducing them.

Greta looked at Tom lasciviously. “An Englander! Here! Do you work for the embassy? Helga works for the embassy. Helga!” she shouted, her voice suddenly booming.

“No—I’m just here to see the sights.”

She pressed her ample breasts together, grinning up at him. The crack of her cleavage looked like a bottom to him. “Ohh!” cried Greta. “Some sights he is too shy to see!”

“Greta…” sighed Klaus.

She put a red-nailed finger to her mouth, bulging her eyes and puffing out her cheeks in the little-girl manner which Tom hated. It always reminded him of drunken women pretending to regret uttering a swear word or touching a man’s crotch. Oopsie! He always wanted to slap such women. He wanted to slap Helga now. He started crossing his arms across his chest, but then remembered that such women always commented on body-language, and left them by his side.

“Did you hear about Tomas?” asked Greta, winking at Tom and leaning to whisper in Klaus’s ear. Her left hand continued to play over her bosom. She wanted, Tom imagined, to give the impression that it was an unconscious, sensual gesture. It did not. It looked like a monkey’s paw, scratching something obscene.

Another woman arrived. Hard, cynical eyes glinted behind thick black frames. She was thin, hipless, and wore a black dress wrapped too tight around her shapeless frame. She looked like a bolt of black cloth.

“I am Helga,” she said, holding her hand out to Tom.

It seemed too low to kiss, but he did it anyway. She burst out into laughter, turning her head.

“I hold my hand out for him to shake, and he kisses it!” she said a few times, to no one in particular. Then she leaned forward and said: “You’re not from around here, but then—who is?”

“I am from England,” said Tom, taking another sip of his wine, resisting the urge to throw it all back.

Her eyes seemed to flash with fear. Her mouth worked. Her lipstick was too red, her face too pale. She looked like a desperately seductive clown. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice slightly more genuine.

“I am visiting Klaus, my friend.”

Helga frowned. “Your friend…” Her brow contracted, as if trying a mental calculation she knew in advance was beyond her grasp. “How is he your friend?”

Does she mean: how on earth? or where did you meet? “We went to school together.”

“Ah!” she clapped her hands. “At Oxford! So what do you think of our little capital?”

“I think it is rather intense.”

She smiled. “That’s true. I can barely walk. I had sex with five men last night.”

Tom’s eyes widened. She did not seem to find the statement unusual. Part of him wanted to ask more. Part of him wanted to run.

The lights flicked on and off a few times. Helga leaned forward and took his hand in her brittle claw. “Come and sit with me.”

“Actually, I hope my seat is assigned,” said Tom, then blushed. “Sorry, that’s the wrong word. Not ‘hope.’ ‘Think.’”

Her eyes narrowed. He had clearly committed some unforgivable sin. “You bastard!” she hissed. He almost took a step back. The venom was sudden, bottomless. Greta pulled back from Klaus, saw Helga’s face, and laughed harshly.

“Pry that goddamned weasel off your face, Helga, or we’ll have to turn you over to the fascists again.”

Helga’s face paled. She vanished into the crowd.

“Come to my flat after,” said Greta, pinching both of their cheeks. “It’s absinthe night!”

As they went into the music hall, Tom glanced at a sign:

‘Atanos Thgilnoom’

There was more incomprehensible text, but he was swept with the crowd into the hall. At one point, a hand clutched at his buttocks. He didn’t try to see who it was.

Klaus and Tom sat in some uncomfortable wooden chairs, which were too small, and seemed to have been culled from some kindergarten class. There was a magnificent piano in the front of the hall. A young man came out, dressed in a gorgeous, immaculate tuxedo. Tom blinked. There was nothing unusual about his appearance. He began to relax—and only then noticed that his belly muscles had been steadily contracting all day, ever since they sat down in the viewing balcony of the Reichstag.

“You’re going to love this!” whispered Klaus, leaning over, his eyes shining. “This man is beyond genius!”

The man bowed gravely, accepting the applause with old-world graciousness. Tom leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes. He felt that the music would wash away the warped crowd seated around him. That only the music or the audience could exist. Not at the same time. Not in the same place.

The first note came, with a long pause. It sounded lovely. Tom’s face sagged. He loved live music. The sound from a gramophone was just too harsh, too crackly. For about the five-thousandth time in his life, he wished he had stuck with his piano lessons as a child.

The second note seemed to take his breath away. It was wrong. It was vaguely, vaguely familiar, but very, very wrong. Then notes came in rapid succession (No, thought Tom, not ‘succession’; they just come tumbling out, without rhyme or reason). The pianist’s page-turner turned a page, but it seemed odd…

“Isn’t it wonderful!” whispered Klaus, so softly that Tom could barely hear him.

“What is it?” asked Tom, feeling an urge to stop his ears. It was the music of madness.

“It’s Beethoven!”

“A new Beethoven?”

Klaus shook his head in glee

“Newly discovered old Beethoven?”

He shook his head again. He pressed his lips almost to Tom’s ears. “This man has spent his whole life learning how to play music backwards.”

“What?”

“It’s Moonlight Sonata!” whispered Klaus in strange exultation. “Though you should hear his Esile Rüf!”

Tom’s brow contracted involuntarily, almost painfully. Turning his head in slow increments, he gazed over the crowd. Some of the eyes were glazed, bored. Some were self-consciously closed, and fingers traced the music in the air over pursed lips. Some were also looking around, and fell when his gaze met their own.

And this whole broken crowd sat, like slaves in the belly of a Roman galley, listening to the tortured music flowing over them, going back in time. The music flowed back towards its beginning—and perhaps they hoped that it could also take them back in time, back to a time before they were broken.

It was a long and gruesome recital. Tom knew that the music would never be the same again. It was, somehow, like knowing the day and time of your own death. The span of time was the same, but the experience was now forever horrible. He felt angry. Angry and hopeless. He wanted to grab this crowd by the neck and tell them to shut the fuck up and go away, to find some other way to—well, to deal with whatever the hell they were dealing with by murdering Beethoven.

Against his wishes, Klaus got Tom another glass of wine afterwards. They stood in the hallway. The weird energy of the weird music had somehow infected the crowd. They seemed more belligerent.

“Klaus,” said Tom, feeling as if he were now the anthropologist Klaus always claimed to be. “What is the point?”

Before Klaus could answer, a tall, sallow-faced man turned to him from the crush of the crowd.

“What is the point?” the man asked. “You ask this, when you can buy a recording of the best pianist in the world playing Beethoven for a half a dozen marks?”

“So…”

“So it’s like photography. Why spend a week painting a stream when a camera can get it better than you could dream of in under a minute? You used to have to study anatomy to paint a great nude—now all you have to do is find a way to get a woman to take her clothes off and take a snapshot!”

Tom did not answer for a moment. Don’t! Don’t! But he could not resist. “But the camera can’t get the passion of the scene. The recording is scratchy. The photograph, black and white. That’s not it.”

“Oh?” demanded the man. “Then what is it?”

“It’s…” Tom frowned. It wasn’t that he was afraid of offending the man—after all, it could well have been this man who had clutched his buttocks on the way in—but rather that he really didn’t know. Some vague scraps of ideas ran through his head, but…

“Then in the absence of input, my thesis stands,” said the man, clicking his heels. “With your permission.” He turned away.

Klaus smiled sadly. “You really find it that awful?”

Tom was about to reply, but then something happened which dried his tongue and sunk his heart.

The lights flicked on and off a few times.

Tom groaned, almost inaudibly. He just didn’t have the strength.

“Next up: Mozart!” cried Klaus, grabbing at Tom’s arm. The crowd surged forward as one, a fleshy sea of dead peacocks.

The next morning, Tom woke up late. The quality of the day before had been so dreamlike that he first of all imagined that he was back in his little room. He tried to imagine which way he was facing, on his bed. He reached out and tried to touch a wall, but his fingers just floated through empty space.

Klaus was watching him, sitting and sipping something from an old, delicate, and chipped china cup.

“Good morning, sleepy head.”

“What time is it?”

“Ten twenty,” said Klaus, not glancing at his watch.

Tom craned his head, looking at the wall over his pillow. No clock. He wanted to ask: ‘How do you know?’ but feared that Klaus might interpret the question as an inquiry as to the nature of Time and Dialectic Materialism.

Tom stretched. He had a vague headache, some combination of jet lag, three glasses of wine (he had always been terribly susceptible to alcohol), and the striking horror of this dying city.

“So what’s up for today?” he asked.

Klaus smiled. “We are going to a rally. Then, we are having dinner with some friends. Then we are going to a play!”

Tom almost laughed. “A rally! Who’s speaking?”

“Representatives of every party.”

“What are they saying?”

“There is an election this month.”

“Wasn’t there one in April?”

“Yes, but you saw what was happening yesterday. Hindenburg keeps appointing these chancellors with extraordinary powers, who have no backing from the Reichstag. Everything is paralyzed. So we’re having another election. And the Nazis are worried they’re losing ground. That’s why they’re joining up with the Communists about the transportation strike. They’re almost bankrupt. The next election should sort things out.”

Tom blinked. “This is all a bit much before tea. When is the rally?”

“One.”

Tom paused. “I—wonder. Is it safe?”

“The rally? It should be.”

“Is this something you want to go to?”

“I know all the positions already. I thought you might be interested.”

“Well, I am, I suppose, but political education in Germany seems to be rather harsh.”

Klaus smiled. “Isn’t it everywhere? Whether we see it or not?”

Tom shook his head, trying to wriggle free of his deep ache. “Tea!”

They had brunch in the hotel, and then walked for a little time downtown. Tom was quite amazed at the change in Berlin between night and day. It looked like any other prosperous Western city. The unemployed milled around, but they were slightly more jovial than the political youths. They joked and cajoled passersby for spare change, and broke into song on occasion. They reminded Tom of the English unemployed. They seemed—hearty. As if they were going through a bad time, but were determined to weather it with composure. They believe things are going to get better, thought Tom, and a sudden question came to him. He wanted to ask: ‘Who is voting for the Nazis?’ but something restrained him. He glanced at Klaus, walking beside him, seeming to absorb everything around him, his pale eyes placid, his face untroubled. I don’t know what really makes him tick, thought Tom suddenly. I have known him for three years, not counting the two years I spent in London after leaving Oxford—and I don’t really understand his ideas. I am his guest, and this is his Fatherland, and Gunther sent me here to understand something important, and I am not really grasping it at all, any of it.

“Klaus,” he said, putting his hand on the German boy’s shoulder.

Klaus stopped and turned to him. Tom smiled. It looked as if a lamppost was growing out of his friend’s head.

“That sounded most intimate,” said Klaus. “Are we going to cross the threshold?”

“Klaus—what did you like about the concert last night?”

Klaus nodded, seeming to understand the depths of the question. “Can we talk as we walk? I don’t want to miss the beginning of the rally.”

They started off again. There was a long pause before Klaus spoke. Clouds were gathering over the tall and stained roofs of the ancient city. Everything began turning gray. The blue of the sky and yellow of the sun was overrun. The people began to turn gray under the whitening sky. The buildings were losing all color. Once, as they passed by a church, Tom glanced at the stained glass windows, and they seemed darkened beyond color. They gave neither visibility nor decoration.

As they walked, a few men came up and asked for money. Klaus answered them politely, giving them nothing but a civil recognition of a petition. They seemed to appreciate this more than a few coins, and retreated back to their alleys and doorways with a slightly more noble step.

“Tom,” said Klaus eventually, “everything in history is a kind of pendulum. The Middle Ages was one. Then we swung to the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the birth of the Scientific Revolution—and I know that these are the capital letters you approve of, much as if I were to utter ‘Nineteenth Century.’ These rationalistic trends reached their meridian, their climax, in the Industrial Revolution. And we all know the benefits they bestow. Many people did well—and not just the capitalists, but also the workers. But Tom, a kind of world was lost, there, as well. A world probably too small for you and I, but a world that fits more of humanity than we would probably like to admit. You and I love knowledge and travel, but we are rare. Most people want crops in the field, a wife at the stove, a community of well-known faces, a porch with a favorite chair, and singing the songs in old age which they learned in their youth. Continuity. Security. Certainty.

“And the world has been ruled for the past two hundred years by people like you and me. We have remade it in our image. And we have achieved many great things. Wonders, truly, unprecedented in history.

“But we have also destroyed many great things. Things unimportant to you and me. Knowledge multiplies, economies rise and fall, new inventions to be mastered flow at us like a torrent. Manufacturing methods change. What we learn in school is useless in middle age. What is man? The earth? The universe? Truth, matter, religion, facts? Everything changes, advances and retreats. Nothing is certain.”

Klaus smiled sadly. “We are curious men. We like the freedom of uncertainty. But that’s not for everyone. Many people feel as horrible in our world as we would in theirs. And we have had our way for a long, long time. This backlash should have been expected. People are getting sick of our kinds of freedoms. Our freedoms—the freedom to act and think and reason and argue and change and progress towards a goal we know nothing of. What do they mean to a factory worker? He wants freedom from want, from insecurity, from poverty and lying awake at night worrying about his job or his children’s health. He wants freedom from fear. We cannot give him that. We can only win our freedoms at the expense of his. So now he has banded up against us. Can we blame him? He does not want what we want.”

There was a long pause. Tom nodded slowly. “The recital.”

“That’s another kind of freedom,” said Klaus, smiling suddenly. “Freedom from convention, from tonality, from reading left-to-right, perhaps. There’s great fun in that kind of freedom. And it is the end result of curiosity.”

“Curiosity without rules,” murmured Tom.

“Now, now, Tommy!” said Klaus, wagging his finger. “Rules were in place last night. Play backwards! That takes great discipline—more so than playing forward, which is intuitive.”

“Yes, of course.”

“So we have reached the end of the pendulum called ‘objective rules,’” said Klaus. “Now, what is more important is ‘subjective desires.’”

“Romanticism.”

“You say that like it just shat in your mouth!” laughed Klaus in protest. “Really! Feelings are not the enemies of humanity.”

“No, but they must be strictly controlled.”

“Why? That’s such a medieval notion. We are not monks. We do not believe that feelings come from the devil.”

“So—you’re angry, you just hit someone.”

“Actually,” said Klaus seriously. “You are far more likely to end up hitting someone if you repress your feelings. This artificial straitjacket of rationality no longer fits the human soul, Tom. It was a toy which long outlasted its value.”

“What are you passionate about, Klaus?” asked Tom, remembering his desire to understand him.

“Oh, that’s complicated. Feelings flow and contradict each other. I think it might cause your little analytical head to explode.”

Tom laughed. “Try.”

“I am passionate about Germany. I think a great modern experiment is underway, right in the heart of an ancient land. This is the place which History chooses to start Her next great movement. The movement against Reason!” Klaus laughed. “I am going to shock you now.”

“Perhaps.”

“Reason is the greatest enemy of man. Reason dissects, cuts apart, splits into fragments and analyzes the pieces with a yawn. Reason cuts men off from experience. Reason divides the day into little minutes. Reason conquers the world at the expense of the soul, of life. Reason removes everything great about a man, and turns him into an accountant, a statistician, a tabulator of sense-data. Reason kills love—love of life, of the future, of one’s fellow man. Reason turns the brotherhood of man into a dry calculation of mutual utility. The ‘invisible hand’ hides the heart. We look at others and say: how can your existence benefit me materially? We do not look at them and say: your existence is a wonder; let us explore it! We become curious only about atoms, not others. Art dies. Passion dies. Love dies. The soul dies. And what do we get in return? The fucking steam engine!”

Klaus’s face was hot, twisted. Tom gazed at him, feeling a sudden kind of terror. But, he thought, I would be as passionate in my defense of England!

“That makes me passionate,” said Klaus, his breath short, after a few moments.

“I can truly see that,” said Tom, with feeling. “So the concert last night was part of the assault on reason.”

“I really hate that illusion of reason. It has been responsible for more deaths—more alienation—than can ever be calculated. Rational people are dead!”

“Do you think I am a rational man?”

Klaus smiled. “‘Rational’ is a word with many applications. I think you are a rational man, in that you know that there is more to life than reason. The liver does not operate on reason, but food. But without the liver, we are dead! I just—hate how much emphasis is placed on the syllogism, as if we could all cuddle up to Aristotle and have him hold our hands as we fade into the next world. A man who pursues reason alone is like a man trying to live on only one kind of food. He might survive, in a manner of speaking, but why? What would be the point? I mean, no one has ever been able to create a purpose out of reason.”

“You cannot get an ‘ought’ out of an ‘is,’” said Tom, quoting one of their philosophy professors.

“Right!” said Klaus, jabbing his finger skyward. As if in answer, a drop of rain spattered on the tip, as if he had torn the belly of a cloud. “Nothing that makes life worthwhile can be sucked out of a syllogism! Passion! Unity! Sacrifice!”

“The group,” murmured Tom.

“The group—yes! Why not? What are we, as little individuals? We are atoms, cells. Incomplete without the group. There is a unity in the world which cannot be explained, which has to be experienced. It is joyful. It is ecstatic. It is, sadly, not parliamentary. It is the merging of supposed-one-ness into actual all-ness. Plato knew about it. The individual can only gain his true identity by merging with the group. Humanity is all. The individual is nothing. The individual is selfish, petty, grasping. He will sacrifice a million unknown others for his own daily bread. He knows nothing but his own motivations. He knows nothing of higher truths. He knows nothing of the universe beyond his own skin. He approaches others with suspicion. He cannot fathom that we are all the same, all one, all together. He wants to profit from others, regardless of the general welfare. He is a parasite!”

Tom tried not to react. He tried not to lash out at his friend. Well, Reginald’s friend, he thought—but did not allow himself the relief of that thought. I am here. Reginald is not.

“I want to thank you for telling me all that,” said Tom. The rain was growing from spotty to drizzly.

“You don’t mind the rain, do you Tom?”

“No,” said Tom, then shivered as an icy drop seemed to run all the way down his spine.

When they got to the rally, they found an almost carnival atmosphere. It was mostly young people. It was set up in the large square of Gendarmenmarkt. The rain had held up, and sleeping bags were being unrolled and spread out again. There was a sense of brotherhood in the square. People passed drinks around, shared cigarettes and food, and there were so many foot and back rubs going on that it looked to Tom as if everyone were joined onto one great, pink, spidery organism. He trod on one boy’s hand, but the boy just winked at him, grinned, and gave him a thumbs-up.

There was a great cordiality in the crowd. They acted as one, and Tom could not help but go over in his mind Klaus’s speech. The crowd only acted against people who tried to push their way forward; they cried out and stood up, barring their way. There was no violence. It seemed like every man was trying to grow a beard. Hair was long. Drugs were flowing around. The lineups for the public bathrooms were long, but people chatted and rarely seemed bothered. They let panicked boys and girls, clutching their groins, in ahead without complaint.

Babies were scattered around, seemingly in the charge of whoever happened to be lounging nearby. Guitars were strummed, folksongs sung in breathy blonde whispers by thin women with long hair. Occasional women were topless. Their breasts did not look good under the heavy skies; they had the appearance of fried eggs left in the rain for a week.

There was groping; bodies were shared as easily as water. There was slackness and expectation. There was unity and a vast lack of challenge. There was agreement, but it was an easy kind of agreement, an agreement not to disagree, like a woman erasing her own hopes in a vain desire to please everyone—and losing self, hope, and relationships in the process.

Gazing at the crowd, Tom felt very alienated, and very alone. He also felt some anger, and a little fear. He felt that this easy-going crowd was like a group of lions, lolling in the sun. They might disagree with each other, lazily, without rousing themselves. And all would be well, unless an antelope came along. Then, the lions would also not disagree with each other, but it would be a different kind of unity. A slinking, prowling unity, whose only mercy was, in the eyes of the antelope, a quick death.

Klaus stood on the outskirts of the crowd for about five minutes, shading his eyes from the cloud-glare, looking for some friends. Several groups clamored for he and Tom to join them. They did make a rather striking pair; Klaus’s perfect head, and Tom’s long, slender frame. When Tom shrugged and pointed at Klaus—and Klaus ignored them—the invitations turned to scorn. Clearly, Tom and Klaus thought they were too good for them. Who needed them anyway? Goddamned snobs.

Finally, Klaus gave up. “Let’s just merge in,” he said, edging through the various groups. Tom walked behind him, wondering how far they would get before being challenged. It was quite fascinating. Occasional resentful glances rose towards them, but arms and legs were moved. Klaus did not press his way; he seemed not to expect to get forward, which was sort of his locomotion, Tom noticed. As long as he did not force his way forward, he was accepted. Is this how a sperm gets into an egg? wondered Tom.

Eventually, they could go no further. They stood on a tiny square of concrete, between a blue-and-white-checked blanket and some sort of thin Mexican woven rug. Tom stared at the stage, while Klaus beamed at those around.

“Lost, brother?” asked a man of about twenty-five, who was making a fairly successful run at looking like Jesus Christ. His eyes were lazy, his lids low. He chewed at his long brown hair.

“We’re looking for some friends,” said Klaus.

The man stared at him. His lips worked, trying to give birth to something profound, as befitted his appearance. “That’s the human condition, comrade,” he said, then shifted his long legs. “Plop down here.” He gestured at his little blanket, probably regretting a lack of replicating loaves and fishes. “All are welcome.”

Some other men and women turned around. Introductions flowed back and forth in a lazy manner.

They were Wandervögel visiting from a commune about thirty miles outside of Berlin. They were experimenting with collective ownership, communal sexual relations, group parenting, and a rotating laundry schedule. They had decided to abandon materialism and ‘capitalist participation,’ choosing to grow their own crops. However, the problem was that they liked getting stoned, and found that being stoned killed their appetites, so they were growing mostly drugs now. They were currently debating whether to participate in capitalism enough to sell drugs to buy food. They were leaning to approving this, but only if they could trade goods without using cash.

There were a few babies around. The stares of the adults were not quite of the ‘thousand-yard’ variety, but were certainly far beyond the person they looked at. They asked few questions. Finding out that Tom was from England, one woman asked him if there were any jobs there, then subsided into inert exhaustion, as if the question had taken the last of her energy.

Their messianic leader—whose name was Levi—kept introducing them to everyone around, sometimes rising and calling out their names. Tom felt his headache really beginning to take root, growing down into his shoulders, while reaching forward to his eyes.

“When does it start?” he asked Klaus, whispering so that Levi would not stare at him and murmur: ‘It starts when it starts…’

“Soon,” said Klaus. His eyes wandered the crowd. “Quite a turnout.”

“Spontaneous,” said Levi, who had started nodding slowly and could not seem to stop. “It’s collective hair. One comb. One part.”

“What do you think of Hitler?” asked Tom, unable to resist the impulse.

“Is he here?” asked Levi, his eyes unmoving.

“No—he’s speaking at Nuremberg today,” said Klaus.

“That man has a spiritual synthesis,” said Levi. “He is a projection of the peasant.”

Tom exchanged a glance with Klaus, who shrugged.

“The words don’t matter,” continued Levi. “It’s like he’s knitting the future with his hands. Something to cover us all. He is the center of a circle which has no center, because everyone is on the outside looking at him.”

A woman sitting nearby leaned towards Tom and said, “We want his drugs, and all we have to do is listen!”

“They’re not mine…” said Levi.

The woman finished the sentence for him. “They’re the earth’s.” She put a hand-rolled joint to her thin lips, inhaling deeply. “We shift it from the earth,” she gulped, holding in the smoke, “to the sky!” She exhaled, aiming it at the clouds.

After about twenty minutes of occasional prophesy and continual smoke, the first speaker took to the podium. He was dressed well, in a thick white shirt, a narrow tie, and long corduroy trousers.

The jeering came up as soon as he appeared. Klaus said: “He’s from the Catholic Central party. They’re not popular. Old school. Reactionary. Not progressive at all. I’m surprised they even bothered.”

The speaker struggled to be heard, but there was quite a lot of old fruit around—probably from the communes—and the audience did not seem to be saving it for a more offensive speaker. Tom only heard a few phrases:

“…Germany’s past glories…”

“…a return to Christian values…”

“…work will make you free…”

“…roll up our sleeves and…”

“…take our rightful place in European…”

“…forge new ties with our former foes…”

“…require everyone to make the necessary sacrifices…”

“…forget capitalism, forget socialism—and embrace God!”

He gave up after about fifteen minutes, and Tom felt briefly sorry for him. He imagined the man working on his speech, perhaps envisioning winning over the crowd in an unprecedented feat of oratory. He left the podium covered in many more colors than he had arrived with.

The next speaker was a bullet-headed fascist. Tom almost groaned at the man’s stereotypical appearance. Don’t they ever recruit men with high, intellectual foreheads? Why does every fascist have to have the shape of a human shell?

Tom did not expect the fascist to get very far. But he was smarter than he looked. He started with some generalities about the need for unity, for cohesiveness in the face of corrosive social disintegration. He said that the fascists, unlike the Nazis, had no problems with the Jews. He said that they had no plans for world domination. They wanted a pure Germany, for and by the Germans themselves. “Those beyond our borders are of no concern to us!” He promised to make the capitalists pay. He defined a ‘capitalist’ as anyone with savings. It seemed like a fairly safe route with this crowd.

He preached sacrifice. He preached oneness. He preached the surrender of the self to a higher ideal. He preached making Germany perfect, so that the world would be forced to follow Germany’s example. He preached against Communism, as a Slavic phenomenon which could never take proper root in German soil. “And,” he shouted, “do we need Slavs to tell us how to deal with our exploiters? We have our own solutions!”

Universities need to be open to all. Compulsory youth service was essential. The state should manage—but not run—essential services. Art should be subsidized. Religion should be more personal. “German freedom, not French laxness!”

He did not focus on the ‘jobs for all’ message, which Tom thought was wise, given the crowd.

The crowd did not respond to him, either with jeers or approval. A few groups of shaven heads and erect backs were scattered throughout the crowd, and they applauded stiffly, refusing to choke when smoke was blown in their faces. They scorned those around them, with the faces of those who must sit in offal for the sake of entering an elect group.

A Communist man came up. He was also stereotypical, in Tom’s eyes. He wore a worker’s peaked cap, had a tightly buttoned wool coat, shapeless trousers, and gloves with the fingers cut off. No one could tell him anything about proletarian chic.

He was also a wise speaker. He did not talk about the exploitation of the workers. He talked about the exploitation of the system. That worked. There was—to Tom at least—a strong stench of failure coming from the crowd. None of them looked successful—even within their own hearts. There were educated eyes in the group, but they were eyes which had not been successfully educated, since they questioned only what their ideologies rejected. They never tried to understand opposing viewpoints, or take assertions they liked with a grain of salt simply because they liked them. They were not curious, thoughtful, creative eyes. They were eyes which flashed in malice when their resentments were stoked. They were irresponsible eyes, which yearned to ascribe personal failure to impersonal forces. They were eyes forever searching for any reason for circumstances other than free will. They were eyes which wept in relief whenever they found an idea which undermined the necessity and reality of individual choice. They were eyes which narrowed in hatred and fearful scorn whenever they were contradicted. They were tiny, beady, piggy eyes. They were slack in dumb sympathy until challenged; then they flashed with petulant resentment.

They loved the Communist. They loved him, but thought him too idealistic.

The Communist played them easily. He was good with a phrase, and had a stinging, bitter humor. He talked about how the current economy needed an underclass—thus implying that the crowd were where they were because their poverty fattened someone else’s pocketbook. He talked about how ‘gradualism’ was impossible, because there were too many forces feasting on the social body, forces which would defend their interests to the death. He said that these capitalist forces operated through the Reichstag, and that the first decree of a Communist state would be to close Parliament. “We will yank these pigs back from the trough—by their tails if we have to!” he shouted, and then winked, his voice lowering. “And who knows? Perhaps there will be bacon sandwiches at the victory party!”

He said that the Nazis had it all wrong. The Jews were not the enemy. Capitalists were the enemy. Anyone who controlled the means of the production. And if many of these people were Jews, so what? That is only because, historically, they were not allowed to own land. The Jews were only held up as the enemy by capitalists and their lackeys, to distract the people from the real enemy: themselves.

The man was energetic, rabid, a spellbinding speaker. He said that Communism was inevitable—it had been proven—and they could either vote for it now, or later. Now, and everyone’s suffering was that much the less.

His finale was magnificent. All drugs should be legalized. (This got prolonged cheers, of course.) And abortions too. Birth control should be free. Marriage and inheritance should be outlawed. Children should be raised collectively. Jobs should be optional. Personal development was the key to Communism. War should be avoided. “Since Communism is inevitable, why should we go to war over it? It would be like running to meet a train already coming into the station!”

He owned the crowd. He smiled in great benevolence at the end of his speech. The cheering went on and on. It wound down in a fitful smatter of druggy coughing.

There was a short break. Everyone smiled at each other benevolently, their spines sagging as they dug into their snacks.

Then, the Nazi came.

He was a short man, bristling with concentrated energy. He did not mince words:

“you have been robbed!” he screamed, at the top of his lungs—and it seemed impossible, to Tom, that he would be able to continue, the strain must be so great.

“you sit there huddling over your trinkets, not knowing that you have been robbed!”

Tom glanced around the crowd. Everyone was still. No one chewed or took a bite. Eyes were wide. There was a glint of terrible excitement in the scattered, reflecting white orbs. Tom could not tell if it was because of the words themselves, or the mad passion of the speaker.

“What futures do you possess?” demanded the man, his face twisted in a snarl. But the snarl was not frightening. It was oddly ennobling. It was the rage of a good doctor confronted with gruesome, unnecessary suffering.

“What has been given to you? A crumbling world where the privileged strip your hides for the sake of their own greed. Do you have houses? Do you have honorable professions? Do you have security? Do you believe in the future? Do you rise each morning with hope in your hearts? No! I say it again, for I do not want your secrets to remain secrets: no!

“You awake in fear. You go through your days in fear. You struggle against hopelessness. You deaden yourselves with drugs and a little sex.” The man’s sneer was savage. “You read mystics from the Orient and cast Tarot cards and hope that somehow you can escape from a world which has become your hell!

“You do all these little, petty, scabby things—and yet germany was once a world power which none dared defy!”

The man seemed overcome by a fit of rage. He pounded at the podium in a blind fury, making it shake. The audience winced, imagining his knuckles shattering.

“We inherited Rome!” screamed the man, “And we have let it all dribble away! We ruled the seas and the far lands of lesser peoples, and we have let it all be taken from us, like a toy from a naughty child. We suffered under a defensive war—and then, when were betrayed from within, and our victors humiliated us at Versailles, we retreated back to our lands, bowing and scraping and begging them to forgive us for all our former greatness!

“And the world has suffered for our cowardice. I will let no one off the hook for what Germany has become, for this little land we have built, from a shame and guilt that is not ours. The world has suffered, because Germany has suffered, and Germany—and you—must suffer no more!

“Do we not have the right to be a nation? Do we, the land of poets and philosophers, not have the right to be proud of our history, our people, our inheritance, our gifts?

“Do we accept the view of those who cheated us, and believe that we are immoral scum, with no right to play a part on the world stage? Do we retreat to our communes, retreat to live in a haze of drugs and drink, forgetting all our former glories? Do we allow Germany to be utterly destroyed?”

The man’s fists clenched white. He was in such a passion that his very frame seemed to expand. “Fuck the West! Fuck France and their little logicians! Fuck the British and their petty shopkeepers! We are the keepers of a more ancient flame! We are the passions of an older age. A more human age. An age of sacrifice and glory and unswerving devotion! An age when we had more to wake up to than our own little egos, our own little desires. An age when there was a people that we were a part of! An age when we cared about our race more than we cared about our own selves! When the glory of all was more than the needs of one!”

The man paused. With a sudden lurch, he hurled the podium to one side and advanced on the crowd.

“Wake up, sons and daughters of Germany! Wake your virility! You were not meant to live thus, lost in a fog, the fog of your own petty selves! Wake up and join the future! Wake up and take back what was stolen from you! Wake up and join us! The Nazis! The Nazis! The Nazis! We can restore to you what was once yours! We can bring back the Germany of our forefathers. Not this little modern abortion, with its democratic arguing and endless paralysis. No—a Germany which was not afraid to act, to decide, to be! A Germany that will serve you, as you serve it! A Germany which will embrace every single one of you, in love and devotion! A Germany which will no longer grovel before an unjust war we did not start! A Germany which will no longer apologize for defending itself! Fuck the West! Fuck Versailles!”

The man’s voice lowered slightly. His voice, if possible, seemed more passionate because of it. “They have made it clear to us. Very, very, very, very, very clear. They have made it clear how the world is to be run. Why do you not have homes, families, and futures? Because they have robbed you of billions of marks in reparations! They murder the fathers, and then fuck and pillage the sons! It is very clear. This is the way they want it. All we have to do is decide: do we grovel and pay, or stand and refuse?” The man’s mouth twisted further. “It is your future. Decide. Strength or abasement. Pride or groveling. Integrity or humiliation. Germany or—her enemies!”

The crowd was stunned. Tom’s throat was thick with passion. The men and women gazed at the speaker in wonder, as a blind man with new eyes would stare at his first sunrise.

Tom turned to Klaus, whose eyes were wide. His cheeks were mottled. Noticing that Tom had turned to him, Klaus blinked, shook his head and laughed softly.

“Haven’t they heard this stuff before?” asked Tom.

“This guy is good,” said Klaus, still shaking his head. “Best I’ve seen, except old Adolf.”

The cheer which came from the crowd was full throated, terrifyingly loud. On the stage, the short man threw his arms wide, as if embracing the sum of the sound. He had a broad grin on his face. He wiggled his fingertips, summoning more cheers. It suddenly seemed like a colossal joke. The man leapt to one side of the stage and pretended to conduct the cheers, waving his arms, seeming to pull screams out of the crowd like some manic puppeteer. He was screaming something, over and over—Tom thought it was the word ‘pride.’ His body was overcharged, electric with energy. It looked almost as if he would be able to leap off the platform and fly over the surging crowd.

Food was scattered as the crowd lunged forward. The man raced to the other side of the podium, still conducting, screaming the same word—Tom could tell that it was ‘pride.’ He and Klaus were taken up in the surge of bodies. Tom thought how strange it was that this crowd, which had seemed so passive and resigned, seemed now so full of power. It had something to do with a lack of purpose, but he was being jarred around too much to follow the thought properly.

Nazis were filling the stage. The German national anthem began to stir the air. The sky was utterly dark; the glowing lights seemed like white electric suns before an empty universe. There was a crackle and hiss, and then fireworks exploded over the crowd, which screamed and cheered and held babies aloft. Tom caught a glimpse of the Communist speaker, standing at the rear of the stage, staring at the Nazis in virulent hatred.

Someone grabbed Tom’s hand, and Klaus’s face popped into view from between two pressing bodies.

“Hold on!” he screamed. “It’ll be awhile!”

Chapter 34

Reginald and Wendy drove in silence. Reginald felt a strange calm, overlying a deep terror.

“I think that…” started Wendy, then stopped. She bit her lip and felt a rising bubble of tears. Her brain was repeating the inevitable mantra of all addicted to self-pity: this is not how it is supposed to be. She felt that a special moment had been torn from her by her brute of a husband, that he was denying her something that was her just due. She turned and stared huffily out of the window, watching the rolling granite, the turning buildings, the families walking hand in hand. They always get what they want. I never get what I want. Wendy settled into her seat. A depressingly pleasant shiver ran through her body. So, this is how the afternoon is going to be spent. I shall be offended, and then he shall be offended… It was horrible, to think of how sad it would be—and terrifying, to think that it could not be stopped.

Wendy and Reginald had reached a phase in their marriage—an inevitable phase, probably, called ‘armed blame.’ They needed the same things from each other, at the same time, but these things could not be two-way. She needed comfort, he needed comfort. He needed sex, she needed tenderness. She needed to be listened to, he needed to be listened to. They both needed unconditional love, but they were neither each other’s parent, so it was impossible. They both needed, but never received enough to satisfy, to assuage, to comfort and bring to heel all the discontents of daily living. They both needed, but never received. Neither could imagine that this was because their demands were irrational. It could only be because the other was withholding, punishing, manipulating. They were maddened by thirst, and could not stir from an oasis whose imaginary water forever turned to sand in their mouths.

Reginald parked the car, and they went inside.

They went inside, and suddenly saw their flat, and stopped in the hallway. Books were everywhere (‘Don’t touch them!’ Reginald always shouted. ‘They’re in order!’). Clothes from the sudden lovemaking of a fortnight past were still at the foot of the sofa. Cups of old coffee and plates with the detritus of toast sat on the side tables, half-covered with half-finished crosswords. The carpet was vaguely mottled, vaguely crunchy. The cushions on the sofa were uneven. Three and a half pairs of shoes were scattered across the floor. The glass on a picture hanging on the wall had been cracked two months ago, but had not been repaired. The angle had been corrected, but badly.

A wave of depression swept over the couple. They stood, half a foot apart, feeling like they were children who had been playing at ‘house’ for far too long, and it was high time some adult came in and took charge.

Reginald walked into the living room and sat heavily on the sofa. He half-expected to feel something sharp jab into his buttocks. He looked at the dust on the mantelpiece, on the light fixtures, the windowsill. He took a deep breath, and coughed, feeling close to angry tears.

He got up and said: “Do you want some tea?”

Standing in the doorway, Wendy paused. He had a way of offering things that always seemed to imply that she was somehow remiss in not offering them to him first. But it was not something that he had ever admitted, and she did not want to raise the issue now, because it was a bottomless hole. She shook her head, thinking: If I don’t want tea, I can’t have been remiss in not offering it to him—although, I suppose, he would just say that I never think of his needs unless they coincide with my own…

He went into the kitchen. He was clattering around, pouring water into the kettle. Wendy tried to decipher the volume of his puttering. Too loud or too quiet was always dangerous. Too loud was anger; too quiet was suppressed anger.

She felt a wave of weariness washing over her, like an oily, insistent waterfall which was trying to pull her down into the floor. She kicked off her shoes with an impatient spasm, deliberately hurting her own heel, feeling a stab of dark satisfaction.

Sleep! She wanted to sleep for a thousand years! The man in the kitchen was an utter stranger. What were they doing together? Why had they… She touched her belly button, wondering if there was lint in there. Spain fluttered through her mind. Standing on the balcony, watching the man in the kitchen running along a dawn street. How on earth did he end up here? she wondered, and then remembered that she was standing in his flat—the flat which neither of them would have ever seen if they had not been married. She touched a crack running almost the entire height of the hall wall. Neither of us would ever have seen this crack. It would not have existed in our conception of the world…

The whine of the kettle peaked and subsided. Wendy felt, a little dramatically, that her knees might buckle and fold. She imagined Reginald standing over her prostrate form, ignoring her ‘histrionics,’ asking her if she wanted milk in her tea. Not only would he not help me up, he can never even remember whether I like milk in my tea or not! Glancing down, she saw that her hands were in little fists, like white knuckled striking snowballs.

Wendy heard the fridge open. A short pause. She lifted one foot.

“Jesus Christ!” snarled Reginald, from the kitchen.

We’re underway! thought Wendy with dark glee. What has his ugly little hamster mind come up with this time?

“Wendy!” he cried. She walked into the kitchen, feeling a flush of energy coursing along the surface of her bones.

“Yes, dear?” she said, in the tone of voice which said: I am willing to take this as far as you are!

“You went out for groceries yesterday, didn’t you?”

Ahah! she thought. Lord Reginald finds some little want of his not instantly appeased! “Yes, I did.”

“Then I have two questions, I suppose.” He held up a bottle of milk and shook it. There was just a little white residue on the bottom. “The first is antecedent to the second. The first is, why is there an empty bottle of milk in the fridge? Wait—let me ask the second, it’s a goodie. The second—and perhaps more important—is: why is there not a full bottle of milk in the fridge?”

Several responses flitted through her mind, but they were all testable and verifiable. They were out of milk. The store was closed. They have started a delivery service, and I signed up for that instead.

“Sorry,” smiled Reginald. “Is that a difficult question? I mean, you’re an intelligent woman. Your pattern recognition is first-rate. Every week, we go through a bottle of milk. Well, I go through a bottle of milk. With my Corn Flakes. You’re more of a ‘toast’ person, so let’s just see if there’s bread.” He turned and opened the bread-bin. “Ah! Bread. Splendid. Butter? Yes. Jam? Yes—two kinds! And marmalade! So everything is there for you. But not for me.”

“What, do you think I deliberately refused to get food for you?”

“No. Oh no. I think it’s actually worse than that. I would be relieved if it was only that. I think that it didn’t even cross your mind to get things for me. If you like it, here it is. If I like it, it’s not.”

“Do I take milk in my tea?” she demanded suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, if I’m so remiss in understanding your needs, you must be excellent at understanding mine. So—do I take milk in my tea?”

He looked at her so stupidly that, for a moment, she was tempted to laugh out loud. But she didn’t want to raise the stakes quite that high. Yet.

“I’m not getting sidetracked by your little games,” he said, after a moment. “We’re going to stay on my issue, and then deal with yours.”

“This is dealing with your issue. I mean, if your issue is that we’re out of milk…”

“This is not about us being out of milk!” cried Reginald. “Don’t start willfully misinterpreting me right at the beginning, or the whole day will get fucked. And we don’t want this day—of all days—to get fucked.”

“Please don’t swear,” she said.

“Don’t make me! Don’t willfully misinterpret me, and then restrain me from expressing upset!”

“You will not swear!” she said, with sudden violence, jabbing her finger at him.

“Oh, but you can raise your voice and jab your finger!”

“It’s so lower class. I feel like I’m married to some tattooed sailor!”

“Oh, and you standing there like some vengeful washerwoman is the height of sophistication. Getting angry with me because I might be unhappy about me forever being without things to eat…”

“Forever!” she shrieked. “Forever! Then this goddamned argument is over, because if you are forever without things to eat, you must have died long ago!”

“It’s a fucking turn of phrase, Wendy,” he said, with headmaster condescension. “Yes, I do scrounge up some grub from time to time. But I am not happy that you only buy groceries for yourself. With my goddamned money!”

She paused, nodding slowly. “I was waiting for the real issue to come out. You don’t like being the provider. You don’t like supporting me. You think I’m like your mother.”

“What?” he cried. He shook the milk bottle in mad frustration. “I just want some milk for my fucking tea!”

“No,” she said scornfully. “It’s more than that. You wouldn’t be shaking like that if it was just about milk.” She smiled. “Maybe mother’s milk. And now, of all days, you are going mental about milk. Come on. Don’t you think that’s significant.”

“Don’t!” he cried, backing away a step. “Don’t make this all about my fucked up past. I have to have one or two issues that you can’t blame on my mother. I have to be able to have a voice here and now! In the present. With you! You can’t just deflect everything, all the time, whenever I have a criticism of you. You are not perfect!”

“Of course not,” smiled Wendy. “But why today, Reggie? Why about milk and what you need? Come on!”

“I feel like I’m going insane,” he said. The bottle lowered in his hand. “I can’t talk to you.”

“But you’re not talking to me,” she said. “You’re talking to someone else.”

“Why is there no milk for me?” he screamed, his face contorting. He raised the bottle, his fingers white. She flinched, half-expecting it to shatter in his grip. She remembered something suddenly, which was that it was almost impossible to break an egg by wrapping your hand around it and squeezing.

“Listen to me!” he shouted, taking a step forward.

Wendy turned and ran into the living room.

“Oh no!” he said, coming down the hallway. “You don’t get away that easy. I bring an issue up, you won’t listen, you don’t just run away from me!”

“You keep your distance!” she panted, grabbing a cushion. “You—animal!”

He stood in the doorway to the living room. “Oh, a cushion. Good. Go on—throw it at me. We’ll both fucking die from the dust. I mean, what kind of housekeeper are you? How can we expect to bring a…”

“Shut up!” she cried out, bending over and clutching her stomach.

“This place is a pigsty! You want to talk about lower class?” He reached out and flipped a plate from the side table. It spun through the air and then hit the carpet with a muffled thud.

“That was your plate, Reginald,” she said. “I cannot be your mother.”

“Will you shut the fuck up about my mother!” shouted Reginald. “I’m not asking you to be my mother. Just clean this shit up once in a while! Do you know that I can figure out exactly where you’ve been, at every moment of the day, when I come home? Oh, she was in the kitchen, I say, because there’s a dirty knife and an open jam jar. Then she read the paper in the living room and had some tea, which I know because there is the newspaper and the tea cup! Then I know you had a shower, because the soap is in the bottom of the tub and there’s a towel on the floor! Every move! Every one! And then you get upset because I left one plate in the living room?”

“Your plate,” she said, pointing. “Your books—always, your goddamned books, which I can’t touch! Your trousers. I mean—what the fuck is a pair of trousers doing in the living room anyway? What kind of house did you grow up in? Your crossword. Your shit, everywhere. You want me to run around cleaning up after you? Well, you’d better start earning a lot more money, then, Reggie, because I’m going to have to hire a goddamned maid!”

“Yes!” shouted Reginald, jabbing his finger at her (it was a gesture they traded, to facilitate mutual offense). “Yes, it’s all about money. You can’t, as a woman who sits on her fanny all day, find any way to keep a one bedroom flat clean, because you don’t have a maid. What planet are you living on? That’s your fucking job! You knew that I wasn’t wealthy when you married me! What shock is currently threatening your frail little sense of reality? That a wife is supposed to run a household?”

“A wife is not supposed to be a maid! And a man is supposed to bring home a decent income. I would say that we are both doing about equal, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a step forward and thrusting out a hand. She raised her cushion. “I’m sorry. My name is Reginald Spencer. I am a graduate student at Oxford. Thus, I don’t make very much filthy lucre, at the moment. I have some potential, of course. My father is an MP. And what is your name?”

“You are such a shit!” she cried out, her face twisting in agony.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said in a mocking voice, “am I puncturing any of Her Majesty’s fantasies? That she can sit around eating chocolates while I slave away to build a career? That she can have, oh, I don’t know, maybe two or three little duties which she is expected to perform. I mean, not too many, because Lord knows Her Majesty is easily taxed, but a few. And that I might expect her to pull just a little weight in our little team. Or am I supposed to do all the rowing?”

“I don’t have any clue what we’re talking about any more,” she said flatly. “You’re just not making any sense at all. Now step aside.”

“You’re not going out now,” he warned.

Wendy sighed. “Why not? You want some goddamned milk.”

He frowned. “You’re going to get me milk?”

She laughed. “You know, you just had to say: Listen, Wendy, we’re out of milk. Can you run to the cafeteria to get some? I would have gone gladly. But you have to make everything about your needs, about how I’m failing you, about how everyone is failing you all the time, and you’re just starving to death in your own house, right there on the couch, reaching out, and I don’t care, because I’m a self-obsessed little bitch whose only purpose and motive in this vale of tears is to make your life a living hell. I swear to God, Reg, you’re the most hysterical person I’ve ever met!”

Reginald scowled. His beady eyes scanned her, searching madly for any kind of falsehood.

“You don’t have to interrogate me and get a signed confession if I’m out of milk!” she cried merrily. “It’s just milk, you moron!”

He nodded slowly. She grinned at him. She was still being a bitch. He knew that. But he could not penetrate her, at the moment. She was merry and dismissive and invulnerable.

“All right,” he said slowly. “Then let’s do this. You go and get some milk. I’ll reheat the tea, because it’s all gone to shit now. Then, when you come back, we’ll sit and have our little tea. And then, I’ll mark my midterms, and you’ll set about turning this place into something we can bring a child into without giving him rubella if he touches the floor.”

She stared at him, then burst into tears. He smiled, walked forward, and held her stiff form.

Chapter 35

It was the grace which first got Tom’s attention. It just went on and on. Grace in England was a short, muttered affair, much like an arguing Italian couple might cross themselves as a black cat passed before them. But the grace in Klaus’s household was quite different. Much longer. Intense. Passionate. Almost—delirious? Tom didn’t quite like that world. It seemed condescending. But really, what was one to think when one seems to have stepped off a modern plane into a medieval morality tale?

In his household, grace was just a ‘praise the lord and pass the mash’ benediction. The only time it was strained was when his mother came down to dinner. She got enraged if she heard grace because, as she once put it, the Lord had stripped the table of her heart bare, and she would be damned if she would praise His food. (Actually, one of the interesting things about Ruth was that she had the ability to completely remove Capitals from her speech, in contradistinction to Klaus, who could not control his. When Ruth talked about God, it was always ‘god,’ lowercase, one of many gods, somehow like ‘ghost,’ which was also ethereal and uncapitalized. In fact, Quentin said once, in a rare burst of humor about his wife, ‘Ruth puts the ‘immaterial’ in ‘immaterial.’’ When she spoke of god and his power, his might, his justice, she always talked about it with the same emphasis she might have put on a neighbor who just happened to be a judge. And not a very honest one, either; someone who had become a judge through political pull, or bribery, or accident. The sentence ‘God works in mysterious ways’ became, in Ruth’s world, ‘Who knows why Bob does what he does?’ ‘Bob’ was, in fact, her favorite substitute for ‘God.’ She would say to Tom, as he sat on her bed, about the age of eleven or so: “What if they just took the whole Bible and substituted the word ‘Bob’ for ‘God’? Could you picture it? ‘Bob created the world in seven days.’ ‘Beware the wrath of Bob.’ ‘Bob will not be mocked!’ ‘Bob is eternal and infallible.’ Mankind would laugh himself out of religion in a fortnight. I call a cricket bat ‘Bob,’ I can still use it to play cricket. It doesn’t change what it describes. But I call ‘God’ ‘Bob,’ it’s all over!” And she would laugh, of course, about ninety seconds before sobbing.)

Tom was surprised that Klaus’s father was so religious. It was sort of odd. English priests seem embarrassed to talk about sin. They are like over-friendly bosses, who break off from talking about the habits of their pets to regretfully remind their employees to please see if they could see their way clear to finishing something soon. The whole relationship of a priest to his congregation is based on sin and hellfire—there is no other reason to go, to be there, other than to be saved. And in order to save their congregations, the priest has to damn them first. Supply and demand. But there was precious little damning in English churches. Mentioning hell would be like wet-farting on squeaky leather during high tea with royalty.

But the Germans were quite comfortable with hell. In England, people went to church to gossip about clothing. Women made their husbands go, because church was like a radio-serial of scandal. Petty thrills and personal disasters. Great fun!

But in Germany, this was all different.

The Heppner house was a large, creaky wooden structure, with a tall peaked roof and windows that glared out from under the impressive brow. It was as chilly as an English house, but lacked the warm spots; there were no soft cushions and thick blankets. Inside, the walls were whitewashed, and there was no ornamentation, except for a large two-man saw hung on the wall over the most comfortable chair. This made relaxing a little difficult, because any time Tom sat down and glanced up, he saw the teeth of a rusty blade suspended over him.

When he first met Father Martin Heppner, he had been struck by the older man’s oak-like strength. He shook Tom’s hand as if it were a coconut in a strength contest. He had the ropy muscles and hard skin of an older man who has worked like a dog and eaten like a nun.

“Tom Spencer! Good to meet you!” he had said.

Tom had frowned at him. The man was obviously unbalanced—at least by English standards—but it remained to be seen whether he could be jammed into the uneasy category of ‘eccentric.’ Martin had pale gray eyes that seemed to be constantly on the alert, roving and wild, as if he were under constant surveillance by pickpocketing ghosts. He had great difficulty managing his physical strength, Tom noticed—as was evidenced by the crushing handshake. Shortly after he was taken into the Heppner household, Tom noticed Martin pick up a near-molten mug of coffee, wince, but then compose himself and continue cupping it in his hands as it cooled, sipping it as if it were at room temperature. Tom watched, fascinated. When Martin finally set the mug down, his hand was beet red—and possibly blistered as well, but that could have as easily been calluses.

Martin was also, Tom noticed, entirely unconscious of his effect on his family. He was gracious and pleasant with his seven children, and polite and solicitous with his wife, but they moved in complete terror of him. He was like a seething outcrop of fiery lava in a stream which hissed and gassed to get past him as soon as possible. No, thought Tom, that wasn’t quite right. He was like a man sitting on that red rock, waving and smiling at the water as it parted and rushed by. Martin smiled when one of his daughters filled his glass of water. He patted his wife’s arm when she cleared his plate. He winked at a son who replaced a soiled napkin. And they met his eyes. They smiled back. But there was something wrong with their faces. They were a little too frozen, a little too immediate, a little too empty. There was something missing from each of the children. As there is in Klaus, thought Tom.

Teatime was a scene of perfect domestic tranquility. Stories were told; the news from Berlin was disseminated. The children recited poems before their beaming father. Renata, Martin’s wife, played the recorder for a few minutes. Except for the occasional ‘Praise God,’ everything seemed quite average. A happy rural family. Well-behaved offspring. Some slightly eye-rolling glances from Klaus, the more urbane sibling. Eager, pretty, well-scrubbed daughters. Salt-of-the-earth sons.

But something—something… Tom tried to catch what it was. Martin’s eyes flashed occasionally, and the family seemed to speed up, to try on a few different personalities to please him, to allay his discontent. Once, when Klaus was telling the news from Berlin, he mentioned that one of the men preaching on the street corners looked like a ‘mad prophet,’ and Martin’s eyes darkened almost visibly. His demeanor did not change. It was something that the family seemed to perceive with some sixth sense. It was infectious. Tom found himself considering his replies more carefully. He began to become worried that Martin would ask Tom about his religious beliefs. Which would not be good.

This is a house of punishment, he thought. But it is not a hysterical house of punishment. It is not a house in which punishment lashes out, or screams, or taunts and then withdraws. This is a house of correction. Under this roof, punishment is well planned and well executed. It is not doubted or excused. It does not hesitate. It is a righteous fist…

Tom frowned, wondering if he was, after his time in Berlin, becoming a tad paranoid about the German soul. The children were unscarred. Everyone seemed hearty enough. All right, Martin’s eyes did not exactly laugh at the same time as his lips, but there was no point making up things because Ruth did not happen to like religion. Sure, Renata was missing a front tooth, but this was the country, after all…

Klaus had warned him about grace, and told him to prepare his stomach accordingly. He had also given Tom a few laxatives, saying that all would become clear once the food was on the table.

And so, when they sat down for dinner, the entire family seemed to go slack at once. They stared at their clasped hands and closed their eyes. Martin recited the following:

-prayer of general thanks

-a prayer for the farmers

-and their children

-some instructive stories from Deuteronomy

-a request for the Lord to bring his wrath down on the heads of the large landowners

-unless that was not the Lord’s intention, in which case please grant them all patience with the large landowners

-a plea for the Lord to keep temptation at bay

-unless it was His desire that they be tested, in which case, bring it on!

-another prayer of general thanks

-a prayer that his wife forgive him for letting the food get cold

There was general family laughter at the last joke, which was obviously well worn but well liked. They dug in.

Tom had no real problem with meat. He liked being at the top of the food chain. But there was something about the German diet which seemed to say: since we are at the top of the food chain, there is no point reaching down more than a rung or two! There were no vegetables, except for potatoes, and Tom could not for the life of him remember whether they were vegetables. There was sausage, and bread. And not the nice kind of white English bread, but bread which was so black that, it seemed, candlelight could not escape its surface. It was like eating a wafer of pure night, or one of those ‘portable holes’ which show up in cartoons. To drink: beer, even for the children. “Beer is the drink of the worker!” cried Martin, filling Tom’s mug. “It only intoxicates the lazy!” And this became a kind of jovial—yet vaguely dangerous—test. Beer was drunk by all, and if they showed any signs of drunkenness, then they were lazy.

Martin asked how things were in England, and Tom replied delicately, inserting as little secular humanism as humanly possible. He did not get very far. England was, apparently, guilty of the following sins:

-secular materialism, for having an Empire

-agnosticism, by tolerating foreign religions in the Empire

-racial impurity, by encouraging immigration

-Pride, for imposing Versailles on Germany, when justice belonged to God alone

-Usury, for allowing banking

-Greed, for trading with India

There was more—England was also slothful for getting rid of conscription—and some of it was quite well informed. The problem was, though, that every time Martin stopped, glared at Tom and demanded a response, Klaus, whose arms were folded, would jab his fingers into his friend’s ribs. The message was clear: by religious standards, these are just criticisms. We do not want to invoke secular standards, or you and I will be sleeping in the barn. It was not that Tom was psychic—Klaus had gone over all this, in the train on the way, in exhaustive detail.

So why did I come, then? wondered Tom for a brief moment, in the respite of Martin tearing off a chunk of bread. Klaus is not even really my friend. Oh, yes—because this trip is being paid for by Gunther, who wants me to get something out of it. And I cannot understand Germany just by being unnerved by its theatre.

Chapter 36

It came to pass that Tom had rather intimate chats with each of Martin’s children. It happened over the course of a few days.

The first time was after Tom’s evening bath (which, true to the nature of Martin’s household, was a shed in the woods with cold water). He was walking back to the house, shivering, when he saw a slim blonde figure lurking by the coal shed.

Tom had never gone through a shy phase, but he knew the signs. He was reticent about certain topics, such as his family or prospects, but he was not a shy person as a whole. (If he had been older, or preternaturally wise, Tom could have learned something about true shyness from his brother.) Hart could be shy, but his shyness had more to do with suppressed aggression than self-doubt.

So when Tom, walking and trying to restore the circulation in his scalp with a rough towel, saw the slim, retiring figure, he stopped and almost smiled. If only shy people knew that the rest of us are not such ogres, he thought.

“Mr. Spencer?” said the figure. It was Soren, Klaus’s younger brother by three years.

“Really, Soren. Tom is fine.”

“Did you have a good bathe?”

“Well, it got my attention,” smiled Tom, almost wishing he had some breadcrumbs to spread towards the boy. Well, not quite ‘boy’; he’s got to be over twenty…

Soren stepped forward. “You must be—be cold.”

“Yes. Can we chat inside?”

Soren cocked his head. “Why don’t you go inside and warm up, and then we can perhaps…”

Tom wrapped his bathrobe around himself. “You want to wait here?”

Soren nodded, writhing in the straitjacket of having no clear reasons for his requests. Or, more likely, humiliating reasons, thought Tom.

“All right!” grinned Tom. He ran upstairs, rubbed himself warm, threw on some clothes, and then stepped outside his room.

Renata stood in the hallway. She had her hands folded against her bellybutton, looking for all the world like some Swiss-clock mannequin. She smiled at Tom. “Is there anything you need?”

“No, I just…” All right, I don’t want to tell her that I’m going back outside to see Soren. I think I’ve picked up on this family fast. “I’m going downstairs.”

“Everyone has gone to bed, I think. Are you thirsty?”

“No—I just—left my socks by the bathing hut.”

“I can get those for you.”

“That’s all right.”

“But you’re chilled from your bath.” On her belly, her hands crept away from each other, winding around her waist. “I am always chilled after my bath.”

“We often use hot water. In England.” He smiled, hoping to avert offense. “It is very decadent.”

“No doubt,” said Renata. Her eyelids seemed to be drooping slightly. Tom suddenly felt torn. There were so many doors facing this landing—every door a bedroom, and against every door, he imagined a set of ears pressed to the wood.

“I was going to be a nun,” said Renata, her voice soft.

“I see…” frowned Tom.

“Go,” she said, standing to one side.

Tom ran his fingers through his hair. He saw her eyes following his gesture with birdlike rapidity. “Thanks,” he said. “And goodnight.”

He ran downstairs, and went out the back door. It seemed as if Soren had not moved an inch. His head was still cocked.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Sorry—I was chatting with your mother for a few minutes.”

Soren stared at him.

“So—what’s up?”

“Can we walk? Just for a few minutes?”

“Of course.” Be better than standing in the cold.

They started walking down the rutted wagon-path to the main road. The night was clear. Tom glanced up.

“After about twenty minutes, I hear, your eyes really adjust to darkness, and you can see all the stars.”

Soren did not respond. Tom felt a slight twitch of irritation. All right, we’re out here now. What? But he knew that shy people are easily startled, so he tried to enjoy the walk, and not measure the number of seconds it would take for Soren to speak.

“In the city, things are very bad?” he said finally.

“Quite bad. Yes.”

“I have never met a foreigner before.”

Tom nodded. He felt he should be looking around for an apple to demonstrate to Soren that the world was round. And both have a core!

“I have never been more than thirty miles from here. Father taught me at home.” He rubbed his forearms unconsciously. “I have never seen a map. You are like a traveler from the stars.”

“But…” started Tom, about to say: but Klaus has gone to school in England!

Soren seemed to read his thoughts. “Klaus does not speak much about England. He talks about Kant, and Hegel, and Schopenhauer. He lives in books. He could be anywhere. And I have great foreboding.”

That last sentence jolted Tom. “About what?”

“About the world,” said Soren dreamily. He suddenly seemed to come back to himself, in a little shudder, and Tom was reminded of the falling in dreams which jerks one awake.

Soren smiled apologetically. There was another pause. Then, he said: “It is written that the end of the world will come in fire and blood.” They took a dozen or so more steps. Tom noticed that, being the same height, they fell into step easily. “Fire and blood…” repeated Soren. There was some gulf of loneliness in the words that Tom felt with a deep shiver. “But they might come from God, and they might come from the Devil. The Devil wants to provoke an apocalypse before God’s just fire rains down from on high. He wants to introduce His Son into the world, to cause strife between nations, between brothers. And if we fall into that, we shall end the world before God does. And we shall all be damned.”

Tom pursed his lips. Strangely enough, despite the religious content, this was like being back on his mother’s bedspread.

“If the cities are weakening, the countryside shall soon be at war. It is written. The Devil always starts in the cities. He walked here, during the Reformation, the Hundred Years War. He knows Germany. Does he know England?”

“Does…” Tom cleared his throat. He wanted to turn his head and see how far they had come, but didn’t want to be rude.

“Does the Devil know England?”

“How… In what way?”

Soren threw him a confused glance, mixed with a slight tinge of hostility. “Excuse me?”

“Well, how would the Devil know England?”

“Is He at work there?”

Well, there’s Reginald, thought Tom with a little internal giggle. All right. I don’t believe in the Devil. How to answer, and still get a hearty repast of sausages and petrified bread in the morning?

“Tell me how the Devil is at work in Germany, just so we’re talking about the same things.”

Soren nodded. He did not seem to have to pick his way through the path. Tom suddenly knew that the young man spent a lot of time walking, at night. Perhaps all night. Perhaps he thought that the Devil could only find his bed.

“Do you know that a Christian can never murder?” he said.

“How so?” said Tom, with admirable flexibility.

“We cannot kill the soul. We can damn ourselves, but we can never kill. Only God can kill the soul. And the Christian lives for the salvation of others. If we can save their souls by killing their bodies, that is the greatest temptation. It would be like amputating a little toe to save the body. Less, since the body is as nothing compared to the soul.”

“Hm,” said Tom. Mad, but interesting…

“So the Devil says to all Christians: ‘You must save others, despite their wishes. The soul which is not saved is like a man in a fever. It raves and rejects what will save it. The soul that is damned is like a rotten tooth; it resists being pulled. It is like a colicky baby; it cannot be comforted. So to expect a damned soul to save itself voluntarily is the height of folly. One might as well expect a falling rock to arrest its flight. The pure Christian is to the damned as a father is to his children. Spare the rod, lose the soul. Discipline is the only answer. Save the damned from themselves. Whip them to God!’”

Tom was getting used to the geyser-like eruptions of German passion, and so Soren’s rising voice did not startle him too much.

“It is what I disagree with most,” said Soren, pressing the length of his fingers to his brow. “It is the voice of the Devil. Only free will can save the soul. Violence does not save the damned. It only damns the saved.”

“Boy, the Spanish sure could have used you!” smiled Tom.

Soren shot him a look. “I do not claim to understand English humor.”

Take the word ‘English’ out of the sentence, I think you’re on the money, thought Tom. “All right. Why the city?”

“Well, the city starts the war, but the country fights it. The boys in universities turn from God to the things of this world, and so lose their way, and become vain, and so are susceptible to the Devil. Now, in the city, they speak of worshipping a man, this leader, this führer. Even Klaus speaks of it—of their belief,” he added hastily. “And that is profane. God appoints leaders, but He does not want us to worship them as gods, no more than we should worship a priest as a god. None before Him. That is the covenant.”

“So—you want to know if we worship our leaders in England?”

“I want to know if you believe in a truth higher than this world.”

“Most English people are religious.”

“Equivocation is the Devil,” smiled Soren, his eyes closing briefly. “Will you stop us?”

“Stop you?”

“If Hitler gets in, will you stop him?”

“Stop him? From getting in?”

“No, that is our temptation. If we fail.”

“How?”

“If he steps outside of Germany, one foot, will you cut that foot off?”

“I…don’t know if I can speak for all England.”

Soren nodded sadly. “What about you?”

“Just me?”

“Yes. If we destroy ourselves, that is our business. But if we destroy ourselves, and then reach like an infection to the rest of the world, will you stop us?”

“I’m sure we will. But why do you say…”

“Have you read his book?”

“The Bible?”

“Mein Kampf.”

“No.”

“Read it. It should be easier if the Devil is honest, but it’s not.”

Tom stopped. His head seemed overfull. Is this what Gunther wanted me to see?

“Wait a moment,” he said, turning to Soren. “What about you?”

“Why would I not fight against Hitler?”

“Yes.”

“Because if we fail the test, we must suffer the consequences. If God lets this little Austrian live, and rule us, it is because we have displeased Him.”

“Goddamn it!” cried Tom, his face suddenly hot. He felt an impulse to apologize. Soren crossed himself. “Why are you all so passive? When you’re not belligerent!”

“Passive?” echoed Soren. “But if Hitler gets in, it shall be because we have voted for him.”

“But that’s just it. The Republic isn’t working because of Nazism, so you say, OK, the solution is Nazism. That’s what I mean by passive! When the American system wasn’t working, in 1776, they didn’t respond with dictatorship. They fought for freedom! But you’ve just cobbled together this mess of a system, half capitalist, half socialist, all political pull and favors and influence. So of course it’s not working! And you say that freedom has failed? Bullshit! This unholy mix of personal freedom and state compulsion has failed. Why is your economy failing? Because your government borrows billions to pay off interest groups! You have this mix, half food and half poison, and you say that you feel sick, so you have no choice but to switch to pure poison. That’s what I mean by passive! Why not fight the government, the interest groups, the bastards who have hijacked your free market? Get rid of government power, instead of making it infinite!”

Soren was taken aback. Tom supposed that his rant had been building in him for days. But still, he refused to apologize. Why should I? He wanted to talk!

Soren said: “I suppose that you understand Germany about as well as I understand England.”

“And just how is that?”

“Well, freedom is nonsense. Your kind of freedom. Freedom for capitalists and freethinkers. The freedom to be unemployed. To starve. To take drugs. The individual is nothing without the group. The group is the soul. The individual is just a cell. The group exists without the individual. The individual cannot exist without the group. The individual owes everything to the group.”

“Oh, yes?” demanded Tom. “And what about personal conscience?”

“That is satisfied by following the leader,” said Soren placidly, not noticing any of his own contradictions. “For if the group were immoral, why would God give that group power over the individual? All power comes from God.”

“You are contradicting yourself so much that my head is spinning.”

“And so?” asked Soren, his eyes serene. “If I seem to contradict myself, that is just because you lack faith.”

“All right,” said Tom, turning on his heels. “We’re going back now.”

They walked for a few minutes in silence. Then, Tom turned to Soren and said: “If you will not save yourself, you cannot expect England to save you.”

“Then we are all damned,” said Soren.

Tom bid him a brusque good night, and then sat in the living room, his heart pounding. I really could have thrashed him, right there in the grass, and dusted my hands at a job well done! Sleep would not come in his current state. But how is Soren different from Klaus? He’s more honest than Klaus. And Klaus does not use that interminable religious terminology. But really—do I think that Klaus would fight against Hitler? The answer came immediately, irrevocably. No, of course not. Hitler would have been placed there by that goddamned World Spirit, whose wishes it is useless to fight against, and the reasons will become clear in time. And an anthropologist does not interfere… And besides, what if Hitler does get in? Mussolini’s been in since 1922, and he’s not goose-stepping over any borders. They’re just itching to throw everything away, these Germans—it might as well be Hitler. As long as they keep the smoke of their fires out of my air, so what?

He rubbed his eyes, sitting in the near dark, the blue squares of windowed night sky surrounding him.

The voice made him jump, and for the first time he truly regretted that he had come to Germany. I miss my little room!

“Tom!” it hissed. It was Kris, who was fifteen and newly bearded and very, very thin. He was the youngest brother.

Kris came forward, his arms wide, his head low, like a charging spider.

“How great you’re up,” he whispered, lifting a chair, whirling it in the air and setting it down, sitting across it, his hands over its back. This gymnastic maneuver was accomplished without a sound, which was quite impressive.

“What?” snapped Tom. He always felt that politeness was optional after eleven p.m.

“Soren’s had his go. Now me!” he cried, rubbing his hands. “Now me!”

Tom shook his head in a little irritated shiver. “What?”

“You don’t Believe.”

Germany, thought Tom. Land of the goddamned Capitals. “In God.”

“In God.”

“In England, we don’t discuss such things.”

“It’s all right. I don’t either.”

“Good for you.”

“I’ve never met a nonbeliever before. I wish there were some women around who didn’t believe. I wonder about my mother sometimes. She has these looks. But she’s so under his thumb she’s like a fingerprint. My god, this is exciting! You are. I saw your face during Grace. It was like a mirror. You know. You know, but you won’t tell me.”

“Should you still be up?”

“Come on!” hissed Kris. “I’m fifteen! I’m going to get out, like Klaus, but no one thinks I’m smart, because I don’t believe what everyone else believes.”

I can understand that, thought Tom, with a little rush of sympathy. “It’s hard, staying true to one’s beliefs.”

“Damn right,” said Kris, his eyes gleaming in glee from the blasphemy. “I can’t believe this ‘God’ nonsense. Klaus is full of even more nonsense. ‘World Spirit’! The only ‘World Spirit’ worth anything is vodka. Do you drink?”

Tom shook his head.

“Did you ever?”

“Not really.”

“Hm.” Kris frowned. He clearly hoped that atheism came with just a little more license. “I do,” he said. “I come down and sneak beer. I steal money and buy moonshine.”

“This is more than a guest should…”

“Oh, who cares!” hissed Kris. His hands were shaking. “It’s all underway anyway. The ball is rolling. Father will be brought down. I’m not a communist. That’s all nonsense, too. ‘Proletariat’ my ass. No rules. No rules. Passion and whim! Come together, fall apart, who cares? Follow your heart!”

“Look,” said Tom, holding up his hand. “This is great, but I’m very tired…”

Kris leaned forward and grabbed Tom’s forearm. “No! Argue with him! He’s the priest. He’s never wrong. I know the English have picked apart his little book. Open the gates! Save my sisters! Tell the truth!”

“He’s my host, Kris,” said Tom, staring at the manic boy, trying to calm him with his eyes.

“Fuck the host!”

“All right,” said Tom, standing up. Kris’s hand remained on his forearm. He gazed at Kris, who jerked his own arm back.

“Fine!” he snarled softly. “He rides on unchallenged!”

“Do it yourself, if you have a mind to.”

“Oh, I have a mind!” said Kris bitterly. “Don’t you worry about that! Just go and get your beauty sleep!”

“Good night,” said Tom, thinking: it’s thrashing time again!

Kris refused to answer. He folded his arms and stared petulantly out the window.

Tom went upstairs, climbed into bed, and managed to get an hour’s sleep just before the sun came up.

Chapter 37

It was bread and sausages the next morning. Martin had come back from a long, brisk walk, glowing with irritating, ruddy health. His voice boomed around the house, commanding and cajoling. He had a list of chores Tom could hear him assigning to the children as Tom dressed. Even Tom, who had never had many chores to do, could tell that many of them were pure make-work.

Something about this house sort of clamored around Tom’s head, like some insistent, possibly dangerous insect. He felt as if everything Martin did was somehow for his, Tom’s, benefit. To make some sort of impression. The heartiness, the oaken strength, the effortless family rule. Look, this is what a German man is capable of—what has bloodless English rationalism to offer in comparison?

It is, Tom thought, fixing his collar, an entirely one-sided combat. He did not really care what sort of life Martin had carved out for himself, here in this little rural backwater. Sure, he had the respect and deference of a small community of uneducated peasants. He had swarms of children, each unique while he was out of sight, who melted into dead compliance when he entered the room. His wife… Tom made a face, tucking in his shirt. It was the oldest story of marriage. One spouse sucked the other dry. One became an annoying, over-vital ball of false energy. The other withdrew to the shadows, smiling and planning an overthrow of emptiness.

Tom opened his door. Klaus was waiting in the hallway.

“Father has you down for something,” he said, without preamble. “Leave it up to me. There’s something else I want to show you.”

Tom nodded, and they went downstairs.

“Tom!” cried Martin, throwing his arms wide and speaking through some black shards of bread. “How glad we are you should join us! We’re almost done, but we’ve saved you something.”

Martin’s children all turned and beamed at him. Tom almost took a step back.

“Thank you, Father Heppner,” said Tom.

“Tea?” asked Renata, appearing at his right elbow.

“Thanks,” said Tom. A cup came past his head and was set down on the table.

“We’re just going over our ‘Idle Hands’ list,” said Martin. “We are very socialistic. We expect all who eat to work!”

“Amen!” cried the children. Tom stared at them—at Kris and Soren in particular—but could discern no falseness. He had to tear his gaze away from them with an effort.

“Sausage?” asked a soft voice in his left ear.

Tom nodded, unwilling to turn around. “Thanks,” he whispered.

A plate of sausages floated down. Tom’s stomach turned, just once, quite slowly.

“So, Tom, I have you and Egbert on the roof of the coal shed. It has to be painted, but it has to be sanded first. And…”

Klaus said: “Father.”

Martin held up his hand imperiously, not stopping his speech. “…Egbert can tell you all about his fascination with vegetables of incongruous proportions. I assume that satisfies.”

“Father,” said Klaus, “I am taking Tom to the aerodrome today.”

“You do not fly at night.”

There was a short pause. Klaus did not seem to be expending any effort. But all of Martin’s children leaned forward slightly, like delicate petals over a probing bee.

“Not at night, Father. Today.”

Martin laughed. “Come on!”

“I want to take him up.”

“Of course you do. Very hospitable. With any luck, he and Egbert will finish today. So.”

“Father, I can only take him up today. The airplane is only around until tonight.”

“And you wish to bring this up publicly?” asked Martin, gesturing as if they were ringed by hungry reporters.

Tom poked his finger at a sausage. It appeared to be stuck to the plate. A knife and fork appeared from over his left shoulder. Renata started cutting his food. Tom reddened, but said nothing. Her hip was against his elbow, and he couldn’t help but think of all the children around the table, and that they had all passed through her hips—and he caught an odd vision of Martin holding each baby aloft over a stormy altar, pledging him or her to the care and protection of the Great Ghost.

Klaus laughed. The children leaned in a little more. “You are a country man to your heart, Father. Civilized people don’t put their guests to work the very first day.”

Martin pointed a knife at him. “You have learned gross incivility in England, firstborn.”

“Tom is from the city. You are not. Have some respect for his wishes.”

“Tom?” demanded Martin, leaning towards him. The children turned to him. “You do not wish to work?”

I have just spent two years reading, thought Tom. “This is a family matter,” he said. The children turned back to their father.

“Come now! Every man has an opinion, about everything under sun and moon. Would you rather go flying with Klaus, or stay here and sand my roof?”

“I would rather go flying. With Klaus.”

“Fine,” said Martin. “You shall fly with Klaus, and tomorrow, you and Klaus shall do the roof.”

“No, Father,” said Klaus patiently.

“Why not?”

“Because you are trying to punish me for wanting to go flying. I have worked hard at school, and…”

“And you do not think that I work hard here?”

“Of course you do. But you love it. You love getting up at dawn and carrying bales of barbed wire forty miles. But don’t use it to bully everyone else.”

There was no gasp. The children did not move. The only reaction Tom noticed was that Renata’s goal of cutting his sausages into their component atoms paused for a brief moment.

Martin’s lips compressed like ridges of plasticine under a fist. “That is poorly spoken, Klaus Heppner. Most poorly spoken.”

Klaus shrugged, tearing off a hunk of black bread. Tom was surprised that he did not lose a fingernail on the crust.

“Is this what I am paying for? These kinds of words?”

“I am on a scholarship, Father,” said Klaus. “You stopped paying two years ago.”

“Yes?” demanded Martin, his face purpling. “And did you get those scholarships because I paid, or did you not?”

“I did,” said Klaus. His face was still serene, but his eyes were narrowing slightly.

“Then you owe me the respect I am due! I am the master of this house. And don’t cast any looks at me, Mr. Spencer,” he said, not turning to Tom. “You have your house of lords as well, in your land.”

Klaus did not respond. He was looking out the window. His fingers spread out on the tablecloth, making a little buzzy sound.

“Renata, stop cutting that man’s food!” bellowed Martin suddenly, still staring at his eldest son. “If he wanted soup, he would have asked for it!”

The knife and fork stopped in mid-cut, and were removed silently. The hip withdrew, and Tom felt relieved, as if Renata’s massive fertility had been pressing against his very brain.

“Do you still wish to oppose me?” demanded Martin.

Klaus did not respond.

“Answer me!”

“Tell me, Father,” said Klaus softly, after a moment. “Is there actually anyone else in the room for you, at the moment?”

“What does that mean?” asked Martin, almost curiously.

“Who are you fighting with?”

“Don’t bring any of this modern philosophy to my table!” cried Martin scornfully. “Keep it for your humanist professors. Here you are marked not by men, but by God!”

Kris opened his mouth. Martin did not look at him. Tom did. Kris turned to him. Say something! he mouthed. Tom shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

“God might choose more than one man,” said Klaus. “To speak.”

“Not in this house,” replied Martin smugly, feeling very much that he had won that round.

Klaus sighed, then turned and looked at his father full in the face. “These words will not help. I am going to take Tom to the aerodrome today. Tomorrow, you may ask him to sand your roof. But I will not. I will do tomorrow what you expect me to do today.”

Martin’s face seemed to concentrate; it was blood, or fury, or something. He closed his eyes and reached out his hands. His two daughters, to either side, took them immediately.

“Dear God,” said Martin slowly, “you see beneath you a house of conflict. A son wages war against his father. We have lost the words of tenderness. Your words, the words of Your Son. Help us to see more clearly into each other’s hearts…”

Tom lost the next few sentences, because he felt a hand close softly over the back of his head, in the sensual spot where his hair met the skin of his neck. Renata! It felt distinctly sexual. Tom’s eyes widened slightly. Well, perhaps this is how they pray in the country… he thought in panic. I can’t turn my head—what if she’s licking her lips in open invitation? As her husband prays across the table?

The fingertips dug under his hair, searching for the roots. Tom felt goosebumps on his forearms. Danger! Fertility!

Martin’s voice rippled back into audibility. “…and so I pray You, my God, to help us through this pass, to find each other through You, and not to let this sundering grow as the years pass, like the rot in a tree which cannot be cured.”

There was a short pause. Then, with one voice, the family said: “Amen.”

The hand was withdrawn from Tom’s neck. Everyone opened their eyes.

Klaus said: “God told me to go to the aerodrome.”

Martin’s eyes narrowed, like little arrow-slits laid on their side. “What?” he said, his long teeth bared.

“God told me, very clearly, that the cause of justice could only be served by bringing Tom to the aerodrome.”

“So after all these years, you hear God’s voice, and He tells you that you should do exactly what you want to do.”

“That is what happened,” said Klaus.

There was a short pause.

“What did God tell you?” asked Klaus.

“He told me to offer peace and understanding to my son,” said Martin in a self-righteous tone.

“Then God spoke to both of us.”

Martin leaned forward on the table once more. “Tell me this, Son. Tell me this, and you shall go flying with my benediction. Did you hear God’s voice just now, as we prayed? As clearly as you claim? I will know if you’re lying.”

“Father,” said Klaus gently. “God spoke to me as clearly as He sometimes speaks to you.”

Martin held his son’s eyes for a moment, then nodded slowly, coldly, unconvincingly. He had been outmaneuvered somehow, in some way that Tom could not understand.

“Come on, Tom,” said Klaus, rising. He glanced down, then paused. “Sorry, you haven’t finished your sausage paste yet.”

Tom took two hurried gulps, wiped his mouth, and jumped up, hoping that he would not back into Renata. He imagined that she was standing naked behind him, but that no one had noticed.

Chapter 38

Tom smiled to himself as they left the house together, looking at Klaus with new respect. There had been something about the manner in which he had defied his father that had been right on the border between contempt and kindness. He had given his father a way out of a public humiliation, without compromising his own position.

Tom had always thought of Klaus as dreamy, flighty—and to see something flinty, shrewd, and calm in him was delightful. Tom loved to be proved wrong about people; it was part of his essential optimism. Discovering a tough aspect of Klaus was like discovering a vulnerable side of Reginald. Tom sighed. Even here, I cannot escape his image…

“Now,” said Klaus, “the problem is that we have to get to the aerodrome by noon, but we have no car.”

“How do you normally do it?”

“Normally, there is a car. My father got rid of it because it did not respond to his attempts to fix it. Naturally, it was the car’s fault.”

Tom clicked his front teeth together. No, I’ll wait to ask him about his father. “What about horses?”

“They’ve been lent to a neighbor. Let’s run,” said Klaus, “and hitchhike if we can.”

“How far is it?”

“About fifteen miles.”

“Good Lord!” cried Tom. “I’m not running fifteen miles! I’ll take the roof job!”

Klaus smiled. “What happened to the original English running horse?”

“That was more than two years ago. I’m abominably out of shape.”

“So how the hell do you stay so thin?” asked Klaus, gripping his own little love handles.

“I forget to eat, then gorge. I think my body just loses the knack of processing calories.”

“Hm. Bastard. All right, let’s just see how far we get then.”

They started off trotting down the rutted path, the one Tom had walked with Soren the night before. After a few minutes, he stopped running.

“Look, this isn’t going to work. I want to ask some questions.”

Klaus stopped as well. “All right. But if we don’t get a ride in half an hour, we’ll run.”

“Agreed.”

“So—questions.”

“Your father.”

Klaus smiled sadly. “What do you want to know?”

“Is he…” Violent? Tom was going to ask, but stopped himself. “Just—tell me about him.”

“About my father? But we have only fifteen miles!”

There was a pause. They reached the road and turned. In the distance, a smudge of brown dust rose against the clear blue autumn sky, but no car came.

“He thinks I have great potential for evil,” said Klaus, in a voice so soft that it broke Tom’s heart, and made his nose sting slightly. Damn these waterworks! But then, he thought: Do I? Believe that Klaus has great potential for evil? I don’t know. I don’t know…

Tom reached down and picked up a stick. He loved to swing things while he walked. “Go on,” he said, testing the air with a thin whoosh.

Klaus shrugged. “He thinks that I am the brightest star in his entire brood. I was a trial for him. I am very curious, which has been my downfall. I outpaced him very quickly, the village teacher soon after.” Klaus smiled, and ducked his head, almost shyly. “It’s not that I’m vain. That’s not how I mean it. But I feel a little like a star which fell into a cesspool. I cannot light the pool. And the pool cannot put me out. So we fight.”

Tom nodded slowly. Once more—and not for the last time—he was aware of how much sorrow the average human heart holds. Everyone feels unloved…

“There is something about my father and me. This is common, right across Germany. That’s what the play was about, perhaps. And the recital. When we’re in the same room, it’s like… It’s him or me, in a way that I cannot put into words. But everyone feels it. It’s a generational thing.” Klaus sighed, not in sorrow, but in a kind of heavy demise. “It is a very sad thing, when you can no longer take your father seriously.”

“Did you ever?” asked Tom, then blushed. They will never let me back into England now…

Klaus rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. No, I’m lying. I do. Of course. He was the whole Old Testament when I was young. He was so…so sure, so strict. It was like he had never been born, and would never die. I could never hope to…” Klaus suddenly smiled. It was wrenching. “Tom,” he said, “this is not a topic for such a fine day. Let’s talk about something better. I want to tell you what I’ve been doing at the aerodrome.”

“Flying,” said Tom, disappointed at the change of topic, but relieved to retain his liquids. It was going to be a long walk, and dehydration wouldn’t help.

“No,” said Klaus softly. “Gliding!”

“Huh,” grunted Tom, swishing his stick through the air. “I need a bigger stick.”

“I mean, I will fly, in time, but for now, there is nothing more beautiful than just—floating, above the clouds. Do you know that you can open the window, a little, up there? You’ve never tasted air like it. I can’t breathe on the ground, afterwards.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Oh, you English!” laughed Klaus. “‘Nice.’ I can see you all on your honeymoon. Your lovely wife leans over and says: ‘How was that, darling?’ And you say: ‘Jolly nice!’ That will be your description of heaven, as well. ‘Jolly nice, but I say—do they just let any old sort in here?’”

Tom smiled. “Do you really think that you—or any German—is really in a position to complain about emotional restraint? I remind you that we just came from Berlin, which seems to be German for ‘Gomorrah.’”

“Those are just growing pains,” said Klaus, waving his hand. The gesture annoyed Tom a little. “But let’s not step in the Anglo-German swamp. It’s certainly too nice a day for that.” Klaus’s step faltered for a moment. “A thought just struck me,” he said. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Sorry?”

“Well you’re here, in my country, at the house of my father, and all we’ve done is talk about Germany and me. What would you like to talk about?”

Tom frowned. The tears came hovering back. “Gosh. Me?”

“We’re too ideological to be close friends. Perhaps that should change. What is a problem that you’ve never gone to anyone else with?”

Ouch! thought Tom. I really think I rather prefer to be the one asking questions. He stopped and lowered his head, shaking it slightly. His hair fell forward, over his face.

“Oh, Lord,” he said. “What would I not like to talk about?”

“Whatever you want.”

Tom jerked his head up, brushing his hair back. “There’s really only one thing, Klaus, and I think that it has broken my heart.”

“What is it?”

Tom’s face convulsed, then broke. A small flock of birds scattered at his cry.

“Oh, Klaus! There is going to be a war!”

Klaus stood rock-still. His habitual abstractions seemed to scatter with the birds, and he leaned, proud and small, like a young tree, towards Tom.

“Of course,” he said sadly.

And then they hugged each other. They could not have prevented it. Two men, standing beneath some vast, collapsing structure, would have the same irresistible impulse. In the face of death, contact is the last spasm of life.

After a few moments, Klaus stepped back. “All right. Two things. First, I withdraw my caveat about English reserve. Second, you only get one topic of conversation. I don’t think I could take another!”

Tom smiled and wiped his eyes.

“Is that the purpose of this trip?” asked Klaus.

“I think so.”

“Hm.”

“What did you mean when you said: ‘Of course’?”

“I meant: of course that is what is wrong with you.” Klaus pursed his lips. “Sorry, that is your brother talking. I meant: of course, if you believed that, it would have grave consequences to your present. To your conception of the future.”

“You don’t think there will be a war?”

“We’re not talking about me.”

“‘Equivocator!’” cried Tom, imitating Martin’s tone.

“Avoider!” cried Klaus, doing the same. “Just tell me when it started. This belief.”

Tom frowned, then gestured at the road head. They started walking again. The scattered birds hesitated, then came back to earth.

“It started… Lord, that’s like trying to describe how I learned to speak. It wasn’t one day. Certainly by the time I left Oxford. It’s been growing since then.”

“While you were in Oxford?”

“Ye-es. I think so.”

“What about the day your brother was attacked in London?”

“No—it actually got better after that, for a while.”

“Really? I wonder if that was because your brother was attacked, or because he survived…”

“What?”

“Don’t pay me any mind. Go on.”

“Not much else to say. I sat in my room, or walked. I felt that something was closing in on me.” Tom paused.

“Something that could be held off by reading or walking?”

“No, but that I might be in a better position to fight it, if I knew…”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I wasn’t running around England bleating that the sky was falling. I don’t have a message that is being ignored. I’m going end up with a long beard, no shoes, and a ‘the end of the world is nigh’ sign. Riding the tube. Arguing with the adverts.”

“This is quite a burden,” said Klaus. “This is going to sound very German, but: tell me about your mother.”

Tell me about yours, thought Tom, remembering Renata’s fingers on the nape of his neck. “It’s not her. It’s something else.”

“Your father?”

“Him? Lord, he was more of a sperm donor.” Tom ground his teeth at his tendency towards flippant answers, then took a deep breath. “We’ve never been close.”

“Ah. Reginald.”

“More like it.”

“What is the matter with you two?”

“What is not the matter with us?” sighed Tom.

“I had to ban him talking about you,” said Klaus. “Second year. I had to be frank. I am not often frank.”

“Really?” asked Tom, a little thrill running through his stomach.

“I’m not going to stoke your vanity. He was always trying to figure you out. Understaaand you. You are completely incomprehensible to him. Though he says he loves you.”

“Sure, sure,” said Tom, staring at the ground, at the infinite passing details of twigs and mud and grass.

“What are you thinking now?” asked Klaus.

“Well, he knows almost nothing about me. Doesn’t want to explore my thoughts. Never asks me about myself. He hasn’t come to visit me once, in London, unless he was there for some other reason. No letters. No—there was one. Telling me I had to go and see mother more often. So what the hell is he talking about when he says he loves me? What does he love? What? It’s bullshit.”

“Do you love him?”

Tom stopped in his tracks. “Love?” His fingertips tingled. “There’s a lot of shared history. We have things in common.”

“I won’t press you,” said Klaus delicately.

“No, you know… No.” Tom exhaled mightily, as if he were letting loose a breath he had been holding since birth. “No, I don’t.”

“Well, that’s important to know.”

“You don’t disapprove?”

“Disapprove? What do you mean?”

“My father is a sperm donor. I don’t love my brother.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Tom!” Klaus laughed. “I know that you are very Stone Age in your morals, but aren’t they just a bit formulaic? How does a rationalist get so sentimental?” He laughed again, harder—and then doubled over, his blonde hair flopping over like a little mop. There was little peace for the birds that day.

Tom scanned Klaus for mockery, but there was none. He was genuinely amused.

“Oh, you and I are quite a pair!” cried Klaus. “I can’t take my family seriously, and you can’t take yours with a healthy grain of salt. I think that there is nothing of value in the ideas of the past, and you think that there’s nothing of value in the ideas of the present! We are artistic opposites, you and I, coming from the same principles. I reject my head, you reject your heart! Oh, it is most amusing!”

After securing a ride, they arrived at the aerodrome a little after noon. It was a small, tidy place, with a few training aircraft—mostly Caspars—some low hangers, a well-mown airstrip, a few windsocks and a fluttering German flag. For some reason, seeing the gusty flag made Tom feel very cold, all of a sudden, as he and Klaus walked towards a low hut.

“So, what’s the story behind this place?”

“A nearby count—Orsky—took up flying as a hobby. But all hobbies are social, so he threw open his aerodrome to any enthusiast. He got instructors, planes. He loves those Caspars—they’ve got a wingspan of fifty feet, and a 203 horsepower engine. They go over a hundred miles an hour. Fantastic. There’s an annual fee, but it’s nominal. But I talked him into gliding. He’d never even heard of it. Engines always appeal to machismo.”

“What does that say about us, weeping and hugging on a road, and then getting into a plane without an engine?” joked Tom, but Klaus did not respond. That incident, apparently, had to be left behind them.

“I wrote to a friend of mine, who will tow us up.”

“And this Count Orsky just lets you use his glider?”

Klaus shrugged. “Well, I have to maintain it, every time I use it. It works out.”

They went into the hut, where a middle-aged man greeted Klaus warmly. He was fairly formal when introduced to Tom, clicking his heels smartly, although he was in comfortable slippers. He was to be the pilot, and arranged to fly them up in half an hour.

Klaus and Tom went over to the low hanger. Inside, was a long, wide, and lovely glider. Tom whistled.

“That’s gorgeous.”

“It is,” said Klaus, walking forward in a brisk, professional manner. Tom smiled at his friend’s back. Yet another incarnation of Klaus!

Klaus went over the controls. It was a two-seater. Klaus would be sitting in the back, to give Tom a better view. It had dual-control joysticks; one in front of each seat.

“When we get high enough,” said Klaus, “I’ll let you take control for a few minutes. It’s much more fun than just being a passenger.”

“That would be great,” murmured Tom, gazing into the cockpit. He had an odd sensation. He wanted to press the length of his body against the white frame of the glider. It seemed like a living thing to him, in the nature of an appendage he had mislaid at birth.

When the pilot had hooked up the cable leading from the back of his aircraft to the front of the glider, Klaus and Tom settled into the seats and closed the canopy. The smell of creaky, dusty leather filled Tom’s nose. He felt unbearably excited. He touched the joystick. He wanted to grip it tight and swing the craft through every inch of sky.

Behind Tom, Klaus reached out of the canopy and signaled the pilot of the airplane in front of them. Its engine roared, and it taxied forward. The cable pulled taut, and the glider lurched along behind it. Tom flinched, as if it were his own belly being pulled along the grass. He felt them gathering speed over the hissing earth. Klaus’s hand patted his shoulder. Tom twisted around, and saw Klaus behind him, grinning madly, his blue eyes shining.

The aircraft pulled them up to about five thousand feet. Klaus told Tom to pull a lever, and the cable snaked away in front of them. The airplane banked away, and then they were alone over the clouds.

Tom loved being in the silent sky in a way he had never loved anything before. He felt—he felt that the space around him was so great that his personality finally had scope. He felt the absence of consciousness around him, and this let his heart expand like an overflowing river. Men’s minds had always confined him—as they do all original souls—and the lack of thought around him, hanging in space, was profound and peaceful. ‘The lack of thought…’ An odd notion occurred to him. I have always been surrounded by a lack of thought, but it is not real. The emptiness is real; there is no fakery, no walls made only of wallpaper. Up here, where there is nothing, there is nothing…

It took a few minutes for him to remember that there was another mind in close proximity. He turned to Klaus, who nodded at him softly, silently, his eyes glistening, the joystick firm in his pale hands.

Tom didn’t trust his voice. The blue above was pure and beautiful. The clouds, white in a way which snow never managed, hurled the brightness of the sun back into the heavens. The dark blue overhead faded in imperceptible increments to a pale blue—almost white—on the horizon. There were a few streaks of cirrus, far above, and a white eruption of cloud ahead and to the left, perhaps two miles away. Through the occasional gap in the gathering clouds, the dark earth could be seen, but it looked murky, like the depths of an overgrown pool. Murky, thought Tom, and uninviting…

He touched his own stomach in wonder. I am so relaxed… He had been more relaxed, in his little room, than he had ever been at Oxford, but that was nothing compared to this. He could breathe more easily here than anywhere. He felt that the world was a wonderful, friendly place, uncontaminated by irrational prejudices and hostilities. A world without the danger of men…

Tom felt almost supernaturally drowsy. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, enjoying the orange light of his eyelids, but realized that the view was too great to miss. He opened them again, and thought how different this was from his passenger flight from England. It was silent. There were almost no vibrations. He felt like the eye of a great gull.

From behind, he heard Klaus’s voice:

“Tom, I’m going to try some maneuvers. Let me know if you feel sick.”

Tom nodded, realizing for the first time that the gesture worked as well from the back as from the front.

The glider pulled up and to the right, arcing in impossible motion. For a moment, Tom began to panic. If this was a car, we would be dead. But then he remembered—‘felt,’ actually—the mass of empty air below them, and his heart settled. We could do five loops without touching the ground…

He also felt the strain in the body of the glider as Klaus spiraled it. It was not a creaking, exactly, but a sort of subterranean groaning. Tom also felt dizzy, but found that by concentrating on one spot as the plane rolled, he could keep his head clear.

Finally, they righted. They had lost perhaps seven hundred feet. The number popped into Tom’s head without bidding, and he regarded it skeptically. In relation to what?

“Take the stick,” said Klaus from behind.

Tom nodded, slowly. He put his hands around the joystick. After a moment, it came to life in his hands. It seemed to turn from a stick to a spine, something alive, vital.

His biceps and forearms locked into place. His whole body froze. The glider sailed on.

“Loosen up,” laughed Klaus.

Tom took a deep breath. Willing his arms to relax, he angled the joystick to the right perhaps two degrees.

“Excellent! That’s a four-mile turn!”

Tom smiled despite his fear. He angled the stick further, about fifteen degrees. It took a few seconds for the glider to respond. It’s not like a car, thought Tom. A car would be off the road by now; this bird is barely responding.

“Pull back,” said Klaus, “so we don’t lose height as we turn.”

Tom pulled the joystick back into his belly. The tilted horizon went downwards slightly. Tom felt a great, terrible exultation coursing through him.

“Whooooo!” he falsettoed.

Klaus laughed behind him.

“Take us into a loop.”

“Vertical?”

“That’s the only kind!”

“Up or down?”

“Up. But dip a little first, to gain speed.”

“Right!” cried Tom. He let the joystick go forward, a little bit, for about thirty seconds. Then he pulled it back, slowly, then with increasing pressure. The clouds, which filled two-thirds of the windscreen, dipped and vanished. His buttocks sank into the leather beneath him. The blue shifted in spectrum, from lighter to darker, until Tom’s face hung underneath the dark hole at the top of the sky.

He felt another moment of panic then, a roller-coaster of terror, as if the glider, standing on its tail, would just slip down backwards through the air, like an inverted needle, and kill them both.

But then, with another slight groan of the fuselage, gravity shifted again, and the blue began to pale. Tom giggled when the clouds dropped down from the top of the canopy.

“Pull back further. Hold it steady!”

Tom pulled back on the stick, his muscles like frozen ropes. With a rippling roar which sounded almost like a distant cheer of relief, the glider righted. Tom let the joystick fall forward slowly. The clouds were lower, but not much. With great satisfaction, Tom noticed that the horizon was almost perfectly horizontal.

Klaus whistled. “You’re a natural. No panic. No errors. No vomiting…”

“It is…” said Tom, but could not finish the sentence. Klaus clapped him on the shoulder.

They tried a few more maneuvers. Once, Klaus caused Tom to stall the glider, then took over the stick as it fell. After about twenty minutes, they dove into the silent clouds. Tom flinched slightly, unable to stop himself from imagining that they were crashing into a snowfield, and would soon be eyeing each other hungrily, like his tin soldiers of many years past.

Tom felt very sad once they were below the clouds. The world seemed busy, complicated, unhappy. It was darker. There were taxes and ambitions down there.

And Nazis, of course. Nazis, and war. Perhaps. Probably.

It did feel like being hurled back from heaven, to resume a fairly unwanted existence.

Klaus brought them into the aerodrome with quiet, expert grace. Tom felt the ground slithering along under the glider. Suddenly, it felt as if they were going very fast, which was not a sensation which Tom had felt when they were in the sky—except when they had skimmed into the clouds, and the wisps had torn by, terrifyingly fast for an instant, before the fog took his eyesight. Except on a bicycle, I have never experienced speed without noise. Even running is a rhythm of slaps and pants.

Tom felt an even more profound loss when the glider came to a stop. He was thrown forward half an inch, before settling back into his seat. He closed his eyes. I want to go back! cried a tiny, petulant voice in his mind—a voice he had not heard from for perhaps twenty years. A spatter of rain landed on the windscreen. Welcome back!

Klaus, perhaps, felt the same sadness. He sat behind Tom, without speaking.

After a minute or two, he said:

“Well, let’s get out. They’ll be worried if we just sit here. And it’s getting wetter.”

I don’t want to use my legs! thought Tom, in the same little voice. But he reached up and pushed open the canopy after Klaus had released the clasps. Undoing his seatbelt felt like a pathetic surrender.

They climbed out, and walked back to the aerodrome in silence.

Each man’s face was a complex array of emotions. Both were clearly passionate about the sky. Both needed to escape from others, but for different reasons. Both wanted to get away from a world they liked, as a man will both love and leave a sauna.

“There’s no chance of going up again, is there?” asked Tom softly.

Klaus shook his head.

“Look,” he said, turning to Klaus, who stopped walking. “That was… Thank you. That was a defining experience for me. You have given me a gift. Thank you for standing up to your father this morning. It was unbelievable. I’m glad to have been higher up than the roof of a priest.”

“It’s vaguely blasphemous to him. Science. Vanity. But he’s sort of stuck. Icarus was Greek, and they were pagan. He’s tried to extend the Tower of Babel, but it doesn’t really work. It’s wrong, but he can’t attack it without looking provincial… Sorry, I’m babbling. What I meant to say was: you’re welcome. And I took more pleasure in your pleasure than you did.”

Tom laughed. “That’s hard to imagine.”

“Now, we have to go and pay our respects to Count Orsky.”

“Don’t we have to do maintenance on the glider?”

“After. Let’s drop in and have some cocoa.”

As they walked, Tom saw, behind the large hanger, about ten small, bulbous, white airplanes parked, in two neat rows. The noses and wheels were fat, tapering along the fuselage to more narrow tails. He had not seen them before because they had been blocked by the hanger.

“Those are nice,” said Tom.

Klaus nodded. “They’re new. Came in a few weeks ago.”

“Have you tried them?”

“They’re the new Laird Solutions. Well, reproductions, I think. I’ve been up, but never soloed. They’re wonderful though. Monoplanes are the future. Less resistance. Stronger wings. More maneuverable.”

“Why are they here?” asked Tom, feeling a slight unease. There was no real reason why they shouldn’t be, but something seemed odd.

“Don’t know,” replied Klaus. “We can ask the Count. His house his just over this hill.”

Their arrival was announced by a butler, and the two young men waited in an ornate anteroom. Tom’s eyes ran over the paintings, motionless little clocks, and stopped at a little glass-fronted cabinet of exquisite wood. He took a few steps towards it, then took a step sideways, so that his figure blocked the daylight coming in from a window opposite the glass. He leaned forward.

There were little carvings inside. One was of the skeleton of an infant, walking on its knuckles, over the body of a woman, probably its mother. Another was a grinning devil’s head, thrown back in evil laugher, a childish human foot protruding from its mouth. Another was a sheer surface of some glossy rock. As Tom cocked his head, he noticed that a shimmering, agonized face appeared, deep in the rock, carved in some oblique manner. There were more little figures, each more horrible than the last.

“Fascinating,” said Klaus, standing beside him.

“That always draws my guests,” said a voice from behind them. “It is very Eastern. Beauty in suffering.”

“But it’s not,” said Klaus, turning around. “Eastern.”

Tom turned around as well. The man he saw seemed quite incongruous. He was about fifty; paunchy, thick faced, and coarse of mouth and manner. Put a butcher’s coat on him, thought Tom, he would look quite at home behind a counter…

“Too easy,” said the man. “You have a guest. Let him tell us.”

Tom had read widely, and was no stranger to art theory. “It’s too representational.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said the man slowly, in the kind of mocking, false voice that always set Tom’s teeth on edge. He had grown up with that kind of voice. “It is very representational,” the man continued, walking towards them. “Western realism during a time when the world of the East protruded into the Western world. These pieces are very rare. They come from all over Europe. Can you guess the time period?”

Tom smiled thinly. “No, but I think that it was not a time period when light operetta’s ruled the stage.”

The man laughed harshly. He had tiny, deep-set eyes. Tom wanted to lean forward, with a flashlight, and peer inside his lids, to check that they weren’t just holes to nowhere. “No,” said the Count. “There was no light operetta. These are artworks from the time of the Black Death.”

“Fourteenth century,” said Klaus, shaking the man’s hand. “Tom Spencer, Count Orsky.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Count Orsky, bowing to Tom.

“Count,” said Tom, then turned to Klaus. “Actually, the Black Death came in waves, almost every generation, even up to the seventeenth century.”

“Yes. It always comes in waves,” said the Count. “And people thought it was the wrath of God, when it was just, in fact, the movement of rats. Our greatest disasters have always the most petty causes.”

Tom laughed. “Sorry,” he said, his mouth smoothing instantly.

“What?”

“No, it’s really… Nothing.”

The man smiled. “You had a thought. Tell us.”

“It’s a—German habit,” said Tom, “that I just can’t get used to. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“What habit?”

“These—statements. They sound good, but they’re like gossamer. They can’t take any close examination.”

“Can you think of a great disaster which didn’t have a petty cause?”

Tom opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Go on,” said Count Orsky.

Tom shook his head.

The Count leaned forward. “Please. A payment for my glider, if you prefer.”

“All right,” said Tom. “The Great War.”

Count Orsky snorted. “The assassination of Ferdinand was hardly a ‘great cause.’”

“That’s why I closed my mouth.”

“Because, as an Englishman, you do not think it arose from that, but because we Germans are the ogres you read of as a child, in fairy tales.” He leaned forward and opened his mouth wide. “Boo!” he murmured, then laughed. “Please—stay for coffee.”

Tom glanced at Klaus, who was smiling.

“We have a little time,” said Klaus. “And it’s raining now anyway,” he added to Tom, slightly apologetically.

Tom followed the two men into an even more ornate living room. Against the far wall stood a group of young men in rough blue uniforms. All the young men had strong jaws, short hair, and impassive faces. They were leaning in towards each other, arguing and gesturing with flat hands that they turned to and fro.

The young men jumped to their feet when Count Orsky entered. Tom had the impression that they were about to salute, but they restrained themselves.

“Gentlemen,” said Count Orsky, in his ringingly false voice, “this is Klaus Heppner, who some of you have met before, and his friend Tom Spencer.”

At Tom’s name, some of the men smiled in a tight, wolfish manner. They came forward, almost as one, and there was much handshaking. Again, Tom had the idea that the men had to consciously avoid clicking their heels.

“We just took the glider up,” said Klaus.

“How did you like it?” one of the men asked Tom.

“I really liked it,” said Tom, not wanting to express much enthusiasm. He did not have the strong impression that these men and himself would be enthusiastic about the same things. No, not at all.

“It is a woman’s airplane!” cried another. “It is not even an airplane.”

“It is very quiet,” agreed another. “It says: I wish to pass unobserved. Please do not molest my passage!”

They laughed. Tom didn’t like the joke, and not just because he didn’t get it.

“And what are you gentlemen doing here?” asked Tom.

“We are part of a civilian flying club,” said one of the men.

“Count Orsky has funded us, and designed our flying uniforms.”

“We hope to become crop dusters.”

“Skywriters!”

“We shall drop advertising leaflets on the unsuspecting!”

“Blue is the color of unity!”

“Like the sky!”

“And ancient blood!”

The men broke into laughter again.

Klaus said: “You’re flying the Lairds?”

“Yes—we just took order of them a week ago. They are excellent. 500 horsepower. You should come out, Klaus, and we can show you how to fly like a real man!”

“It’s more of a hobby,” said Klaus.

“Yes, of course,” said one of the men. “It is a hobby for us too. But sometimes a hobby can become a profession.”

“Do what you love, and the money will follow,” smiled another man.

“Stay for coffee,” said another, staring at Tom, “and then come and watch a demonstration!”

“We are flying this afternoon.”

“Precision flying. Wingtip to wingtip.”

“And sometimes, nose to tail!”

More laughter.

“And what do you gentlemen do when you are not flying?”

“We work with Willy Messerschmitt.”

“We are developing methodologies for improving the accuracy of the monoplane.”

“And exploring its maneuverability.”

“Its turning radius.”

“Diving speed.”

“And—payload!”

More laughter.

“Fuck the coffee,” said Count Orsky suddenly, with a flush of devious enthusiasm. “Come—we go and fly!”

They all bustled out of the front door. The ten men ambled along rather casually, but Tom could not help but notice that they tended to drift into a formation of five equal rows of two each, one arm’s length behind each other.

At the aerodrome, the men walked over to the little hut. They stood in front of it, chatting amiably. Tom, Klaus, and Count Orsky stood about twenty feet from them. Suddenly, Count Orsky clapped his hands together.

The men immediately sprinted across the field and climbed into their planes, standing about two hundred yards distant, shouting, ‘Schnell! Schnell!.’ From inside the hanger, another group of men started running towards the airplanes. The two groups met at about the same time. The blue-uniformed pilots jumped into the planes. The other men removed the chocks from under the wheels, got the propeller blades started, then scattered to the side of the runway.

After a coughing start, the two planes at the front began to move forward. They moved together with such precision that they seemed to have been welded together by invisible girders.

Before they were halfway down the runway, three airplanes taxied into a V formation, and roared after them.

Tom shivered as he watched the airplanes take off, one row after each other, in perfect precision. He felt the thrill of each pilot, huddled in his little cockpit. He pictured the raindrops running back in long, snaking trails from the windscreen, the smell of oil and leather, the buzzing hum of the seat, the spinning blur of the propeller. They love to be doing this in unison, he thought.

The aircraft were all in the sky now. Tom squinted up into the headachy white, through the scattered rain. The planes disappeared into the low clouds. There was a pause. Count Orsky giggled in delight. The roar of the engines was louder than Tom expected, but then he remembered that he had been sealed from them in his flight from England.

Suddenly, a wave of three airplanes came out of the clouds, pointing straight at them. Tom’s legs twisted for a moment, and he had to will himself not to hurl his body at the ground. There was something biblical and terrifying about having these great roaring machines careening towards him from on high.

They passed by, not more than a hundred feet overhead. The ground shook with the violence of their passing.

Three waves of airplanes went past. There was another pause, and then the last plane came down out of the low sky. It came straight at them—Tom imagined the dark spots on its wings flickering with fire—and then pulled up slightly and rolled over. It flew upside down over their heads. Tom did throw himself to the ground and, looking up, his hands over his ears, Tom saw the crew-cut pilot grinning at him.

The roaring passed by, and then it seemed as if it were snowing. Tom got up shakily, as scores of little pieces of paper fluttered down, jerking slightly as the raindrops hit them. Klaus laughed, grabbing one out of the air. Tom watched one fall, seeing the static of many more floating in his peripheral vision. He felt, strongly, that it was important to let one of the papers fall to the ground, and not snatch it from its path.

His fingers closed over the cold, fragile paper. Turning it over, he read:

The Hozzenhollen Flying Club

Serve your duty

Serve your passion

Serve your country

Serve them right!

At the bottom of the paper was information.

Tom frowned. The rain seemed to be bypassing his skin, falling right onto exposed bones. He shivered, his hand closing over the paper, which crumpled easily into his cold, claw-like fingers.

The airplanes flew down again, out of the clouds, one after the other. The first plane flew an erratic course. The second followed the first, with some slight variations. The third followed the second. And so on.

Tom followed the line of the planes as they flew across the airfield. Turning his head, he suddenly saw Klaus.

The young man was standing tensely, as if he were a rocket waiting to be propelled upwards. His eyes were wide and worshipping. His hand clutched one of the club flyers. As Tom watched, another fluttered down from the sky and stuck to his wet chest.

Seeming to feel Tom’s gaze, Klaus turned and said, his voice choked with an ugly, triumphant tone:

“Now that’s flying!”

Chapter 39

It was almost as if Reginald had been conscripted into childbirth. He had lived a fairly irresponsible life throughout his early twenties. His sudden marriage had been more about infatuation, lust, and impulsiveness than any kind of considered choice.

Reginald would say, though, that he was very responsible. He got his papers in on time. He was always available for his students. He was diligent in his studies. He sometimes claimed and spoke of things he knew not, but that was, after all, the academic disease, and he could scarcely be singled out.

Reginald did not think very much about his future; in this, he and Tom had much in common. (In fact, this is probably why Tom’s obvious lassitude provoked Reginald so much, and why he had been unable to visit Tom in his room.) Reginald wanted an impressive future; he dreamed of nodding graciously in the face of endless applause; he loved the idea of entering a room and provoking ripples of “isn’t that…?” He liked the idea of climbing a stage in a tuxedo, and accepting a Nobel or Pulitzer. He liked the idea that, when society faced intractable problems, he would be almost ordered to do a series of radio lectures to address them.

So when it turned out that Wendy was pregnant, his initial shock (and horror, given the circumstances of the discovery, and the ghastly argument which happened right afterwards) quickly gave way to visions of a wise and vaguely ‘American Indian Chief’ kind of fatherhood. He pictured his children—sons, usually—climbing on his lap, wide-eyed and questioning, or sitting cross-legged on the floor as he sat in a leather armchair, delicately tracing the rise and fall of the Roman Empire with his flowing hands. My sons, he thought, will see everything in its obvious first instance—that the world is flat, our football team is the best, and capitalism is good—and I will set them straight, and there will be much confusion, and it will take many moons for them to see the wisdom of my words, but they shall come to me when they are older, perhaps when they get to university, and say that they finally understand my thoughts, and apologize for questioning me at any time…

It can be said with great certainty that, throughout the history of man, dreamy reveries about munificent patriarchy have found precious little weight with women vomiting at dawn and weeping over swollen feet that threaten to burst favorite shoes. As a woman watches her youthful figure sail into the foggy realms of pure history, into photos, to be commented on by her children in twenty years (‘is that really mum?’), and grapples with strange eating preferences, and food combinations that would give a starving man pause, she might not have a lot of patience with a man’s dreams about obedience and worship from the coming offspring.

Wendy desperately hoped that she would fall back in love with Reginald. His seed was growing within her; surely that would reopen her heart. And it was touch and go, for a while. But emotional reality always reasserts itself, and it wasn’t long before they began to lean dangerously over the cliff.

Reginald was unbelievably sensitive to hypocrisy. He was almost allergic to it, and he saw it everywhere. When Wendy asked him for something to eat, he would look at her skeptically, as if saying: ‘Come on, you’re milking it just a bit much, aren’t you?’ She would stare back—defiance, rage, and humiliation at war in her chest. She would have the sudden impulse to grab him by the nape of the neck, march him, dog-like, into the kitchen, force him to get the food and shut the hell up while doing it. Or, when she awoke with nausea, she thought of vomiting on him, just to make the point that she was in fact going through something rather challenging, and just needed to be taken care of a little, and was not trying to bully him with her infirmities.

They had a relationship of tit-for-tat, or of scorekeeping, in which all acts of generosity were public and noted and tabulated and constantly trotted out for reciprocation. These kinds of relationships generally survive in a petty, mean, fragile way, until one partner gets ill, or pregnant. Two adults can measure and hoard and trade away their inner beaches grain by grain, but all that comes to nothing when pregnancy enters the scene. Because pregnancy is not a favor, but demands favors, the whole structure generally tends to collapse.

Reginald may have sensed this, in his heart, but he was nothing if not persistent. (Often in the wrong direction, but nonetheless…) He was greatly concerned that his wife was acting her pregnancy up to wrestle concessions from him. He was determined to resist this, at all costs.

Reginald, it should be noted, placed great emphasis on willpower. This was his great defense against his mother’s depression. He noted, with great scorn and bitter triumph, the times when Ruth had been able to get up and do something or other, to attend some function of Quentin’s or get herself to a school event. She can if she really wants to enough… Thus, if it were possible for her to get up and do something, when she didn’t, it was because she didn’t want to badly enough. But, reasoned Reginald, willpower is expressly designed for those times when personal motivation isn’t enough. Nature gave us a pleasure-principle—and willpower as well, so we would be able to do the right thing, both when we felt like it, and when we didn’t.

So those who didn’t act when they could act were just weak. And, to Reginald, the weak do nothing but manipulate. They are like children whining for a biscuit. Such children have nothing of value to offer but a cessation of whining.

It wasn’t that kindness was impossible—it was just that it was so easily taken advantage of. To Reginald, this fact was as certain as gravity. It was the physics of his claustrophobic universe. Everyone is selfish, was the sum of his entire creed. Everyone is selfish, but pretends otherwise. If Wendy had turned to him, while he was reading a book—and clearly enjoying it, relaxed for once—and said: “Reginald, I don’t like to see you relaxing, so I want you to go and make me a sandwich. No reason. I just feel restless and bored and want to exercise some power”—he probably would have fainted with pleasure, then revived smartly, kissed every one of Wendy’s fingertips, then run off to get her a sandwich.

But it never was that honest. Never that simple. Wendy would look at him a few times, as he read. He could see her from the corner of his eye, feel the gathering resentment, the tension in the air, like a blind dog in a cellar can feel a coming thunderstorm. But he would resist. He would resist, because if he gave in and asked her what she wanted, she would be upset that he took so long to notice that she needed something, or she would give him a list that would take the rest of the evening to finish, or she would bring up some obscure emotional problem, which would take her an hour to express and give him a headache when he finally realized that it was a veiled complaint against him.

Reginald had a lot of theories about Wendy. He was not randomly cruel. Oh no! He was very systematic. These are some of his theories:

Wendy Is Spoiled

This was a set-piece, a classic, a catch-all. During Wendy’s life, her weak parents had given her anything she wanted. As a result, she was petulant, narcissistic, stingy, and believed she was entitled to the world on a blanket, if she so desired. Wendy’s inability to understand that other people actually had needs of their own, or a schedule which might conflict with her immediate needs, was one great root of her perpetual discontent.

Wendy is Driven by Impulse

Wendy gets an impulse, and it always becomes an absolute. She drives by a big house, and suddenly she wants a big house. It doesn’t matter if it is possible—or even desirable. It must be talked about endlessly. If it is proven to be impractical, that doesn’t matter. When it comes to her impulses, Wendy never backs down, modifies, or withdraws them. Even if she wakes up one day and realizes that she doesn’t really in fact want a big house, so what? Reginald is still responsible for failing to provide it to her when she did want it, or for resisting her desires.

Wendy Never Notices When She Turns the Tables

Rules which apply to both parties are anathema to Wendy. She says: don’t raise your voice to me. Reginald agrees. However, when she raises her voice, it is because Reginald is provoking her. Ergo, next rule: don’t provoke. So if Wendy needles Reginald until he raises his voice, only the first rule is applied. He is in the wrong if he raises his voice. He is in the wrong if she raises her voice. Neat, tidy, and inescapable.

If Wendy Wants to Ignore It, It Doesn’t Exist

This is a juicy one. If Wendy does something clearly wrong in an argument—calls Reginald a ‘fucking bastard,’ say—then she will forever ignore that she did it. When he called her a ‘bitch,’ that was a central part of arguments for the next six months. When she called him a ‘spineless bastard’—oddly enough, it never, ever came up again. If pressed, she denies it, or says he’s making it up, or that she never swore at a man before she got married, so he must be doing something to turn her into such a harridan.

Tit-For-Tat: It’s Not Just A Good Idea—It’s the Law!

It took a while for Reginald to notice, but he did eventually. Wendy never did anything nice twice in a row. If she brought him coffee first thing in the morning—which happened maybe once every two months—she would not cook him breakfast until he had done the dishes. This drove Reginald mad, because she would hover in the kitchen until he did what was required to get his breakfast. It was one of their many silent wars. (To his credit, Reginald did try to give more and more, but had to draw back, because it felt like running off a cliff.)

Now—and again, from Reginald’s perspective—the solution to these problems was quite clear.

Wendy must be made to understand that she is illogical.

This was an analytical approach, but it is not exclusive to academics. The man wants the woman to be logical so he can love her. The woman wants to be loved despite being illogical.

In any disagreement which goes on and on—and this one can last a lifetime—it is clear that both parties are getting underhanded benefits. The benefit to Reginald? If I have to get Wendy to understand that she is illogical, than it only stands to reason that I am the more logical one. The benefit to Wendy? Feelings aren’t logical, so I am the more passionate and authentic one!

And so, straddling the oldest divide in the human world—the mind is logical, and for dealing only with the world versus the heart is illogical, and good for dealing only with people—Reginald and Wendy careened forward into procreation.

Now, as far as Wendy’s pregnancy went, Reginald had a great problem. Clearly, he saw, Wendy was suffering. He was not a heartless man. Just—careful. So, given that Wendy was suffering—and where Wendy suffers, she always collects—he had to come up with something.

So, he reached into the oldest quiver of the male arsenal. Faced with her groaning, swelling body, he said, in effect and in his heart: I had great aspirations, which I have had to cut short in order to provide for this family. Thus, we are both sacrificing, and so you have nothing over me, and so I can still demand my due!

This was a neat trick, given that Reginald had been ambivalent about pursuing his PhD in the first place. However, to retain any clout in his marriage, he now needed to manufacture a sacrifice to keep power, and so he went to work.

Great potential sprang up in his wake. He could have done anything. He was respected, admired, encouraged. He could have gone straight to the top. Nothing was impossible. The world was his.

Except that Wendy got pregnant, and so he had to give up all his dreams for the sake of the family.

This was, Reginald knew, a most delicate operation. Something to be planned with skill, subtlety, and precision. He could scarcely march up to his wife, pull her hair back from the rim of the toilet, and say: “Dear, I know you are suffering, but I have had to give up all my dreams for the sake of our family, so we’re even.”

No, that would never do. First of all, his claims were still vaguely verifiable. She could call up his thesis advisor and demand a report, or talk to his students, or help him fill out applications for doctorate positions, which he might not get, given the number of students who were grabbing the ropes of academia to avoid falling into the pit of the Depression. Oh no, this kind of sacrifice had to be alluded to, fixed in his own heart, and then only revealed, bit by bit, over many years. She would weep, of course, when she finally understood. (Reginald never stopped to ask himself just why all his dreams of being understood always ended in weeping.)

For Reginald’s Great Sacrifice to work, it did not have to be perceived by his wife. It had to be something he would keep faith with, in his own heart, and use as a fuel to resist her endless demands. Having destroyed his dreams for the sake of the family, he would be goddamned if he would spend a holiday weekend cleaning the attic or spending time with her whiny and decadent friends. He would have the absolute right to go fishing when he pleased. He could not be expected to give up everything!

Thinking about this, Reginald could feel his chest tighten and his fists contract. Excellent! This works like a charm! Indignation! Resentment! Lost hopes, unpraised sacrifice and silent suffering! Oh, the possibilities are endless!

Finally, having come up with the plan, the Great Sacrifice, Reginald now had nothing more to do than perform the Great Dismembering.

‘Dismembering’ was Reginald’s private term for letting something be forgotten through inattention and patient building. It was a kind of ‘dis-remembering,’ because it did not involve forgetting, but remembering differently.

It could not be achieved all at once. A new memory of Rome is not built in a day. It requires a commitment to a goal, justified by some moral or practical absolute. For Reginald, the goal was equality in his relationship. There were two absolutes, one moral and one practical.

The moral one was that Wendy should not be allowed to get away with bullying. That would be, really, unforgivable. If she decides to use her pregnancy to skewer concessions out of him, then so be it. Fighting her openly would just generate more demands, because it would be to impugn her motives as a ‘coming-mother,’ a loyal wife and so on. Proof would be required, but Wendy was far too cunning and experienced an opponent to leave something as simple as proof around. (And, even if she did, as in the case of the phrase ‘fucking bastard,’ she would just deny it anyway.) So since she could not be fought openly, he had to create a matching delusion—and then commit to it as strongly as she did to hers. Then, with both of them whipping their shaky, glassy horses across the plain of the future, they would both be disarmed, subject to the principle of mutually assured destruction. Throw me off my horse, I’ll throw you off yours… Most moral!

The practical absolute in Reginald’s Great Dismembering was to do with children. It would be more important if they had boys, but it also applied to girls.

If they had boys, and Reginald had no power in his relationship with Wendy, they would grow up with no respect for their father. He would become one of those pathetic, lower-class fathers who took their tea on the back steps while his wife bashed plates around inside. His sons would look upon him with scorn, as a henpecked, spineless man. They would look at him contemptuously, and then go off and marry someone like Wendy. (That last thought was quickly discarded. Sadly, Reginald believed that Wendy represented not just Wendy, but women. Or, rather, that his mother represented both.) He would be unable to discipline his boys. If he stayed on as a teacher, word would get around that he was henpecked, and all would be lost.

And if they had girls, they would take their cue from their mother, and then Reginald would be on the hook for providing endless, instant gratification to many females, and would, to himself, be forever lost.

So Reginald put everything in place. He was going to be great. He decided not to do a doctorate. He telephoned Frederic Eggerton, and set up an appointment.

He dressed like a saint going to his own execution. He almost missed the train, and sat for over half an hour in Mr. Cuthbert Rathbone’s office before being interviewed.

Chapter 40

Mr. Cuthbert Rathbone was bored. He was not bored in the here and now. He had not been bored for the last week, month, or year. Mr. Cuthbert Rathbone was born bored. When he was first pulled out of his mother, he had opened his mouth wide. The doctor expected a mighty yell. It did not come. Rather, his pink little mouth closed slowly; his heavily lidded eyes staring complacently at the white room, the doctor’s red-spattered smock, his mother’s sobs, already disappointed at the lack of stimuli he was receiving.

He did not take his mother’s breast for more than three minutes at a time. He got bored of breastfeeding, and then got bored of hunger and cried out weakly for the breast. This drove his mother quite mental; she was always having to leave the room, every fifteen minutes, to feed him.

In school, he could not rouse himself for sports. He had great intelligence, but also exasperated his teachers, because he did not apply himself. One constant comment was: ‘If effort matched ability you’d be an A plus.’ To which he would reply, to himself, ‘Why have you not motivated me?’

Certain kinds of discontent contain the seeds of great, disastrous leadership. Cuthbert was discontented, at all times, but he did not broadcast his discontent, except unconsciously. He was perpetually bored, and so began to draw a following. Insecure men, in particular, who thought that he was not interested in them because they were uninteresting, began to curry his favor. Of course, Cuthbert had no favor to be curried, and so they became permanent acolytes, with him as the permanent Chairman of the Bored.

He went through a phase of most excellent foppery in his teens. ‘Bored’ and ‘homosexual’ seemed to go hand in hand. He tried rough sex. He tried losing money at gambling. He tried drugs. He tried fistfights. But nothing could rouse him.

He thought he was onto a great secret—and he was not the only one who thought so. Perhaps, thought his acolytes, the world really is boring, and he is the only one to see it! In the cult of Cuthbert, he was Christ, trapped on his cross not by nails, but a shrug.

It became great sophistication to be bored. Cuthbert let it be known that he was bored, with almost every breath, and that any attempt to convince him otherwise would be accepted with a kindly smile, before meeting with utter failure.

He was a great temptation for the enthusiastic. It is always the lot, curse, and cross of enthusiastic people to appear like doltish, grinning idiots. They could not believe that Cuthbert’s boredom was not a cry for help. It was not, of course, no more than quicksand is a cry for help from the earth. They rushed at him, pom-poms pumping, and did one of two things. They either fled within ten minutes, chastened and vaguely sober for over half an hour—or they got stuck, and expired under his heavy, heavy eyes.

Death was a great ally of Cuthbert’s, but it was a bit too obvious to be overused. Of course every human endeavor would end up in dust. Of course, it might live on as long as the memory of man persisted, but it would be mutilated beyond recognition, and be lost to interstellar depths anyway, when the sun exploded. (Physics was not his strong suit, since he still believed that the sun would explode.) Cuthbert’s eyelids would fall even slightly further when talking about the death of the sun, as if he were peering out of God’s pocket protector, watching the final end of everything. It is this wisdom, they seemed to say, that has produced what to you seems like such despair. It is the despair of a man who has come back to life, and knows that there is nothing beyond the grave but a little waiting room, full of dust and broken vending machines… He knows that this is to be our fate, and so cannot rouse himself to find joy in this sad life.

Enthusiasm sometimes masks depression, but Cuthbert’s depression masked no enthusiasm. It was not even depression, in the clinical sense, because it was not a descent from a higher place. Boredom sometimes masks disappointment, but it seemed that everything after his mother’s womb had been a disappointment to Cuthbert—and it might also be supposed that her womb had also been disappointing. Too confined, too prone to movement and buzzing voices which could neither be discerned nor ignored. And the lack of stimulation! Dark, boring, endless… It is impossible to sigh when you don’t breathe, and very hard to drum your fingers in wet blackness.

Cuthbert took such an arch view of human aspirations that they seemed like the droppings of ants to a cirrus cloud. What does your little ego desire? his eyes seemed to ask, when confronted with the dream of another. What would satisfy your ridiculously vain view of your own importance? All the wealth of a world soon enough to be dust? All the admiration of eyes soon also to be dust? The clasp of a woman who is a cosmic heartbeat away from being horrifying bones? The achievement of a mark which will be entered into a book to be filed away among dust and mothballs?

If one of his acolytes said that he wanted to be a writer, he asked him to name the famous writers of the nineteenth century. Then, he would recite all the writers who were famous at the time, and then forgotten. And that even the famous writers would be forgotten when the aerial bombers came. “Try holding up a copy of Great Expectations when the bombs start falling. I suspect you would do better with a helmet.”

He was convinced that there would be another war, but was also convinced that it didn’t matter at all. “How much do we care for the victims of Napoleon?” he asked. “It was just over a hundred years ago. If we have another war tomorrow, in a hundred years, people will be laughing and happy again, as if it never happened. That’s why it will happen again. We repeat history because we do not remember it. We cannot remember it because if we remember it, we realize we are not so important after all. Recalling the past is recalling all that has been forgotten—and to remind ourselves that we shall be forgotten as well, even as the last spade of earth falls on our faces. Look at how men live for their penises. And the silly little things don’t even survive our death! No bones—they all turn to vapor. Our memories of sex. Vapor. No one knows or cares how many times Shakespeare had sex. Why should he have? And if he did, it just shows that literary talent had nothing to do with general wisdom. Not that general wisdom is more important. The only important conclusion of general wisdom is that general wisdom is utterly unimportant.”

Now and again, some bright spark would try to talk Cuthbert out of his boredom. They would prod and poke at him, pointing out that he slept and ate and went through school and all. “But what else am I to do?” Cuthbert would ask. “I didn’t make the world.” One wag challenged him to define how he would have made the world. Cuthbert replied that the key word was not so much ‘made’ as ‘unmade.’ When told that that implied suicide as the only wise response, Cuthbert replied: “But that would assume that we are perfectly philosophical, which we are not. We are animals with pretensions, and it has so pleased the framer of this dull view to place a desire for self-preservation in our hearts, without which we would wisely take our cues from our friends the lemmings. Because if life were so innately desirable, why would we need such a strong instinct for self-preservation? This is tied into the question of sex. If women were innately desirable, why do men have such physical drives? Our inbuilt chemical addictions in no way raise the value of that which we crave. We do not find that cocaine becomes objectively more valuable because we use it. It is all subjective. You can define something for yourself as a value—pursue it until your legs fall off—but don’t expect me to lose anything by not participating in the self-delusory charade. I might even have gained something, no matter how uncomfortable that may make you.”

Cuthbert gained weight in his early twenties, but then got bored of being out of breath—and of overeating—and slimmed down considerably. (He went through a phase where he still wore his larger clothes, but dropped this within a month as a vain affectation.)

What kept him going? His offhand remark about his disdain for suicide was clever, but it did not touch the essence. When he woke up every morning, it was with spirits lower than the day before. This seemed to be a process with neither logical nor emotional end. Every morning, he had to redefine the term ‘empty.’ It was not a rhythm. He did not bounce. He descended—or rather hollowed out—a little more each day. He felt as if his soul were clear ice. Then, he felt that it was a frozen gas. Then, that it was interstellar space. Then, that it was space before the creation of space. Then, something, before the creation of that. Here, his imagination failed him—but his emotional state kept continuing its evacuation, long after even his ghosts had been driven out.

There was no possibility of turning around. One cannot turn around when one is falling. (Well, one can, but it doesn’t help. It just makes one dizzy…) One cannot retrace one’s steps when one is floating through a void. There are no steps, and no reference point by which one can know one is returning the way one came.

Cuthbert felt some vague aftershocks of physical impulses, like the movements of worms searching for flesh through a skeleton. He lusted, a little. He hated, a little, but could not sustain it. If a man or woman offended him, he would dislike them a little, then pity them—and then feel a heavy indifference laying down over these impulses, like a domino-row of wet, falling mattresses.

He did feel contempt. That was true. Contempt was definitely part of his repertoire. He felt a vague striking disgust with enthusiastic people. They were like puppies being walked to the river for drowning; bouncing around, sniffing and shitting, oblivious. Utterly inconsiderate of the feelings of the man walking them. Their exuberance would not save them, but it made his task all the harder, damn their hides!

He was carnivorously funny, in the way that only those without any values can be. His wit was central in helping him win acolytes. They joined in his sardonic laughter, not realizing that—until the age of about thirty—everything a young man loves and hates in the world is really within his own soul. They jeered and worshipped nothing but their own reflections—and the shadowy mass of Cuthbert, behind them, almost the whole sky, the whole horizon…

He completed his degree at All Saints in 1926. He had, through the dark wake of his passage, been responsible for the following:

-one suicide

-three drug addictions

-six pregnancies

-twelve dropouts

-the resignations of two humanities professors

Cuthbert had no idea of what he wanted to do, which was right and proper. He felt that he should earn a living, because otherwise time would likely kill him, rather than submitting to his own lazy knife. He did some research into the various occupations. Banking was out, because it required the showing of a profit, and his superiors would likely to be too blind to see that all the gold—whether in their vaults or their competitors—would be melted by the exploding sun. Similarly, a career in law did not appeal to him, since his clients could scarcely be more free outside a cell than within it. (And besides, all laws were man-made—and so arbitrary—and so there could be no more drama in navigating them than in winning a game of Euchre.)

What else, what else? The Treasury? Money was even more fictional than law—and, since England had gone off the Gold Standard in 1932, it was even more illusory. Paper money would burn even more quickly than gold in the Final Flame. It would only be a difference of milliseconds, true, but that was still on the wrong side of the Darkest Truth.

Cuthbert thought of opening up a little shop. A tobacconists, or a dry cleaners. He liked the idea; it was certainly living by his own ideals to throw away his education, which had a certain cachet, a certain yumminess. But after going to a number of small stores, he found the optimism of the small entrepreneur entirely against his grain. And they worked long hours. And their stores were quite dusty. We might all become dust in time, but there’s no need to sneeze en route, eh?

So that was out. Cuthbert thought, for about a tenth of a second, of tootling over to America and becoming some sort of ‘homesteader’ (which, to him, meant rising at dawn, drinking cream from a ladle, and wrestling with livestock for some obscure economic reason). But that image did not last very long. Some elemental part of his defenses knew that they would be poorly served indeed if he attempted physical labor towards a definable end. Running from Edinburgh to Land’s End was one thing. Planting and growing was quite another. There would be that damnable sated-muscle satisfaction, the sipping of mead before a roaring fire, and next thing you know… Ooog! Too horrible to even contemplate.

‘Librarian’ was another possibility. Wandering through the winter leaves of dead books had its appeal. He could dress in black without having to learn the properties of formaldehyde. Not bad. There would also be an endless procession of fresh-faced young lads to invite into his cramped little office, drown in weak tea, and dismantle mentally. Not bad at all! So he looked into it—and recoiled almost at once. Ugh! It was a cold core of man-made rules. Knowledge itself was artificial—learning the methods of categorizing it would be like eating a cake made of icing, with icing on top! His teeth would certainly dissolve!

No, he thought, I need a discipline that is man-made—as all are—and which also confesses itself to be man-made. A world that is unafraid of its papier-mâché nature. Which displays it proudly…

Cuthbert found his calling one rainy afternoon in London. He had come to London to pick up some books on early nineteenth-century nihilism, and he had seen a pamphlet for a lecture entitled: “A Queen In The Hand, An Ace In The Sleeve: The Pragmatics Of Cultural Diplomacy.” Cuthbert had intended to go back to the country that afternoon—his parents, quite well-to-do, had an estate in Essex, but something in the title and subject arrested him.

For years afterwards, Cuthbert could not recall the name of the lecturer. He had the feeling that, if he were to wrack his brain, he could probably dislodge it from its hiding place, but he never took the effort. It would be a bad idea. One should never meet people who have influenced you profoundly. It was worse than disappointing. It would be enraging. It would be to find out that your much-loved sergeant was in fact a war-profiteer who constantly provoked the enemy for his own benefit. I am only human, he thought, whenever the impulse came up again, I must be allowed to retain a few illusory crumbs…

The lecture itself was deeply pleasurable. Well—not perhaps ‘pleasurable.’ If it was pleasurable, it was the pleasure of an addict who finally finds the drug that he knows will exalt him beyond belief—and then kill him cleanly.

The lecture was composed of two main parts. The first was the argument that morality was like art. It was nothing but the aesthetics of what a culture could stomach. Weak cultures were squeamish, and could suffer to see neither punishment nor poverty. So they had weak police, and enforced the redistribution of property. Strong cultures enjoyed cruelty—and here some quotes of Nietzsche were called as witnesses—and so were destined to dominate weaker cultures. They could stomach the suffering of their own people, and so would forever have a decisive advantage over democracies, which dither and worry and question their own motives.

“A democracy is always at least two years behind a dictatorship,” the man said. “Dictators do not have to consult their own citizens. If a dictator decides to wage war, wage war he will. He can raise taxes, conscript, throw all the might of his economic powers into war production. He faces no impediment.

“The leader of a democracy, however, has no such freedom. Of course, we value our particular kinds of freedoms, because we were raised with them—but they mean little in the wider world. We may wish to shake hands with a lion, but the lion probably has other ideas. If the world situation gets aggressive—and there are many indications that this is indeed happening—then the democracies are consigned to the role of ‘hand-wringing worrywarts,’ while the dictator-nations can act decisively. We must consult our people, who are concerned not for the safety of their lands, but the protection of their own pocketbooks. They never wish to act hastily. They will wait for all the evidence to come in. They will debate the motives of their enemies. They will seek alliances that they know in their hearts they will not honor. They will bluster in public and concede in private. They will fall over any conciliatory statement. They will be willingly misled. They are the lambs to the world’s lions.

“So what can be done? That is not the question, my friends. The more important question is: why should anything be done?”

It was at this point that Cuthbert sat bolt upright in his seat.

“I say again: why should anything be done? Does it serve the cause of humanity to mourn the passing of a weak, ineffective system? If the nature of democracy renders it useless against a resolute dictatorship, then should we not, instead of fretting and mourning its passing, rather help it along? Darwin is quite clear on this. The dictator believes that his whims are absolutes. We know that our own moral commandments are relative. Who is more likely to persevere, to triumph? The irrational absolutist, or the rational relativist? He knows what he is fighting for, even if he is wrong. We don’t know what we are fighting for, even if we are right. And what are we to say? ‘Fight for the right to believe that nothing is really true’? Even though that right is not really worth fighting for, since it is not true either? It is the most pathetic nonsense.

“So, what is to be done in the face of it? Well, the solution is clear, though unpalatable to our limited sensibilities. We cannot fight the dictators. That much is clear. They can force their citizens to march. We can only ask ours to. They can produce nothing but guns, and let half their population starve. If an Englishman does not get his morning tea, he falls to pieces. They are martial souls; they want war. We are petty-bourgeois; we want to be left in peace. They can prepare for total war in twelve months; by the time we notice that war is upon us, it is too late. Thus, we cannot fight them. But, we can hope that they are rational.

“Now, by ‘rational,’ I mean that I hope that they have some sort of self-interest at heart. If Herr Hitler, for instance, is everything that he claims to be in Mein Kampf, then we are doomed. We cannot fight him, and he wants to rule all of Europe. Thus, we will dither and bite our nails, and he will rule all of Europe, at which point he can dispose of us as he pleases, in his own good time. Our traditional weapon of blockade—which won the last war by the smallest margin—will be turned against us, and we will be starving within six months, since we grow only half the food we require.

“But if Herr Hitler is a rational man—an aggressive one, to be sure, but rational as well—then he has grievances. The German people have grievances, as we know, most notably over Versailles. So we must sit down with them, listen to their grievances, and give them what they want. If a man is stealing because he is hungry, if we give him food, he will stop stealing. If he is stealing only because he likes to steal, then nothing we can do will help. Let us hope that Hitler is rational, and not homicidal.”

Problems with the man’s formulation kept popping into Cuthbert’s mind, but the man answered them almost as soon as they arose, which was a good sign.

“Now, a problem arises from this formulation, and the problem is this:

“Why would Herr Hitler negotiate with us, if he knows that we are unable to fight. Without threat of incarceration, a criminal is unlikely to make deals with the police. If Hitler does indeed want Austria, as he openly states, and he knows that we will never in a million years fight to save it, then why would he sit down to ‘parley’—as our American cousins so charmingly put it—with us?

“That is the great question. It is the greatest question of this decade, in my view, and it comes down to one enormous, colossal bluff.”

There was incredulous laughter in the room. Cuthbert was startled to feel his face contorting into a strange shape—then realized that he was laughing as well.

The speaker waited for the laughter to subside, then continued.

“You laugh as if diplomacy has ever been anything else. But no matter. We continue.

“If Herr Hitler thinks that we will fight for Austria, then he will hesitate. He will worry. He will ‘parley.’ So, the solution is simple. We have to convince Hitler that we will fight, even when we know that we will not.”

The man smiled, as if he were delivering a punch line. “But this, of course, is impossible.”

There was more laughter in the dark, dingy little hall. The faded flags of sports victories from the previous generation stirred dimly.

“We are an open society. We cannot control the various organs of communication. Spies work here almost unimpeded. Newspapers trumpet our every secret motive. We are laid bare to every enemy.

“This a great problem, but it is only one quarter of the problem. Another quarter of the problem is that our enemy is not laid bare to us. He knows everything about us. We know almost nothing about him. Another quarter of the problem is that our population knows nothing about the enemy but what he tells them. Herr Hitler tells the British population—through our newspapers—that he wants peace. They believe him, because they cannot stomach the alternative. The final quarter of the problem is that the German population, on the other hand, knows nothing about us but what Herr Hitler chooses to tell them. He can disarm us by telling our population that he wants peace—while at the same time inflaming his own citizens by telling them that we want war.

“This combination of four problems—which arise from a one-sided control of communications—means that England will always be at a disadvantage when negotiating with a dictatorship. Well, the term is more ‘crippled’ than ‘disadvantaged’…”

More laughter. Cuthbert’s face creaked and warped again.

“So what can we do? Well, this is where the heart of my little talk is. We can do nothing but confuse our opponents. In this, we will be entirely honest, for we shall doubtless be confused ourselves. The government will say one thing to Germany, another thing to its constituents, another thing to the papers, another thing to our allies. We will sign treaties which contradict one another. We will commit to rearmament and pacifism at the same time. We will use strong words for both national honor and unilateral disarmament. We will threaten one day, appease the next, feign indifference the next, and storm out the next. Our diplomat in Paris will say one thing; our man in Berlin another—and our man in Krakow still another. We shall have as many positions as we have men and days in the week. Our opponents will get nothing out of us, except that we are unpredictable. And that will have to be enough.

“Now the question will arise—and I see it in some of your faces, and that question is the most important question that exists in the world at the moment. That question is: will it be enough?

“Well, to apply my own recommendations, I can honestly say that I both can and cannot answer that.”

A little more laughter. Cuthbert rubbed his cheeks, but they were numb.

“Let me answer it first, so that I can leave you with the right impression. First of all, it will not be enough if Hitler wants war. Baffling the enemy only works if the enemy wants to avoid conflict. So, if Hitler wants war—in other words, given his claims in Mein Kampf, if he is not also bluffing—then baffling him will only buy us a little time. He may want war, he still wants to win. Sooner or later, he will get impatient and start a war, no matter what our posturing. If a man wants to rob you, he may enjoy gambling with you for a while but, assuming he is armed, the outcome of the game is fixed.

“The second answer I have is that I cannot answer it. If Hitler does not want war, but rather the redress of what are to him legitimate grievances, then our little dance might or might not work. If he realizes that we are bluffing, then he can march without danger. If he does not—and he does not want war—then he will not march. To ask if this policy will be enough is like asking a card player if his bluff is going to work. All he—or we—can say is: it is devoutly hoped!”

Cuthbert had not stayed around for the question and answer period, because he did not want the man to be revealed as a grinning idiot with good timing and a great speechwriter (which had happened three times before). Instead, he had charged out, and then walked slowly for several hours, shivering in the rain.

He did not have thoughts, not thoughts exactly, but something slowly began to thicken and darken within him, like a buzzing strip of flypaper near a corpse.

In his own way, Cuthbert actually loved England. He loved that he could be depressed here without interference from some foot-stomping, pom-pom-waving line of dictatorial enthusiasts. I’m not like some under-functioning economy, to be rescued by giddy absolutism! He hated the absolute State because it demanded enthusiasm. He was, fundamentally, happy to shoot anyone who demanded enthusiasm from him—especially since they would probably shoot him if he did not provide enough. It was him or me, officer! The idea of standing in a sweaty, endless rank, cheering some screaming little man in the distance, of renouncing his parents and studying third-rate, ideological economics—it was all too ghastly for words! Freedom is the freedom to be bored! he cried mentally, rousing himself to be enthusiastic about ennui, at least.

No, no, Cuthbert thought. A regimented society would be the end of me. He loved England because England let him despise it. (One of the great benefits of consigning every value to the Inevitable Solar Flames was that contradictions could not trouble one. They would burn up as easily as paper, after all.)

Now Cuthbert could not be said to be the greatest scholar of the hardest school, the school of self-knowledge. He had a great library, it was true, but the works were almost entirely untranslated. However, he did know two things. First: he was bored, and England allowed that. Second: he was a master at creating confusion.

Cuthbert was the Great Chill that comes at three a.m., dissolving even family ties into shallow animal habits. He was the Endless Comparison which causes even the richest entrepreneurs to judge themselves in relation to even richer historical entrepreneurs. He was the Endless Nitpicking that dissolves a woman’s sense of her own beauty, as she stares despairingly into a mirror, reduced to finding flaws in slightly mismatched eyeballs, a tiny mole or a little zig-zag in the center-part of her hair. He was the Dead Heart that makes a well-loved husband stare at his wife and wonder if she married him for money, or status, or convention, or children—or any reason other than his own self.

Cuthbert had been any and all of those cold, glassy little demons, hanging from the earlobes of the insecure with piercing hands, whispering icy, dissolving words.

He knew nothing for certain. He doubted everything except for one thing.

I have the ability to create doubt…

Walking back to the train station, the lecturer’s words buzzing in his mind, Cuthbert’s pace increased. His shoulders squared. His back straightened. He looked up from the lamp-lit puddles.

He loved England. He could create doubt.

He had finally found his future.

Chapter 41

When Reginald first entered Cuthbert’s office, at eight thirty a.m. sharp, he blinked. At first almost inconspicuously, and then far more violently. It seemed, to him, that either his own eyes had melted somewhat, or that the office was made of a kind of wax that could not sustain its own weight when exposed to oxygen.

Not that there seems to be much in here, he thought, taking a gulp of breath. His eyes traveled to the ceiling fan, which did not move, but hung in a wilting fashion. Then, he noticed a potted plant, something like a fern, which hung its leaves over a dark pot with the arc of barrels thrown overboard by desperate sailors on a sinking ship. The furniture seemed to sag as well, as if underwater, and affected by rot.

The man behind the desk—Mr. Rathbone, he reminded himself—also seemed to be seeking some kind of lazy consummation with the earth’s core. The bald head had a fringe of longish, lank hair hanging over the ears, like oil slowly threading its way off a pink dome. The chin—chins, rather—must have presented various difficulties to the knotting of ties, and Reginald suddenly imagined several servants holding up the jowls with some sort of device—possibly the same kind as builders used to carry bricks up ladders—while another servant knotted the tie, reaching into the flesh for the delicate operation, like a veterinarian groping for a breached calf. The shoulders were almost at one with the upper arms. The chest was similarly intimate with the belly. Reginald could not see Cuthbert’s legs, but had an idea that they sort of meandered under the desk, trailing off like tentacles. Standing before this slow, arrested waterfall of vision, Reginald straightened his own back slightly, then bowed.

“Good morning, Mr. Rathbone,” he said.

“Mr. Spencer,” said Cuthbert slowly. Once, as a child, Reginald had watched a football game going on a great distance away, and had been fascinated by the span of time between a ball being kicked and the faint thwup hitting his ears. Similarly, Mr. Rathbone’s mouth worked for at least a second before it produced sound.

Reginald was fascinated. Cuthbert’s eyes seemed like two black holes. They did not blink—there seemed no need to. The eyelids were so low that Reginald thought of a window with the shutters almost down. The man inside would never awaken; the colors on his walls would never fade. There would never be any shadows. It would be like the inside of a cloud…

Reginald shivered. The man sitting before him was perfect—perfect in a way which was almost impossible to define, it hit the senses so completely. Almost everyone I meet, thought Reginald in a flash, is only part of a certain principle, or is a little land of warring principles, or speaks of principles they would break in a flash, for a handshake or a half-penny. But this man is a principle. He is perfect…

Reginald felt something loosen within him. It was a gentle kind of falling; a relief, like someone who has waited in suspense for a sagging wall to finally give way. Something which could never have stood has finally fallen; now the way is clear, the view is clear, and we can move forward at last!

Reginald got the distinct impression that Cuthbert was following his thoughts with the practiced ease of a devil lazy in the certainty of temptation. This one is already mine; he needs not even a push, but rather only a concluding wink!

“Please, Mr. Spencer,” said Cuthbert slowly. His hand did not rise to gesture at the chair, but Reginald thought he saw a slithering ripple of movement under the cloth covering the man’s forearm.

“Thank you,” said Reginald.

“What can I do for you,” asked Cuthbert.

Reginald noticed that the man’s telephone was covered in dust. No—the receiver was not, but the telephone itself was. “Er…” he murmured, forcing his eyes upwards. “I have come on the recommendation of a friend, Mr. Frederic Eggerton.”

“You want to work. For me,” said Cuthbert.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because—I believe that the Foreign Office has a great mission.”

“You do.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

Reginald laughed. “Well, I would scarcely deign to instruct you about…”

“I did not ask you to instruct me.” Cuthbert’s words could seem sharp, or critical, but they were not. He simply stated a fact, as one might say, to a waiter, “I did not ask for a cup of coffee.”

Reginald nodded. Another part of his wall gave way. He said: “I believe that England must do its part to keep peace in the world…”

As an ex-academic, Reginald was so used to stopping to gather implicit agreement from his listener, that he had developed a slightly staccato method of speaking. He noticed that Cuthbert did not give any indication whatsoever as to his opinion of Reginald, and this caused Reginald to forget what he was about to say.

“Do not look for my approval, young man,” said Cuthbert. “Positions here are neither won nor maintained by flattery.”

“I…” Reginald felt a little butterfly of delight come loose and flutter about in his ribcage. He knows—he sees! “I think that England will soon detach itself from its Empire… And that that process will be delicate, and slow. Detailed. We will have to…navigate some very tricky waters. And there is the matter of the dictator nations. If this man Hitler gets in, we shall have a new situation. Unprecedented since—Napoleon…”

It was no use. Cuthbert’s lack of response kept derailing him. Blood pumped into his cheeks, and he suddenly felt very angry. He wanted to leap over the desk and strike this melted, shapeless figure sitting across from him. Who are you to judge me? he screamed internally, and for a moment, his leg muscles jumped, and he was a hairsbreadth from leaping up and storming from the room.

“I say,” murmured Cuthbert. There was a leathery creak as the man’s chair complained, but Reginald could see no actual movement. “You are,” he continued, “a rather intense fellow, aren’t you?”

Reginald smiled in a rather sickly manner. From the heights of cloud-wreathed rage, he plowed into the wet earth of humiliation. “Yes, my wife would have to agree with you,” he said.

“Now that has my attention,” said Cuthbert. “Tell me about your wife.”

“My wife?”

“Yeeees.”

“Well, she is tall. Very lovely. We met in Spain. Married right away. It’s rather thorny with her family. They have cut her off. We hope to change things. With a baby. I speak German. And French. Quite well.”

Cuthbert nodded slowly. “Yes—I can see that. Marriage in Spain. Right away. Very intense indeed.”

A pause settled on the pair. Reginald felt prickles down the back of his neck. Not sweat, just tension. He felt as if this room had become all of reality. He could no longer imagine the world outside. London, the streets, the people—even the receptionist outside—were all gone. This was a universe of one room. The door behind him would now only open on a brick wall, or black space. Nothing would rush in. Nothing could get out.

But strangely, all that he wanted was to get this job. I will not fail in this interview! I will not crawl back to Oxford to waste five years getting a doctorate while real men in the real world perform real actions! What I write at Oxford will be shelved to feed worms. What I write here would shape history!

And then, as Cuthbert’s glazed eyes gazed at him, Reginald had a sudden inspiration.

“I came here because there are no other jobs,” he said, with a flashing, tentative smile.

Cuthbert’s eyes did not change expression, but they seemed to focus somewhat. Reginald felt that his share of the attention of Cuthbert’s entire personality had risen from two percent to, perhaps, ten percent.

“I am going to be a father,” he continued. “My wife has money, but we can’t get at it. I think that I could be good at this job, but I don’t have any real ideas about how to do it. Everyone knows what the economy is like. Anyone who comes in here and tells you how fascinating foreign affairs are is—not telling the whole truth. But I don’t want to come here and hide behind a desk. I think it would be interesting work. I am at your mercy. But I am qualified.”

Reginald forced himself to stop. He was actually quite fascinated to hear what he would have to say next—he was discovering quite a bit about himself through the process of speaking extemporaneously. He waited to see what Cuthbert would say.

“Go on.”

“Right,” said Reginald, sitting forward on his chair. His face muscles seemed to be pulling in too many directions. I wonder what I shall say next? “I think that the last war was a great mistake. Negotiations should have won out. And Versailles was beyond awful. It has set the stage for what we face now. Germans are weird. They can’t coexist. They can only be masters or slaves. But they are very efficient, which makes them dangerous, because all modern wars are wars of attrition…”

No, that wasn’t working at all. Cuthbert’s eyes were glazing over even more.

“But that is only important if I get the job—and even then, only after many years, when I am in a position to dictate policy—assuming you have retired, of course!” Reginald said, with a little giggle. “What is more important is that I am having great doubts about my marriage, which means that I shall be more than happy to travel, and will be willing and able to spend a lot of hours in the office, even when I don’t have to! But I will want to protect my children—we are going to have more than one, of course—probably to keep Wendy busy, so she can stop making lists of things for me to do! And my language skills are really impeccable. And I am a modern man. I don’t believe all this rot about the honor of the Empire. It’s a vain, costly proposition to run the world, and it has broken our back, financially. And really, what’s wrong with letting the Indians get back to killing themselves? Why would I want to face economic—why would I have to be out of job prospects so that some Hindus I will never meet will keep their daggers in their scabbards? It’s nonsense. England for the English, I say!”

Cuthbert’s eyes were definitely amused now. It was not condescension. Giving the older man only the briefest of glances, Reginald plunged on.

“And we can’t have guns and butter, not now that capitalism is in ruins. We’ll have no choice but to negotiate, because the working man must have his tea! War has become inconceivable. I really want this job, Mr. Rathbone. The more I talk about it, the more excited I become. But please don’t let me babble. Tell me if I have a chance, any kind of chance at all…”

There was another long pause, and Reginald knew that words were gathering in Cuthbert’s throat, like seagulls on a streak of bloody sea.

“I don’t imagine,” he said finally, “that we shall find much use for you as a diplomat at the moment, Mr. Spencer, since you either lie badly or tell too much truth. A diplomat must never be seen to be thinking aloud. Policy is never decided on the spur of the moment. A diplomat is a mouthpiece. He is not paid to think, but to speak the words of others. An actor would be a better metaphor. They are chosen for their plausibility. And their grooming. Their language skills can be important, but it is rarely a good thing for those we negotiate with to know that we speak their language flawlessly. Misinterpretation can be a perfectly valid strategy. So there, what weighs for you also weighs against you. But you see, you are a conflicted man, which is entirely suitable to your age and lack of experience. And that can never do. Composure is essential. To negotiate, your inner state must be utterly inaccessible.” Cuthbert smiled, finally. It was not for the faint of heart. “And there is no better way to be inaccessible to others than to be inaccessible to yourself. But that is for another time…”

Reginald’s ears pricked up at the last phrase, which was of a decidedly positive nature.

“If you want to work for the Foreign Office, it is essential that you become a foreigner to yourself, to your native land, your family, children, and cherished personal opinions. Like a policeman, you can have no opinion about the law. None. We are not interested in your thoughts, Mr. Spencer. Save your intensity for the amateur stage. Or an affair. Now it is my belief that you are still not telling me the entire truth, Mr. Spencer. I do not criticize you for this. You have spoken more truth here today than I have heard in a good while. Perhaps more truth than you yourself have heard in a good while. But it is not enough. I am an exacting taskmaster, Mr. Spencer. If you want to negotiate for England, you shall have to lie a good deal. And I allow no men on my staff to lie without knowing the truth. To lie without knowing the truth is to lie incompetently, Mr. Spencer, and if there is one thing I hate, it is incompetence. So tell me why you are interested in this job.”

Reginald spoke instantly.

“I want to use the sacrifice of my academic career as a weapon against my wife.”

Cuthbert’s lidded eyes closed. A sensual thrill coursed almost visibly through his sloping body. He seemed to hear a high, lovely note that only a connoisseur can appreciate.

When he spoke, his voice was whispery, paper-thin.

“You have the job, Mr. Spencer.”

Cuthbert’s eyes did not open, but Reginald did not know that, since his own were closed.

Chapter 42

Something irreparable had occurred between Klaus and Tom on the day they had first soared into the skies together. Having started with admiring Klaus for his ability to stand up to his father, then having almost fallen in love with him as they flew—so great had his love of flying turned out to be—the day had started out well. Finally, though, the afternoon with Count Orsky, and the insinuating threat of the blue-uniformed precision flyers—combined with Klaus’s gruesome pleasure in their display of power—utterly broke their growing companionship.

Tom felt, deep in his soul, that he had gotten everything from Germany that he had come for. After taking their leave of Count Orsky and the pilots, they began to walk back towards Martin’s house. The afternoon was shading into evening, but it seemed to Tom that it was not the light that was failing, but his vision.

As he walked along in silence, the surrounding countryside began to weigh horribly on him. The countryside, in daylight, can seem lovely and rustic; in the deepening gloom of a coming twilight, it can seem grotesque. All the old terrors of the Middle Ages seem to come back; hunchbacks being tortured to drive out devils, women being whipped for tempting priests, altar boys being lured into groping up a cassock, slit-eyed Spanish men, with little beards and long-nailed hands, caressing Bibles, speaking softly, and snipping off penises.

Or, just dull, brute, rural drinking violence. Nothing sadistic, not really, just thrashings for stupid things, nothing things, chores forgotten or a plate dropped. Children being treated as livestock, or worse. Heavy blows, heavier remorse. Sweaty rape. Everything that can go wrong when families live far from each other, where evil can hide in a canyon of solitude. This is what Tom seemed to see, as they walked along the uneven path back towards the house of Klaus’s childhood. The dark houses seemed like the pens of hurt and snarling animals. The wooden fences looked as if they should have shrunken heads hanging from them…

Tom tried to remember what the English countryside looked like, at this time of night. He recalled being frightened, as a child, as night fell. Shadows held beady eyes. Trees reached for things. Roots tripped him. Holes held snakes and arms. But, it was more as if nature had turned malevolent. Now, as they walked along, it seemed as if nature herself lay in fear and trembling before the inhabitants of this land. Wolves would rather eat themselves than be caught by such hunters. Squirrels would hurl themselves off cliffs. Trees would withdraw their roots and die of thirst, rather than be stripped and skewered by such black woodsmen. Tom imagined flames on the horizon, and the terror of a natural world which could not survive the self-destruction of man. All the animals of history—overhead, in the constellations perhaps—gathering to view the death of all their offspring. Some very disappointed initial proteins, brokenhearted that it had all been in vain, all the billions of years and millions of tries…

Tom shuddered in the dark. But there is nothing in the world but what I bring to it… He turned to look at Klaus, who strode along a few feet away, in another deep wagon rut. I do not understand that boy… What has happened to him? So intelligent—and affectionate, without a doubt. So much promise, but something has been ripped out of him, something which is supposed to right him when he falls over. But now, he just falls and falls, and does not notice that he is falling, and so he reaches out to shake men’s hands, and pulls them down with him… And he does not know anything about himself. He can love me, and love Count Orsky as well. And those creepy pilots. What can that mean? He can love me, and—and love Reginald as well. There is no consistency in his soul. And I could corner him right here, right now, and push him deep in to the hedge, and he would say, his face dark with leaves, ‘very well—I contradict myself’—and then we shall have nothing else to say to each other. There will be a murder or a parting of the ways. There can be nothing else. Not in the long run.

“Something has happened,” murmured Klaus, startling Tom.

There was a pause.

“Can you feel it?” asked Klaus. “The world is different.”

More silence. Tom did not want to feed the boy’s mysticism, but he did feel it, so he could say neither yes nor no.

“It is the biggest thing,” said Klaus decisively. “Perhaps the biggest thing.”

Tom shivered again, although it was not too cold. Something seemed to be hanging over them, from the heavens. An endless weight that could drop anytime.

“History is dead,” murmured Klaus, flexing his hands. “No. History is gone. We have passed the threshold. Something has arisen that will take us with it, wherever it goes. It cannot be resisted. It will…” Something in Klaus faltered, and he glanced at Tom. Their eyes met for a brief moment, and then Klaus looked down.

“You shall have to return to England,” he said, after almost a minute.

“I truly appreciate your hospitality,” said Tom with some feeling.

Klaus nodded. The sky was almost dark. They were navigating only through the shapes of shadows.

It took many hours to walk the remainder of the distance. They each stuck to the little trenches of the ruts they walked, treading parallel lines that could never meet, a no-man’s-land of tufted grass between them. Tom was never able to remember what he thought about during those hours. He had a dread, a terrible dread, a dread almost of existence, a dread which could not be assuaged by reference to hard reality. He had a feeling that, were he to look at the Mona Lisa at that moment, her eye-sockets would be empty, her smile vapid, an ear missing. Or he would walk around the statue of David and see that the white back was covered with leprous sores.

And, although it felt that the night would never end, they did at last come to the house they had left that morning.

A swarm of siblings came down the back steps to meet them. Scraps of words floated in the air:

“It has finally happened!”

“The future is upon us!”

“God’s will is clear!”

“The peasants have spoken!”

“The past is no more!”

Neither Tom nor Klaus spoke as they climbed the steps. They both felt that they were adrift on some current that would fall away if they moved even a single muscle. They knew that something had happened. Before, they had looked at the world and acted. Now, the world was acting, and all they could do was look.

Inside, the radio was playing softly. A triumphant, sneering, exultant voice wriggled out of the speaker, like maggots through a grill.

Martin was sitting in his armchair, his chin resting in his hands. He had a look of serenity on his face. It was not beatific. It was not religious at all. His muscles seemed to have gone completely slack, but he was not horrified. He had the look of a man who has lived for years in terror of disease, and who has been given six months to live. The waiting is over…

Renata sat across from him, on a little stool. She was leaning forward, holding one of his hands, her forehead pressed against it, her hair loose, falling down. From the slow convulsion of her shoulders—like the rippling of a vomiting cat—Tom knew she was crying. Not ‘blubbering,’ as he did, in a vaguely pleasurable, sentimental manner. No, she was crying tears of endless agony. The tears of a parent whose child has just died. Tears without end. The down payment on a debt of salt that can never be paid.

Martin did not look up when Klaus and Tom came in, with the other children. He leaned forward, slowly, and kissed his wife’s hair. She sobbed, once, very loudly, making Tom’s heart lurch painfully.

One by one, the children detached themselves from the two young men and slowly walked—almost seeming to float—towards their weeping mother. Tom thought of bees and pollen, and felt his own nose sting. As the children reached her, they put their arms around her and lay their heads on her back, her head, her arms. It was like watching a mother being buried by the bodies of her offspring, and a thought came to Tom: She enclosed them; now they enclose her.

As her children’s bodies covered her, Renata sobbed more loudly. Her free hand wandered around their legs, caressing convulsively, obsessively, like a blind woman bidding goodbye to a lover’s features.

After a minute or so, Klaus stepped forward. He, too, seemed to be beyond the reach of gravity, and floated towards his mother. He joined the small mountain of crying children, crying mother, and pressed his face to the top. He was crying as well.

Tom felt acutely uncomfortable. This was too private a moment to be viewed by a guest. He stepped forward, but then stopped, startled, as a tectonic, maternal movement rippled up from under the hillock of children.

“You!” shouted Renata, struggling up. “You could have fought this!”

She rose from her children like a cresting whale, her face a dark sea of matriarchal rage. Tom expected her to throw herself at her husband, a hissing blur of nails, but she did not.

She turned to Klaus.

“God!” she shouted, pushing him away. “You never say anything! Now was the time to have spoken up! What you were paid for! To protect us! To protect your brothers and sisters!”

“Mother…!” he cried, his face white, his eyes stricken, his arms raised.

She jabbed a ferocious finger at him, as if she were spearing his image. “You were paid to guard these gates! Where were you?”

Tom expected Martin to say something, but he looked on the scene with blank indifference.

“It could have been prevented by a word from you!” shouted Renata. Her children drew back from her in one step, almost in unison. “One word! From any of you! But you—you said nothing, and now can never speak. And—and Tom will have to save us from ourselves. From people like you!”

Renata strode forward and pushed her eldest son hard in the chest. Dazed, Klaus stumbled back against the radio.

It fell against the floor with a bang. The volume jumped up from a grating whine to a terrifying scream:

“Chancellor Hitler has also closed the Reichstag, that abortion of the Republic, and has outlawed all political parties except the National Socialist. Furthermore…”

Tom closed his eyes.

Renata fell to the ground. The tide of children moved in again, like water refilling a hole in water.

Chapter 43

It was going to be impossible to sleep. There could be no doubt of that. Tom lay in his little room. It was neither hot nor cold.

One thought seemed unalterable, inescapable, and depressing beyond words.

I can never return to England.

Oh, he could go back. He would go back. As soon as possible. But his England, the England before Germany, before Hitler, the England of a little room and a lot of books, of napping and thinking and watching the slow sway of sunlight against his window—why that England was dead and gone. Worse than that—it was a fairy tale, or Santa Claus, which had never been real except in his imagination. His fantasy, more like.

But—and he had to be honest with himself about this—there was a certain measure of relief. The foreboding he had felt (from when exactly?—well, for a long time, certainly) had broken at last. News anticipated is always worse than news delivered. He could not act in the face of uncertainty, of ambivalence, of fears without clear or traceable causes.

But now the world is acting upon me, and my choices are no longer what they were. They are, perhaps, what I always thought they would be.

Some part of him said: But perhaps there will not be war.

And of course, there might not be. Nothing was inevitable in a world without God, the world he had inherited from his mother. Nothing was inevitable to British rationalism, not in the same way as German mysticism. He thought that Renata was really railing against God, the God who had allowed Hitler into power. She was railing against an inevitability, against something foreordained. She railed against it, but could never fight it. One does not pit oneself against the infinite. All she could do was rail against her son, imagining that God might not have punished them with Hitler if he had fought against Nazism more. But now that Hitler was here, they had to accept God’s will…

Tom reached around, plumped up his tough little pillow, propped it up against the headboard, and sat up, turning to look out the narrow window.

The countryside was dark; there was only a tiny sliver of a moon. Tom imagined, for a moment, that the moon was finally showing its dark side, and that silver would never return to its face. But then he almost snarled at himself. The time for bad poetry is past. Fuck metaphors. Their day is done, for the foreseeable future at least. The moon is just the moon. We must not sing its praises, but arm and hunt under its simple light. It is not the face of a lover, but a rock which reflects the sun. It does not illuminate our hopes, but our prey…

He still allowed himself to cry. Let that never end, he thought, thinking of Reginald. For I have seen what is revealed when the seas dry…

There might not be war… He tried to bring the thought up, give it light and power, but it was pointless, like a diver trying to raise a shipwreck. It felt worse than foolish. It felt pathetic.

What would it take to avoid a war?

It would take what the West lacked utterly.

It would take something worth killing for to keep.

But if we still valued it, then Hitler would never have gained power, thought Tom, not knowing exactly why he thought it. It was Reginald and Klaus, and all this relativism… Let Germany find her own way…

Tom turned his head back and forth on the pillow, enjoying the crunching of his hair. We are to be left with no metaphors, and simple pleasures.

A knock came at the door.

“Come in,” said Tom immediately.

Renata entered. Tom did not feel afraid—not in the way that he had at breakfast, when she was dissolving his sausage. She entered as a supplicant.

She closed the door silently and crossed the room. Then she seemed to collapse, like a dynamited smokestack, down onto the floor. She sat on her heels, and folded her hands in her lap. He remembered that she wanted to be a nun.

“Tom,” she whispered, and his heart almost failed at her tone. There is something worse than seeing the death of your children, he thought. And that is knowing that you will see the death of your children.

“Tom,” she repeated, after taking a moment to compose her voice: “Tom, when you go back to England, you must tell people that they have allies here.”

He nodded slowly. He reached his hand for hers, but she wriggled back slightly.

“You must tell them that—that he can be stopped, if English people are not like us. If they are kinder than us. More resolute. I am not saying this very well. But I am not a priest. Or a politician. You are a strong man, and a kind man. Anyone with eyes can see that three leagues off. But you do not fight. Please don’t dislike me for this, but I shall never see you again, and this is the only way I have… The only thing I can do for my children, for those I love. You must fight, Tom. You cannot hide from a bad world. It will—it will come and get you anyway.”

Renata took a shuddering breath. Her fingers clutched at each other, deep in her lap.

“And if you cannot fight,” she said, “then you must speak. The only people who are certain in uncertain times are bad people. They will lie. We lied to ourselves, and now they will lie for us. Tell the truth. We cannot be trusted, not anymore, after this. And…” Her voice dropped as if God had his ear to the door. “And…shoot him, if you can. He is a cancer. He might be God’s cancer, to make us better, but you did not cause him, and you can shoot him without interfering with His plan. Kill him, that we all may live! Will you do that? Will you?”

“I will,” whispered Tom, thinking, despite himself: One day, I shall be surrounded by people who are not intense and self-obsessed, and who will actually ask me what I think, how I feel…

Renata stayed in her kneeling position for many more minutes. Her head lowered slowly, almost imperceptibly. Tom could only tell by gauging her hair against a picture on the far wall, by the door.

Finally, she said—and her voice held yet another tone: “I am an old woman.”

She leaned forward. “I am an old woman,” she repeated. “So only one will I take.”

To Tom’s only partial surprise, she kissed him on the lips. Her mouth was dry, and Tom thought that a woman’s lips would not change too much over the course of her life—not like her skin or hair, say. And then he thought that she was not an old woman—certainly not yet fifty—and recalled the fertility of her hips.

And then he felt a tickle of desire, and pictured her head thrown back, his buttocks pumping, his seed spraying…

And then he thought of Klaus, and imagined being crucified by Martin, and his desire subsided rather smartly.

“Save them,” said Renata, looking at him with eyes so dark they looked cadaverous. “And good night.”

She turned and glided from the room, and Tom thought that Hitler seemed to have repealed both democracy and gravity at the same time.

He did not expect to sleep, but he found himself awakened by Klaus in the morning. He sat in a chair by Tom’s bed, in almost the same spot that his mother had occupied only a few hours before.

“So,” said Klaus. He also seemed to have slept little. “I wanted to let you sleep, but you have many miles to cover.”

“How are you?” asked Tom, sitting up.

“Resigned,” replied Klaus simply.

“What are you going to do?”

Klaus shrugged. “Well, they know I can fly…”

“Oh, it’s…” too soon for that, Tom was going to say, but closed his mouth. Time was too short for foolish optimism.

“Well, to use a flying term I learned just yesterday,” smiled Tom, his heart breaking for perhaps the thousandth time, “stall them.”

Klaus smiled back, then looked away. “I don’t think it could have been averted, Tom.”

Tom pursed his lips. It’s damn early for these dilemmas… I could ease his heart, but not at the expense of the truth. “I think,” he said carefully, “that if we have both worked harder, we might have had an effect. I shouldn’t have just stayed in my room.”

Klaus laughed. “Good Lord, Tom! Whether you’re in your room or not, the World Spirit marches on!”

“The World Spirit, if it exists, is nothing but the sum of all our choices.”

Klaus’s smile fell away, a crack of plaster from a shaking wall. “Yes, that might be so… All right. Now, how are we going to get you to Berlin?”

“There’s no problem getting out?”

“No—there are no travel restrictions, from what I’ve heard. He wants the road cleared for the exodus of the Jewry.”

They talked about travel options for a little while, and then Tom packed and went downstairs.

Breakfast was a grim, resolute affair. Martin said grace for a long time, repeatedly asking for the strength to survive the trials they had brought on themselves, and then asking for the strength to serve the new Germany. His voice did not betray any stress at his contradictions. Renata did not return Tom’s gaze, which was indication enough of the subversive nature of her nightly visit. The various siblings seemed subdued, gathering strength. After the ‘Amen,’ Tom did not even pretend to eat. He drank tea and watched the others. Conversation was sparing. The radio was silent.

Chapter 44

Getting off the train in Berlin, the first thing that Tom thought of was that a large number of wealthy people had lost a lot of change. A group of men in suits, and women in furs, were on their hands and knees, their hands working, little foamy scraping noises escaping their huddled forms.

“Clean, Jewish scum!” cried a man standing over them, next to another man. His evil, leering face hovered over them. It was clear that he wanted to kick them, but was forcing himself to restrain, for the sake of being able to kick them more later.

As Tom passed them by, he saw that they were cleaning the platform with toothbrushes. As he passed the group, he saw the man spit into the little foam circles.

“You missed a spot,” he said, pointing a truncheon at his little pile of spittle.

The other man was unzipping his fly. “Let me help you rinse,” he laughed.

Tom hurried on. It was strange. People flowed around the little scene, giving it no more attention than janitors at a museum cleaning an old exhibit of prehistoric men.

Entering the street, he looked around for a taxicab, his eyes refusing to alight on any object for more than a moment, fearful of finding more evidence of random abuse.

But the city moved on, pretty much as before. There were fewer Communists around, but the preachers still spat from their fruit-box altars. Tom looked deep into the faces of those speeding past. This is the last time I shall see this land, he thought, hoping that the idea might provoke some extra sense in him, which could divine the thoughts of those hurrying by. But they looked almost the same as they had when he had arrived. He wanted to stop each one and ask them if they knew what had happened, what they had done. (It was the same feeling he had when walking home very late at night in London; he would want to stop each car and ask the occupants what the hell they were doing out at three o’clock in the morning. Then, of course, he realized that they could justifiably pose the same question to him.)

He went straight to a little room, not far from the airport, and deposited his bags. Then, he walked over to a travel agent and inquired about flights for tomorrow. There was one at ten thirty in the morning. His ticket was checked. All was well.

He slept poorly that night as well. Starting around midnight, some sort of massive celebration seemed to be going on. He saw the flicker of firelight against his ceiling. He heard badly blown trumpets, and screams of pleasure or pain, which he did not choose to get up and investigate further. If a crime was going on, what could he do? The police are Nazis. Cheering erupted at times, but he could not hear any coherent or amplified speeches, so he assumed that people were responding to some symbolic event. Hopefully, it was just the burning of the Weimar law books, or some decadent Western literature. There was also the clatter of occasional gunfire, and Tom thought that the Communists and Fascists must be in quite a panic. They had all been chasing the ring through democratic means, and now the Nazis had won. And it wasn’t as if there would be any more elections. Ballots were out. Bullets were in.

Do it now, comrades, thought Tom, unable to find heat in his thin covers, while Hitler has yet to get an army…

Also, he was struck by the thought that the Communists and Fascists were unlikely to go peacefully, knowing as they probably did that the new regime could now murder them at its leisure. You have a gun, and you know a man is coming who wants to kill you… So they had to act now, violently and decisively. Cornered prey have no choice but to fight.

Tom wondered what was happening tonight to all the decadent men and women who were at that awful play, or the piano recital. Were they polishing up their horn-rimmed glasses to go and join the parades? Would they tickle the noses of their new Nazi masters with their imitation boas? Would they write plays about how Hitler was really a lesbian? Would they giggle as they were burned?

I have to get out of this country, thought Tom fervidly, rolling over and pulling his pillow over his head.

Chapter 45

It had been a little over two years since Tom had first moved into his little room. He was in the time of life when time still stretches ahead, like a blank canvas one is afraid of getting to work on. And he loved his solitude. He loved it in a way which was hard for him—and harder for anyone else—to understand. It could be said that he had had little existence in his family; his mother fused with him, like a fried egg left on the stove too long. His father did not understand him, or try to, but viewed him as a sparrow passing through a room. (This image came to Tom from reading about the history of religion. When an old Anglo-Saxon warlord first met a Christian priest, the priest explained the idea of heaven and hell, and the warlord thought for a long time, and then convened his knights that evening. He said: ‘Before we met such men, we thought that life was just like a sparrow flying through a room. Now we have heard from where the sparrow comes, and to where it goes. And our room will never be the same.’)

Reginald—well, Reginald was a constant force in Tom’s life. Reginald had something to prove. Reginald always had something to prove. When Tom was younger, this was obvious. Reginald was usually better at sports; Tom would grind his teeth in frustration when they played tennis, or football, or cricket—and for a time was a terrifically bad loser, even hurling his tennis racquet in frustration on occasion. (Tom was a faster runner; that was the only advantage he had, but it was not very helpful, once they graduated past ‘tag’ and ‘British Bulldog.’)

As they got older, Reginald’s teasing became more subtle. When he was young, he lorded it over his brother. When he won a game, he would dance. As they entered puberty, though, a different devil began to live within him. An older, wiser, more patient devil. A devil who counseled that to oppose an enemy was far less powerful than to have one’s enemy oppose himself. When they played tennis, for instance, Reginald no longer mocked Tom when he beat him. Oh no, that would be most obvious! What he did now was irritate his younger brother in a much more subtle manner; he sliced his shots with a casual brutality which spoke parchments of suppressed rage. And when Tom began to lose (always, always cursing himself for his psychology, for his inability to imagine beating his older brother), Reginald would become sad and compassionate, his face growing long and serious, his mouth compressing into a silent speech of unspoken remonstrance. But Tom, those lips would say, surely we are beginning to outgrow all this! Surely you cannot be continuing the vain and pointless wars of our early childhood!  Why do you continue to fight me? Why are you holding on to all this, in this way? Why are you so stuck, back there in the muck of our beginnings? Now we are supposed to be having fun. We are supposed to be wiser. We are supposed to enjoy our day, the sun, the play of our muscles. Why, oh why are we still at war?

And Tom would hear all of this, continuously, with every stroke and every wild shot of his. And Reginald would call over: ‘Do you need to take a break, Tom? You seem to be getting agitated.’ And Tom would want to leap over the net and thrash his brother with his own tennis racquet—edge even, not just the face—and would have to swallow his own bile, and would charge over the court to his own inevitable defeat.

Both brothers were preternaturally sensitive, and this was a great problem. There were two incidents from Tom’s early childhood, in relation to Reginald, which kept returning to him. The first was when Tom was five or six, sitting at the edge of a large lacquered dining table, after dinner, with a gaggle of cousins and aunts. He was complaining about being a younger brother:

“Everything I get is later, or less. Or before. I have to go to bed earlier. I get less allowance. I’m not allowed to make my own toast. I can’t be alone in the bathtub.”

The list went on, but finally, Tom said: “But that’s all right. I’m a year younger than Reginald, so at least I get to live a year longer.”

There had been a pause then, and the adults had exchanged the kinds of amused smiles which really alerted Tom to impending words of doom.

“But Tom,” said one of his aunts, “being a year younger doesn’t mean that you get to live a year longer. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow!”

Public humiliation! Universal injustice! Reginald smiling in triumph! And a memory which could not be erased, which sat on the rim of the general dustbin of history, refusing to fall, to go in, and staring at him with patient, implacable, glittering eyes. I shall wait, and you shall comprehend me, and only then shall I go. For if you do not, we shall both go into the dustbin together!

The other incident was when they were playing cards with their cousins. Tom was seven. His math skills, never very good, were challenged by a rather complicated scoring system being managed by Reginald (who always wanted to keep score, which made Tom suspicious, but he never found him cheating). At one point, frustrated with being left behind, Tom cried out that an error in scoring had been made. Reginald stopped the game with an imperious hand, saying that this had to be completely cleared up before they could continue. And then he had laid the scoring sheet in front of Tom, going over and over how Tom’s score had been arrived at. And Tom fought and fought—and then, at one point, understood in a rush, and saw that his brother was right. But he could not stop fighting, and gradually, everyone sitting on the blanket realized that Tom was continuing to fight, even though he knew he was wrong, and the game had broken up, and everyone had drifted away, everyone except Reginald, who sat and continued to explain the scoring to Tom, though they both knew that Tom was lying, and had been lying for some time, and they argued themselves into whispers, and were sent to bed after dinner, for fear that that they were getting colds, or something worse.

This was an odd memory, because Tom did not feel ashamed of it. Later in life, when he became very interested in ethics, he would occasionally go back to this memory, wondering why he felt justified in continuing a deception long after he knew it was a deception, long after it was exposed. There were things that he was ashamed of, but that was not one. He felt that he had, in that instance, both lost and gained something. He had lost, for the obvious reason that he had betrayed his own integrity and sense of truth in order to continue opposing Reginald—but he had gained something, as well.

There was something in Reginald which had to be opposed. Tom had always felt that to be the case. It wasn’t competitive. It was grindingly oppositional. They were like two armies facing each other across a history which neither could remember. They were competitive insofar as it was a war of attrition, and arms had to be manufactured as rapidly as possible. But they weren’t competitive like old and evenly matched tennis players, who fought hard and bought each other drinks afterwards. No, they were at war, at war with all the implacability and underhandedness of combatants who can no longer remember the cause.

And it was true, Tom felt, to a large degree, that the world could not really accept them both. The world could not be fitted to them both. There was no plurality in their coexistence. They were like a black man and a white racist. A Nazi and a Jew. A Greek and a Turk. A Muslim and an atheist. There may be an uneasy peace, in the face of a common enemy perhaps, but in the long run, only one of them can survive.

But there was something endless about their conflict. The black man does not need the racist, but the racist needs the black man, because if there is no black man, he does not know what he is. He is no longer a racist. The racist is committed to destroying the black man, but cannot ever let it actually happen, not to the very end. The black man is the identity of the racist. What the racist requires is that the black man be poisoned by racism, to keep himself down, to justify the false superiority of the racist. The true fight, though, is not what it appears. The black man does not have to fight the racism in the white man, but in the black man. In his own breast. Where he agrees.

Tom had a strong soul, but he had received no nurturing at the hands of his family. One of the great revelations that he had in the two years in his little room was that no one in his family had any idea who his favorite writer was, or which paintings he loved, or what his hobbies really were, or what his favorite color was, or his favorite actress, or the football team he would have supported if he could choose any one. Or his opinion of Scottish women, or his excitement when reading about stories of the Amazonian jungle. Or the fact that still, even into his twenties, he loved boy’s adventure stories. Or that he loved history, because it always seemed more noble, more clear, and more beautiful than the present (this meant world history; personal history always seemed quite the reverse). Or that he sometimes loved the world, his view, London—even when fogged with low rain—with such passion that he wanted to tear out of his own skin and rope it to his embrace with endless tendons. Or that he wanted to be a sheriff of the Old West, with a cocked hat, an eye patch and a quicksilver hand. Or that he was frightened of German philosophy. Or that he was horrified—and ashamed of his horror—by visible physical deformities. Or that he was physically vain. Or that he feared for his future. Or that he loved his five hundred pounds a year, but also worried that it would be his undoing. Or that he felt he was stuffed full of promise, but void of direction, like a Zeppelin overfilled with helium and sent off to bump under the ceiling of the stratosphere…

There were a million other thoughts, and none of them were of any interest to his family. Reginald was brusque, practical, and had little patience with such nonsense. He derided overanalyzing in any form, and considered that Tom, by sitting alone in his room and rummaging through his own psyche, was engaging in a most narcissistic form of navel-gazing. ‘The world is owned by those who act,’ he said repeatedly—and Tom had the same thought each time: Does he mean those who do, or those who pretend?

So Tom had never been able to find himself through his family. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The Spencers had actively blocked Tom from developing his own identity. Thus, it was quite remarkable that Tom should have retained the ability to spend time alone with his own thoughts, to abandon the future and simmer productively in the past and present.

And—and there was a manner in which the modern world did not really fit Tom, right at his core. He felt, from his love of nineteenth-century thought and art, that the world had gone in the wrong direction. And, like any driver who’s taken a bad turn, it would take a lot to turn around. The longer the world went in the wrong direction, the worse would have to be its reversal. And this ‘cult of the new’; the artistic movements of incomprehensibility—Dadaism, surrealism, constructivism—this idea that the world had changed so much that none of the old rules applied… Or, rather, that all of the old rules were mere exercises in power, to benefit the ruling class, and anyone who followed them was a blind, foolish sap. And this truly meant all rules. Even basic ones, like telling the truth. Nowadays—this was as true at All Souls as it was at fashionable dinner parties—there was the Noble Lie, lifted from Plato. It was often applied to Soviet Russia, and Tom heard it many times. It went like this:

“Russia is a noble experiment, deserving our strict attention and qualified support. It has its difficulties, of course, and we should not treat as gospel everything we read in Pravda, or treat missives from Moscow as sermons from the mount. But there are two kinds of difficulties in societies. The first kind is those caused by bad ideas. Untrammeled capitalism was one. The nineteenth century. Child labor. The robber barons. There is no remedy for such ills except a change in government, either of form or content.

“The second difficulty, however, is much more complex. When a society’s ideas are better than the nature of its inhabitants, then difficulties within that society must be examined much more closely. There was never a perfect Christian society, because of Original Sin, if you like. But that does not mean that Christian ethics are wrong. There may never be a perfect communist society. But that does not mean that communism is wrong. If communism encounters difficulties in its implementation, it is not because the ideas of communism are bad, but rather because its fine, delicate machinery is being implemented over the brute opposition of uneducated peasants. It is natural for the average kulak to resent the collectivization of his land, because his forefathers were serfs for so long—and, because of the Tsar, he associates authority with greed. The idea that authority—the authority of the Soviets—could work to his advantage is utterly foreign to him. So he fights. He undermines. Sometimes, he sabotages. And then the capitalists cry: ‘Ahah! You see? Communism has problems as well!’ And they are right—at the moment, in Russia. But that is because of the coarseness of the people, not the falseness of the ideas.

“And so the difficulties are downplayed. And why not? The idea is noble and true, but it sometimes runs afoul of human imperfection. To trumpet such failures would be to play into the hands of your enemies. To provide ammunition to the capitalists, to allow them to continue their exploitation. Failures not endemic to the system should be downplayed. Even the capitalists do this. A biscuit tastes bad to one in a thousand people, they don’t take out adverts in the newspapers saying: ‘Biscuit tastes bad!’ No, you have to find that in the fine print, if it’s even there at all. If the peasants resent collectivization, due to their own selfish ignorance, Moscow can hardly be expected to say: ‘Peasants Resent Collectivization!’ No. They say: ‘Collectivization Proceeding Smoothly.’ There is the rule, and then there is the exception. When the rule is sound, one may gloss over the exception from time to time, to avoid confusion. If you are a doctor, and one person in a thousand reacts badly to a life-saving medicine, would you tell a dying patient of the risk? Of course not! The stress of worrying about it would be terrible—and would not affect the outcome, except negatively.”

So it was all right to lie. And stealing? Well, that was an obsolete rule, in the new thinking. When there is no property, there is no stealing. On the contrary, property itself is stealing. So, telling the truth was optional. Propaganda was more important than honesty. Stealing was impossible. Integrity? Modern integrity was integrity to an Idea, not to the Good. If you were a fascist, then whatever furthered the cause of fascism was good.

And violence? That was, to Tom, the great question of the early thirties. What about the question of violence?

That was a question answered with grim, simple absolutism. In the nineteenth century (All praise it! All damn the propaganda of Dickens!), society was considered an honorable place. Law, while sometimes imperfect, was striving towards truth and honor. The social contract was binding—obedience for the sake of protection—because the laws were honest and just. In fact, the idea of the ‘social contract’ was dying out. Laws were just, thus obeying the laws was the same as being moral. Personal morality created the authority of the state, not vice versa.

This was a new, unprecedented, post-Enlightenment idea, and it took deep roots in the century which provided the greatest single advance in the human condition: the nineteenth.

It did not survive the onset of the twentieth.

The ideas, flowing in Germany, about the innate immorality of capitalist democracies, destroyed the social contract, personal morality and the moral authority of the Western societies. It was sad, Tom often thought, how easily such noble structures had collapsed. The structures were powerful, but undefended. The attackers were mere termites, but endless in their eating hatred. The result was inevitable. It became impossible to think of Western society in moral terms. The capitalists were immoral, of course. But it was worse than that. It was not that certain capitalists were immoral, and could be reformed through argument and social humiliation. No—it was that morality was impossible in a capitalist society. The social contract was impossible; obedience was futile, because there was no protection in capitalism, only exploitation. Personal morality was impossible; one was either an exploiter or one of the exploited. Capitalism corrupts irrevocably. It was no more possible to reform capitalism than to slow a man falling from a cliff. The logic, the destruction, was inevitable.

In fact, even attempting reform was futile, evil. Those who argued for the forty-hour workweek, minimum wages, and safer working conditions were considered ‘social fascists,’ who attempted to make concessions with an evil entity. Capitalism was exploitative by nature. Reforming it could shroud that exploitation, but not eliminate it. In fact, reform was more dangerous than capitalism, because it dulled the desire for revolution.

So the Western democracies were invaded by a virus, and this virus took down almost every single intellectual, in every single university. German thought became ‘cool,’ and every progressive was either a relativist, a communist, or a socialist. People who had never been in the same room as a manual worker appointed themselves as spokespeople of the proletariat. Those who knew nothing about economics argued for the redistribution of income. Those who had never been in a fistfight demanded a violent revolution. Sickly youths worshipped the meaty arms of two-toned Soviet poster boys. Men who had never held a job argued for the rights of working people everywhere. It was all nonsense, pure nonsense, and it culminated with the great debate of 1933.

Reginald was the president of the debating club, and there was great consternation in England about the rising power of Germany.

Chapter 46

The National Socialist party was voted into power in January of 1933. Within six months, democracy and capitalism were dead in Germany.

This caused great debate at All Souls. One by one, countries were falling into absolutism. It seemed the wave of the future. Russia, communism: 1917. Italy, fascism: 1922. And now, Germany, Nazism: 1933. Sentiment in Spain was surging back and forth between the Fascists and the Communists, and it looked as if civil war would create—no matter which side was victorious—a dictatorship of some kind. Democracy certainly seemed to have had its day.

And so, in 1933, Reginald proposed a public debate. The question? ‘Be It Resolved That: “That this House refuses to fight for King and country.”’

The posters went up, the hall was booked. The level of public interest was feverishly high. Everyone felt uneasy about Italy, Germany, and Spain. Everyone knew that, without the support of the young, a war could not even be contemplated. Everyone knew that the Treaty of Versailles was on its last legs.

And everyone was terrified of war, because the next war would not be fought overseas. It would not even be fought in some distant part of England. It would be fought over their very heads, and their houses, their gardens, neighbors and children would all be vaporized on, perhaps, the second day of the next war. No telegrams would be mailed, because there would be no houses to deliver them to. No neighbors to deliver them. Nothing would be left. The survivors would envy the dead, and, all too soon, be tempted to eat them. Plumbing would fail. Waste would accumulate. Disease would spread. Fatalities would be in the millions, within a month. Civilization would be at an end. No one would even have any idea who won. Government would cease. Base predators would return; packs of skinny dogs would drag away babies while keeping the mothers at bay with drooling snarls and quivering haunches. Gangs of criminals would rape and roam. Casual slaughter. It would be worse than the fall of Rome, because after Rome, there were no guns. The fights were more even. They would not be now. The army would never even make it overseas. The soldiers would become the new government, and they would take what they pleased. It would be a world of unprecedented horror, without bottom, without hope, without end…

And so, as it can be imagined, there was great interest in Reginald’s debate.

Tom heard of it through Hart, who wrote often and came on occasion to visit him in London. Hart was horrified by Reginald’s position, for it was well known that Reginald was a pacifist. To Hart, it made no sense. There were worse things than death. Going back into the mines was one. Living in a dictatorship was another. Hart had grown up being brutalized by the other boys of his little village, and so he had no illusions about the nature and practice of dictatorship. Tom also knew something about dictatorship, through his family—but Tom’s knowledge was more about propaganda than brutality.

One afternoon, strolling through Hyde Park, they decided to do something quite extraordinary. Hart was, through natural rotation, to be Reginald’s opposition during the Great Debate. Hart was eager to do his best, and he and Tom worked for a long time on the arguments. The Debate was set up as a four-part sequence. The first part was a fifteen-minute argument, followed by two rebuttal periods, wherein each opponent was allowed to answer the arguments of the other. The final part were two five-minute summing-up arguments. Reginald was scheduled to start the debate, but the final word was left to Hart.

As they walked, Tom felt some dark shoot of absolutism reach down from his mind, down his spine, almost to his bowels.

“Listen, Hart, you have been a great friend to me,” he said, interrupting one of Hart’s practice arguments.

“Thanks, Tom,” said Hart, a little startled. Ever since he had left All Souls, Tom was becoming more demonstrative. It still took getting used to. Hart wasn’t quite at the stage of reciprocity, but he didn’t find it as startling as he had when this habit had first emerged.

“I mean it. Except for Reginald, of course, you are the only schoolmate who has kept in touch with me. And you really put a lot of effort into it. You write. You come to see me. I’m the prat who never comes to you, and takes weeks to reply to your letters.”

Hart smiled, brushing back his thin hair. “Look, you’re the golden god. I’m the acolyte. I accept that.”

“No!” cried Tom, startling some pigeons. “That’s not right. That’s not going to work, not in the long run. You’ve kept me abreast of what’s happening in the intellectual world. I can’t get that from papers and the odd speech. I promise to be a better friend.”

“Well, I appreciate that, Tom.”

“Right. And now, having said that, I am about to completely undermine my credibility. Because I want to ask you for a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“You want to do this debate?”

“Yes.”

“Because of its publicity?”

Hart snorted. “Hell no. Because I think that pacifism is a little girl’s philosophy. Because I think it will fuck us up royally, before long. Because it invites pillaging. It’s like everyone has forgotten about Vikings.”

“And you will do a fantastic job. Truly wizard. I believe that.”

“Thanks.”

“But I want to do it.”

There was a pause. Hart stopped walking for a moment, his shoulders sagging. Tom stopped and turned to him. Hart looked up, desperate worship in his eyes.

“But Tom—you’re not a student anymore.”

“We’ll check the rules. If I can’t, problem solved.”

“Tell me.” This was a phrase Hart used which Tom loved. It meant: tell me everything behind that thought.

“Passion,” said Tom. “Passion will determine this debate. I have fought Reginald on this issue for fifteen years.”

“I am passionate about it, too,” said Hart, breaking one of his own rules, which was: when you say to a man: ‘tell me,’ you mustn’t interrupt his response.

“Yes, you are,” said Tom. “I know you are.”

They moved to one side, to let a runner pass them by. They sat on a bench. A chill wind wandered over the green. Tom shivered. Something frigid was churning through his innards. His hands were shaking.

“But something is going to unite this argument, Hart,” he said. “Something which comes from the heart, something old and passionate and Anglo-Saxon. Because there is something feral about us. Something which gave us the strength, certainty and brutality to rule such a vast Empire.”

“Hm,” said Hart, staring down at his hands.

Tom knew that Hart could refuse him nothing, and his heart broke at the sight of Hart, sitting there like a depressed child whose last toy has just been snatched away. I will not take anything from him which he does not want to give—and not out of deference to me, but because he sees it, clear and entire…

“Hart, let me ask you this,” he said, after a moment. “And if you can answer it, I will withdraw my petition. I don’t want to be the bastard who takes something from you because you care for me, because I care for you too. I don’t want to be that person.”

There it was again. Tom’s feelings spilled over, and Hart shivered.

“This is my question,” said Tom softly. “You are a British soldier, in the Middle East, keeping the Jews and Palestinians from each other’s throats. You see a man wanted for acts of terrorism. You raise your rifle and shout for him to stop. He turns, sees you, then grabs a little boy walking past. He holds the child up, in front of him, and starts backing away. You do not have a clean shot. What do you do?”

Hart paused. “I… Is it crowded?”

“Let’s say it’s just you, the man, and the little boy.”

“If I shoot, and I hit the boy,” said Hart slowly, “I incense the Palestinian population. Endless reprisals follow. If I shoot, and hit the man, the boy is saved. But there’s still uneasiness in the population. ‘What if he had hit the boy?’ They’ll think we don’t care.”

“So you would let him go.”

“That sounds accusatory,” said Hart, slightly reproachfully. “I would not ‘let him go.’ I just wouldn’t risk the boy. No. I couldn’t.”

“Let me tell you what I would do, and then you can tell me whether I should take the debate with Reginald or not.”

“All right.” The shivering seemed to have passed from Tom to Hart. Tom felt quite calm.

“I would shoot him,” he said.

“I assume you mean the man.”

“Yes.”

“And if you hit the boy?”

“That is immaterial.”

Hart blinked, and shivered, slightly more violently. “Immaterial?” He tried to laugh. “You’ve been spending too much time brooding in your room.”

Tom’s gaze did not falter. “No, Hart,” he said gently. “It’s immaterial.”

“What—you don’t care about the boy?”

“It’s because I care greatly about the boy that it is immaterial.”

“That’s nonsense,” snorted Hart, then smiled apologetically. They both knew that Tom was not prone to uttering nonsense. “All right. How so?”

“If I let the man go, then word will spread among the terrorists that children work as human shields. Soon they will be dragging the children out to their barricades. They will get children to do their dirty work. They will be constantly attacking us as child murderers. They will attempt to get us to hate ourselves, to become disgusted with our peacekeeping efforts, to want to leave this place of madness and go home to our peaceful hills and little churches.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “They will win, Hart.”

Hart nodded slowly.

“So this is what I do. I aim for the man as if the boy was not there. It doesn’t matter whether the boy lives or not. It only matters that I don’t care whether he lives or not. Thus, the terrorists will quickly realize that children are not effective as human shields. They will stop using the children to save themselves. They will fight like men again. And the lives of countless children will be saved, as a result of me not caring about the life of a single child.”

“But—but what of the general population?”

“I refuse to refer to the child. It is not even part of the debate. Anyone who cannot see that it was the terrorist who dragged the child into the line of fire—and not me—is too morally corrupt to attempt an argument with. If the general population chooses to blame me rather than the terrorist, let them. I will not waver.”

Hart stared at his friend in wonder. “My god, Tom. Where the hell does this all come from?”

“From my heart,” said Tom simply. “From my compassion. From justice.”

“From Germany?” asked Hart quietly.

“Could be,” murmured Tom. “Could be.”

“What the hell does this have to do with the debate?”

Tom grinned humorlessly. “Well, the Germans will be holding our children hostage, Hart. They will have enough bombers to destroy London. It’s not even an allegory. It is the way things are. Can you stand up to that, without a shred of internal doubt? Can you condemn children to certain death to save civilization? Would you gather their body parts, help dig their graves? Would you stand up to the wailing and scratching of their mothers, who call you a murderer and damn your name in their very souls? Would you be willing to go down in history as a warmonger? As a perpetrator of genocide on his own population? Could you do that, Hart? Do you have the strength? Because that is what it will take.”

Hart looked over at his friend, and felt all the terror and excitement of facing a person who, through a combination of parental inattention, self-imposed solitude, and natural will, is on the verge of becoming a true force of nature—he wasn’t sure for good or ill.

When Hart returned to All Souls, he dug up a copy of the rules of the Debating Club, and found that it was possible. He could nominate a substitute debater on the day of the debate—actually, right up until the beginning of the debate. There was nothing in the rules stipulating that the substitute had to be a current student, only that he had to be acceptable to the opposing team. Hart wrote to Tom about this, and Tom replied that he didn’t think that Reginald would give up the chance to beat him in such a public manner.

For about a week before the day of the debate, Tom dozed almost continuously. Something new was taking shape in his personality. Or, he thought as he drifted in and out of consciousness, my natural self is casting off something old. He had an afternoon dream where he floated above a desert, over a terrific sandstorm, and saw an ancient city being revealed as endless tons of sand were cast to the sky. And as the harsh sand was blown away, it polished the city until it shone in silver patches under the endless storm…

From spending so much time alone, reading, dreaming, thinking and walking, Tom realized that vital aspects of his own soul were only emerging from silence and relaxation. As an evidence of his own development, it was important to note that Tom could no longer measure his relationship to the human race as a whole. He felt so overfull of opinions, ideas, and emotions that he could no longer interact with the average. When he did meet the odd group for lunch, or enter a deeper conversation through his inability to suffer foolish talk, his intensity caused great discomfort. Occasionally, it was true, a certain soul would respond to his passion, his clarity, his lack of fear in the face of essential questions, but these people were few and far between, and could not accompany him for long. Sometimes, he would exchange phone numbers with such people, but they were often oddities, only original because they were so disorganized. They were unafraid to question prevailing mental habits because they had no discipline. When they got together with Tom, they questioned society—and then questioned their questions, and the validity of language, and then the existence of the tearoom they sat in, and then Tom lost all interest in them. They were attracted by his originality and individuality, but when they came across his deep absolutism, they drew back. They hoped to use his originality to undermine whatever absolutes remained sitting within them, reproachful and insistent; when they found out that Tom believed in absolute morality with his whole soul, they generally abandoned the conversation with the petulant air of men who think they are going on a date with a slut, who then turns out to be a religious virgin.

Tom did not write any arguments down for his Great Debate. He did not even make any notes. This argument will not be about being more believable, or being right, or being impressive, or even beating Reginald. No, this argument will be about me being myself, as fully and deeply as is possible… The logic of this fight is in my soul, not my head or tongue…

In this he deferred to Churchill. He read one of the venerable statesman’s essays, written when he was twenty-four, which said that the only way to convince an audience of a topic was to be convinced of it yourself.

Of course, there was something great, bloody, and almost insane in the formulations he came up with. However, it had something to do with the ability to withstand suffering.

Once, when Tom was about eight, a sister of Catherine’s had come to visit them. He had been sick on the couch, with mumps or something similar—he couldn’t remember what now.

Catherine’s sister, Lilly, had had five children by four different men. She was thinner than Catherine (which wasn’t saying much), but her body had a kind of flaccidity which spoke of a life propped up by too many tendons and too few muscles. Lilly lived in Bree, Scotland, and had traveled down by train to come and visit Catherine.

Watching Catherine prepare for her sister’s arrival, Tom had been fascinated, and completely forgot about his own malady. She went around, plumping cushions and dusting unnecessarily (for she was already a meticulous housekeeper). There was little in the house which needed preparation, but Catherine seemed to be realigning something in herself by putting the finishing touches on the house. Knowing her as well as he did, Tom’s head craned over the sofa he had been installed upon. She watched it turn as she bustled, like a little tousled lighthouse, watching her.

“What, then?” she finally snapped.

“You’re hardening,” said Tom, very seriously.

“What of it?”

“Why?”

“She’s a pack of trouble, if you must know. I like to be a kind, good person, but there’s times when you’ve got to harden. On occasion, you’ve got to be as hard as a diamond, and just as cutting.”

“Why?”

“Because some people use your sympathy to make up for their mistakes. ‘I’m at my wits’ end,’ she says in her letter. I’ll tell you this, sonny-Jim. When people are at their wits’ end, they always want to start using up yours.”

“Why?”

“Because—well this is just my idea, and it might seem un-Christian, but here it is. To be a good person, you have to be able to stare suffering in the face and turn away.”

“Like—like the Good Samaritan didn’t?”

“Sure. I mean, if a man in the ditch drinks himself into a stupor—this is just an idea, mind—then if you stop and help him, you’re not really helping him. I mean, you might be helping him, but you’re not helping other people like him.”

“I don’t understand.”

Catherine threw a cushion up into the air and clapped it with her meaty hands as it fell. Tom loved the way her arms rippled, showing the muscles far under the fat. “My sister Lilly,” she said, putting the cushion down and picking up another, “never got married. Keeps having children. Can’t hold down a job. So if everyone pitches in and helps her out, her life becomes—like, something a woman can decide to do. Sure, you’re sad all the time, and your children are like wild wolves, but it still beats having to get up at the crack of dawn to work for a living.” Another cushion vanished in a bang of hands. Catherine paused, then put it down and sat down by Tom’s head. Her hand wandered through his hair, and he leaned into it in pure animal pleasure.

“See, there are two types of poor people, Master Tom.” She rarely used that phrase; it said: pay attention. “And we hate getting confused with the other kind. There’s the poor woman who has four happy, clean children, who keeps a good house and stretches her pennies. And her man dies; he gets some strange, fell affliction, not covered by insurance. Now, she’s in a pickle. She has to lean on the community. This woman is worthy of charity. She did not make her own fate. Could’ve happened to all, any of us. We have sympathy. That’s one kind of poor.

“But there’s another. The kind we hate being confused with. This is the man who gambles, or drinks, and whines that he’s broke. Or he fakes an injury, moans about his back and sits around on the parish coin. Or a woman who has children with wastrels. Now, these people made their own lives. They are replying on people’s pity to save them from themselves. And, Tom, you have to remember this. You have to look at these people straight in the eye, and still have the strength to walk away. You make it possible for a woman to have children with whoever strikes her fancy, all that will happen is that you’ll get more and more women like that. Being good is hard, and it shouldn’t include making being bad easier.”

Tom thought about all that for a moment. “But the children?”

“The children are sad. It’s a real shame, a heartbreaker. I hate what Lilly’s doing to those kids. But I’d sure hate to be part of a solution which made more and more like them. If a woman can live somehow by just having children, sure as sunrise that’s what some will do. More and more.” Catherine sighed. “Being good is hard, Tom. You’ve got to be strong. Strong enough to walk away. Strong enough to let people live with their own mistakes.”

“So why are you seeing her?”

There was a pause. Catherine looked away. “Hope springs eternal,” she said.

So Lilly had come, and wept and beat at her own breasts, and wailed about her need for a job, for money, for support and love, and Tom had listened in pure fascination from the next room. Catherine, though he could feel the strain in her voice, held firm, and he got the sense of clouds, wild in the spasms of their own thunderstorms, attempting to behead a mountain.

And afterwards, after Lilly had stormed from the servant’s quarters with many a curse and the invocation of the memory of a long-dead mother, Tom had not heard anything for a long time. Finally, he got up and went into the kitchen, where they had been talking.

“Catherine?” he asked, peeking around the door, little purple after-sofa spots on his vision. She sat at the table, her head resting on her arms.

“Oh, Tom,” she said, raising her red, teary face.

“Don’t be sad,” he said. “You are a mountain.”

She smiled, shaking her head slightly. “Come. Give me some sweetness.” She held out her arms, and he ran into them, burying his head in her flesh. She kissed his hair, over and over.

“Remember, pet,” she whispered. “When you’re strong, you get love. And that’s all you need.”

The morning of the debate dawned high and clear. The debate was scheduled to start at six p.m. Tom took the train to All Souls, loving the feeling of being carried over the countryside. I could change my mind now; I’ll still be there in an hour…

Waking up that morning, he had felt a great calm descending on him. He got up, feeling a deep, god-like glow in his innards. Every piece of worry seemed to have dissolved into a great airy space in his belly, where the sun shone and all animals agreed. It was as if this idea of a ‘higher power’ had turned out to be true, and the Universe could indeed stride alongside his journey and take some of his load.

“Actually, all of my load,” he murmured, staring into the rusty mirror while shaving. He sang in his bath, lustily, ignoring the complaints of his roommates. He knew from his own debating experience how important it was to warm up your voice. One wobble or crack, at the wrong moment, could ruin everything.

So Tom did his scales in his bath, feeling the buzz of his voice bouncing back into his head from the white tiles, knowing that, a hundred or so miles away, Reginald was doing exactly the same thing.

Hart was there to meet him when he got off the train.

He seemed both elated and depressed. He asked Tom about his trip rather perfunctorily and, as they shared a cab to the university, stared out of the window. Tom was almost dizzy with elation. He felt that he was stepping up the last few weathered stone steps, to a mountaintop, with a fantastic view, seen by only a few souls, who had come, stared, and vanished, leaving no trace.

A few minutes before they got to All Souls, Hart turned to Tom and seized his arm, his eyes fierce under his thick eyebrows.

“Tom—are you ready?”

Tom nodded.

“Because it’s going to be a very important debate. I don’t mind saying: a crucial one. Foreign eyes are upon us. We are seen, rightly or wrongly, as representing the views of the youth. We are viewed as a softening island, Tom. We are giving up India; that is in the air. We cannot get out of the economic depression. We are abandoning our continental commitments. The alliance of the Great War is no more; Versailles is dying on the vine. Continental eyes are examining us, taking note. This debate, to them, represents the fighting spirit of our nation. So that is why I ask: are you ready?”

Tom nodded again. “I know all that.”

“As long as you do,” said Hart, almost ferociously, turning to the window, to the swinging, turning streets.

“Do you want to go on instead?”

Hart turned back, stung by some violent emotion. “Are you asking that to secure my commitment?”

Tom did not respond. In his mind, Hart’s question did not resolve itself into anything coherent.

“Are you asking that so that I say ‘no,’ and you feel all right? What if I say yes?”

Tom smiled. “If you say yes, I shall sit by your side and take notes. And if I can’t, I shall cheer from the hall. And if I can’t do that, I shall cheer from outside.”

Hart’s brown eyes seemed to bore into him. With an effort of will, he eased his shoulders back down from around his ears.

Tom said: “If you want to take up the sword, I am confident that you will wield it with honor. But let me ask you this, Hart. Do you want this sword because you wish to make a mark? Because you will be noted? Because it might advance your career? Because that will not work. One does not take up a sword to cut a dashing figure, or to impress the ladies. That is nonsense. One takes up a sword to cut down a foe. Then, one cleans it and puts it away. Nothing else, Hart. Nothing else.”

Hart swallowed. “Tom—your own brother?”

“Do you know the number of times that my brother has come to visit me in London, in the—what, more than two years since I left school? Not once. He has his life now, with his wife. How many time has he invited me to see them? Not once. I get some grudging letters, full of condescending advice. He was close once, once, after I saved him from the mob. He was sorry then. The next week, he was the same. Honesty for him is like being underwater.”

“It’s too personal for you, Tom. This is not about you and Reginald. This is about Europe, another war, the world…”

“No!” cried Tom. There was something about the word that was magnificent. It was infused with a kind of holy rage, a clean, clear, glassy anger. It crested, and vanished at once. Tom lowered his eyes and continued, very softly. “If Reginald can act like he has towards his own brother—and I loved him, very deeply, once upon a time… But if he can act this way towards me, what shall he feel towards England? To the history, glory, and honor of our island race? What is there left to betray? Nothing. Nothing. All that is left now is to perpetuate his first betrayal.”

“To you?”

“To himself. He has never spoken of what he finds so hateful about me, about Mother and Catherine. Nothing is ever specific. It’s all just—a whitewash. I don’t know for what. I have tried to give up the addiction of trying to figure out my brother. He is a shifting maze of mirrors. You can’t even go in without losing yourself. But he wants me to doubt myself,” said Tom, fierce once more. “He wants me to look in the mirror and see what he sees in me. And I will not. He stayed at All Souls. He is doing his master’s degree now. And he does not believe in what they teach there. That is not an honorable position. That is rank servitude. Rank ambition.” Tom suddenly smiled. “Do you know that Churchill did not go to university? Neither did Einstein. University is for second-rate minds. A man who really thinks does not require proof on paper.”

The taxi shuddered to a halt in a squeal of wet brakes. Hart looked at Tom for a long moment, and then opened the door.

“All right,” he said with a grin, “don’t expend all your emotional resources before we even get started.”

They dropped Tom’s suitcase in Hart’s room, then had lunch in the cafeteria. Many of Tom’s former friends came over to say hullo, surprised to see him there. It was nice to see them, but left him feeling hollow. After the inevitable catch-up (short on his part: ‘I’ve been reading, thinking, and napping in an eight-by-twelve room’), there was precious little for them to talk about. His old friends also seemed surprised to see Tom sitting with Hart, and drew back quickly, nervously, as if the combination of Tom’s lassitude and his poor choice of friends could be contagious.

They finished lunch just after two o’clock. For about half an hour, Tom and Hart spoke of inconsequential things, making jokes and little observations. Then, Hart went to get a copy of the Debating Club rules, and to prepare notes on arguments which might be raised against his substitution of Tom. Tom went to Hart’s room, and slept for an hour and a half. In his glorified inner state, he found himself melting into the pillow, feeling sleep stealing over him like a low, ecstatic tide. He dreamt of being tossed gently aloft by wide sheets of bright colors.

When he awoke, a little after four o’clock, he decided to go for a walk. There was a little wood just outside the campus, one of his favorite haunts when he was a student. A short walk, he thought. A duck of my head into the stream, and I will be ready to go and change for tonight.

He walked for about twenty minutes. His nap had been wonderful. He felt clearheaded, agile. As he strolled, he could almost sense the slow creaking growth of the trees and undergrowth around him. The winter birds which fluttered through the overhead leaves seemed to be tickling his own veins.

Reaching the stream, Tom took off his shirt and hung it on a branch. He leaned the palm of his hand into the rough bark, then withdrew it and turned it around. It was pleasant to think that his red welts were an exact replica of the tree’s skin.

Squatting, he leaned over the stream. Narcissus! The mythological references burst into his mind unbidden, and vanished without even an echo. He splashed his face, loving the coldness of the water, imagining that no impurities could survive in such frigidity.

There was a delicate cough from behind him, then another, louder. Tom stood up and turned around. Rivulets of water ran down his lean chest and belly, like clear winding serpents. He swept his hands down over his chest, wiping the water away.

Wendy stood on the path, holding a cigarette in one outstretched hand, the other resting on her hip. She was wearing a thick brown dress, and a pair of Reginald’s running shoes.

“My God, Tom,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone the extra inch and are actually living in the woods now.”

He shrugged on his shirt. Well, that didn’t take long.

She took another drag on her cigarette, and coughed again. “I used to smoke,” she said. “But I’m not a very good smoker. I lack commitment. I only come to cigarettes when I need them. I never think of the feelings of the cigarettes themselves.”

Tom frowned. “Reginald doesn’t know you smoke?”

She laughed. “Oh, Lord, no! I can’t wait till he starts working full-time. It’s much harder having a clandestine affair with your husband around. But what are you doing here?”

“I came for the debate.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, men and their debates! I swear that I do not know how you became the dominant sex. He’s been obsessing about it for weeks. He thinks that if he wins, they’ll make him Foreign Secretary.” She smiled. “It will be forgotten in a week. He’s got all his arguments worked out, charted on the wall. ‘But dear,’ I say, ‘does it make sense to be obsessed with winning a debate about pacifism?’ He doesn’t understand, poor thing.”

“So you are in favor of pacifism?” asked Tom, something defiant roiling in his belly.

She laughed sardonically, tossing her hair and flicking an ash. “I don’t think this is the right time for an exploration of my likes and dislikes. I am in favor of what advances Reginald’s career. I am in favor of whatever gets us out of this godforsaken little village the quickest.”

“Is he going to go for his doctorate?”

She paused and stared at him. If he hadn’t been standing with his back to the water, he would have taken a step backward.

“No,” said Wendy slowly. “I don’t think I want to be the go-between for whatever Stone Age conflicts you and Reg have going on. You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“All right,” said Tom. They stared at each other for another moment, then Wendy dropped her cigarette into the earth and twisted it dark with a delicate turn of her foot.

“I suppose we shall see each other afterwards,” she said. She turned to go, and then cocked her head over her shoulder. “If he wins, try to look happy.”

Tom took a deep breath, then turned and rinsed his face in the clear water, ten times, to restore his feelings of power and security.

Tom arrived a little over an hour before the debate was supposed to start. The vast hall was already more than half full. At the end of the hall, there was a raised platform with two podiums, two tables. Above them was a banner:

BIRT: That this House refuses to fight for King and country.

There was a press table in front of the platform. Little signs bore the names of England’s leading newspapers, sitting on pads of yellow paper. The long rows of wooden benches were scattered with milling, half-sitting, half-standing people. There was an excited, audible hum in the room. Tom stood just inside the doorway and closed his eyes for a moment. It was an old habit. Every time he was in a hall full of people, he loved trying to discern scraps of conversation. He heard:

“…that this should even be a debate is disgraceful…”

“…Mussolini and Hitler should be the adjudicators…”

“…we fought for four years; the best they can do is debate…”

“…war is impossible; everyone might as well know that…”

“…it will send a message to our leaders…”

“…it well send a message to foreign dictators…”

“…what is the point of the League of Nations if we can just take up arms unilaterally?”

“…collective security is our only chance…”

“…if they won’t fight for King and country, will they fight for the League of Nations?”

“…I was hoping to find Sally here…”

“…if Reginald wins, find out where they’re going to celebrate, and we’ll go and really test his convictions…”

“…I’m only going to say it once more: I left my jacket here to save the seat…”

“…there can be no debate about how lovely you look…”

“…I already know how I’m going to vote…”

“…war is the ultimate failure…”

“…I mean: look what happened last time…”

“…I won’t get crippled for another twenty-year peace…”

“…fuck the Nazis—unemployment is our real problem…”

“…only capitalists profit from the wars fought by the proletariat…”

“…but under socialism, you see, war is not only unthinkable, but impossible…”

“…It’s a goddamned tragedy. All these intellectuals, not one bomb…”

“…if it wasn’t for Versailles, we wouldn’t even be debating this point…”

“…they make the mistakes, we foot the bill…”

“…France in victory was weaker than Germany in defeat…”

“…better red then dead—that’s true for being a brown shirt too…”

“…all this anti-Hitlerism is just Jewish propaganda anyway…”

“…just get Hitler to fight Stalin, wipe each other out…”

“…you’re just cloaking your cowardice in this ‘pacifism’…”

“…if France would just get her act together…”

“…I’ll say this about the dictatorships: the trains run on time, and everyone has a job…”

“…freedom? What freedom? The freedom to starve?”

“…why would I fight to defend a system which doesn’t work?”

“…think there are any jobs waiting for us when we leave? Think again!”

There was more; the conversations rose and fell in shrill and empty waves. There was great anger in the hall. Despair. A sense of entrapment. A desire to evade some horror, to wriggle from the path of a rushing black train. A bitter cynicism. A panic. A sense of loss. A craven desire to compromise. A sadness, a sadness… They are sad that they have nothing worth fighting for, thought Tom. Then, he thought: But I am not sad, and I have nothing worth fighting for. But that wasn’t true, of course. He knew that. He was here to fight. Gentlemen, throw down your revolvers, and unsheathe your nineteenth-century swords!

He found a single seat, near the front. Going places alone has always had its advantages. He did not engage in any of the debates raging around him. Save your voice!

Soon, he saw Reginald enter from a back door. He was dressed in an academic robe, his hands clutching a ribbon with the All Souls’ colors, hanging from his chest. His back was tall, his bearing proud. His curly dark hair was oiled, and reflected the overhead bulbs in dozens of tiny, shifting lights. Reginald had never had to shave much; he had had acne in his teens, and that seemed to have killed off most of his hair follicles. His cheeks were smooth; his skin cratered and tight. His prominent jawline showed to good effect. He nodded to the dean, who sat just behind the row of press desks.

There was a pause, then Hart entered through the same door. I wonder how Reginald managed to ensure he would get out first? wondered Tom, fully realizing the effect that Hart’s entrance made. Next to Reginald’s lean, runner’s physique, Hart looked a little like a waif.

Hart was a profuse sweater. His face shone under the lights, in much the same way that Reginald’s had, but with quite the opposite effect. Reginald clearly enjoyed the presence of the crowd, inclining his head. Tom followed his brother’s gaze once, and saw Quentin and Ruth sitting in the audience. Of course they’d be here, thought Tom, surprised that it had not occurred to him. Then, he felt a stab of bitter anger. No one invited me!

Hart went up to Reginald. Tom almost expected Hart to tug at Reginald’s robe and ask to go to the bathroom. He could see Reginald knew Hart was beside him, wanting to talk to him, but he took his sweet time turning around, and Tom’s blood began to roil in the way that only Reginald could provoke.

Finally, Reginald turned around and graciously inclined his head downwards, in the manner of one granting a favor to a desperate supplicant. He frowned delicately, seeming not to hear what Hart was saying. Hart repeated himself, his hand beating the air more slowly this time. Then, Tom saw something extraordinary. Even though Reginald knew that more than a thousand pairs of eyes were upon him, his body froze in shock. He looked exquisitely vulnerable, all of a sudden, and Tom’s heart went out to him. Stop it! he told himself violently, enraged that he could so quickly go from anger to pity.

Reginald turned his face towards the audience slightly and laughed incredulously, obviously (or at least, obviously to Tom), trying to buy time. He straightened, and looked back at the dean, who shrugged and smiled in benevolent helplessness.

Dr. Simons, the adjudicator, walked over and conferred with the two young men. There was a moment’s pause, and then Dr. Simons walked to the front of the stage and held up his hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried. “It has just been brought to my attention that the debate scheduled for tonight has undergone a slight revision. Hart Beaumont has just informed me that he wishes to nominate a substitute debater for his position. Is Tom Spencer in the audience tonight?”

Tom stood up and waved. Four pairs of eyes sought him out and fixed on him. Reginald, Ruth, Quentin, and Wendy.

Dr. Simons motioned him to come up to the stage. Cries of ‘Go on, Tom,’ arose from the remnants of his old rowing crew. Various other voices joined in, and soon the chant ‘Tom, Tom, Tom’ echoed through the hall—a brutal plea for an Old Testament war of brothers. He pushed his way through the throng at the front of the stage and climbed up. Reginald was staring at him, caught in an impossible situation. It’s about time, thought Tom. Reginald could not back down, but he did not know what was going on. He believed he had Hart beat—and did not think much of Tom’s debating abilities—but hated uncertainty of any kind.

“Mr. Spencer,” said Dr. Simons, placing his hand on his shoulder, “the rules do not require that you be a student to debate, but I have this to ask. We are going to be voting on this resolution tonight, and if you carry the field, it might be said that it doesn’t count, since you are no longer enrolled here. Given the importance of this debate, do you want to risk undermining your position?”

Tom glanced at Hart, who nodded slowly.

“Yes,” said Tom.

Dr. Simons turned to Reginald. “And you are content with the substitution? I don’t want there to be any gainsaying after the fact.”

Reginald nodded. He did not greet Tom. He did not look at Tom.

“All right,” said Dr. Simons. “Mr. Beaumont, step down.”

Hart left the stage, disappearing into the crowd, which parted before him, casting odd, disparaging looks his way. The word ‘coward’ played upon many a lip.

Dr. Simons turned back to the crowd. He raised his hands for silence again.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” he cried. “The resolution before the House tonight is: Be it resolved that this House refuses to fight for King and Country. Now, we have allowed the substitution of an ex-student for Mr. Beaumont, but please note that in order to vote upon this resolution, you must be an enrolled student. Have your student cards ready. I now turn the stage over to Reginald Spencer, who will have ten minutes to introduce the affirmative position.”

Tom took a seat behind his desk. He took a sip of water, his heart pounding. The energy of the waiting crowd was immense. He watched his elder brother step up to the podium and raise his hands.

“Friends, colleagues, fellow students, well-wishers,” said Reginald. “There are several ways to approach the question of fighting for King and Country. I would like to start this evening off by telling you what this question is not. This question is not about courage versus cowardice. This question is not about patriotism versus internationalism. This question is not about selfishness versus heroism. If you have come here already convinced that what I propose is nothing more than the craven desire to avoid toil and danger, then I am very sorry, but I shall be forced to disappoint you.”

Reginald smiled. “It is clear to all of us, gathered here tonight, that war is no longer a viable instrument of diplomacy. It is not my intention to go into great detail about the Great War, the War To End War; it should suffice to note that, if the great slaughter of the previous generation were to lead to another general war, then their sacrifice will truly have been in vain.

“Do we honor those who laid down life and limb in that terrible conflict? We do. I myself lost a grandfather and three uncles in 1915. Their memory is dear to me. I would do nothing to defame their sacrifice.

“It is my contention that to allow our statesmen to believe that they can march another generation into certain slaughter would be to defame the memories of those who gave their lives to end war. It is my contention that war is not the inevitable result of conflicts between nations. It is my contention that, should our current government realize that they do not have the power to wage war, then they will find solutions more creative, more humane—and, frankly, more effective than declaring war.

“There is grave danger in Europe, as we speak. The fruits of the last war have not been a relaxing of international tensions. We see a dictatorship in Italy. We see unrest in Spain and France. And, as of January this year, we find that an absolutist state has come to power in Germany.

“In the old world, this would have meant the sharpening of both words and swords. It would have meant the escalating irritation of border disputes. The economic and moral madness of an arms race. In all lands, it would mean the entrenching of interests based on the profits of war. And, my friends, it would mean the end of the League of Nations.”

Reginald paused. “That last is a crucial point, ladies and gentlemen. The League of Nations is a noble institution, forged out of the crucible of the last war, and we have signed solemn treaties to uphold its authority and peacekeeping mission. The resolution before this House…” He turned to point at the banner, “is not: ‘Be it resolved that this House refuses to fight for anything.’ The goal of the pacifists is not the general rot of nihilism and defeatism. We are more than prepared to join with the League of Nations—with the other countries in Europe—to ensure collective security. What we are not prepared to sanction is the kind of muddling, each-country-for-itself diplomacy which produced the last war.

“Throughout English history, diplomats have negotiated secret treaties with the European powers. These treaties are like secret fields, laced with landmines, which other nations must then cross to parley with us. We have seen the results of this.

“We deny that secret diplomacy can create a stable, lasting peace. We believe in the League of Nations. We retain the right to say to our elected officials: England has chosen to be a full member of this League, and thus has committed herself to open, public diplomacy. England has given up the right to make unilateral decisions. England has joined forces with the other European powers to ensure that disputes are dealt with openly, above the board, in full view of the world and all interested parties.”

Reginald shrugged eloquently. “There are other options, of course. No doubt my honorable opposition will inform you of them. But let me mention one thing before he does. Whatever he says, he will be arguing for a return to the conditions which produced the Great War. No doubt he will employ many tricks to have you believe that this is not his intention. But it is. We have, in fact, only two choices before us. We can go back to the old way, to secret diplomacy, dark treaties and arms races—and in so doing we shall guarantee ourselves exactly the same results.

“Or,” he said, raising his arms, “we can choose to change our fate. Serious problems face us in the world today. Germany, rankled by her long exclusion from the stage of world affairs and damned economically, politically and morally by the disastrous Treaty of Versailles, has risen once more. She feels that all Europe is arrayed against her. We can raise our lances against her supposed charge—thus confirming her suspicions—or we can sit across from her, ask her to name her grievances, and then work with the other members of the League to address them.

“Now, my honorable opponent will no doubt tell you that this is impossible, that Germany is bound to war because she has chosen Herr Hitler to lead her.”

Reginald’s eyes narrowed. “If you believe him, my friends, then there is no actual purpose to this debate. If another war is inevitable, then we are all doomed. Fewer than half of us could be expected to survive it. If this is his offer to you, I urge you to reject it for the madness it is. Either Germany can be reasoned with, or civilization is at an end. It might last another generation in America, but it is over as far as Europe is concerned. If Germany can be reasoned with, then England will have no need of soldiers. If Germany cannot be reasoned with, then England will have no need of soldiers, because we shall all be bombed to atoms on the second day of the next war.

“And this is why I urge you to support this resolution. Let us not delude our leaders into thinking that war is possible. If the last war was not the War To End War, then the next one shall be, because humanity itself shall be at an end.”

Reginald’s voice rose. “Thus, I urge you to support us in gently taking the sword from the hands of our leaders. It is reason which will save the world to come. Human conflict has come to such a pass that we no longer possess a weapon capable of harming our enemies alone. All who draw their sword shall die by it, before it has even left their scabbard. Let us not be among them! Let us choose the path of reason!”

Reginald was sweating as his speech was counted down by Dr. Simons. Random cheers erupted as the passion of his final phrases rose. When he finished, fist upraised, the hall burst into cheering and foot-stomping. At the back, among the older men and women, a chorus of ‘Rule Britannia’ arose, but it was quickly outshouted.

It took Dr. Simons a few minutes to restore order. Finally, the hall quieted somewhat.

“I wish to thank the honorable member for his remarks. I now turn the floor over to Thomas Spencer, who will argue against the resolution.”

Tom took another sip of water, and remembered to walk slowly to his podium.

He smiled out at the jeers of those in front, and the respectful silence of those in back. He noticed that a thin man from The Times had put down his pen, after taking notes from Reginald’s speech, and was staring at him with open belligerence.

“I want to thank my esteemed opponent for his comments,” said Tom. “And respond with a few of my own, mostly quite simple. First of all, I would like to point out that the banner over our heads does not read: ‘Be it resolved that all who are willing to fight for England can’t wait to have another war.’ Neither does it read: ‘All who are willing to fight are opposed to the League of Nations and collective security.’

“It is the cheapest, and oldest trick in the book to say that those who are prepared to fight are in fact eager to fight. Both a surgeon and a sadist will cut you open, but they are not to be judged the same. Thus, to say that to be willing to wage war is the same as desiring war is foolish and misleading.

“It is also foolish and misleading to say that anyone who reserves the right to unilateral action is automatically opposed to internationalism.

“Let us imagine the following scenario. Germany invades Austria.” There was a general outcry among the audience. Tom held up his hands. “It is Herr Hitler’s stated intention, right there in the first paragraph of Mein Kampf—so pretend, if you like, that you are indulging him, not me. Now, if this happens, and the League of Nations does not act, what shall we then do? Please note that the sign above us also does not say: we refuse to fight for King and country as long as the League of Nations stands firm. No, it says: we refuse to fight. No matter what. No matter if collective security fails. No matter if Germany invades England. No. Matter. What.”

Tom smiled, letting the words wander the crowd. “Now, I for one would be overjoyed if the principle of collective security were able to keep war at bay. Whatever keeps the dogs of war leashed is worth our full support. The great question, however, the question before all of us tonight, is: what if war comes?

“Let us not mislead ourselves. There are times when war comes to peaceful nations. My colleague says that we must respect the memory of our dead. I agree. And so I would say that to allow tyranny to conquer the freedom of this island because we do not want to fight is to dishonor our dead. I will not stand for it!

“You see, in my view, the purpose of a nation is, fundamentally, a moral one. We love England not because we are born here, but because England is a moral country, with an honest government, honorable institutions, and ethical laws. We love England precisely because we can have this kind of debate without fearing for our lives. Now, there are unethical men in the world. They exist in England, in the form of criminals. We do not negotiate with them. We use force to restrain them. That is a principle accepted by all sensible citizens.

“Unethical men exist beyond our shores as well. These forces are antithetical to our way of life. They seek to enslave the free and humble the proud. These men currently rule the dictator-states we see rising across the face of Europe. Their existence cannot be ignored. It is my supreme hope that my honorable opponent is right, and that we can reason with such men.” Tom turned to stare at his brother. “My heart, though, says that it will not be so.” He turned back to the sullen crowd.

“And if it is not so, then what should our actions be? Should we take on the policies of appeasement, giving them what they demand at pistol-point, hoping to buy a few months or years, at the expense of our honor and strategic advantage? Should we wait until our foemen have waxed in strength before opposing them? Should we wait until Europe is under Nazi or Fascist rule before resisting them?

“My honorable colleague wants to reason with the dictators. So be it. But does he expect that, should we sit down to negotiate without arms, that dictators with armies behind them shall grant us any concessions? And what then? What if these men—iron men, hard men, military men—do not respect our words, the words we cannot back up with force? What is to be our position then?

“He answers: we shall not fight. We shall not fight to protect our island. We shall not fight to protect our hard-won liberties, our cherished institutions, our families, our way of life, and all the honor of our existence. We shall place only our goodwill in the paths of the coming armies.

“No. No. We are not destined to end thus. We shall instead say to the world: we work for peace. We will sit and parlay with all who desire peace. But against those who work for war, we are stalwart. We will not falter. We meet arms with arms!”

There was a great commotion in the hall. It had been rising for a few minutes. Tom had felt it coming at him, striving to wash his words from the air with uncomprehending hostility. It broke out on his last sentence, and he let it wash over him.

“Warmonger!”

“You just run along and start your war, we’ll be along in a while!”

“Germany is what we made her!”

“What? You still think we can win a war?”

“Get off the podium, Napoleon!”

“Who’s paying you? Allied Steel?”

“No wonder you never came back!”

Dr. Simons had to fight for order. He shouted out that disruptions would not be deducted from Tom’s speech. It took a few minutes. Tom did not close his eyes, although he wanted to. The crowd, strangely enough, did not destroy his sense of exaltation.

Finally, he was able to speak again. He spoke softly, letting the demands for silence flow towards him from the older men and women in the back of the room.

“There are those among us who think that two countries which have conflicts are like brothers who have let pettiness overshadow their common interests. They think that countries go to war for reasons of psychology, not ethics. That communication can solve all ills, knit all wounds, and mend all fences. But it is not so. If it were so, we would need to only negotiate with domestic criminals. And the world would be a much prettier, nicer place.

“But the world, for the most part, is neither pretty nor nice. We have grown up among the sons and daughters of liberty, and so we approach the world with benevolence. But most of the world knows nothing of liberty. Most people in the world are brought up in conditions which would ill-befit a British dog. And we cannot go to these people armed with nothing but good intentions. They do not speak our language. To them, good intentions are the last resort of the helpless. You are either a master or a slave, and masters do not bother with good intentions.

“But these people do respect resolution. They accept and understand courage. And it is crucial that we understand that, because there is a worse scenario than the one I am proposing.

“All rational men oppose war.” Tom caught his mother’s eyes. Her face was an open wound. “All—all wars of aggression by a resolute enemy can be successfully opposed by an equal resolution on the part of the peacemaker to use force.

“In this, my colleague and I agree. He supports the use of force in the form of the League of Nations. Splendid. So do I. Where we differ, however, is that he is not willing to go any further than the League of Nations. I am. I believe that liberty is worth preserving. I welcome the intervention of the League of Nations, and hope with all my heart that it will succeed in preventing aggression.

“But if it does not, then I for one am willing to fight for King and country. Not due to blind allegiance to either King or country, but rather because they both represent the light of reason and freedom—a light which should not be allowed to be utterly extinguished in this world!”

Tom finished with both his hands gripping the podium. His voice was thick and rough with passion. He felt as if he was overfull with emotion, and that only a small part of it had found its way into his speech. The derisive roar of the crowd—with some ‘hear-hears’ thrown in, mixed with piercing whistles—did not wash over him. It flowed into him, charging him even further.

When the crowd had been soothed back into surly quietude, Reginald took his stand again.

His rebuttal was a disappointment to some. Tom had effectively forestalled the accusation of warmonger, so Reginald had no choice but to reiterate his point about the need for British leaders to never imagine that they could order another generation to the trenches. He also added that, since a modern war could never be won, there was no point promising to fight it. There was nothing particularly new in his words, but some nicely turned phrases lured back the rampant emotionalism in the hall. The passions of a population desperate to avoid war, in the face of a man who promised that it would never come, were hard to restrain or focus.

Reginald’s final position was this:

“We should not underestimate the power of pacifism in the realm of negotiation. Imagine this: your spouse chooses to divorce you, and when you meet with her for the first time to discuss terms, he or she arrives with an aggressive lawyer. What would your response be? Would you not postpone the meeting, go and hire your own lawyer, and let things escalate from there? And what would be achieved? Or imagine that your spouse sits you down and says: ‘I am not happy in this marriage.’ Would you reply: ‘Then, damn it, let us get divorced!’ Or would you instead say: ‘Tell me what you dislike, and we shall work to make you satisfied.’ To approach conflict with open arms is the root of Jesus’s command to turn the other cheek and love your enemy. It is not wise to have one commandment for personal relations, and another for international relations. Why not just have one rule for all?”

Tom’s rebuttal was more succinct. It did not sway many people, because it was impossible to imagine that preparing for war would somehow not bring war about. He did, however, agree with Reginald’s idea that one should have only one rule for all relationships—but utterly rejected his marital metaphors.

“Of course we should reason with our spouse. My argument is not that we should refuse to reason with the dictator-states—but rather that we should be prepared for the possibility that they shall not want to reason much with us.

“But to take up my opponent’s metaphor, let us imagine that the police were to adopt the slogan we see hanging over our heads. They would say: ‘We shall never interfere in marital disputes.’ Now on a haggle over doing the dishes, we should all agree. But what happens, I ask you, if a husband decides to start hitting his wife? Shall the police say: ‘Sorry, miss, but we have pledged never to get involved.’ Would that be just?

“And, more importantly, who would benefit? Surely not the wife. The husband would benefit, because he could play croquet with his wife’s face whenever he pleased. This would be a disaster for all marriages, I submit—and to bring the metaphor back to the international stand it was originally supposed to explain, let us see how the pacifist scenario might play out in Europe. A dictator acts aggressively towards another country. We sit down with him—assuming that he is interested in discussions at all. We say: ‘Please stop.’ Do we really expect this man, who has invaded another country, to be swayed by our gentle requests? He is willing to murder the citizens of a foreign land, but he will be stopped by our kind remonstrance? He will say: ‘Why should I stop?’ We will say: ‘Because it is wrong.’ But if he had any sense of morality, he would not have invaded another country in the first place! So we will have to have another argument to convince him to change his course. If we do not, we should not expect any other aggressors to sit down with us in the future.

“No, ladies and gentlemen. I think that the dangers of another war are too great for us to take refuge in this kind of fantasy. The policy of this island for the last thousand years has been to prevent the rise of a supreme power in Europe. If the League of Nations can be used to achieve this end, we can all sleep satisfied.

“But if it does not, then we must reserve the right to act as independent guardians of all that is good, noble, true, and right in the world.”

Every time Tom used words like ‘noble,’ ‘honor,’ and ‘true,’ sardonic jeers were hurled at him like acidic spears. Tom knew that these words were no longer considered in and of themselves, but rather as a kind of propaganda, the kind of propaganda which drew the last generation into the trenches. So he decided, all of a sudden, to wrap up his speech in a different vein.

“Now I know that certain words have become tarnished for us. Truth, honor, duty, virtue—these are all, now, debased terms. A weary cynicism has replaced the optimism of the last century. And there is value in that, at least for me, because moral concepts always benefit from rational re-examination.

“But something far darker has taken hold of our golden ideas. Some dead moon has eclipsed all the brilliant goodness we used to believe in.

“If that is the case, then I do not believe that we deserve to continue as a nation. I believe that we deserve to meet our fate at the hands of whichever dictator is the first to cross our shores. Because if we do not believe that our government, our country, and our institutions represent something high, something good, then we have in fact nothing to defend but our own base hides. In which case, I submit, I believe that the argument above us is entirely right. If all we want to do is survive, then we should never forge or wield armaments. We can survive as well under a Nazi boot as under the free air of democracy and capitalism.

“But is there not more to life than survival? Would not the best and brightest among us, the ones who ask questions, read books and challenge authority, be the first to be killed? And even if we were allowed to live, like chained dogs, would not that kind of existence be worse than death? To die opposing evil is better than to survive in the service of it. If we believe that the story of our race has led to something good and noble and true, then we must defend all the riches of our inheritance.

“If we don’t, then yes, let us never take up arms to protect it. But let us not do it because we claim that we have a higher, braver, and more noble purpose. We shall be doing it because we are not men enough to keep what we have inherited, and prefer sinking into the muck of totalitarianism to fighting for the high steppes of freedom. But let us not lie to ourselves. If we are to keep what we have, it will not be through words alone. That is my only proposition. That is all you have to vote upon. That is the only question which draws beady foreign eyes to this great hall, where the flower of youth stand or fall before the uncertainties of their times. That is all. That is all.”

Tom finished to great applause. Some of it was sardonic; the kind of lazy, sarcastic clapping which involves looking with tight lips to one side and keeping the wrists together. Some of it was appreciative—Tom had touched those among them with less higher education, those less touched by the German mysticism currently in vogue in English universities. They rose because they were inspired. They rose because they had heard little about honor in the years they had lived, and had little idea what those years were supposed to amount to. Some of it was preordained, given by those who agreed already, but appreciated having their beliefs expressed so passionately.

As he looked at the boiling, fleshy expanse of applause and jeers, Tom suddenly felt close to tears. He realized something with a terrible thump in his chest: Everyone in this hall is afraid. Living as he had in his little room, spending time in libraries, movie theatres and coffee shops, he had not felt it as clearly as he did now, tonight, looking out at the wild passions before him. People’s faces were distorted; they bared their teeth and wrinkled their noses. They looked like children—but they had none of the charm of angry children, for their issues were not petty.

And this is them before they have families, he thought, frowning suddenly. This is them when they have only themselves to protect… He caught his mother’s eye, and his chin compressed as his eyes filled.

The voting took almost an hour. The students shuffled up to a wooden desk, where the resolution was displayed, and voted ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ They knelt over the table, checking off their choices—shielded by a little cardboard prop—and stuffing their ballots into a wooden box.

The vote took less time to count. After the debate, Reginald had shaken Tom’s hand with a big grin designed to show the crowd that it had all been in fun. (Tom did not smile. He had the chilling thought that, as Wendy had said, Reginald hoped to secure some post in the Foreign Office from his speech, and that his brother had betrayed their country for the sake of his career.)

Reginald had disappeared into the crowd, shaking hands and receiving the back-claps of his supporters. Tom had watched him from the stage. When he got to their family, Quentin shook his hand. Wendy kissed him on the cheek and patted his arm (a gesture somewhat less than the occasion deserves, Tom thought). Ruth looked at her eldest son for a long moment, then lowered her eyes and kissed him on the other cheek. A shudder ran through Reginald, but he laughed it off and inquired how they had enjoyed the debate. As Tom watched, the whole family turned towards him, and gestured that he should come down.

That would be the most horrible thing in the world, thought Tom. To stand and chat afterwards, as if it were an exercise, as if we were debating some cliché. He mimed drinking a glass of water, and then went back into the anteroom behind the stage. It was a small, stone room, with narrow vertical windows with colored glass, designed to protect from archers. It had a coatrack against the far wall, a few wooden chairs with red leather padding, and a black metal chandelier, originally designed for candles, which now held electric bulbs.

Tom drew a chair up to one of the depressed arrow slits, and lay his forehead against the cold stone.

After a few minutes, in which he felt that he would be happy to never move again, Hart came in.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Tom willed his head off the stone wall. He turned to his friend, who had a black eye, and smiled.

“Crowd a little restless?”

“Some son of a bitch was sneering at everything you said. I was going to be civil, but then decided against it.”

“How was it, out there?” asked Tom.

“Goddamn it, brother! You did good.”

The term ‘brother’ made Tom very sad. “I am exhausted.”

“I wonder if they’re regretting not giving you that scholarship.”

Tom smiled. “I don’t think so. I think that the professors are probably thanking their lucky stars right now.”

“I thought—I thought you did magnificently, given the hostility of the crowd.”

“They were more friendly, at the back.”

Hart smiled. “Sure—the latecomers, the people who had to come from work. They actually have responsibilities. They know what’s what.”

After half an hour, the door opened. Dr. Simon’s head appeared around the rim.

“Vote’s in,” he said.

They went back out into the podium. The crowd had grown even more restless. Sneers and wads of thrown paper rained around Tom as he walked up to his podium. The smell of liquor filled the air. Tom saw one young man grope a woman, who slapped him, then threw back her head and laughed. A few paper airplanes flew through the air. One boy lay on his back, pretending to machine-gun one of the airplanes. Another was whistling, throwing wadded-up paper at him, imitating bombs. Two girls pretended to fall down dead. They all broke into giggles, passing a hip flask.

Reginald stepped up on the podium. He grabbed Tom’s arm painfully. “At least have the decency to go over and say hullo,” he hissed venomously, jerking his head towards their family.

“They knew where I was.”

“Oh, grow up!”

Dr. Simons could not hope for silence, but he did manage to quiet the crowd to the point where there was some chance of his being heard in the back.

“The vote has come in. For the resolution: Be It Resolved That this House refuses to fight for King and country. For: two hundred and seventy-three votes. Against: one hundred and fifty-three.”

The hall became a cathedral of cacophony. Tom closed his eyes.

When he opened them, his family stood in front of him.

“Reggie said that you had a bee in your bonnet about us coming to you,” said his father, reaching down to pick up Tom’s hand and shake it. “So here we are.”

“You were very dramatic,” said Wendy, smiling wanly. “Very believable.”

“Is this fellow something, or what?” cried Reginald, coming up and clapping Tom on the back, too hard. Tom’s fists closed on themselves. “Awww! What’s the matter, Tommy? Still stuck in the rut of being a sore loser?”

Tom mumbled something that the others didn’t hear.

“What?” asked Reginald, cocking his ear right in front of Tom’s mouth.

“Do you believe it?” asked Tom.

Reginald’s eyes widened. “What? Do I believe it? The resolution? It’s rather academic, don’t you think? I’d never be drafted. Not with my education. It might be less academic to you, to use the word in a double meaning, but I have no doubt you’d cut a dashing figure in little green woolens.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I believe it personally. Politically, who knows?”

“Do you believe it?”

“Tom,” said Ruth, putting her hand on his forearm. She drew her own arm back. It was like a steel cable.

“It’s over, Tommy,” said Reginald. “Vote’s in. All done. All over.”

“Do you believe it?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” snapped Quentin, turning away. “Let’s go for a drink.”

“Wait!” cried Reginald. “I do have something to say to Tom here.” He turned his head, and Tom flinched from the rage in his brother’s pale blue eyes. “This debate was important to me, Tom. I don’t expect you to understand my ambitions, because you sit in your little room and live off father’s money. No! It has to be said! You came here, I suppose, to showboat, or score a point, or to prove that—your education continues, in some incomprehensible manner. And it was good theatre, in a petty way, and I am sure that some lowbrows were suitably amused. But you have struck a blow against my hopes and aspirations, Tom. I had to hold my guns, out of pity for you. Many eyes were watching, and you hijacked my evening, and for that I shall be a long time forgiving you.”

Reginald’s face loomed in, and Tom had to fight himself not to take a step back. “And so now, please, dear brother, try to keep your general failures to yourself, because I will not allow them to infect me! Stay in your little room, if you’ll be so kind, and leave the rest of the world to the adults.”

Reginald had been searching for a good wound, and he found it with his last phrase. His eyes danced with pleasure as his blade sank in. After what felt to Tom like a long moment, Reginald straightened and turned to his family.

“Sadly, Tom has decided not to join us,” he said, then shepherded them away through the clapping, cheering, congratulating crowd.

Chapter 47

It was some months before Tom and Reginald saw each other again. Both were tempted to write letters to each other, to luxuriate in the bitter monomania of delivered and unanswerable absolutes. Reginald started one such letter many times, hoping to achieve a regal tone of magnanimous injury. No matter how many times he tried, a raging tone of public humiliation kept cropping up. But he kept at it, and his last draft—which he finally sent—went thus:

February 2, 1935

Dear Tom:

I am writing in the hopes that something might be salvaged from our relationship. For reasons I do not pretend to understand, we have always had a strained intimacy. I have done what I could to ease this tension. I always did my best to help you in school. I introduced you to a good social set. I helped you swot. I always advanced your cause—even when, as so often happened, others criticized you heavily.

Tom, it was not my fault that you had to leave Oxford. This seems a point so obvious that it should scarcely need restating, but it seems to have escaped your attention. I have always had your best interests at heart. I have no idea how to convince you of this. You seem so obsessed with thinking the worst of me—and anyone like me—that anything I could say on this point would be pointless. You have your own fixed ideas; I will not dignify them by pretending that they have anything to do with me.

It is also probably not worth restating that the entire family is very anxious about you. Mother in particular worries herself sick about your future. Father seems to have given up on you. I try to plead your case, but he refuses to discuss it, and as yet I have been unable to make any headway.

Tom, please try to understand this much at least. We are worried about you because we love you. We are not trying to control you, corner you, force you to do anything or ‘inhibit’ your personality. We just believe that sitting in a room and stewing in endless resentment at the vicissitudes of life is a very poor way to conduct one’s affairs.

All is not lost. It is entirely possible that your talents—which are not inconsiderable—might not go entirely to waste. Through my influence at the Foreign Office, I would be more than happy to arrange for a clerking position of some kind. Though the starting salary and position would be poor, it is my belief that, as long as you keep your tendency to self-pity and physical aggression in check, you could rise in time.

We are not all built for world affairs. Just as I accepted my limitations in your spheres—athletics, womanizing—I invite you to accept your own limitations. We cannot ever be everything we think we can be—or fantasize that we have the ability to become. You are human. You are mortal. You have limitations. You cannot excel everywhere. Life is not an endless rowing race.

As for our recent political debacle, I would be remiss in my duty to truth and honour if I did not tell you, honestly and openly, that I consider your behaviour utterly despicable. To hijack a public debate of mine—one which was important for my career—for the sake of exposing your own ill-informed apocalyptic ramblings—is something that, upon reflection, I can never forget, or forgive. The only chance that we have for any kind of relationship in the future is for this to become a completely closed subject. I shall never speak to you of it. I do not hope that you are capable of respecting my wishes—all I will say is that if you attempt to speak to me of it, I shall leave the room, leave your life, and never return.

With all hopes for the future—and looking forward to some kind of reasonable response—I remain

Your brother

Reginald

Tom flinched when he received this letter. He felt sick when he opened it, and read through it several times, his blood pounding more and more fiercely each time.

It was masterly. It put the onus completely on him. It clearly indicated that Tom was unstable and full of rage. It was a neat circle: ‘you are full of rage’ is a terrible insult. To respond angrily is to confirm the diagnosis. To respond calmly is impossible. To not respond at all will be perceived as huffing and sulking.

And the number of insults in the one-page letter! Tom scanned through it, making mental notes:

-Reginald does not understand why we are not intimate—insinuating that our distance is entirely my fault

-He has done a number of good things for me—including defending me from increasing criticism. He is the knight, and I the blackguard!

-He assumes that I blame him for leaving Oxford. A straw-man argument both confirms me as unstable—and unable to retain my position at Oxford! But I have never said such a thing!

-He believes that I am obsessed with thinking the worst of him—what does he think of me? Not one positive thing!

-Ah, enlisting the family! Mother is worried sick, Father has given up. Reginald pleads my case. His virtue, my fault! If my family has a problem with me, they should damn well say so themselves!

-And then, the gentle, daggered concern! ‘We are worried about you because we love you!’ Ha! They are not trying to corner me? When have I ever complained about that? Ever? Again, a straw-man argument. The patient older brother tries to calm the unstable and defensive younger brother.

-Ah, but he might be able to get me a job in the FO as a clerk! Of all the goddamn presumption! Which I might rise in, should I control my criminal tendencies! What nobility on the part of Sir Reginald!

-Accept my limitations! Was leaving Oxford rather than spout something as poisonous as Marxism a ‘limitation’—or the only possible honorable decision?

-Ah, where would I be without my brother to patiently remind me that I am mortal and human? God—say it isn’t so! ‘We are not all built for world affairs.’ Translation: ‘I will negotiate for England; you copy my speeches and do try not to throw your inkwell at anyone!’

Tom’s hands were shaking. The letter was so insulting, so condescending—and so utterly unanswerable. Reginald was a master at making other people mad with anger and then calling them crazy. He was a goddamned virus.

But, thought Tom, placing the letter down carefully, I have been sitting in this room for quite some time… That is the damnable thing about family. They tell you just enough truth to hurt, but not enough to help. So—let us say that my apprenticeship is over, and I am ready to take my place in the world, for the few years that remain to us until the bombs begin to fall.

Sitting at his desk, Tom felt a great wave of exhaustion overrun him. Half staggering, he got up and almost collapsed on his bed. It is worse than a fatal diagnosis, because when I die, in a few years, the world will die as well, and not even my works will remain. I could write a beautiful novel about older brothers—and it could be loved, and I could be showered with much manna—and then it shall all be vaporized. Me, readers, books, reviews, banks, money…

Physical shocks like this had been common for him since coming back from Germany nine months previously. He had expected to have a meeting with Gunther, to report on his findings, but the older man had been out of the country, busy with something he said he was not at liberty to discuss in a letter. Tom had written a few pages of his impressions of Germany, and mailed them off to Gunther, but had heard nothing back for the past six months, other than a note saying that he had received the work with thanks, and that he expected to be back in England in early 1934.

However, along with the depression he had experienced after returning from Germany, had come another kind of emotion. It was something that he had never experienced before. It was something that Reginald, with his near-supernatural sensitivity to Tom, seemed to have picked up somehow, from the ether.

It was rage.

He had first become aware of it through his dreams. He had always dreamt of flying, but now he was flying in an airplane, fighting in an endless blue arena, streaked with smoke, and clouds, and blood. He felt such hatred towards his opponents—sometimes Reginald, sometimes Klaus (and, once, Martin, piloting a little flying church, with his children throwing fruit from the roof)—that, on awakening, the emotions did not recede.

It did not feel destabilizing. He was afraid of his growing rage at first. He was afraid of turning into one of those muttering, clenched tramps. But it did not happen. Quite the reverse. He had a strong desire to walk after waking up from one of his dreams—no matter what the weather—and so he would throw on an anorak and stride out. And, as he walked, he continued to feel the rage—but he also felt an almost holy love of early morning existence. He loved the grocer putting out his fruit. He loved the broad-hipped matron with the multi-infant pram. He loved the East Indian man running in Hyde Park. He loved the little Japanese men and women doing their flowing dances. He loved the sullen, lonely youth loitering outside the locked library, obviously afraid to go home. He even loved the final exodus of exhausted streetwalkers. He loved that they might still have a grain of love left in their pillaged hearts. He loved the cats, even the hissing ones, with nothing to defend. He loved the dogs that trailed him—even the aggressive ones. They wanted life so badly that they growled at huge apes. All the world made him cry. All the world made him cry, because it loved life, and life was going to end. Parents would watch their children melting in their melting arms. Babies would expand and explode in the heat, like pink watermelons stuffed with grenades.

Tom flinched from these visions, as he walked. He flinched from the idea of girls playing hopscotch vaporized in mid-leap. Or of children, leaning back from a spinning roundabout, leaving smoking stumps on the railings as their bodies flew into the burning sky. Big Ben would fall on a school bus. Nuns would flash into holy flames. Eighteen couples’ orgasms would be their last. Twelve businessmen would be relieved of the fear of impending audits. The tops would be blown off of double-decker buses; the bottoms would tip over in flames, trapping the passengers, who would claw and burn and melt into one, into a giant pool of bubbling flesh with many bones like broken tentpoles…

Tom saw all this, and he felt love and rage. He loved the world because its days were numbered, and he was still young enough to love numbered days. He felt rage because he could not think of a way to stop it. He had tried, at Oxford, to argue that arms could be stalled only by arms, but it was not believed. And he could think of nothing else. He wrote letters to The Times, but they were never published. He argued with strangers in pubs, but he was always waved off. He was perceived as having an upper-class accent, but lower-class ideas. Only madmen speak of the apocalypse. This is what it must have been like in the Middle Ages, he thought, recalling Count Orsky’s art collection. A man runs to a town. ‘The Plague is coming!’ And the townspeople laugh into their drinks. He is an alarmist. Melodramatic. Unbalanced. The plague is a myth. It has never come before. He wants us to leave our homes so he can loot them. Whatever happens is God’s will. We would have had prophetic dreams. The King assures us the Plague is past. What evidence do you have that you can press into our hands?

And, sometimes, it seemed to Tom, as he walked, that perhaps this blind world was not worth saving. He knew that he could not save it, but he felt that the desire to save it was the essence of some kind of humanity. But, too many men have sold false prophesies to mankind for visionaries to carry any coinage. We look and sound the same, thought Tom, but we are not the same. And, of course, those who are already profiting from false prophesy breed endless mockery of all new visions.

But he could not rouse much enmity for the greengrocer, the banker, the runner, the slow-swaying Asians. They know only the futures of their own lives, not of the world entire. No, he reserved his special hatreds for the intellectuals. We pay our thinkers to make the future safe for our passage. But they have not just opened the door to tyranny; they have taken it off its hinges. They love Fabian socialism and Marxism and think there are some damn good ideas buried in the Mediterranean muck of fascism. And they think that the State can solve all problems. They attack slum housing and hate factory owners, and use force to bury initiative in endless regulation and red tape. They do not deign to argue with the free man. They simply enslave him for their policies. They are so arrogant that they believe that they alone know how to dispose of a free man’s life—infinitely better than he does himself. They will take his money, time, and life, and redistribute it as they see fit. Why can he not choose his charities of his own accord? Is he selfish? Is that it? Is it because men are selfish that they cannot be free? But if they are selfish, then they also cannot rule, since one selfish man at the helm of a State is far more dangerous than a million soldiers that may be fought in the open. And if they are selfish, and ignorant of their own best interests, then how can they be granted the vote? If a man will not voluntarily pay for the essentials of society, then how could he conceivably vote on complex social and political issues with any kind of wisdom? We cannot rule people in the little wisdoms and then grant them freedom in the great ones. It is one or the other…

And the worst thing, the thing that truly did obsess Tom, was that these intellectuals would be the last to fight on any front. The professors who told their students that the group was everything, and the individual nothing—who called private property theft and insisted that the government could solve all problems if only it enslaved enough people—these professors would sit safely in bomb shelters while their students fell in red waves on some endless front. And they would learn nothing.

No, thought Tom. I will save the greengrocer, but I will let fire rain down on the thinkers who have betrayed our passage through such narrow and dangerous passes…

He decided not to reply to Reginald’s letter. There would be no point. If Reginald interpreted Tom’s silence as agreement, so be it. He knew a trap when he saw it.

There was, however, the matter of Christmas. Christmas, 1933.

Tom had gone home for Christmas for the past two years. Christmas and Easter. The first because he was, though not a religious man, very sentimental about Christmas. (This came from his years with Catherine, who regularly wept while tying red ribbons around little boxes, and hugged him so tight he could feel his young ribs creaking like an ancient accordion.) Christmas was the time which brought deep emotions closest to the surface. This had not been such a great thing when he was a little boy. He had many memories of his father scowling from the head of the table, with his mother in tears or running from the room, while Reginald glared at Tom, as if it had all been his fault.

Christmas also gave Tom two of his greatest joys: materialism and egalitarianism.

Tom loved Christmas ‘below stairs,’ but hated it in the drawing room. Below stairs, with Catherine and the others, he could run and shout and fall into giggles and take extraordinary delight in little presents. Catherine, of course, gave great gifts. She would find a favorite cap he had thought lost or thrown out, repair it, and present it back, good as new. Also, knowing Tom’s sentimental streak (as she should, since she had done much to nurture it), she would laboriously frame some childhood love-letter he had penned to her, which he would weep copiously over, remembering all such tender childhood feelings—and eternally grateful to her for helping him to retain them into his adulthood.

Upstairs, though, things were different. It was not black and white; Tom did not live in a Dickensian world of earthy servants and cold parents. The servants would never imagine giving him books, say, and books were what he loved perhaps more than anything. (Not anyone, but anything.) They never showed him places on the globe, or challenged his patriotism, or quizzed him on government policy. That was for upstairs, with his family—and that was good and fun as well. As a teenager, Tom sometimes thought that his house was like a soul divided; the head above and the heart below. Life could be lived by either alone—but he was never satisfied with that. Passionate thinking was his goal. Passionate thinking, or intuitive intelligence. Why can’t I know the capital of Burma and laugh at a fart at the same time? (Reginald’s dislike of bodily functions was legendary; it was one of the few weapons Tom had against him.)

And there was a curious lack of respect for the heart in the Spencer household. Quentin barely seemed to notice Catherine, other than the occasional comment on housework or their evening meal. Tom’s mother did notice her, but they had a curious relationship. Catherine always seemed to express a kind of tender concern for Ruth—but there was something snobbish about it, on Catherine’s side. Tom thought on this long and hard. Catherine was not exactly snobbish, but she viewed Ruth as someone who had broken under a load that she herself could have carried. Not necessarily with ease, but nonetheless… Once, he had overheard her saying “Ruth is too pure for this world.” There was something deeply true about this statement—it lodged deep in Tom’s brain, and it took him years to figure out what she meant. It was deeply contradictory, because Catherine obviously respected purity—but also had strong reservations about those whose purity cost them the ability to live in this world. It was the same thing with religion. Catherine was religious, but she did not turn the other cheek—as he recalled, from her interactions with various tramps. If someone had suggested it, she would have been astounded—and slightly contemptuous. With Ruth, she was like a natural farmer of hardy plants given a lovely but frail hibiscus to somehow keep alive.

Tom had come to the conclusion that it was all about death. Catherine was an expert on death. She had come from a farm originally, near Sheffield, and had been exposed to much shuffling of the livestock coil. “My first five pets died in my arms,” she would say with a sniff—and Tom found something so wonderful about this that his heart just about burst. Catherine loved her pets, and mourned their passing—but did not mourn that they had to pass. That was rare, thought Tom. Rare, and priceless.

Years later, when reading Galileo, Tom had come across the venerable Italian’s argument that it was foolish for a man to be unhappy about death, because death was required to replenish life—and so, if no one ever died, the man would never have come to be. That seemed quite reasonable to Tom. He found that being on speaking terms with his own demise actually allowed his heart to open wide, wider almost than the world. See, take, and love, he thought, for everything is passing. Whether we hoard or give; whether we love or stay aloof; fight or surrender; we are taken. So give, love, fight…

Reginald, on the other hand, had inherited his mother’s fear of death, and seemed to guard his heart like a bluffing poker player guards a losing hand. During the Garden Wars of the Great War, it had been almost impossible to convince Reginald that he had been killed. He always screamed that he had dodged, or that the shell was a dud (this was the case if a tennis ball had cracked), or that he had called for a break. He was also a terrible whiner whenever he fell ill. He worried and cracked his knuckles and did not sleep and could not lie alone. When the sick bird adopted by Ruth died, Reginald—who had shown no interest in it at all—turned green with horror. As a very young child, Reginald had been secretly terrified of the toilet, because he thought his feces were still alive when he flushed them. He was endlessly punished for not flushing. He refused to read stories where characters died (unless they were parents, and died before the story began, which was good, since that was the pattern of ninety-nine percent of all children’s stories—in the remaining one percent, they die after the story begins). He hated cutting his nails, and it took considerable teasing at boarding school before he started. He disliked autumn intensely—but accepted winter with a cold heart.

Quentin’s attitude towards death was a little different, and it had to do with the effect of some of his major moral mistakes. As he aged, he began to get more and more tired. His face fell, not from use, but from flaccidity. Bags grew under his eyes. He gestured more limply. He could still summon a scathing kind of energy for debates, or for convincing a hesitant fellow MP, but it was like a burst of sparks from a falling log. It seemed that, for Quentin, death was just the last sleep, the one you couldn’t be roused from. This was not really bad, of course, because by then, one would be so tired…! So death was something to be pursued, unconsciously, by regularly depleting your stores of pleasure and energy until, at the last, you just couldn’t be bothered to take another breath. Thus he combated his wife’s fear of death by bludgeoning it with his own despair about living.

And so it seemed to Tom that in the great division of upstairs and downstairs, rich and poor, there were consolations and pains in each. Basically, the rich had a better time when they were young, and the poor had a better time when they were older. The rich base themselves on vanity, which is the fantasy that life will never age, fail, and end. The poor base themselves on relationships, which means that they are trapped when young and cared for as they age. The rich start off rich, and end up poor. The poor start off poor, but end up rich.

And they were not trapped, Tom noticed. He argued this most strenuously in university. The question of the poor—exacerbated by the Great Depression—was first and foremost in every undergraduate’s mind. They were very worried about the ‘creation of a permanent underclass,’ and about how awful it was that capitalism profited from keeping the poor under thumb and heel.

“But you say that the poor are limited, but you all think of the poor exactly the same way! How are you any more free than they are? You say that they have no options, but you all think that the poor have no options. You also have no options!”

(Reginald would laugh at Tom’s passionate speeches on this subject, and would say: “You’ll have to excuse my brother. It’s hard to be progressive when you spent the first fifteen years of your life wanting to marry your nanny!”)

Catherine was perhaps the greatest possible coach for Tom’s heart. The greatest agony of his young life was finding out that he had to leave Catherine’s orbit. He was not sure why—perhaps to save her, or people like her, who could not save themselves, who depended on people like Reginald to protect them from dangers that they themselves could not see coming. I shall not leave my brother to guard the wall alone, thought Tom, even in his little room, when he had no idea where the wall was, or how to get there.

There was a parallel in the management of children, as well. For some unfathomable reason, Tom thought, the rich are bad with infants and better with young men—just as the poor are better with infants and worse with young men. Catherine knew when I was moving beyond her—and that was such a sad thing, when my growing fleet outgrew her harbor, because we cannot all fit back in again. She is satisfied, I know that. She knows she has done what she could, and does not regret my passing. Five pets died in her arms, and one much-loved child outgrew her. Nonetheless, that is the way of the world, and she has done her part for it…

Oddly enough, just as Tom believed that he had escaped thinking about his childhood, he was pulled back—as were all the other members of the family—by the birth of Reginald and Wendy’s first daughter, Jocelyn.

Tom had not been present at the hospital, but had received a printed card announcing the birth. No note. Nothing from either parent. He had sighed, feeling a throb in his chest, and realized that the stakes had been raised once more. But it didn’t really matter. Their paths were set. He could not give in without becoming an entirely different kind of person. A person he would not respect, or want to be. And neither could Reginald. Reginald, he was beginning to believe, had no capacity for change.

No capacity for change…

This idea first came to Tom when he got an offensively bland birthday card in June. It contained nothing personal, except the signatures of his brother and sister-in-law. The poem was terrible—and aimed for someone who was about fifteen. Tom’s hand had closed over it for a brief moment—it felt so wrong to crumple a birthday card from a family member—but then he had crushed it and thrown it out without another thought.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Actually, it wasn’t even remotely true. That was the awful, humiliating part of it all. He had lain awake all night, twisting in his sheets, his throat tight, imagining Reginald’s face as he licked the envelope and mailed the letter. The bomb on course for its inevitable target. The hatred of such an act—how it enrages me! Reginald knew exactly how it would strike Tom. There is no danger greater than a family member run amuck. There is no nerve ending that such an enemy does not know. And he has no vulnerabilities! That was the most maddening part of it all. It’s not that I am so ‘above it all’—I just have no idea how to strike him back! He is nothing but a glassy, glossy hide of bright armor. I could spend the rest of my life and all ten of my fingernails searching for a chink!

Tom had no tongue for the silky slashing of verbal vengeance. He yearned for it, because he still imagined that he was in a fight that could be fought, or won. If some shady goblin had come to Tom that night, the night of his birthday, and whispered: “I can go and really hurt your brother’s heart,” it would not even have been a temptation. Tom would have accepted his offer, sent him on his way with a cheek-pinch and a merry wink—and then slept the sleep of satisfied innocence.

Or would I? That is where things got really insane. He imagined himself leaping out the window, after the goblin, crying out that he had not meant it, that his brother could be turned around by understanding or some sort of honorable submission or—or something, but that retaliation was not an option, not the solution he wanted. And then, of course, if the goblin were to stop and turn, hovering in midair like a quivering dragonfly, then Tom would probably shake his head and wave him on—and then cry out again! Round and round! What does one do in the face of endless, subtle provocation! To fight is to lose. To stand still is to lose. To withdraw is to lose…

So, Tom had some concerns about going home for Christmas.

Chapter 48

Tom’s public humiliation of Reginald, at the Oxford debate, had passed into the dangerous, endless hole of family silence. It was considered too shameful to speak of. What had caused it could not be discussed—that would come too close to unraveling the family, which would be heartbreaking to Tom and Ruth, embarrassing to Reginald, and politically inexpedient to Quentin. Thus, because they had no words of condemnation, they retreated in silence, hoping that Tom would lash himself for driving them away.

And it was strange to see just how physicalized the break was. When Tom even imagined bringing the subject up, backs would stiffen, conversation would lurch forward, in any random direction, people would get unbearably thirsty or in need of fresh air. It could not be spoken of. Tom did not know that this meant that there was in fact no family, but only a theatre of conspiracy, but it could scarcely be imagined that he would discover this in his early twenties. Nature shields the young from the truth about their families until such time as they can truly break and truly survive.

Catherine came to meet him at the station. She covered her mouth almost comically when Tom stepped off the train. He always wanted to drop his suitcases and run into her arms, like the most rapid, sun-hungry plant in history, but he had been restraining himself for about eight years now, striving for something he considered more dignified than rank worship. But love is only undignified to the loveless.

She hugged him tightly when he came in, and he let his cheek rest on her broad shoulder for a moment, a little surprised to be feeling her bra strap.

“Good to see you, Tommy,” she gasped. It had been more than six months since their last meeting.

“You too, Catherine,” said Tom, hugging her with all his might. She never flinched or cried out.

“Come on,” she said, disengaging after thirty seconds or so. “I’ve got us a taxicab. How have you been?”

“Well,” he said. “I was in Germany.”

“I know—your mother got a letter from Gunther.”

“Do you like him?” asked Tom, as they passed through the little waiting area.

“Yes,” she said. (He used to try surprising her with sudden, oblique questions, but she was never, ever fazed.) “I’m not normally a big fan of Krauts, but he’s a bit of all right.”

She was distracted. That meant something was bothering her. One of Catherine’s many wonderful qualities was that Tom never had to wait long to hear about what.

Sure enough, when they were in the taxi, Catherine put her hand on Tom’s knee and said: “Tell me what happened with Reginald.”

“Has he talked to you?”

Catherine smiled—a little grimly, Tom thought. “He knows better. Now tell me. I hate stalling.”

“He—he made me so angry,” said Tom, glancing out the window. He suddenly noticed the back of the taxi driver’s head—he had wonderful, silver hair. He wondered—as he always did—if the driver was listening. He would never close the glass though.

“At this debate?”

“Yes.”

“Your father seemed to take some pleasure in it. ‘Feisty lads! They do both youth and me no small credit!’”

Tom smiled at her imitation. Catherine was an excellent mimic. Whenever he had pouted as a child, she had copied his expression down to the last muscle and tic, and he had always ended up laughing.

“He didn’t seem too happy at the time,” he said.

“Well, it was the wrong time,” said Catherine.

“Hm?”

“Should have happened when you were boys.” Catherine shook her head suddenly. “No, I don’t know. There’s those that would have liked to see it, though.”

“How have you been?”

“Well. Things are quieter. Better. Especially with your mum and dad. They’re like newlyweds. It’s not because of you,” she said, not looking at him, but understanding his thoughts. “I don’t know why exactly. They’re pretending that nothing happened. That can work, when you get older. Don’t need to steer as much when you’re closer to the shore. As long as nothing changes. No storm.”

“Reginald is home already?”

She nodded. “With that lovely baby.”

“How is she?”

“She’s perfect,” said Catherine simply, and Tom suddenly realized that she felt with all her heart that that was how everyone started.

“Who does she look more like?”

“It’s a good mix,” she replied. “His beady little eyes, her lovely cheeks.”

They laughed. Familiar landscapes passed by the glass. Trees of terror, ditches of hiding.

Tom felt a little odd. As if he didn’t have much to say. Then he realized why. I am keeping a secret. The secret of war. And she is not asking about Germany, which means that there is no reason to keep the secret. Yet still, I will not speak of it yet.

Catherine reached over and took one of his hands, placing it on her lap and patting it slowly.

“I read about the debate,” she said.

“What did you think?”

“Couldn’t follow it all. But what’s clear is clear. He’s not for us. Not for England. But you will be.”

Tom shook his head slowly. “I shouldn’t have humiliated him.”

“It doesn’t really matter. It won’t amount to much. In time.” She smiled. “And who knows? It might help.”

“You know, the week afterwards, Randolph Churchill—the son of Winston—tried to get the resolution reversed. It was passed again, with an even greater margin.”

“There’s something people think now,” she said, “like they’re scared little girls. They think that ‘good’ is like ‘nice.’ Good is not like nice. Good is like a sheriff in the Wild West. Good has to be the toughest thing around. The bad men come to town, the sheriff doesn’t go to the town hall and sit down with a committee. He doesn’t take a vote. He doesn’t whine. He pulls out his revolver and loads up.” Catherine’s lips were compressed, her jaw set. “Good men have to have the courage to stand the suffering of others. When they cause it themselves. Justice is hard. Justice is not kindness. Or charity. Justice is honesty and strength. No matter what.”

Tom’s eyes were wide. He had never heard her speak that way.

“What happened?”

Catherine shook her head slightly. She was a ball of passion.

“You’re not the only one with eyes, Tom.”

The house was only a few minutes away. Catherine turned and looked at him.

“Tom, when you were going away to school, I said that you had to watch Reginald. I meant, then, ‘watch over him.’ I don’t mean that now. Watch him. For me. For everyone.”

Tom felt a deep chill. The very landscape seemed to darken. “Why? What do you mean?”

“You know,” she said.

“Not as well as you do. ‘Tell me,’” he said, imitating one of her phrases.

The car was pulling into the front driveway. Catherine spoke rapidly.

“He speaks for me, to the world. For England. But he does not love England. Don’t interrupt. It’s easy. How can he love England? He does not even love his own wife. Or his beautiful new baby. You can’t love the big things until you love the little things. The close things. How can he speak for England? He can’t even talk to his wife nicely.”

Catherine’s eyes were searching his face, and she had never seemed more vulnerable to Tom. Or as lovely.

“He’s got a bad idea about being strong,” she said, even more rapidly, as they pulled up in front of the granite steps. “He wants to be strong over people, rather than strong with people. Do you know what I mean? Do you?”

Her gray eyes were wide, anxious.

Tom said: “Yes. Yes, Catherine. I do.”

Her lips tightened slightly. Then she turned, opened her door and levered herself out of the taxi.

Tom could not help but wonder just where that wonderful woman might have ended up with a solid education.

Then he remembered: Reginald has had a solid education. Modern education seems to feed wisdom into the maw of vanity…

In the front hall, Tom was kissed on the cheek by Ruth, who kept her eyes open and averted as she did so. Her arms were tense on his forearm.

I used to feed her, thought Tom sadly. Now, I seem to poison her.

His father came out of the drawing room, his glasses low on his broad nose.

“Tom!” he said loudly. They shook hands.

“How was your trip?” asked Quentin.

“Good.”

“Early morning?”

“Yes, but I feel fine.” Tom always wanted to give the impression that he had been up early. It just seemed less—unemployed.

“Well, take your things upstairs and unpack then,” said Quentin, a trace of irritation in his voice.

Tom sighed. In the family Olympics of short fuses, his father always took the gold.

After unpacking, in his old room, Tom lingered for a moment, sitting heavily on his bed, his back bowed. He loved the view outside his window. There were what seemed like endless woods—as a very young child, he had always felt that he would be able to wander them and find the remains of every German fairy from Gunther’s storybooks. An overgrown, broken sugar house. A rusty scrap of red hood, hanging from a branch, under the nest of a spider.

One tree stood above the rest. It was such a clear metaphor that it had been obvious to Tom, even as a child, that it stood for him. It towered, one long branch pointing to the East, like a man with a rifle at his shoulder. Tom had always thought that it stood guard for him, but had dreamt more than once that it had turned and squatted in a rustling lunge, turning its rifle on his bedroom and closing one giant leafy eye…

There was movement downstairs, and Tom knew that he would be unable to stall any longer.

He got up slowly, brushed his hair back out of his eyes, then went downstairs.

His mother, Quentin, Reginald, Wendy, and their baby were all in the drawing room. Reginald and Wendy looked pale, drained and tired. Ruth looked polite, but uninterested. Quentin looked polite and uncomfortable.

“I feel like a feeding trough,” said Wendy with a harsh smile, rocking Jocelyn rapidly. “Or a buzzer pecked by some rat in some psychological experiment. ‘Feed me! Feed me!’ I am totally out of control. I start leaking if I hear a baby crying on the radio, or on a bus. I can’t go out. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a month…”

“Wendy is very graphic in her sacrifices,” smiled Reginald, getting up. “But here comes the prodigal son.”

“Hullo, Reginald,” said Tom warily.

Reginald grinned breezily. “Hullo, Tommy!” He took his younger brother’s hand and pumped it rapidly. “How are you? Want some tea?”

“No thanks,” said Tom, not wanting to take gifts until he understood the geniality. He bent over and kissed Wendy on the cheek. “How are you?” he murmured.

“Oh, Lord!” cried Reginald merrily. “Don’t ask her that. You’re likely to never eat again. She’s very graphic!”

“You said that already,” said Wendy wearily.

Ruth leaned forward in her chair slightly. “Are things any easier with your family?”

“We’re meeting with her father after New Years,” said Reginald excitedly. “He wants to see the baby. Things will thaw. You’ll see.”

“Do you think so, Wendy?” asked Ruth gently.

Wendy looked up, her eyes stricken. She looks just about all done in, thought Tom.

Wendy murmured: “I hope so.”

“Because then you can get someone in.”

“We can take Catherine off your hands,” smiled Reginald. “Then Tom will have an excuse to come and visit us.”

Tom took a deep breath, very surreptitiously. Easy…!

“Have a seat, son,” said Quentin.

“Can I take her for a moment?” asked Tom.

Wendy eyed him cautiously. “Do you have a lot of experience with babies?”

“Not much,” said Tom, thinking that Reginald should have said: ‘Other than being one?’

“Well, be careful then,” she said, handing over Jocelyn. “Hold her head up; it falls.”

Tom took the baby, then sat back in the sofa, next to Wendy, who radiated stress. He lay Jocelyn along his thighs, her head on his knees.

“Hm,” said Wendy. “I never thought of that.”

Jocelyn was awake. Her eyes fixed on Tom’s. He felt a bit of a primitive shock. A baby is eye contact without strain, which was something he had not experienced in many, many years.

“Her eyes are so clear,” he whispered, unable to blink. “No flecks. Beautiful.”

“And look at her feet,” said Wendy, reaching over and pulling off Jocelyn’s little socks. “Her toes are always curled. It’s the only part of her with wrinkles—except for her hands. They’re born with the ability to turn their heads, for milk.” Her face softened, and Tom saw something lovely deep under her skin, moving silently.

Tom felt hypnotized by Jocelyn’s clear, lovely irises. She looked unbearably serious. The entire family seemed frozen, staring at Tom and the baby.

He leaned down and inhaled all five of her toes into his mouth.

“Good Lord!” cried Wendy, in a mixture of delight and horror. “I only bathed her yesterday!”

Tom blew against the bottom of Jocelyn’s toes. She was not ticklish. He pulled his head back up.

“Well, I’m not hungry anymore,” declared Reginald. Wendy shot him a look.

Tom continued to gaze at Jocelyn. After a long moment, her other foot came up. He drew it into his mouth. She smiled a little.

“Can you make her roll over too?” asked Reginald. “Play dead?”

“Oh, Reginald!” groaned Wendy.

“What?” asked Reginald. “With those skills, he’d make an excellent nanny!”

“I think that’s very nice,” said Ruth, staring at Tom. It was clear in her voice that she did not really know what to think of it at all.

Tom had never spent much time around babies. It is most strange, he thought, staring at Jocelyn, ingesting her appendages. I never really thought of them as human. As people. But she’s really there. And so am I. It starts so early.

Wendy laughed suddenly, and put her hand on Tom’s arm, resting it on his cardigan.

“She really looks back, doesn’t she?”

Tom nodded. “It’s very hypnotic. She could issue me commands. ‘Feed me!’ ‘Take me to your leader!’”

“‘Eat my foot!’” giggled Wendy.

Quentin grunted. “That’s good, Tom. You’re excellent with babies.” He turned to Reginald. “So, how are things at the Foreign Office?”

Reginald smiled. “Well, we are little hobbled by the election in Fulham, which Baldwin is taking as the holy writ of pacifism.”

Quentin nodded. “To lose a seat by seven thousand votes, just on the issue of rearmament, would give anyone pause.”

“And it’s amazing just how quickly the Germans respond to things like that. The next day, their position had hardened.”

“It’s hard for a democracy to bluff.”

“And Germany withdrew from the Disarmament Conference in—what, mid-October.”

“That thing has been running forever.”

Reginald nodded. “Eighteen months.”

“Is that bad?”

Reginald shrugged. “Well, those happy fools who drew up Versailles put a clause in which said that Germany had to disarm right away, but that we, the Allies, would disarm later. So the entire time of the Disarmament Conference, the Germans have been using that as a lever, saying: ‘We have disarmed, according to the treaty—so now you must disarm, according to your very own treaty.’ And that’s tough, because everyone knows that Germany has not remained disarmed. But you couldn’t say that. The Germans are masters at taking offense. They storm out even more than the Russians!”

“So the issue is dead?” asked Quentin, twirling his teacup on its saucer.

“Hm. Well, it’s dead insofar as Germany does not seem to want to disarm anymore. They know that there are a lot of Englishmen who favor unilateral disarmament. They have the moral leverage, damn them—sorry, Wendy—insofar as we promised to disarm at some point, back in 1919. So they say: disarm, as you promised—while they secretly rearm. And we have the Labour party, as well as all the various Socialists, the Fabians and Communists, who want to disarm us. And Versailles said that Germany was only limited in her right to rearm until she was in the League of Nations, which she has been, for seven years. But the Germans don’t have a problem with us. They are more than happy with our current pathetic military state. The problem is France. There are only three options: either we allow Germany to rearm, or we all disarm—or we all have an arms race, which only the dictatorships would win, since they don’t have to worry about civil revolt. France will never allow Germany to rearm—and won’t disarm herself. Thus, we are faced with an arms race which we cannot win. We don’t want Germany to have airplanes, because we’re vulnerable from the air. France does not want her to have men and guns, because she fears a land war. And, unofficially, we have given the go-ahead to Germany to rearm on the ground. France will doubtless find out in time, but I find it hard to support a country which has become so socialistic. So we are in a pretty pickle. But it’s all nonsense anyway.”

“Why?”

Reginald rubbed his thumb rapidly against his fingertips. “The cupboard is bare. There’s nothing in the treasury to rearm with anyway. And we have no Navy left—at least none that can guard the three oceans and the Mediterranean. Ever since all our American loans got called in in ’29, we’ve just been treading water, just trying to keep our noses up.” He laughed. “If we stop paying the unemployed so we can pay for arms, the Germans are the last thing we’ll have to worry about.”

“Actually, I think they’d be pleased,” agreed Quentin.

Wendy laughed harshly. “No wonder the rooms for after-dinner conversation are segregated by sex! I swear, sometimes I think that Reg is closer to the Germans than to his own daughter!”

Tom touched his fingertip to Jocelyn’s cheek. Her skin was so fine and soft that it was almost impossible to feel the point of contact. He touched his own cheek to check the difference, but it was hard, because he could feel his finger touching his cheek from the point of view of his cheek.

“What do you think of Hitler?” he asked, gazing down.

“Dad or me?” asked Reginald.

“Either or.”

“Go on, Dad.”

“Well, he’s a cunning, resourceful man. To go from Austrian corporal to German chancellor is quite a feat.”

“Do you think he’s dangerous?” asked Tom, looking up. His father seemed pleased.

“Well—and I’ll keep this short, for the sake of the ladies’ sanity. He is clearly not insane. He is a shrewd and amoral demagogue. He wants power—and, having got it, he will want to keep it. So he will create an external enemy, to keep the resentments of his people directed outwards. All fairly standard. The only real question is: will he stay inside his own borders? And I think that the answer to that is: yes. He has his work cut out for him, for the foreseeable future at least. Eliminating internal enemies. Consolidating his power. Reviving the economy.”

“And then?”

Reginald smiled. “Well, that’s going to be five years at least. We’ll keep our eyes on him, don’t you worry.”

“What about his book?” asked Tom.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” cried Reginald. “That damnable book! Yes, dear, sorry!”

“I hate him swearing around Jocelyn,” said Wendy, watching Tom watching her baby.

“He wrote that nine years ago, in prison, after his failed putsch! He was dictating it while a political prisoner. He said what he had to say to get power! But that book is the ravings of a madman. And madmen do not get power, no matter how convenient that might be for those addicted to conspiracies. Ergo, Hitler is creative. He knows how to appeal to a crowd. He was voted in legally. For Germans to have voted a madman in, they would have to be all mad themselves—or at least the majority. It’s all nonsense!”

“And it doesn’t really matter,” said Ruth quietly.

Her sons turned to her curiously. Quentin did not, for he had, since gaining office, become increasingly aware of—and dependent on—his wife’s acuity.

“Why is that?” he asked.

“Well,” replied his wife, “if he is mad, then we are doomed. If he is mad, civilization will not survive. So we have to act as if he is not mad.”

“Quite right,” smiled Quentin. “I have made that point more than once, in the House. It seems to have taken effect, to a large degree.”

“Certainly Cuthbert has been converted,” said Reginald. “Actually, it was he who converted me. It’s strange to think that the idea might have come to me from mother, originally.”

Ruth smiled at him.

“All right,” said Wendy. “Now we will simply have to change the topic. I am utterly housebound, and don’t want to have my rare adult-time riddled with fears of war and dictatorships. I demand something pleasant!”

“And what would you have, my dear?” asked Reginald.

“Reginald, if you knew what I wanted…”

“Now, now,” said Ruth. “Let’s hear from Tom.”

Tom smiled. He was massaging Jocelyn’s fat little calves.

“My gosh, she’s quiet with you,” whispered Wendy.

Tom spoke to the group while still staring into the infant’s eyes:

“I’m starting a flight school,” he said.

There was a pause.

“Really?” asked Reginald, his eyes wide.

Tom smiled. “I’ve spent the summer getting my instructor’s license, out at Hendon Airfield. I haven’t spent much money over the last few years. I’ve put a down payment on an airplane. Haven’t I, Jocelyn?” he asked, jiggling her legs. She gurgled and giggled.

There was another pause.

“When did this all come about?” asked Quentin.

“Well, Klaus introduced me to flying,” said Tom, looking up finally. “I love it. I have time to kill.”

“So this is going to be some sort of—permanent occupation?” asked Reginald, his lips only slightly curled, which Tom thought very kind.

“Yes. Well, for now.”

“And then?”

“And then? Well, that all depends.”

“On what?”

Tom held his brother’s gaze, then glanced at his father. “On whether you’re both right about Hitler.”

Ruth flinched visibly at Tom’s words. Her left hand rose delicately and touched the hollow above her collarbone. Quentin glanced at her, his face rigid with terror. Then he turned to Tom.

“Well, Tom, there’s really no call for such paranoid statements. We must all press on with our heads and spirits high.”

“That was not very nice,” said Wendy. She stood up and held out her arms. “I think I’d better take my daughter now.”

As always, in times like this, Tom thought of Catherine. And, almost the moment that he thought of her, she appeared in the doorway to the hall.

“Dinner is served,” she said.

In her mother’s arms, Jocelyn burst into a frightening wail.

An alignment had taken place over Tom’s comment—an alignment which fell across traditional lines. Quentin and Reginald were angry at Tom’s ‘heartlessness’; Ruth had withdrawn into her bloody shell. Wendy remained ambivalent. She suddenly liked Tom—and he her, for the first time—but she was clearly disturbed by his comment. One did not make jokes about predicting war at the Spencers’. That was the second worst possible sin. The worst was predicting war with a straight face.

The family had clearly decided to assume that Tom’s comment had been designed to score points off his father and brother—at the expense of his mother’s peace of mind, and possibly sanity.

They could not speak openly, so the only punishments they could inflict on Tom were withdrawal and tangential attacks. The Spencers had a lot of petulance—and petulance is worse than anger, because anger is strong and clear, while petulance is weak and undermining and murderous.

The dinner conversation was full of old family stories which were always detrimental to Tom. Quentin and Reginald watched Ruth out of the corners of their eyes, counting each pea which made it from her plate to her mouth. Tom wanted to shout at them to stop, because he knew that his mother hated being watched in that way. But to say that would be to say that they were watching, thus exposing why they needed to watch, thus recalling Tom’s statement and all the dangers it held for the family—in particular for the two men who were in charge of preventing war, and who imagined that unpleasant things could be averted by pretending that they did not exist.

Tom suddenly realized something, and stopped chewing his buttery mashed potatoes for a moment.

Mother’s depression was ignored until Father decided to go into politics—at which point he could do something to avert her fear of war. It was not an acknowledgement—not a clear, public one—but it was something. Something which said to her: your sadness is real, and something will be done.

And:

My family cannot admit the possibility of war because the last war destroyed our family… Tom shook his head, impatient with himself. No—the war did not destroy us. It revealed our prior destruction. Our terror in the face of our mother’s sadness. Our inability to comfort. To listen deeply. To mourn with her all that she had to mourn.

Tom looked up. His mother was staring at him. Something deep and dark passed between them, and Tom found himself utterly unable to swallow.

Chapter 49

Within six months, Tom had to hire a secretary. He did not have a natural head for figures or schedules, but had found an activity he loved so much that his natural charisma—already strong—flowed even faster and deeper.

He loved to fly. He had graduated from gliders quite quickly. He received his pilot’s license within two months of returning from Germany; three months after that, he was a certified instructor.

He was self-financed. In January of 1934, he bought a new Beechcraft Staggerwing biplane. He advertised around town on lampposts, and flew a sign behind his airplane over horse races, upper-class picnics, and garden parties, hoping to snag young men with bravado and trust funds. The sign read:

“First Flight Free! Fly the wild skies! Hendon 4576.”

And they came. They came, at first, out of curiosity, to say that they had been up in an airplane. But Tom knew, from his days as an athlete, how important the element of dash was in presentation. So he let his hair grow longer, bought a number of white silk scarves, two creaky leather bomber jackets, and let his stubble grow artfully. He allowed a little more ‘Oxford’ into his accent, and cultivated a fairly dashing demeanor of ‘what was swotting at school compared to buzzing around above the clouds?’ Envy and charisma are two crucial ingredients in early entrepreneurial sales; Tom had natural charm, and could evoke great envy.

One other ingredient also helped to bring great early success his way, and that was his sense of doom.

Death is the ultimate liberator; that is one of life’s deepest secrets. Tom genuinely believed that he had—and the civilized world had—only about five more years to live. He had come to this conclusion—or, rather, his instincts gave him this timeframe—but he found that he was not alone in this. He read in The Times that the Defense Requirements Committee felt the same way; they said that Germany was England’s eventual enemy, and that Germany would probably be ready for war in about five years.

Tom had burst free of many of his early limitations. He did not fear borrowing money. He did not fear bullying people who did not pay. He did not care if he lost his temper with careless students. He did not have any patience for the pettiness of others. He saw them all consumed in fire, with all the grandeur or smallness of their lives burning up with them. Why not be grand, since we shall soon all not be…

He did, on occasion, ask himself why he chose to become a flight instructor when he knew that airstrips would be the first ground targets in the coming war. He had vague fantasies about stealing one of the new monoplane fighters—the Supermarine Type 300, say—and laying waste to half a dozen bombers before being brought down by their fighter escorts or rear gunners. He also thought that it might turn out to be possible to stop the bombers, but couldn’t imagine how. There would only be about twenty minutes from first visual sighting to the bomb bays opening, which would never be enough for pilots to scramble, find them and shoot them down. The bombers could be at any height, and would be protected by swarms of fighters. And even if they could be found, and fifty planes shot down before the rest found their target—an almost unimaginable number, since your own plane had to turn around—that would likely be less than a third of the bombers. And those that were shot down would dump their bombs as well, as they fell, causing God knows what carnage below.

Given these facts, Tom could not help but think that Reginald was a complete fool for bringing new life into such a world. Of course, Reginald probably thought that in his exalted position as undersecretary to the German Ambassador, he would be able single-handedly prevent war, but Tom knew that that was, to use a Reginald-ism, ‘all nonsense.’ His children would likely die in the conflagration. Tom was not by nature a vengeful person, but all he could do was hope to be there if and when it all came to pass.

No, it was not to save England that Tom was training pilots. Tom trained pilots because he loved to fly, and this allowed him to fly more. He also found out that he loved to teach, so that was all right. And really, why not give others some pleasure in the short time they had left? Tom sometimes felt, staring at the rows of unlined faces in his little clapboard classroom, that he was like a doctor who could not save his patients, but could give them some wonderful morphine vistas.

His students were, by and large, a genuine and rather surprising pleasure. Tom had initially started his school to be able to fund his flying, but quickly found that his pleasure in flying was only matched by his pleasure at teaching.

He had no problem with discipline, because he had no illusions of immortality. What is the curled lip of an arrogant student, compared to the fire of the whole world? He threw out the rude, because life was too short to be spent jousting with vanity. He threw out the incompetent, because both he and they should find more productive uses for their time. He threw out the impulsive, because all of his remaining days were precious, and he did not want to shorten their length by a bad crash—or their quality by a not-so-bad crash. (‘Prang’ was the pilot’s slang for ‘crash.’)

So those who remained tended to be the best, and Tom found—as any teacher does—that the term ‘the best’ has many, many meanings.

He loved the students with natural ability. He had been one himself, and loved what they were capable of, seemingly without effort. He loved them—and he also hated them, because natural ability has an uncanny tendency to waste its powers through sheer vanity. Those who were naturally good thought that their gifts allowed them to float past the mundanities of navigation, fuel calculations, instrument calibration, and visual inspections. They thought that the capacity to perform a perfect Immelmann the first time would save them if they ran out of fuel over the sea, or got lost in a fog. “Talent is the icing; craftsmanship is the cake,” he said, over and over. “You can have a perfectly good cake without icing, but icing without a cake is always useless.” He threw out the brilliant-but-lazy students, because watching talent engineer its own demise was just too damn painful. Too much like Reginald.

He loved the students who had little natural ability, but who worked like coolies at their craft. They weren’t the barn-stormers; they would never fly in formation. They knew that, and Tom knew that. But they would deliver medicines to Red Hat, Alberta, on time and unbroken. They would fly good grids to find lost ships. They would land passengers without spilling their tea. They were the backbone of the airplane industry, and Tom loved them.

He also loved the indecisive students, but not for very long.

Indecision occupied a rather curious position in Tom’s universe. He had spent more than two years lounging in a room before being introduced to flying utterly by accident. He knew the value of refusing to decide. And, on at least one occasion, a student arrived at his aerodrome utterly bashful—and then graduated at the top of his class. However, sometimes students were indecisive just because they had no talent. They had to be ditched, and fast.

However—and this happened in August of 1934—the most interesting event in the first year of Tom’s flight school was when he lost almost all of his habitual pronouns.

He had wondered about the possibility of female pilots. They were not an unknown breed, but were often considered rather abrasive. They usually seemed to come up from the sticks, with chips on their shoulders and all too much to prove.

Jacqueline was rather regal, and Tom was rather suspicious.

He had never warmed to women who sought out concentrations of young men. They always seemed to be preening, or flirting, or provoking dissension in the ranks. They were vain, insipid—and distracting.

Jacqueline arrived early one morning, before all of the others, while Tom was sitting behind his desk, marking some navigation exams.

The flight school was a small hut with eight chairs. The wind which came through cracks in the boards was largely blocked by the local maps covered by concentric circles. The chairs were uncomfortable (Tom had removed the plusher ones, because they promoted inattention); the little blackboard squeaked abominably, and a large flight-roster blocked most of the little window. Tom had experimented with doing the place up a little, but found that improving the décor tended to have the wrong effect on his students. He quickly realized why this was so. ‘Dashing’ just seemed to mesh well with ‘uncomfortable.’ These men wanted a frontier experience. So be it.

Having discovered something he loved, Tom had also discovered the joys of dawn. There was a reason to get up early. He loved the gray light, the silence, the sense of alert preparation in the face of a slumbering world. He loved walking across the dark, silent aerodrome, his tea steaming in a chipped mug. He loved watching the stars disappear. He loved winning respect by being up early. He liked the implicit virtue of early light. He also loved dawn, because it was a crying time.

Probably two dawns out of seven, Tom cried. He was so used to crying by now that he did not find it alarming. He had been caught at it by a few early students—and had looked up at them unapologetically, knowing full well that it could only add to his mystical bravado. ‘I say, Skipper was crying like a baby this morning. Clearly a brave chap—wonder what’s up?’ It was not so much that they found him crying that was odd—but that he was not embarrassed by it. But of course, given his forebodings, tears mattered not at all. In the face of a great fire, what did a little salt mean?

At about five thirty a.m., Tom was weeping as he marked the tests. It was quite an efficient operation. He marked, turned the page, wiped his eyes. Occasionally, his tongue would escape his lips, licking to one side or another, enjoying the scrape of stubble and lick of salt.

He heard the crunch of light steps outside the shack. He pinched his nose, sniffed, and looked up.

The door opened, and a young woman stood before him. She was of medium height, with long brown hair, light blue eyes, wide cheekbones, and thick lips. She seemed rather exasperated.

“You are Thomas Spencer?” she asked, jabbing out her hand.

“I am,” he said, rising. He saw her notice his tears. That stalled her for a moment, which he enjoyed for some reason.

“Jacqueline Harrock. You might, if you like, put a sign up in the office saying that you are in this shack when you are not there. I looked in the office, the hanger, and all around the airplanes.”

“That is an excellent idea,” smiled Tom.

Jacqueline seemed startled, but recovered quickly. She reached into her purse, pulled out a handkerchief, and extended it to him.

“Thank you,” said Tom, dabbing at his eyes. He offered it back, but she shook her head rapidly.

“Now this is going to have to be faster that I had intended, because I spent so much time wandering about. I want to be a pilot, but no one will train me. I don’t know why—I have the vote, and vote Conservative, but there it is. I want to become a pilot because I love flying—or, rather, I think I will love flying. So far all I have had the chance to love is being flown around by others. I shan’t say ‘men,’ though that is in fact the case, because I don’t want to sound divisive. I am a suffragette, but I am not interested in Temperance. They say you are very good. Why not come to you first, then? Good question. I have no answer. But I want to learn how to fly. I will do my hair up like this…” She put her purse on Tom’s desk, and began pinning up her hair. “Or wear caps. Not hats. Caps. I do not flirt, because I am not interested in marriage. I will not ask you such personal questions. I am not looking to land a pilot. We should have more to offer the skies than offering drinks, don’t you think?” Jacqueline paused. Tom’s eyes refocused almost painfully. Now she looked like a man. She said: “That’s all.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “My mother is one of the most intelligent people I know.”

Jacqueline frowned. She was obviously not a person on a first-name basis with good news. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘that’s fine.’ ‘That’s fine that you have a noble and silly ambition’? ‘That’s fine, you’re in’?”

Tom held up a hand, hoping that it wouldn’t seem patriarchal.

“You’re in.”

She paused, then nodded tightly. Then scowled. “In now, or in a year, when you have space?”

“Now. I have space.”

“In because I’m a young woman? No—don’t answer that. All the women know you’re a bachelor. It doesn’t matter. I’ll take it. How much?” she asked, grabbing her purse and opening it.

“You get a free flight first.”

“I know. I’ve seen you flying past. Your airplane, anyway. I don’t want it.”

Tom shrugged, suppressing a smile. “All right.”

“And I would like to sit at the back. I’m not trying to make demands. I am vulnerable through my hair. I like to see people. And thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me fly.”

“I’m not letting you fly.”

“Teaching me then.”

“There’s no need to thank me,” said Tom, rising to shake her hand again. “I am a businessman. Money is money.”

“How much?”

“Six pounds for the course. Another one for the license.”

Jacqueline paused. She whistled, then looked around and smiled.

“You know,” she said, leaning forward slightly, “if I were a typical woman, I’d say that it might be worth applying some of your vast profits to improving your décor.” Then she grinned. “But I shan’t, because I am going to be a pilot!”

Jacqueline was an able student. She had natural ability, which was good—but she also was a very hard worker, which was even better. Tom could tell that she was serious, and committed, and was staying up nights going over her textbooks.

She also had great conflict-management skills. He had been curious as to how she would handle the natural jabs of the young men in the class. Women, he had noticed, when in traditionally male situations, were usually cattle prodded into two general areas: flirt or matriarch. Jacqueline refused to be cornered into either camp. She never flirted; never tossed her hair or smiled toothily. But she also never became brittle, disapproving, and bossy. She never put the men down for their sallies—and so they began to become awkward, then silent. Finally, they just accepted her as a person, which Tom admired very much.

He was also terrified of her.

Jacqueline seemed like an iceberg—and not because she was cold. Actually, she had a gusty, tomboy warmth. She had a wide grin, a hearty manner, and evoked sort of shoulder-punching camaraderie. She would be a good woman to farm with, thought Tom. No, she seemed like an iceberg because she was immovable; most of her was hidden—and she was perilous to unstable craft.

She evoked no sexual attraction—which was very attractive to Tom. She had a nice figure, somewhere beneath her anorak and heavy trousers. Her hair was lustrous, slightly wavy, quite long. He skin was clear. Her eyes bright. The other boys in the class never teased her. They had great respect for her ability.

Jacqueline was also unusual in that she never pressed issues of feminine equality. She had the most powerful prow of egalitarianism—she just did not understand that women were supposed to be the weaker sex. She was very practical. When she needed something heavy lifted, she asked a man. She did not pretend physical equality. Neither did she pretend that her weakness was a virtue. She asked men for favors in the same way that a man might ask a taller man to fix a ceiling fan.

She received the occasional sexist comment, but just did not understand it. Tom could not help but smile when he saw this. A man would say something careless, and she would focus her eyes on him, frown, and ask him to repeat his comment. If he did, she would prove that it was illogical. One such rally occurred when a man named Fred mentioned something foolish about her inability to wrestle a chock free of the wheels of an airplane.

Jacqueline stood up and said:

“I am not as strong as a man.”

Fred said: “That’s right.”

“So I am dependent on men for strength. That makes me inferior?”

“In a way, yes.”

“So if someone is dependent on someone else for something, then that person is inferior?”

Fred paused, probing the way ahead. “Yeah…”

She smiled. “Would you say that life is more important than strength?”

“Huh?”

“Is it more important to be alive, or to be strong?”

“Both.”

“You can’t have both.”

“Alive.”

“Would you say that there is a man alive who was not born of woman?”

“Nooo…”

“Thus men are dependent on women for life.”

“Yeah.”

“Thus, since life is more important than strength, then men are more dependent on women than women are on men.”

“But… But…”

“Never mind,” she laughed. “Just pull this chock away, and I’ll let you live!”

Afterwards, Tom walked over to her. She was on a ladder, checking the oil in an engine.

“Actually, that was a cheat.”

She smiled, straightening. “Oh, dear. My teacher is accusing me of cheating.”

“Women are dependent on men for life. There is no woman alive who was not conceived due to a man.”

“That’s true,” she retorted. “But if Fred had been intelligent enough to observe that, he never would have said something so foolish.”

Tom grinned, nodding. She smiled again, then turned back to her motor.

All too soon, she began to worm her way into his consciousness, while he was away from the aerodrome.

Tom lived a Spartan existence. He liked to fly. He did not like to drink or dance. He did not oppose these things, but life was too short to pursue anything less than his greatest passions. He still read a great deal, but his reading was different now. Before, he had read with the intention of changing the world, in some manner that he sort of assumed would present itself in due course. But there was—or would soon enough be—not enough of the world left to rescue.

He wrote a number of personal essays, about his experiences in Germany, and sent them off to various magazines, but the English mood was one of bottomless appeasement and anti-rearmament, and they did not get published.

He thought of trying to spend more time with Reginald, perhaps to get him to change his mind—or at least see the possibility of danger. But Reginald was hostile to Tom’s ideas. He had rejected Tom’s theories in their Oxford years because they were too abstract. He now rejected Tom’s beliefs about Germany because they were too concrete. Clearly, this was a maze without exits.

Also, there was the matter of Wendy.

Tom had gone to see Reginald and Wendy three times that year already. Their material fortunes had undergone considerable improvement. The birth of their first child had, as is so often the case, thawed relations with Wendy’s parents. The money-spigot had creaked open, and they now had a much smarter flat near Whitehall—and access to a family estate southwest of London, near Hampshire. Tom would fly the half hour to see them, landing in a field near the house. Wendy would often come running out, coming up to the plane just as he was taxiing to a stop, carrying Jocelyn, holding her up.

“She is so happy to see you!” Wendy would pant, thrusting the infant into Tom’s arms. “I’ve never seen her take to anyone that way! Certainly not…” Wendy had an ability to start sentences with a clear direction—and then stop them, thrusting the moral responsibility of finishing them onto the listener. Tom knew, as he walked towards the country house with Wendy, that the end of that particular sentence was: “Certainly not her father.”

Wendy’s family was in the terminal stages of dissolution. Both her parents drank constantly—not in great amounts, but enough to be alcoholic ghosts just beyond the reach of mortal man.

Tom, truth be told, had a great deal of pity for Wendy. She had very little sense of herself. She had become a bit of a babbler since the birth of her daughter, and her words possessed a strange insistence that was hard to listen to. She also jumped around in her topics in a most confusing way—and whenever Tom would try to speak, her voice would crest, and another topic would burst up through her. She really needs to talk, Tom would think, and found himself unconsciously slowing down his breathing—either to try to slow her down through osmosis, or give her more oxygen; he could never quite tell.

Tom fell completely in love with Jocelyn. He had never really imagined that infants had such strong personalities. But little Jocelyn was brute will embodied. She defended her own interests with an elemental passion which surprised Tom. God forbid that any sweet treats should be taken from her. Tom had to do that once, when she was given a homemade chocolate Easter egg that, if consumed entire, would have probably produced instant diabetes. Jocelyn’s face was a horizontal half-moon of chocolate and flesh, and when Tom tried to take the mashed clump of Easter Egg from her tight fist, she refused to open it. She kept her both fists moving, and tried hitting him with her other hand, at the same time as appearing to summon the protective ghosts of ancestors past with a terrifying howl.

This much Tom had expected. What did surprise him, as he tugged in admiration at her willpower, was how intimate the interaction was. Jocelyn stared straight into his eyes, her mouth twisted in a snarl, fighting grimly for her prize—and Tom felt an unearthly closeness with her. To be completely opposed and yet still completely intimate was a strange shock to his entire emotional apparatus.

It was even more shocking that, when he had finally gotten the chocolate away from her, cleaned her face and hands, and was feeding her some milk-soaked bread, Jocelyn reached with her left hand into her mouth, extracted some half-chewed pulp—and held it out to Tom. He felt very sad as he looked at her little dripping fist. He leaned his head forward; she extended her hand some more. Then he closed his lips over her fist, and she opened it, giving him her bread. Tom’s brows had contracted, and he had wept. To be opposed and close—and then to share directly afterwards—was some kind of essential aspect of relating that he had never experienced with his own family. He felt connected with Jocelyn—and also felt that, by being close to her, he was in some manner coming closer to his own heart.

Of course, Jocelyn would likely be drowned in flames before she made it to school, and that gave Tom great pain, but he was convinced of the need to feel deeply before the end came. He would not allow the Germans to rob him of his love for his niece.

He had been trained by Ruth to respond to female depression, and so found himself very susceptible to Wendy. He felt a terrible temptation to transfer some of his own inner riches to her, to her desolate soul, but could never imagine how to do it. All he could do was listen, as she cradled and tucked and fussed over her daughter.

“When we first brought Jocelyn home, Reginald was sitting with some work friends, on the sofa, and I asked him to get her another blanket, because that old flat was always so gosh-darned cold. And he looked up at me as if I were still that same malingering witch that he imagined I was all the way through my pregnancy, and he said: in a minute dear, and that was when I knew how it was going to be. And I thought I would be in despair, but I’m not. And now he’s in the city a lot. I stay up here, sometimes, during the week, because Jocelyn keeps him up, and his work is important. But I don’t know how well they have—attached, you know? He holds her strangely. He does and says everything right. He can even change her nappy, thank heavens! But I think that I have seen mechanics work on a car with more love and affection. It’s like he’s here, but he’s not here. Except when I do something to displease him. Then I get his attention. Oh yes, then the world gets his whole attention! Then, it’s nothing but Reginald. And I know that you have to make compromises—do excuse me; it’s just the hormones. Of course—that’s what my mother says. ‘The first year is all about adjustment.’ So I do. He comes home, and he’s been dealing with people all day, and he needs some time to settle. And I give that to him. That was hard at the beginning. I was with this one all day, and needed to be with him, talk to him. He needed silence and solitude. But all right. So now I give him that. All well and good. But sometimes it stretches on and on. An hour. Sometimes more. Or I come in to talk to him and he’s fallen asleep. So where is his compromise? Ohhh, thanks,” Wendy would say, dabbing her eyes with Tom’s handkerchief. “I mean, it should be a two way street. Because,” she would whisper, her eyes wide, leaning forward in that dramatic manner Tom had so disliked in his own mother, “I have seen what it did to my mother. To compromise. When we were younger, my father would be ready to go out, and my mother would be rushing about trying to get us all ready. And herself. She hated leaving it to the maids, they never did it right… And he would be by the door, snorting and checking his watch. And my mother would be in a frenzy. So stressed her hair would come down. While he’s just standing there. And then he would be silent all the way to wherever we were going, and my mother would have to babble and make jokes and compliment him to warm him up. So much work! That just got worse and worse. So what happened? Did he compromise? No! If we were going on a day trip, she would get up before dawn, and wake us up, and we would all dress in the dark, in silence, like we were making a jail break. And then we would be presented to my father, lined up in front of the door, and the day would go smoothly. That’s not what I want. I’ve seen what happens. He gets everything. She gets nothing. And I can see it happening to myself. I am sanding myself down. Whittling at everything that sticks out. Everything that annoys him about me must go. If I bother him, it’s because I am bothersome. If he bothers me, it’s because I am petty. What is the use? Why would he marry me if he just wanted me to change?”

Tom would try to intervene, but Wendy would rush on.

“I can’t understand what makes him tick. He is an enigma to me. He might as well be speaking in Arabic. I try. I ask him: why do you do this? What were you thinking about just before you did that? He just gets annoyed, Tom! I think that everything I am doing is rubbing him the wrong way. I think that—I know that I cannot make any demands on him, because he will just go out, or stay in London. Or just get angry. I’m turning into water, just molding myself around him. But he keeps changing what he wants! What was good yesterday is verboten today! It feels that way. Perhaps that’s not true. That’s probably too harsh. But that’s how it feels. Sometimes. And everyone—even your parents—just look at me and say that I have to find a way to make him happy. But shouldn’t he also be finding a way to make me happy? Shouldn’t he? But he’s not happy himself. I try to make him happy. But it can’t all be so one-way…”

And so it would go, on and on, and Tom would get dizzy and feel very young and recall his mother. At one point, trying to recall that he was now an adult with his own job, he held up his hand.

Wendy stopped immediately, a frightened and compliant look coming into her eyes. It was a little painful to watch, like seeing a rider yank a white-eyed horse to a stop by hauling back savagely on the reins.

“But Wendy,” Tom said. “You have to stop manipulating him.”

She frowned, a vaguely irritated look coming into her eyes. “What? How am I manipulating him?”

“Well, you’re trying to control his temper.”

“What?”

Something that Tom had noticed about Wendy was that she always became rude whenever she was defensive. She said ‘what’ instead of ‘pardon.’

“You’re accepting this principle,” he said slowly, “that you are responsible for Reginald’s temper. That if he gets angry, you have to do something to prevent his anger, or assuage it once its underway. But that’s manipulative on your part!”

“How?” she asked, a tear escaping from one eye without her seeming to notice.

“If my wife doesn’t want to sleep with me, but I harangue and bully and nag her into it, is that being manipulative?”

“Yes…”

“Why?”

“You’re not letting her make her own…” She stopped suddenly, her face freezing.

“Make her own choice,” said Tom, feeling damn good to be able to finish one of her sentences out loud for a change. “So you see? You’re not letting Reginald be angry.”

Wendy shivered. “Ohh, I don’t think I’d like that very much.”

“Letting him be angry?”

“Yes… Not good. Not good at all.”

“Why?”

“He’s a shouter.”

“Has—has he ever hit you?”

“Oh no. No, it’s never come to that.”

“Do you think it would? If you didn’t…”

“Appease him? I really don’t want to find that out.”

“But you can’t live like that,” whispered Tom, and the intensity of his voice seemed to draw another tear from her eye.

“But I can. I do.”

“It’s not really living.”

“Of course it is!” she suddenly hissed, her voice scraping the air like nails on a blackboard. “I have a child!”

“I’m sorry,” said Tom, holding up his hands as Jocelyn burst into a grievous wail.

“You just live for yourself!” cried Wendy, her eyes wandering the room. “And now you’ve upset Jocelyn!”

“I’m sorry,” repeated Tom, the blood draining from his face. “Let me take her.”

“No thank you,” said Wendy, rising and patting Jocelyn’s bottom too quickly, her long legs striding the room like manic scissors.

“We don’t have to talk about this, of course,” said Tom.

“No. No. No, I think not. Your family… Your whole family is most, most unsympathetic. I talk about some challenges in my marriage, and you seem to indicate that I am some sort of—a political prisoner. And manipulative to boot. No, I don’t think that that is very helpful at all, thank you very much! And now, Jocelyn needs her nap, so I think it is high time you left.”

Tom stood up, fear and regret at war in his heart. He apologized once more. She did not seem to hear. He left the room, and was walking out to his plane, when he suddenly got very angry. More angry than he could remember feeling in his adult life. He turned around and marched back to the house.

Wendy was upstairs, putting Jocelyn to bed. He watched her from the doorway. Her back was to him as she leant over the crib.

“I know you’re there, Tom,” she said, “but our conversation is over.”

“Wendy,” he said, with the quiet certainty of just anger, “you turned the tables on me just there, and I think that is wrong. You talk about how terrible it is that my brother does not let you be yourself, but when I shared my thoughts with you, you jumped up, enraged, and told me to leave.”

“And?” she asked. He could tell that she was finished with her daughter, but still would not turn around.

“And I think that that is very hypocritical. You can’t say that it hurts you when Reginald does it, then turn around and do it to me.”

“So I am a hypocrite now, as well?” she asked, her voice even and flat. “I cannot carry on this conversation with you while trying to put my daughter to sleep. And I think that we shall certainly say things which we cannot undo. So once more, I suggest that you leave.”

Tom stood in the doorway of the bedroom. He felt anger—no, rage—coursing through his system. It was almost unbearable. He felt that Wendy was taunting him with her turned back. He felt that, at the moment, she could watch him die without batting an eye. He said nothing.

Eventually—and it was a long, long time, she put her hand on her lower back, straightened and turned around. Her face was empty, her eyes cold.

“You shall push this beyond repair, Tom,” she said.

“I do want to help,” he replied.

“No. You want to hurt your brother.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“If you can destroy his marriage, so much the better for the flyboy bachelor. But we are not made of such frail stuff. It would take more than you to break us apart.”

He said nothing, continuing to hold her gaze.

“Yes?” she inquired archly.

Nothing.

“I’m sure that all this staring is having a great effect in your mind, Tom,” she said wearily, passing a hand in front of her eyes, “but really, you just look idiotic. Like a stunned rat.”

Still nothing. A tension rose in the room. Tom suddenly knew that Jocelyn was staring up at the ceiling from her crib, fully aware that something about her future was being determined.

“Oh, this is quite enough,” snapped Wendy. She walked up to Tom. He did not move from the doorway. She reached up and pushed against his chest. He stepped aside. She walked past him, and down the stairs. He took a deep breath, glanced at the silent crib, and then followed Wendy into the kitchen.

He knew that she was pleased that he had followed her—but also knew that she was pleased for the wrong reasons. Pleased because it was a melodramatic way to kill the afternoon—and because she would enjoy watching his twisted face shouting at her impervious defenses.

“Acceptance is not a virtue in the modern world,” he said. “And certainly not in my family. Not in yours either, I think. We are all managing each other, all the time. We like, we praise. We dislike, we condemn. And that’s all right, for the big things. I condemn the Nazis. But little things? How much sugar is in our tea? Who took the last biscuit? A fingerprint on glass? It’s all so foolish. We should enjoy each other, while we can. We shall not live forever…”

She snorted, to underline the obviousness of his thought, but he continued nonetheless:

“I am the only other person in the world who knows what it’s like to live with Reginald. That should be useful to you. I think that my brother has a terrible temper—and that he is an expert in getting other people to think that it is their fault if he is angry. It is not your job to manage his emotions. He has to experience for himself how angry he is. No one knows why it is. It is the great family mystery. We have given up trying to find the cause, just as we have given up trying to solve it. Look at how my mother interacts with him. Even after all this time, she’s still handling explosives. No one confronts my brother. Because he can kill people dead, in an instant, in his own mind.”

“Shut up,” whispered Wendy. She did not move.

“You cannot have a relationship with him if you comply with all his demands. That’s just appeasement. It’s not the same as being related. That requires mutual respect and negotiation. And you will not change. You cannot change who you are, Wendy! The only thing you can do is disown yourself. We cannot become different. We can only become—less!”

Tom’s voice was thick with passion. Wendy sniffed. She was curled up in a wooden chair, as if he were lashing her. A tear dropped onto the kitchen floor.

“So he will not change either!” she said, in a mixture of defiance and despair.

“He will, if he experiences that he is really, really angry! But you are shielding him from that, because you take the blame yourself. Why?”

“Oh, you know why!” she spat. Her shoulders shook; he could not tell whether from tension or tiny sobs.

“Why?”

“How successful have you been?”

Tom paused. She was quite right.

“And I cannot leave him. There was no indication of it before. But I have made my bed. Why keep pointing out that I have fucked up? What’s the goddamned point? It doesn’t help.”

L

Tom paused. Why am I pursuing this so hard? Then, the answer came to him.

“We both love Jocelyn,” he said. Wendy’s back stopped shaking. She was eerily still.

“My brother is speaking for all of us, in the world. If you appease him, how will he deal with Hitler?”

“Oh, God!” she cried, raising her face, her eyes pure poison. “You think that by compromising with him I am causing a war?” A ripple went through her frame. She smiled suddenly, and the poison left her eyes. It was replaced by pity, and Tom knew that his cause was lost. Pity is the greatest defense of all. “Tom, you are really too much. I just believe that you have overplayed your hand. You had a good cause up until then. I was really falling for it. The Great Raging Husband. But to think that I have some central effect on foreign policy if I try to be a little less irritating to my husband—well that is all just nonsense!” She uncurled her legs and stood up smoothly. “Please, let us kiss and make up, and talk of this no more.” She laughed. “It does you no credit to advance such foolish arguments—and does me even less to listen to them!”

Tom did not believe in psychic phenomenon. He did not believe that infants understand words. He did not believe that Jocelyn had any idea what was happening below her. Nonetheless, he felt a sick chill in his stomach when Jocelyn began crying upstairs, as if she could see beyond the ceiling, to the skies above, to a doom descending upon her fragile form.

Tom flew back to Hendon with a sunken heart. He smiled sadly as he buzzed through the great blue, imagining that his fuel needle should be swinging visibly, so great was the load of the plane. It’s like dragging a damn anchor, he thought.

After landing, he decided to go and sit in the shack for a little while, to let his thoughts wander and his soul settle.

Jacqueline was in there.

“Hullo, teach,” she said, glancing up from a textbook. “No class today. I checked the schedule.”

He smiled thinly.

“You look just about all done in,” she said, placing her thumb along the spine and closing the book. “What’s up?”

“I just… I went to go and visit my brother.”

She said nothing. She did not invite more details. She did not indicate that more details would be unwelcome. That made Tom very emotional.

“Really,” he said, “it’s not…”

“You can talk if you want. You can not talk if you want.” She smiled. “All that I ask is that you don’t dither.”

He smiled back, then took his chair out from behind his desk and placed it in front of her. He leaned on the wood of her little desk, his hands on his face, his cheeks riding up on his palms in little folds. “I feel less than dashing,” he said.

Jacqueline smiled. “It’s always a shame when such a well-cultivated garden goes to weed.”

Tom felt that she wanted to touch him. He wanted her to as well, but couldn’t imagine how that might come about. Instead, he said:

“I think that…” There will be a war? Don’t be like Wendy! Finish your sentences! “I think that my brother and sister-in-law are very unhappy.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s probable.”

“Hm?”

“Well—how many happy marriages do you know?”

“Not—not too many.”

“Statistically, it’s a terrible risk.”

“Well, they seem to have rolled snake eyes.”

“They have children?”

Tom nodded. “One.”

“Bad. What’s the matter?”

“He’s angry. She pacifies. It’s so…” Tom’s hands fell from his face and his fingers closed over bare air. “So…clogged. I can’t tell which way is up when I listen to her. It’s like a spiral with no exit.”

“Other people’s unhappiness…” she murmured.

“What? Sorry. Pardon?”

She brushed her hair back from her forehead. “Well, it’s the great mystery of life. The great problem. Other people are unhappy. People we care about. We know how to help them. They don’t want to be helped.”

“Right. What do you do?”

“Me?” Jacqueline smiled gently. “Everyone asks the question. No one likes the answer.”

“Tell me.”

“What do I do with people like that?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t answer that question,” she replied.

Tom’s face fell. “So…”

“I cannot answer that question because I don’t have anyone left in my life who is like that.”

There was a terrible pause. Tom’s eyes filled with tears. He nodded slowly. He suddenly wanted to kiss her.

“I know,” she said, putting her hand on his forearm.

Tom did not kiss her. They left their initial topic far behind, talked for quite some time about a variety of genial and forgettable subjects. Preferred music, dreams they never had the ability to pursue, movie stars they liked, loved and hated books, their most embarrassing moments…

It was pleasant, and easy—and Tom discovered several things, both about himself and about Jacqueline.

First and foremost, that he had been terribly lonely for the longest time. In fact, except for his time with Catherine, he could not think of a distinct time when he had not been lonely. It was all the worse because he had not felt it at the time. He had not felt it until the time he was talking so easily to Jacqueline.

Actually, there had been Hart. But Hart had been a more of an acolyte than an equal, so he was either deferring to Tom or trying to instruct him. While talking with Jacqueline, Tom realized that he really missed Hart, and decided to write to Oxford and invite him up to Hendon.

The other discovery that Tom made that afternoon, as the sun came down and he hesitated even to get up and turn on the light, so enjoyable was the talk, was that there were non-volatile people in the world.

He frowned to himself at the phrase, even as he listened to Jacqueline talk about how terrible she was at sketching, despite her love for it. ‘Non-volatile’ was a negative phrase, and the quality that she possessed was too important to be described in the negative. She just did not have some secret hidden agenda which caused her to constantly manipulate others. Everyone in his family, for certain, had this trait. Quentin had to score off Tom for reasons that neither were very clear on. Ruth had always had to keep Tom close by, to avert some disaster that neither of them could understand. And Reginald—ah, Reginald the obscure, the dancing fog, the greased, darting little fishy. God knew what he was up to most of the time. (Although, Tom reflected, it was probably not God who was in charge.) Wendy. Complain about her marriage, rail against solutions. A web of deceit. Klaus. Analyze the Nazis. Never take a stand against them. Tom frowned, suddenly realizing that it was quite possible—probable, perhaps—that Klaus had been sympathetic to the Nazis, if not in fact a Nazi himself, all along…

“You’re thinking about something else,” said Jacqueline.

Tom frowned. She was not resentful. She had just noticed.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Well?”

“Well?”

“Well what was it? If it’s even more fascinating than me, I should have a right to know what it is. I mean, what on earth could it possibly be?”

“I was thinking that you are not a very complicated person.” He laughed and shook his head. “All right. That was meant to be a compliment.”

“In comparison to what?”

“You mean, not complicated in comparison to what?”

She just looked at him,

“All right,” he smiled. “I’m stalling. I suppose—in relation to my family.”

“Hm,” Jacqueline said. She paused, then seemed to gather something within herself. “Well, I can’t say that I know your family, but I do believe that I am right in saying that, Mr. Spencer, it is probably true that you are quite an uncomplicated person, in comparison with your own family…” She took a deep breath. “I am known for my run-on sentences. They’re easier to write than say. A hand cramp is less nasty than running out of breath halfway through a thought.”

“Huh,” grunted Tom, turning the idea over in his mind. “Less complicated than my family. That’s not hard.”

“No,” she said. “At least, not in my mind. People are either complicated, or they are not. Your family is complicated, by all accounts. You are not. So you will always be at a loss.”

Tom smiled, then lowered his head a little.

“I do believe,” he said softly, “that the teacher has become the student.”

Once more, Jacqueline put her hand on his forearm. His throat thrumming with beating blood, he put his fingertips lightly on her knuckles, looking away, almost mad with joy.

“Well,” she murmured. “It’s about time!”

Chapter 50

After Tom left Germany, Klaus fell into a depression. He felt as if he were at the bottom of a deep pit, and his friend had just levitated to safety and light. And around him, large pincers were sliding out of a crumbling wall.

Tom had wondered about Klaus’s relationship to Nazism. Klaus wondered this as well. He did not respect reason as an absolute, and so was deeply, tragically susceptible to passion. When reason falls, whoever screams the loudest will rise. It is an iron law.

Klaus did not believe in the supremacy of objective reason, and so he had no choice but to take an anthropological and fate-based approach to his own society. What was ‘right’ was whatever happened. Nothing could be opposed in the face of passion. How could he question passion? With what faculty would he oppose it? More passion? But Klaus was an intellectual, and not given to screaming fits. If he proved that a Nazi’s reasoning was illogical, that meant nothing. Reason was not the essence of life. It was dry, analytic, illusory. It did not touch the heart of things. Only emotions were essential. Reason was an invention of man. Emotions were given by God, the World Spirit, the Essential Animal. Reason divided men. Only passion could unite. Reason was boring. Passion was pleasure! Human reason was limited, pointless. Individual emotions were the endless movements of the Collective Soul.

The rejection of reason also sped up the decision-making process. Rather than get tied down into endless chattering debate—as in the Weimar Republic—the most passionate voice would always win the day. And, to be frank (and this was always understood implicitly), if arguments got out of hand, violence could always resolve matters. And why not? A man willing to maim and kill for a course of action was clearly the most passionate, the most committed to it. And if he won the day, then certainly the World Spirit was behind him. Might was right. Actually, ‘right’ had ceased to exist. ‘Might’ just was.

Now when the terrors of competing tribes descend upon helpless humanity, all the oldest instincts come into play. When dangerous hordes roam the land, individuals begin casting about for a protective group. Klaus fervently hoped that it would not come to that. But things did not look good.

On the night of January 30, 1933, endless columns of torch-bearing Nazi Stormtroopers marched through all the major cities of Germany. They had two main missions in the months that followed: show their might, and destroy the führer’s enemies. They had pillaged the offices of the Socialist, Fascist, Nationalist, and Communist parties, and gathered the names of all members. After that, it was open season. On February 28, the parliamentary Reichstag was set on fire. The Nazis used the event as an excuse for the most bloody persecutions. Hermann Göring was in charge of the Prussian police, and he gave them the authority to shoot without consequences. He attached to the police thousands of young Nazis as Hilfspolizei (auxiliary police) and then pointed them at the Communists and Socialists. On March 2, Wilhelm Frick passed Schutzhaft (protective custody) which gave the police powers to imprison citizens without trial or cause, in the newly formed concentration camps. Hindenburg—then still the titular head of state—suspended civil liberties after the Reichstag fire. Citizens no longer had freedom of the press, of speech, of association, or protection from arbitrary arrest.

Groaning and screaming under a wave of political beatings, murders, and torture, one last German election was carried out under the bloodied remnants of the Weimar constitution. The Nazis barely held on to power. Even under the most brutal repression, the Social Democrats and the Communists returned 201 members to the Reichstag—although the Nazis prevented the Communist deputies from entering the building.

The final blows came quickly. On March 23, 1933, the Reichstag passed one of its last pieces of legislation—the Enabling Act—which gave the German Cabinet the right to pass laws on its own authority. By uniting the legislative and judicial branches of government, this Act was the final nail in the Weimar Constitution. From the Nazi standpoint, there was only one weakness in the Act—it became null and void if another political party took over. This loophole was quickly closed. By the end of June, there were no other functioning political parties in Germany. The leaders had been sent to concentration camps or murdered; the followers fled in fear for their lives. Nazi ‘Brown Houses’ were set up in the major cities; the followers of rival groups were dragged screaming through the streets, through its doors, from which few if any ever emerged again. On July 14, the Cabinet decreed that ‘there is only one political Party in Germany, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.’

The workers were ambiguous about this latest development. The Nazis did not attack them directly. Instead, their unions suffered grievously. On May 2, 1933, the Nazis entered their offices, confiscated all their property, and their leaders vanished under a squirt of propaganda portraying them as parasites feeding on the workers. But the workers had had only grudging respect for the unions anyway. As employment had fallen through the early 1930s, unions were no longer perceived as representing the ‘working man,’ but rather the ‘employed man.’ The unions had closed shops, artificially high wages, minimum standards of employment which excluded many, and sought to keep the wages of their own members high rather than agitate for the unemployed. So the passing of the unions was scarcely mourned by the majority of the working class. And the Nazis were promising full employment. They borrowed, pillaged, stole from the Jews and the rich, and already by mid-1933, great public works were underway—everything from road-building to land-drainage to feverish rearmament. The Nazi program was simple and effective. Enemies were pillaged and eliminated. The indifferent were bought off with the proceeds of the pillaging.

Klaus watched all of this with deep ambivalence. He knew that he was in great danger. The Nazis were rabidly anti-intellectual. This was odd, he knew, because they had received a great deal of their early support from university students and their professors. But, it could be supposed, they had needed the bafflegab of modern academic language to obscure their motives and aims. Now they had power, they no longer needed polysyllabic camouflage.

Klaus had been one of these men. He knew that. He had argued against reason and for the rule of emotion. He did not believe that the state was subject to any moral absolutes, because there were in fact no moral absolutes. Brute majority rule was the only possible legitimacy. (Well, he called it ‘national self-determination,’ but a fact was a fact.)

So he knew that he had been, in a tiny, tiny way, one of the roots which fed this unholy tree. And he also knew that he had been somewhat mistaken about unity.

Unity, for Klaus, had always been something organic, inevitable. When a country was united, it was under an orgiastic flag of agreement. Since the World Spirit was real, any country which it favored should join as one of its own accord. This all seemed natural and, well, inevitable.

As it turned out, this was not in fact how the World Spirit operated. The World Spirit, it seemed, was a tad more Darwinian.

Klaus watched all this with a growing sense of unease. But he could not accept the terror of his own words made real, so he buried his conscience under an avalanche of analytical insights and endless questions.

He found it fascinating that there appeared to be quite a few ‘World Spirits.’ The Jews had one. The capitalists had another. The socialists another. And the Marxists had yet another, although Klaus conceded that it seemed that the Marxist World Spirit was busy elsewhere—probably in Russia—because it seemed quite unable to afford any protection to the Marxists in Germany, who were cut down like ripe grain.

Everyone believed that they alone were right, and that negotiation was impossible. Thus, Klaus concluded, Hegel had been quite wrong in assuming the existence of only one World Spirit. It was possible, of course, that there was only one World Spirit, and that all the beliefs which contradicted it were False World Spirits, but that came perilously close to the ‘One-God-Many-Devils’ theology of his father, and so had to be dismissed forthwith.

No, there had to be many World Spirits—and yet the World Spirit was all about the unity of Mankind, so what could be happening?

Klaus mused over this for many days. He wandered the endless little roads around his father’s house, forever in awe of the ability of a landscape to absorb a dictatorship without change. All these trees are exactly the same as last year… And, finally, he came to a conclusion.

Somehow, the World Spirit, which started off in fragments, could only unite itself through the action of a country uniting itself. By eliminating opposition, the Nazis were eliminating contradictions within the World Spirit itself—and so were bringing about the unity of the World Spirit by uniting Germany!

This was a heady notion, and Klaus stood at a crossroads for upwards of half an hour going over it in his own mind. Unity was perfect, because the individual was nothing, and the group everything. Thus, if unity is perfect, then all those who oppose the group are imperfect. If unity is perfect, it must be perfectly good—thus those who oppose the group are evil, and must either join the group or be eliminated.

When all individuals are united under the group—in other words, when all individuals realize the truth, which is that they are not individuals at all—then, and only then, does the group actually reflect the World Spirit, which has become united through the group uniting itself.

Then, of course, the World Spirit can look beyond the borders of the initial country, the country of its first inhabitation…

But that was for another day’s thought. Klaus whistled as he walked, secure in the knowledge that he had finally understood the purpose of the world: the unity of all consciousness. The merging of All into One. The current divisions and violence were just the struggle of the social organism for self-unity. Those who opposed the group were like viruses in the bloodstream. They had to be either absorbed, or eliminated.

Individualism, Klaus thought, was really exactly the same as theft. Theft is taking the property of another. Since consciousness was in fact collective—just an attribute of the group—any individual who opposed the group was pretending that his own consciousness was not an attribute of the group. Since it in fact was, he was stealing from the group. It would be like claiming a corner of a public park as his own property. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Fundamentally—and dangerously—misinformed. Individuality was a primitive superstition. The world seemed flat to the foolish, but was in fact round. People looked separate to the uninitiated; they were, in point of fact, all but fragmented reflections of Essential One-ness.

The great problem of human society, Klaus thought as he wandered, was: Who shall speak for the One? The reasons of the One cannot be explained, only enforced. The purpose of the One is only available to a small group of initiates. It cannot be transferred, or explained to the masses, except through rank and emotional propaganda—the necessary ‘Great Lie’ described by both Plato and Hitler. The masses cannot obey what they cannot understand, and so leaders must translate their ‘higher ideals’ to simple allegorical fables. Lies.

There was, for Klaus, one essential reason behind the failure of the Weimar Republic. If all humanity was One, how could a divisive and argumentative democracy ever be considered a true reflection of Unity? It was a lower form of fact. An illusory truth, like the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave.

Yet why was compulsion so required? Why did it always have to be so brutal? Klaus shuddered as he walked. He had the aesthetic man’s horror of violence. It was all well and good to speak of Essential Unity and Eternal One-ness, but the abstract loveliness of such ideals always seemed to fall apart when the truncheons came down.

These thoughts just went round and round, and they occupied Klaus for many, many weeks. Hitler’s methods spoke more of a lust for power than any altruistic motives. However, to Klaus, Hitler’s works spoke more of altruism than his methods.

And anyway, if Hitler did not represent some sort of advance for the German cause, then how on earth had the World Spirit let him get into power?

And if Hitler was not in power, what the hell was Germany anyway? A collection of warring, self-obsessed groups, all looking to chisel the middle class to keep their own members in bread and beer? Was that all the nobility that the German soul could summon? Is that what Germany was to mean to the world? A bitter, self-warring, impotent democracy? Surely Germany had more to offer civilization than another version of France! Or England…

No, there had to be something more to life than bread and beer. Something higher. Something worth sacrificing the self for. And if there was something higher, then Klaus had to accept that there was an ultimate purpose to the world. And, if there was an ultimate purpose, then everything had to be unfolding as it should. Thus, Hitler had to be part of the Divine Plan. Klaus conceded that Hitler might not be the ultimate destination of the Divine Plan—indeed, in his heart, Klaus hoped that he was not—just as capitalism was a necessary path from feudalism to communism. A necessary evil.

Klaus stopped, catching himself. Well, that was entirely too narrow a view. It could not be called a ‘necessary evil’ if it lead to an Ultimate Good. A vaccination hurts, but it is not the same as being harmed. It hurts, but it protects. It is agony, but it is good.

Klaus went back and forth in his own mind about the reasons and manifestations of Nazism. Back and forth, and round and round. He could question anything—anything, except the existence of a Higher Realm, the World Spirit, and Ultimate Purpose. The possibility that Hitler was a thug who, through Klaus’s indifference and obfuscations, had seized the reins of power of the most advanced nation in central Europe, was far, far beyond his capacity of thought. That possibility resided in his individual conscience, and individualism was the greatest evil.

Martin had no such difficulties. Nazism was the final result of secular humanism. He blamed Klaus squarely and directly. Secular authority was what man turned to in the absence of religious faith. The absolute state was a petty substitute for God. Satan ruled the physical world—thus all rulers of the physical world were agents of Satan.

This was quite an odd perspective, because, as a Lutheran, Martin should have been greatly in favor of a dictatorship. He would have been, as well, except that the Nazis, from the very beginning, toyed with the elevation of Nazism to the status of a State Religion. Protestants, since they started out as a competitive alternative to Catholicism, have always been good at spotting potential rivals. The cult of Hitler—Hitler was considered to be perfect, infallible, almost omniscient, and a direct agent of the Divine—was clearly the sin of having false gods. Hitler himself said that his ascension to the throne of Germany, since it was so implausible, surely represented the will of God. No, in Martin’s view, one respected secular leaders as being placed there by God, but one did not confuse them with God Himself. You prayed to Almighty God. Not the priest.

Yet, the problem naturally arose: why did God allow Hitler to gain power? This was, actually, not much of a problem in Martin’s eyes. God allowed Hitler to gain power to punish Germans for the sin of democracy.

Democracy was a terrible, terrible sin. God did not care about votes. God did not leave questions of morality to the choice of each individual. God demanded unity and absolute obedience. God placed rulers over the people. Allowing the people to choose their rulers was like allowing people to vote on the existence of God. God always, always punished illusions. And His favored solution was to impose the opposite and make it absolute. ‘You think you can choose your own rulers?’ laughed God. ‘Very well. But just see what kind of ruler I shall allow you to choose!’ All decisions in the absence of faith were evil. Democracy was deciding without reference to the divine. And so—Hitler!

The summer of 1933 was very hot. Nothing seemed to happen in the country. There were endless reports in the two-weeks-delayed newspapers of dissension and crackdowns in the city, but in the country, everything was as it had been for centuries. Rural conformity bowed little to urban absolutism.

Klaus still went flying, but less. The blue-uniformed men of the ‘Air Sport Federation’ had, with the ascension of Hitler, given up their pretensions, and openly declared their motives. Germany needed an air force for protection. Germany was forever being encircled by her enemies. Soviet Russia could attack at any time. The twentieth century was to be a war between the Slavic and Aryan peoples. Or between the Jewish and Christian peoples. Or collectivism and individualism. Be armed. Be wary! Be ready!

Klaus felt vaguely hurt that they had not tried to enlist him. He did not know how he would react to any such overtures. Part of him yearned to merge into the newest and greatest group. To throw himself into the herd of blue uniforms, like casting his dissolving self into the sea… Oh, what rapture! What a cessation of conflict and wondering! ’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished…

But something held him back. He lay awake nightly, throughout June, wondering just what it was. It had something to do with his role as an observer. He imagined that the glory of something depended in part on the sophistication of the viewer. Someone who loved classical music was the best person to listen to it—in fact, the beauty of a composition would be entirely lost if it were played to fools who preferred a swig and a fiddle. So the beauty of the collective was lessened if no one remained who could see it for what it was, who could compare it with its opposite. And this view was not available from the inside. The beauty of submission could not be felt by someone who had submitted, for complete submission meant to forget about the opposite, and so there could be no contrast…

And he feared it, as well. Klaus lied to himself well, but not completely, which is, after all, impossible. He could not erase reality. He could paint a corpse in pretty colors, but he could not bring it back to life. He could convince himself of anything, but he could never stop the need to keep convincing himself. Klaus stayed in the country partly because he knew that to go to the city would be to end all of his illusions. His lovely, silvery, abstract World Spirit would be revealed for what it was—a belligerent savage, striding the streets with blank, suspicious eyes and a heavy club…

So he stayed with his family, and he flew on occasion, and he walked and wondered and wove and repaired all the nets required to keep his crumbling soul whole.

Until the night that ended both restraint and illusion. Until all his past words returned in jackboots.

Until June 30, 1934.

Until the Night of the Long Knives.

Klaus was at the aerodrome, working on Count Orsky’s glider. Lately, he had noticed, it had been pulling to the right, and so he was deep in the rear of the fuselage, checking the tension of the cables controlling the rudders in the tail. He loved physical work of this kind. It muted the endless chatter of his inner debates. It was easier to repair a rudder than fix Germany.

As the afternoon waned into early evening, the light began to dim. Klaus thought he had found the problem, and was deciding whether to try and fix it quickly, or to go and get a lamp, then come back and take his time.

He had just decided to work as quickly as he could, with the light that was available—based on the reasoning that any decision he put off would be made anyway by the onrushing darkness—when a man’s voice called him from behind.

“Klaus Heppner!”

Damn it! thought Klaus. That goddamned German voice of imperious command! He sighed—very softly—and turned around to face the voice.

A group of seven blue-uniformed pilots stood in a semicircle around the rear of the glider. Their buttons glimmered faintly in the twilight. Their eyes were shadowed. For some reason, they looked vaguely Druidic.

“Klaus Heppner!” grinned a tall man in the center of the semicircle. Klaus tried to remember his name. “Klaus Heppner, come down here and talk to us!”

Klaus stepped down from the fuselage, then stood, his hands clasped behind him, touching the top of his buttocks.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked.

“Join us!” cried the man, his grin widening. “For dinner!”

“I am expected at home,” said Klaus. “But that is very kind.”

“Home is obsolete,” said another man.

“Please,” said the first man. “You will not be missed for just one night. A young man should be out with other men.”

“I have brought no money.”

“This is on us. Brother to brother.”

There was a pause. Klaus felt a strange lassitude enter his very bones. His eyes seemed to lose their focus. He nodded slowly.

They drove in two very new cars into the little town about ten miles beyond the aerodrome, in the opposite direction from Klaus’s home. He thought, wedged between two pilots, that every bounce was pulling him further and further away.

The little Bavarian restaurant was crowded, but the pilots got seats right away. There was a terrific flurry of activity when they entered; the crowd seemed to part before them, and a hastily abandoned table was made ready for them as they approached it.

As they sat down, Klaus remembered the tall pilot’s name: Jorgen!

The pilots ordered beer and sausages, and made many jokes about each other’s ability. They had an easy camaraderie, but Klaus did not imagine that it would be safe for him to criticize their skills, so he refrained from joining in the banter.

After about fifteen minutes, Jorgen raised his beer stein. Klaus lowered his head, panicking, wondering just why, in all of his moral ramblings and questioning, he had never thought of how he might respond to this rather simple—and predictable—predicament. He also cursed himself, silently and violently, because he realized that he had put himself into just this position by constantly returning to the aerodrome. I put myself here, yet did nothing to prepare!

“Heil Hitler!” cried Jorgen.

The entire restaurant resounded with one echoing cheer. Klaus jerked his stein up and mumbled ‘Heil Spirit,’ hoping that the movement of his lips might be close enough. To his relief, neither Jorgen nor the other pilots glanced at him, and the steins returned to the table.

Then, the talk turned to the new monoplane fighters.

“This Willy Messerschmitt is a genius!” cried Jorgen, wiping foam from his upper lip. “These new monoplanes will revolutionize war! Top speeds over four hundred miles an hour. Twelve cylinder, liquid-cooled engines! The fool English with their Rolls-Royce Merlin engines! They sit upright and are aspirated with a carburetor! You put them in a dive, the damn engine loses fuel flow and stops dead! Old Willy, he’s a smart one. The new 109s have Daimler-Benz engines which sit upside down and use petrol-injection. There is no human way to stop the flow of petrol to that engine. You get a Spitfire on your tail, you just go into a dive! Boom! Gone!”

Another man grunted. “I heard the damn wings come off in a dive.”

“What, the 109s?” demanded Jorgen, his face hardening. “That’s a dangerous statement, brother.”

“Just what I heard, Jorgen. Easy!”

“I heard,” said another man, “that the petrol tank was in an L shape around the pilot. One blast, and you’re up in flames!”

“It’s armor-plated!” snarled Jorgen. “You think they are such idiots?”

“I also heard,” said another man, “that the Hurricanes and Spitfires can out-turn the 109.”

“You are all goddamned fools!” shouted Jorgen. “Early days. Early testing! Even if this all turns out to be true, let us not forget that, when the time comes, we shall have had five more years experience than the French! We’ll be put in the line of fire somewhere. Göring will see to that. And that will count more than a little tactical advantage here and there. And to speak of such cowardly things—on tonight of all nights!”

The other pilots all vied to undo whatever offense Jorgen thought they had committed.

“I said these things to make us stronger!”

“Where would Willy be without our feedback?”

“We’ll beat them faster with greater knowledge!”

Jorgen absorbed their desperate cries and begging eyes with a slow, smug smile. Then, he turned to Klaus.

“And Klaus—have you ever flown a powered monoplane?”

Klaus shook his head. “Well, once. But I prefer gliders.”

The pilot sitting next to him jabbed him in the ribs.

“That’s good too, for getting behind enemy lines without a sound… Whoosssh!” he hissed, landing his flat hand on the tablecloth.

“Yes, but how long do you think the glider will last with an enemy monoplane around?” demanded Jorgen.

“We’ll protect him while he delivers the paratroopers, won’t we brothers?” laughed the man.

The steins rose once more.

“Heil Hitler!”

The restaurant—which Klaus had noticed was emptying slowly, almost imperceptibly—returned the cheer with great gusto and shining eyes.

Jorgen turned to Klaus.

“You don’t say it,” he said. “I don’t know what you are saying.”

Klaus froze, his eyes wide. Do I tell them about the World Spirit? He thought not.

Jorgen glanced at the other pilots, and they all laughed as one. Jorgen inclined his head towards Klaus, smiling gently.

“It does not matter,” he murmured, barely audible. “You shall say it before the cock crows.”

After dinner—and a lot of beer—they went outside. The June evening was hot; the skies were clear and dark; the stars bright. Klaus stood beside one of the cars, and suddenly wanted to hold out his arms and spin and spin, until he collapsed.

Jorgen helped him rather aggressively into the car, then took the wheel.

They drove back towards the aerodrome in silence. It was the over-sober silence of drunks working up their courage. If Klaus had been seated by a door, he imagined that he would be quite likely to open it, roll out, and make for the fields, the borders, a safe foreign haven. But he was jammed between two sweaty pilots, and could feel the right-slung revolver of the man on his left jabbing into his own thigh as the car bounced.

I might, he thought, when this night is over, have preferred to have this gun go off into my groin rather than face what is to come…

When they pulled into the driveway of Count Orsky’s mansion, Klaus gazed at the forbidding stone structure with a sense of terrifying inevitability. He thought of his mother, and wondered for a moment why he hadn’t ever told her about Count Orsky. ‘There is a man near here with the most interesting collection of carvings from the time of the Black Death.’ But she probably knew all about him, of course. But he had never been spoken of in their house. And now here he was.

When he was pulled out of the car, Klaus noticed that everyone was moving smoothly. Coming out of the door, his cheek scraped roughly against the wool of a pilot’s blue uniform, and he recalled how his mother had scrubbed his own flesh raw, all those years ago, and he suddenly had the urge to break into a sprint. With a sudden lurch, he thought of Tom, and pictured never seeing him again.

Jorgen ran up the front steps, and then turned at the top and gestured silently for the others to follow him. A man grabbed Klaus’s forearm and, to avoid the ignominy of being pulled up the steps, Klaus ran up as well.

The front door was unlocked. Jorgen opened it, and the men swarmed through.

Inside, they found Count Orsky in the sitting room. He was dressed in a dark red smoking jacket, tight black trousers, and was smoking a cigarette through an absurdly long holder. He smiled when the men burst in on him.

“Jorgen!” he cried, rising smoothly to meet them. “I didn’t hear the airplanes—have you come from the aerodrome?”

Jorgen did not reply.

“Practicing a bit of night flying?” asked the Count, smiling and extending his hand.

Jorgen reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a sheet of soft, vellum paper. In the dim light, he squinted at it.

“Do you need more light?” asked the Count. “Gentlemen? Something to drink?”

“Sit down, Count Orsky!” commanded Jorgen, his voice shredding the syllables like cheese through a grater.

“But I have been sitting all afternoon!” replied the Count, his face almost comically surprised. Then he shrugged. “All right, if you want to play the…” He sat.

Jorgen read from the paper. “Count Orsky, you have been charged with high crimes against the Führer. It is so charged that you joined, in 1922, the German Fascist Party. No information has been recorded as to the termination of your membership, and so it has been decreed that you are still a member of that party. Since you have not informed any representatives of the Nazi Party that you have terminated said membership, you are found guilty of belonging to an anti-German political group.”

“Wait a moment!” cried Count Orsky. “What are you saying? That I am a fascist? What kind of fool do you think I am? Have I not bought ten airplanes for the Nazi Party? Have I not been a regular contributor? Jesus Christ—I have bled myself white for you bastards!”

“Do you admit to joining the Fascist party in 1922?” demanded Jorgen, not looking up from his paper.

“Sure. Me and about fifty thousand other Germans, after the war—in which I served with distinction, unlike you louts, who were just out of your fucking diapers! But I haven’t had anything to do with the Fascists for almost ten years!” He jumped up, clicked his heels, and raised his hand smartly. “Heil Hitler!”

“Sit down!” screamed Jorgen. “I can’t read this fucking thing. Klaus!”

Klaus tried to shrink back, but rough arms pushed him forward.

“You’ve got a goddamned Englander degree,” said Jorgen, thrusting the paper at him. “Read the rest of this thing.”

“I am not really political.”

“This is not politics. Shut up and read!” said Jorgen, unclasping the holster of his revolver.

Klaus took the paper and took two steps towards the seated Count. He seemed to be walking on an unstable cloud. He stared down at the paper, gray in the dim light. He searched for the place where Jorgen had left off.

“Come on!” shouted one of the men behind him.

“Look,” said the Count wearily. “Don’t pretend any kind of legality with me. Just—do what you have come to do. Loot and pillage. You want money? I’ll write you a check. Any amount. Just don’t—insult my intelligence.”

Jorgen leapt forward and raised his hand. The Count shrieked, cowering back in his armchair. “All right!” he whimpered. “All right!”

Jorgen laughed contemptuously, then whirled on Klaus. “Read!”

Klaus swallowed, but he had no saliva. None.

“The sentence for said activities is death,” he croaked. That was it. He turned the paper over. Nothing. Just an official stamp of some kind.

“What, that’s it?” said Jorgen in exasperation. “I could have done that!”

Count Orsky blinked, straining visibly to absorb his sentence. “What, you’re going to shoot me? Why? I’m—I’m much more useful alive. You can’t get… I have contacts!” he screamed, as Jorgen hauled him off the armchair. The Count’s legs went limp. His arms groped up towards Jorgen’s set face.

“I have contacts! I—I will… What—I taught you how to fly!”

Jorgen pulled out his revolver. Klaus closed his eyes. The blackness was no refuge, but he could at least hope to escape the visual memory of murder. Then, he half-smiled to himself. Murder… How strange; he is only an individual…

There was a pause. Klaus dared not open his eyes. There was a slight scuffle. Count Orsky panted.

“Shoot him,” said a voice, all too close. Klaus closed his eyelids tighter. A hand closed over his jaw, and he opened his eyes. Jorgen was standing before him, staring into his face.

“Shoot him,” he repeated, his voice flat.

Klaus frowned. What on earth could he mean?

“Give me your gun,” said Jorgen, to a man behind Klaus. Jorgen took it, then pressed his revolver into Klaus’s limp right hand.

I’m left-handed, thought Klaus, transferring the gun from one hand to the other. He rocked on his feet, feeling that the floor was yawing, like the hold of a sinking ship…

Jorgen yanked Klaus forward and spun him around. He put his left arm around Klaus’s sagging shoulders, and then raised his gun to Klaus’s temple.

“Shoot him,” said Jorgen.

Another man spoke impatiently. “Jorgen, don’t be a bastard!”

Another said: “We’re wasting time. We have four more to do tonight.”

Jorgen cocked his revolver. Klaus felt the click shudder through his whole frame.

He glanced down. His left hand was rising. He watched his thumb cock the gun.

His eyes rose. Count Orsky was on his knees, about ten feet away, his eyes wide. Klaus took a step forward. The room swayed. Jorgen held Klaus’s shoulder tighter.

“Come on,” he whispered, almost tenderly. “It’s only a moment.”

Klaus suddenly thought of Count Orsky’s macabre collection of ancient carvings. What sort of man collects such things?

A distant spasm ran through his body, like an outpouring of numbing, blessed venom.

Klaus did not aim. He pulled the trigger.

There was a little click in his hand. Then, another little click by his temple.

Count Orsky fell forward, clutching his stomach.

A chorus of giggles ran around the room, like a pack of baying banshees.

Count Orsky looked up, his face distorted in mirth.

“Christ, Klaus!” he giggled. “After all my hospitality! Clean and maintain my glider, young man—then be sure to tootle up to my house afterwards and shoot me in the face!”

“Look, are we done now?” asked Jorgen impatiently.

“Oh, yes!” gasped Count Orsky, wriggling in delight.

“We really do have four to do tonight.”

“Do you mind if I keep young Klaus here?” asked the Count, slowly getting to his feet.

“Be our guest,” scowled Jorgen, taking the gun from Klaus’s hand. “Fat lot of good he’d do us anyway. What you see in these intellectuals is beyond me.”

Count Orsky smiled at him. “But that is why I give the orders, and you pull the trigger, Jorgen. Because you don’t see the value of someone like Klaus. Heil Hitler!”

The men returned his salute, then turned on their heels and left.

Klaus stood in the middle of the room. He thought of the street riot in England, only a few years ago, and had no idea how to connect that world to this one. The next page of his days was never supposed to have this picture.

“Please,” murmured the Count, taking his hand. Klaus did not move. “Come on—sit down. I don’t want you toppling over now.”

Klaus allowed himself to be led over to a loveseat. Count Orsky went to the bar and poured him a drink. Klaus gulped it down greedily. When he looked up, the Count stood over him, his gentle eyes examining him.

“Another?”

Klaus shook his head. He did not know where to put his glass.

“I don’t think you’ll ever be a killer,” said the Count, taking it from him and returning it to the bar. “Which makes what you did all the more fantastic! I didn’t think you had it in you. Jorgen said: ‘If you’re so sure, leave bullets in the gun!’ But I don’t gamble that way. The Führer would be most upset if I let my vanity get the better of me. But you did it!” Count Orsky laughed, pounding his fist on the bar three times. “And that is wonderful!”

“What—did you want me to do?” asked Klaus. His saliva suddenly returned—by the bucketful it seemed—and he felt a rolling, ghastly nausea.

“Please,” cried the Count, striding towards him. “Don’t spoil it by being sick. Not now that you have become perfect!”

Klaus ducked his head between his legs, taking deep gulps of air. Somehow, he dodged the vomit.

“Can I go?” he asked.

Count Orsky squatted in front on him. He touched Klaus’s forehead. “In a minute. Why are you not a Nazi?”

Klaus jerked his head up. “Why…”

Count Orsky smiled. “Well, it’s a sensible question, isn’t it? You are a Hegelian. A subjectivist. A relativist. You don’t believe in absolute morals. Or reality. You believe that whichever social entity reigns supreme is the one chosen by the—oh, what are they calling it these days? The Social Absolute? Historical Necessity?”

“The World Spirit…”

“Oh no !” laughed Count Orsky, rocking back on his heels, clapping his hands in front of his body. “Oh no, that’s what they were calling it when I was your age—and for many years before that. I’m sure it’s something else now. Not that it matters. That is what you believe, isn’t it?”

“Ye-es.”

Count Orsky stood up, then pulled over his armchair and sat down opposite Klaus. He stared at the young man for a long, long time.

“So—why are you not a Nazi?” he asked finally.

“Why—would I be?”

“Because we have won,” said the Count gently. “I could understand having reservations while we were still struggling. I mean, the World Spirit could have thrown its weight behind that abortion of a Republic, right? But you are an empirical man. We have won. After tonight, there will be no one left to oppose us. Yet still—you join nothing. You commit to nothing! Why?”

“Why…”

“Why do you hold aloof from what you love? You hold these truths to be self-evident.” Count Orsky smiled, obviously relishing the reference to the Declaration of Independence. “I can’t understand men like you. What is the point of having all these ideas if you recoil from their embodiment?” His voice dropped into a tender whisper. “You called and called. Did you really think we would not come?”

“I…” Klaus hesitated, terror in his eyes.

The Count waved his hand. “It’s all right. We can let one go. Speak.”

“I don’t like this embodiment.”

“Hm. Why not?”

Because I would never be forced to shoot you in England, thought Klaus, but held his tongue.

“You are afraid of me. You cannot speak your mind. But you must. We are most indebted to you. The Führer does not pay these debts. I do. I think we must. If it was people like you who got us here, then you could remove us, as well, if you chose. I don’t mean you, per se, but people like you.” Count Orsky changed his mind, musing on. “But perhaps you. Per se.”

“I am—responsible for this…”

Count Orsky laughed. “Now that was a delicate statement. Poised so perfectly halfway between a question and an answer. As is Germany. No, that is facetious. The question was the Republic. We are the answer. And now you wonder if by ‘we’ I mean just the Nazis—or you and I—‘I’ meaning the Nazis. Are you part of the ‘we’? It is the eternal question. Or was, until January 30, 1933. The dawn. Not of a new age. An old age, but with new tools.” He shook his head self-deprecatingly. “God, how petty I am! How in love with the sound of my own voice. Were I not born a Count, I should have been a lawyer. I feel certain of it.”

“Why did you stage—this shooting business?”

“Though it is rude to answer a question with a question, I must. It will become clear. When did you first know I was a Nazi?”

“I… When Jorgen left.”

“What, tonight?” Count Orsky stared at him with genuine incredulity—and then burst into a roar of laughter. “Oh, God! Freud was right! Men know not what they do! Do you really think so?”

“Yes,” whispered Klaus.

“I am here, collecting the art of the Plague, funding pilots, buying them airplanes and uniforms. What did you think?”

“You were a flying enthusiast…”

Count Orsky nodded slowly. “Wonderful… You thought I was an eccentric.”

Klaus shrugged limply.

“Because I have no banners. No swastikas. But banners are not for us. Not for men of the mind. They are for the sheep beyond our doors. Those who scream for the Führer and pray to his image. I have often wondered if the men in the Vatican really believe in God, all the way, in the manner of the Polish peasant they rule. It would be gruesome if they did…” He stopped, lost in some reverie. “No, there is no real point theorizing. Now, you must join us.”

“Yes. Yes, I know what this is all about. I do not think I am really worth all this effort.”

“No. No, probably not. But I do love the hunt. It may be only a little fox—but still, we release the hounds! You should know that, from your time in England.”

Klaus felt his pulse begin to throb. “It… Is that it? Because I know about England?”

“We do not care about England. We respect the Empire. We shall leave them be, as the remnants of a noble race. We have much in common. They educated you. I just… I just wonder, what would happen to the English Marxists, if they were all herded into Russia. Would they still love their ideas? Under Stalin?” Count Orsky laughed. “It is… I can’t imagine what they might say. In their concentration camps. It is always the same story. ‘But this is not what I imagined!’ they cry to Stalin. Stalin replies: ‘No, no! Do not leave your theories in the lurch. This is exactly what you imagined!’”

“The World Spirit…”

“I do so like to imagine how these conversion conversations will go. I have tried the challenge from many angles. But it is so simple. Everything more than my first words is pure overkill. Are you ready?”

Klaus raised his eyes and stared into the cold lenses of Count Orsky’s gaze. For a moment, the Count was moved. He saw a young man gathering all of his courage. Not to resist, but to accede. Not to run or fight, but bow and merge. Count Orsky always found this moment achingly, poignantly sad. It was not the destruction of another young man. That was not quite it. It was that this destruction was not of the young man, but of them both. Count Orsky always wanted to have a great fight on his hands. A mortal struggle, a battle to the death. Something which would tax him within an inch of his life. But he never did. And this was why:

“We, the Nazis, Klaus, have won. We are in full control of Germany. Do you accept this?”

Klaus remembered that he had almost become a murderer this evening. He nodded.

“Germany is more unified under us than it was under the Republic. Do you accept this?”

Klaus paused, and Count Orsky’s voice became sharp.

“I do not care about your view of the aesthetics of the situation. There is one Party. One law. One leader. Do you accept this?”

“Yes…”

“Then do you accept that Germany is more united now than before?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that history is the natural unfolding of a Universal Will?”

“Yes.”

“And that nothing can occur which is not sanctioned by that Universal Will?”

“Yes.”

“Thus everything which comes to pass is an improvement on what came before. Do you accept this?”

“It is inevitable…” whispered Klaus. He held Count Orsky’s eyes without blinking.

The older man leaned forward. “Do you believe that an individual can oppose this Universal Will?”

“Yes…”

“Under what conditions?”

“If he is chosen by the Universal Will to lead…mankind. Into the future.”

“Now would you say that the man chosen by the Universal Will to lead mankind into the future can be compelled into doing something which he does not want to do by others?”

Klaus paused.

“Have courage!” snapped Count Orsky, his glittering eyes narrowing. “Can the man who is the embodiment of the Universal Will be coerced by others?”

“No…”

“Did you want to shoot me?”

Klaus closed his eyes, but only for a brief moment.

“Did you want to shoot me?” repeated the Count, more softly.

Something within Klaus seemed to sink back into itself, like a house of cards held aloft by pure will alone. “No. No, of course not.”

“Thus you cannot be the representative of the Universal Will.”

Klaus smiled. “No. I am not.”

“Thus those who control society, who unify a people, and who cannot be coerced—must be the representatives of the Universal Will. True, or false?”

Klaus smiled even wider. It was, really, so simple! “True. And please, don’t think you have to lead me the rest of the way.”

Count Orsky closed his eyes. Pain was in his drawn brows; pleasure in his loose mouth.

“What do you want from me?”

“Two things,” said the Count, opening his eyes. “First, you must tell us everything you know about England. Its people, habits, thoughts. A friend of yours works in the Foreign Office. That is important. And second, you must train our pilots.”

Klaus nodded. “You could have forced me to do these things.”

Count Orsky shook his head. His eyes were glittering, but from tears, not malice.

“Your acceptance has been the will of God. No sensible man opposes the inevitable. The rejection of reality is one of the basic signs of mental illness.”

“You wanted me to fight more.”

“I did, but that would have been disappointing as well. You could only have fought me by renouncing your deepest beliefs. A man who casts away what he loves because he is threatened is as disappointing as one who stays true to himself, and joins us without a struggle.”

I have a friend who could fight you, thought Klaus for a moment, thinking of Tom. But he could not imagine Tom ending up in this room.

“So,” said Klaus, standing up abruptly in the red room, his young body alive with energy. “Now that the deed is done, can we light a fire in this goddamned place?”

Chapter 51

Tom stared at Jacqueline as she slept.

I have always been a blubberer, he thought. So, why on earth am I not crying now?

The answer was not long in coming.

Because you have been weak, Tommy…

He nodded slowly. He could barely see her face in the dim, pre-dawn light. Her dark hair was a perfect black; her cheek a faint haze of gray. He wondered just what she was dreaming about. She could be flying in her mind, but is still to me…

A violent wave of sexual desire rocked his body. Tom remembered every detail of the night before. A great mystery had been solved for him.

For as long as he could remember, he had wondered about the moment of Sexual Will. The women he had bedded in university had all been conquests of one kind or another. They had been blinded by his athletic prowess or good looks. They had felt honored to be going out with him. But still, at the end of every evening, he had felt the moment of Sexual Will, where he had made the decisive move which would result in either acceptance or rejection. Most times, it was acceptance. Nonetheless, it was still a frightening moment, when he let his fingertips tickle a woman’s ear in a motion-picture house, or let his lips rest on the little depression between one of her knuckles.

None of that had happened with Jacqueline.

Tom had missed the company of women. He had been so damn polarized in his youth, between Catherine and his mother (and it did not escape his attention that he generally thought of them in that sequence: ‘Catherine and his mother’)—that he either bedded pretty women, or was fast friends with plain ones. The concept of ‘sexy female friend’ was rather beyond him.

Tom’s womanizing—which had been fairly extensive, but not compulsive—had left him sated but unsatisfied. To his great discredit, he had been rather blasé about it at times. “One enjoys a great meal,” he said, once to Hart. “One does not marry the chef.” (This had been rather cruel to Hart, who had no idea, so to speak, how to even get to the restaurant district.) He felt physical excitement, the thrill of the explorer trekking across new flesh, and truly enjoyed displaying his sexual prowess. He loved the little sighs and coos of surprise he was able to wring from a woman. He loved undermining their prudery with unprecedented licking and unknown angles. In bed, as in life, Tom was a sportsman to the hilt.

But last night had been something quite different. The moment of Sexual Will had, he realized in hindsight, actually been Jacqueline’s. She had put her hand on his forearm twice, and had consciously applauded his return of her caress.

He had wanted to kiss her all at once, to forestall something, if felt. But he had sensed that whatever his rush of desire wanted to forestall was a good thing, which should be experienced. So he continued to talk and listen to her, and something began to mount in his chest. Some sort of wonderful floating spiritual thing which was utterly beyond the flesh. Not alien to it—just beyond it. The body is the pedestal whose base goes to the center of the world. Love is the statue which reaches beyond the sky…

And the delicacy of everything that was being said was exciting beyond words. Every syllable was made of silk, and rippled over the hairs on his flesh, drawing goosebumps under its tickling passage.

And, to his eternal shame, he forgot about the coming war.

This was why he could not cry, although he felt a kind of resting pleasure throughout his whole body which was both unknown and unsuspected.

I am being unfaithful, he thought, shaking his head slowly, unable to stop staring at Jacqueline’s still, lovely face. I am engaged to be married, in a few years or so, and my bride-to-be is most dark, most possessive. She will allow no other…

But a part of himself which he had always referred to as ‘Weasel-Tom’ kept throwing up cowardly possibilities.

So, if you have a few years, and want to live life as richly as possible, take her deep into your heart and keep her there, and stall, as only you know how, and say: ‘we cannot get married as yet, not quite yet…’ And keep this up for three years or so, until 1937, say—and then get married, by all means, your Black Bride will not begrudge you a first marriage, as long as She is your last… And then, after you are married, you can stall about having children—because to have children would be beyond cowardly. You only need two or three years. You are twenty-four. You just have to make it to twenty-nine. Not such a great distance. Not such a great distance. Then you will know. Then you will know.

Tom shook his head. Whenever ‘Weasel-Tom’ began to repeat himself, it was because his certainty was fading.

As he watched, Jacqueline stirred in her sleep, emitting a deep, whistling sigh.

No. I have been greedy, and now we shall both pay. And I shall pay all the more, as it should be. For I know that I am engaged. She does not know that I am engaged. Or, he thought with a sudden shudder, that she is also engaged…

And it was that thought that broke him. For the briefest flickering, he saw Jacqueline’s skeleton through her skin and exposed arm. His propped elbow seemed to give way, and he sank onto his back, closing his eyes tightly.

A distant rumble of thunder echoed across the cold gray sky. Thunder without rain. Tom had a sudden, strong memory of lying with Reginald on the grass over the white cliffs of Dover, long, long ago. They were blowing blades of grass between the balls of their thumbs. It was very hot. Thunder had come from across the sea. The boys had stared up, straining to see the flashes, where their father walked, but the light was too bright.

Chapter 52

The news lit up the face of Europe in a garish flash, like a photograph taken from space. Hitler allowed the world to read its future from the palm of his hand. His red, dripping hand.

The Night of the Long Knives. June 30, 1934.

In a single night, Hitler murdered all of the top men in the SA—including Ernst Röhm, its leader, and Hitler’s close personal confidante and friend. His crime? He had been seen speaking to the French Ambassador.

Hitler demonstrated the length and virulence of his memory for personal insult. Von Schleicher, the man who had preceded Hitler as chancellor, was killed in his bed. Hitler also restored the ancient tradition of ending not only the life of an enemy, but his bloodline as well. Wives and children were slaughtered. No witnesses, no chance of retaliation. The message was clear.

Hitler referred to this as the ‘Röhm Revolt,’ which could have been instructive. To murder enemies in their beds, and then claim it as self-defense, might have given Western statesmen pause. Most of them had read Mein Kampf. Hitler had advocated political murder in its pages. Now he was demonstrating that he did not shrink from putting his ideas into practice.

The news hit the Foreign Office like a thunderbolt. Reginald was in a frenzy. Even Cuthbert was almost roused.

A number of the men had been summoned by telephone to a dawn meeting at Whitehall, to discuss strategy.

Cuthbert set the tone. Many of those around the table took great comfort in his pedantic, hypnotic tone.

“We have been pitched a wild ball, which is more common in this business than many of you young men realize. One does not earn one’s paycheck by negotiating with reasonable men. This much can be achieved by shopkeepers. The great challenge of this office is to negotiate with unreasonable men. This is our task. We welcome this surprising move by Herr Hitler, for it gives us the chance to truly earn our daily bread.

“Now, the policy of this Foreign Office is that we shall find out what Hitler wants, within reason, and then endeavor to give it to him. This has not been a hard policy to sell, since the alternative is to oppose him out of hand, which we have neither the strength nor will to do. ‘We’ being the French and ourselves, of course.

“The regrettable excesses of last night do not help our cause, but they do not destroy it either. The gravest danger that England now faces is that the public might perceive that Hitler is mad, and thus cannot be negotiated with.

“This cannot be true. A madman would set his armies on forests, or to fight the sea. Hitler has not done this. His actions are monstrous, of course, to our way of thinking, but they are far from insane. In one decisive night, he has struck down any possibility of a counterrevolution. If only the Mensheviks had possessed this man’s will, all might be different in Russia today.”

Cuthbert took a deep, cavernous breath. His face, always tired, looked almost inhumanly exhausted at this time of day. “Be that as it may,” he said, “we must manage the British public’s perception of this event, and we must do it now. I have placed several calls in to British newspapers, and have managed to moderate the editorials for the morning editions. However, we must meet with them face-to-face for the afternoon editions, by which time they shall have had the opportunity to compose themselves.”

Cuthbert seemed to run quite out of steam at this point. He yawned. “I remain open to suggestions…”

Reginald raised his hand.

“What, do you have to pee, Spencer?” asked Cuthbert. “Just speak.”

“Sorry,” said Reginald. “This is my first meeting… I believe that we should take a three-pronged approach. First of all, the lexicon of this event must point towards an extremity, not a polarization.”

“English, English!” snapped Cuthbert.

“We must characterize Hitler’s actions as ‘extreme.’ I think, with all due respect, sir, that the term ‘regrettable’ is not strong enough.”

Reginald paused, to gauge Cuthbert’s reaction. It was unreadable. He plunged on.

“So we use the language of ‘excess,’ as we would characterize a drinking binge. A man drinks to excess—this includes the fact that drinking to moderation is acceptable. So Hitler acted in excess.”

Reginald could not stand to try and decipher the mood in the room. He continued, his vision swimming in panic.

“The second prong is that we should use terms to describe Hitler’s actions in ways which could be interpreted as positive. ‘Tough-minded.’ Er—‘Resolute.’ ‘Absolutist.’ Erm—‘Decisive.’ That sort of thing.

“The third is that we must condemn the actions… That is risky, I know, but we have to retain our moral legitimacy. We condemn the actions—‘in the strongest possible terms,’ we can say, without ever saying what those terms are. Or—identifying the specific actions.”

Cuthbert scowled. It was like watching a cave collapse. “What good would that do us, Spencer?”

“Well, we have to separate the actions from the man. Everyone will focus on what happened, rather than who caused it.”

A thin-haired young man spoke. “And we have no proof that the orders came from Hitler!”

Cuthbert favored him with a withering stare. “We can’t say that, you fool. We have argued for over a year that we must negotiate with Hitler. If we now say that he was not responsible for last night, that he is not the top man, why on earth have we been negotiating with him? I know it’s early, but do try to think a little! And if you find that beyond you, keep your fucking mouth shut!”

It was early for swearing, but they all knew that Cuthbert had a predilection for base Anglo-Saxon syllables. He turned to Reginald, who stumbled on.

“We condemn the actions, and… Then we focus on saying we have to talk more with Hitler…” He struggled for a stronger ending, but it did not come. He forced his tongue to stand still.

“The first two won’t get you fired,” said Cuthbert heavily. “The last one might. Why would we talk with Hitler now? He’s a brutal murderer.”

“But…” stammered Reginald. “But—a practical one.” His voice throbbed with excitement. “That’s what we have to focus on. What he did was practical. Pragmatic. A way to hold on to power. So he’s not mad. He acts for his own self-interest. So he can be negotiated with.”

The thin-haired man—his face almost beet red—tried again. “We have to say that he’s not a criminal.”

Cuthbert turned his enormous face to the young man. “You will kindly shut up. If you ever use that word again within these walls, I shall hurl you from the roof.” He turned back to Reginald. “You propose a paradox, Spencer. How are you going to say that Hitler is not a madman without using the term ‘madman’?”

“We can’t use that word, of course,” said Reginald rapidly. “That’s why I say that we use a ‘pragmatic’ approach. He’s a hard-headed businessman, eliminating competition. He’s ruthless. He’s… He’s unbending. His methods are not our methods. But he is the legitimate head of a European power. If we accept Hitler’s legitimacy, we cannot reject his methods out of hand.”

Cuthbert’s eyes sharpened. Reginald wanted to wipe his own forehead, but didn’t want to draw attention to his nervousness.

“What’s that?” demanded Cuthbert.

“Hitler is… Well, if we say that Hitler is legitimate—which we have been saying, for the last eighteen months—then his methods don’t really matter. We might hate them, think they’re not cricket, but he is the head of Germany, and so…”

“You’re rambling!” snapped Cuthbert. “Focus, for heaven’s sake!”

Reginald frowned. He felt prickles of sweaty tension stabbing all over his flesh. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

“Wait, please… It’s important…” His face suddenly cleared, and his eyes shone. “Negotiation or war.”

“Come on, then!”

“Well, we can say all—all I suggest, if we like. But then, we have to put in, just at the bottom of the article or the speech—because only those who doubt us will read that far—that the only other choice we have is to try to remove Hitler from power. If we admit that we cannot negotiate with him, we shall have to go to war.”

“Or assassinate,” said another man.

Cuthbert, still staring at Reginald, pointed a warning finger at the other man. “Another word that is verboten. We don’t want to start that ball rolling, or we shall never sleep at night. So, Spencer, you believe that this is the right course of action?”

“Yes, sir,” said Reginald. He toyed with adding ‘it is the only course of action,’ but lacked the courage. He still could not tell what Cuthbert thought.

“And you will stake your career on this?”

Reginald nodded, then realized that looked weak, cleared his throat, and said, in what he hoped was a decisive tone: “Yes, sir.”

Cuthbert stared at him for a long moment, and then shrugged.

“Write it up. You have one hour. Now clear off, the rest of you, and try and give me some reason for your presence at my table.”

Reginald got up with everyone else. Cuthbert said:

“Detail, Spencer. You cannot negotiate if you have no sense of detail.”

Reginald paused.

Cuthbert stared at him. “What did I say?”

“You said—clear off the—rest of you…” Reginald smiled and sat down again.

“Everyone says everything in the little things,” said Cuthbert. “You cannot stop paying attention for even a moment.” He smiled, which was not a pretty thing. “And you have to get a damn sight better at thinking on the fly. It’s gruesome. Like watching a woman give birth to a blowfish. Take a pause. Gather your ideas. Look thoughtful. People always pay attention to the slowest speaker. And, the longer you wait, the more the chance that you’ll speak last. Your offspring are going to get burned alive.”

Reginald’s head shivered. “Excuse me?”

“You get the first draft, and it will be slaughtered. But always get the first draft. Every damn fool wants the last draft. But you’re just polishing by then. To hell with that. The first draft is everything.”

“Thank you,” said Reginald. “That is rare praise.”

“What?”

“Sorry. But you don’t often give advice. It’s a kind of praise, isn’t it?”

Cuthbert laughed harshly. “Now you’re just trying to impress me. I want to ask you something. Why should we negotiate with Hitler?”

“Why…”

“There you are, thinking out loud again. You are comical. Every question is valid. Every answer is weighed. Try again. Tell me why should we negotiate with Hitler.”

“Because—he is the freely elected head of a sovereign country.”

“He is no longer elected. He is a dictator.”

“But he was elected.”

“We have no idea what the will of the German people is now. He has guns to their heads. They might want to get rid of him.”

“We have no proof of that.”

“No!” snapped Cuthbert. “That is weak, weak, and never enough! Never use negative proof. You must always be positive. Again!”

“We refuse to assume the motives of the German people…”

“Better.”

“We must deal with the world as it is. They wanted a dictator, they have one. We are the British Foreign Office. Not the German Office of Internal Affairs…”

“Weak. Forget snappy opposites. And, there’s no such office.”

Reginald nodded rapidly. “Negotiation is the way of civilized people…”

“Crap. Hitler didn’t negotiate with his enemies last night. Never use a brush that thick.”

“All right… If we refuse to deal with dictatorships, we can forget about most of the world…”

“Why should I care about the rest of the world? Your brush is still too big.”

“The principle of the Empire is that justice is universal… No, you’re right. Too big.”

Cuthbert pushed his chair back from the table and clasped his hands behind his ears. “Make your arguments personal. We defend England…”

“We defend England,” said Reginald rapidly. “And so, if we overthrow a country we do not like, we open the gates to endless war.”

“Not enough. Too abstract. ‘Endless war’! Jesus!”

Reginald felt anger in his frame. It was directed at Cuthbert’s contempt, but it still seemed to clarify his own thinking. “Two points. One: let’s say we can replace Hitler. He is loved by the Germans. The new man declares war on us. How would you like that?”

“Good, good. Point two?”

“Wait—three points!”

“All right, but only three. I have to take a shit.”

“Point two: we introduce violence into the international sphere, at a time when we are hard-pressed to defend the Empire. We say: you can replace governments you do not like, we just feed the cause of local nationalism in the Empire.”

“Some people hate the Empire.”

“Ah, but—what if the Empire revolts and then Europe goes to war? A two front war is a disaster. Imagine ten fronts. Or a hundred. We would not last a week.”

“Better. Nazis in Trafalgar Square. I can identity with that.”

“Point Three: we could never undertake to overthrow the Nazi government without a public debate. So we lose all elements of surprise. And it would never pass anyway. We’d tip our hand, madden Hitler, and risk war—and to what benefit? One does not strive for the unachievable.”

“Nice pragmatic touch. You have one great, gaping hole in your argument though.”

Reginald waited.

“Germany has been disarmed. If they are going to war, we have to stop them now, or never.”

“The British Government does not initiate force against other countries.”

“Bullshit.”

“Germany invades France, we send over troops and airplanes, stall them to the east of Paris. We get Russia to attack Germany from the East. We beg the Americans for aid. Hitler would be mad to try again. It would be 1918 all over again.”

“But what if Hitler is mad? You have come full circle.”

Reginald paused, gathering his arguments.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” grunted Cuthbert, letting his chair fall forward with a thump. “You are nimble when you’re moving; I’ll grant that. But sweet God, you’re slow off the mark! You cannot cover all positions. It’s insane to try. People either believe you, or they don’t. There are maybe five percent of people in any debate who might conceivably change their minds. You have to sound plausible to them. That’s all. Appeal to people’s prejudices. Attempt to sway the indecisive, who are fundamentally unpredictable, and will probably go against you next time. But it’s a moment-by-moment affair. You never have enough information. Never. Seat of the pants, sonny-Spencer. Seat of the pants. Now go and write me something smashing!”

While he was working on his text, Reginald was interrupted by a telephone call. Only two people could get through his secretary no matter what he was doing. Neither of them was his wife, so he took the call.

“Oh, Reginald!” cried a woman’s voice.

Reginald frowned, feeling a terror in the pit of his stomach. His pencil froze in mid-slash.

“Mother?” he whispered. He had never heard his mother this passionate about anything other than Tom. He dropped his pencil and put his hand on his chest.

“What are you going to do?” wailed his mother.

“You have the papers, I assume,” he said, attempting a dry tone which did not work.

“What are you going to—do?” she gulped, her voice catching in a heart-breaking manner on the last word.

“I’ve been lucky, mother. I have been given the chance to write the first draft of our response. We’ll be sitting down with the editors of the major newspapers this afternoon…”

“That is good, my son, my Reginald,” she said. His heart contracted even further, as if it were cramping. He remembered to breathe.

“I wanted to say,” said Ruth’s tinny voice, “that I have the greatest—faith in your abilities. You are doing so much more than—your brother. To protect us.” Her voice dropped to a little whisper. He crushed the receiver into his ear. “I am so frightened, Reg…”

With her admission, his heart started again. Black blood coursed through his chest. Oh, so now that you are frightened, I am the favored offspring. A little too fucking late, Mother!

“It is a grave situation,” he said slowly, enjoying every baited syllable.

“What are you going to do?”

“I can’t talk about that, Mother.”

“Tell me!” Her voice was agonized.

“I can’t… Unless…”

“What? What?”

“Unless you promise to keep it secret. From everyone. Father. Tom. Everyone.”

“I will.”

“It would be unfair for Father to know this. And Tom has a gossip’s tongue…”

“I will take it with me to the grave! Tell me. Reginald!”

“This is a promise? It’s more than my job. I could go to jail.”

“I promise. On—on my father’s name…”

“All right. We are toying with several options.” Reginald wondered if his line was tapped. It was inconceivable, so he allowed himself some liberty. “Assassination is one…”

“No!” his mother cried out, as if a sword were being pulled out of her innards…

“We have to be practical, mother. Herr Hitler is a murderer. We are also considering the possibility of declaring war.”

There was a silence. Reginald let the phone fall back from his ear a little, wondering if he had gone too far. Almost thirty seconds passed.

“War…”

“Now is the time, Mother. He is relatively unarmed.”

“But he has airplanes. Oh God! Tom is a pilot!”

“He’s an instructor, mother,” said Reginald, feeling a twinge of regret. “They won’t send him against the enemy.”

“Oh Reginald!” she sobbed. “Is there nothing else?”

“Well, I am fighting against these options…”

“Reg! Why would…”

He smiled, knowing that she wanted to demand why he had presented the worst options first, knowing how they would affect her. But she was afraid. Afraid he would hang up if criticized. His smile widened.

“I want us to ignore it.”

“Ignore it…”

“As if nothing happened. It’s an internal matter.”

“Internal…” Her voice was weak with relief. Reginald could imagine her slumping back into the sofa, her knuckles at her lips. Just like the women in the Great War, receiving their terrible news…

Reginald knew that his mother wanted to ask him if there would be a war, but that she was too terrified to hear his answer. Or she thinks I will lie to her…

Either possibility was all right with him.

He would have loved to continue their conversation. He said as much to his mother, and it was true.

“But I have to get this recommendation into Mr. Rathbone within a half hour. I am not allowed personal calls, so I shall have to call you tonight. Unless I am working late. We shall talk soon, Mother. Chin up!”

There was a pause. Reginald knew that she was about to say something else. He became enraged or terrified at what it might be, and jammed the phone receiver back into its cradle with a vicious sweep, as if he were beheading a whimpering pet.

Chapter 53

Jacqueline opened her eyes. Tom suddenly felt self-conscious, like a worshipper praying to an invisible god which suddenly shows up in the flesh.

“Now,” she murmured lazily, stretching her hands over her head, “that’s a nice sight to wake up to. A lucky soul whose hair does not turn to crap over night. To hell with my breath. Kiss me.”

He did. She knew that he was hesitating, but decided to let it be.

“Last night,” she said, “although it was probably this morning, I thought, as I fell asleep, that when I woke up I would have no idea where I was. And that what I felt, when I realized it, would be an important sign.”

Jacqueline reached up and touched Tom’s left earlobe with her fingertips. “No matter how strong the man is,” she murmured, “this is always so soft.”

Tom smiled down at her, recalling how he used to love playing with Catherine’s earlobes. He could have spent all morning telling Jacqueline about Catherine.

“I’m not going to embarrass you by asking how long you’ve been staring at me. I just hope I wasn’t sleeping with my mouth open.” She touched the pillow by her head. “No drool. That’s always good.”

I love you. The thought came into his mind, as loud and insistent as a rolling bell. That is such nonsense. You know so little about her!

“My, but what intense eyes you have!” she said. “Share.”

“Last night was wonderful.”

“Yes. Yes, it was. I never once thought: what am I doing here? Why is this man on top of me?”

Tom smiled. “Why am I on top of this man?”

“Well, we did roll about quite a bit… And I wake up, and I’m happy to be here. You let me know what that means. I want to take you to a park, feed you cheese, and ask you everything.”

“I like cheese.”

Jacqueline giggled. It had never really occurred to Tom that she could giggle, but it was a nice little merry sound.

But enough. Enough.

“I’m sorry, Jacqueline,” he said softly.

Her dark eyes flashed silent alarm. “Why?”

“I cannot date. I cannot.”

She lay on the pillow. Unmoving. Waiting.

“I cannot date, and I cannot tell you why I cannot date. Because if I’m wrong, then you will be anxious and depressed for no reason. Sorry. That’s a riddle.”

Her mouth worked, and then opened. “What were you doing last night then?”

“It came by surprise. I wasn’t prepared…”

“Wasn’t prepared!” She struggled up onto her elbows. “Wasn’t prepared! I’ve been flirting with you for two months, and you weren’t prepared!”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What? You want to throw me off, throw me off. But don’t look at me like a lost puppy when you’re telling me to go!”

“I…” …don’t want you to go. But those are a coward’s words.

Jacqueline’s jaw tightened. “I knew it,” she muttered, averting her eyes, her hands flexing and loosening. “I looked at you, and I said: he’s a cad. A rake. A player. But I couldn’t help myself. Poor Jacky, always putting her foot in her heart. With cleats!” She took a deep breath, tears spilling over her cheeks.

Tom shifted back on the bed. Jacqueline kicked the covers aside violently.

“All right, get out of the room!” she cried. “My skin is off limits now!”

Tom stood up slowly, reluctantly.

“Hurry up! I have to get dressed and go home now! Stop mooning around!”

He went out into the hallway of his little flat. The door was slammed shut behind him. He could hear her sobbing inside. She did not cry so that he could hear, or to make a point. She cried because she was heartbroken. And felt used. And—and loved him? But that is nonsense as well! She knows almost nothing about me!

Tom felt that he would love nothing more than to open the door and hug her thrashing form until they could melt into one. But it was impossible now. He had thrown himself off the cliff. No choice was possible. No will. No turning back.

He mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” knowing how useless it was.

Jacqueline came out of the bedroom, her head ducking. A thin brown pair of stockings were half-hanging out of her handbag. She had her shoes in her hand.

Her thoughts were clear to him.

I shall look like a whore, leaving your flat in this state. A policeman shall stop me and ask if I have been violated. And I shall say ‘yes,’ but that it is beyond the reach of law…

Tom almost said: ‘You do not have to pay for your course,’ but he realized that, were she to kill him directly afterwards, no jury of women would convict her. And rightly so!

Jacqueline did not turn to him. She did not raise her eyes. She did not speak. She moved like a prisoner attempting a jailbreak under the eyes of a doubtfully sympathetic guard. She fled from his flat. She did not close the door. He felt the fact that he would never see her again.

Tom sat heavily on his ratty sofa. He reached down and played with the frayed seam of an old cushion. She was happy with me, though I live in such a manner…

He wanted to cry. He wanted the release that only tears could bring. He thought of sad things. Her face on waking. Her face on leaving. Her face on the street. Her hands clutching her bag. Trying to make it home before breaking down. How they might be getting ready for the park instead of exploding apart…

But nothing came. Tom frowned. This was most unusual.

It had not happened many times before. Maybe five times. When he left Oxford. On the airplane home from Germany. After debating Reginald.

Oh dear, thought Tom. When I am sad, but cannot cry, it’s because I have the wrong notion about what is happening…

But the war must make me a monk. I can do nothing about it. I was weak last night. I have hurt a poor woman. I made a promise I could not keep. So sad. So sad. But it would have been much worse if I had pretended… The sticky plaster must come off. One tug. I was wrong to be weak. I can never apologize enough. Or explain. She would say: ‘Oh no, Tom, there’s not going to be a war! And even if there is, we shall face it together!’ But she has not seen. And it cannot be explained. No one on this island has the eyes to see. She will smile and cajole me, and I shall fall into the blackness. She would keep trying to prod me, but I would be unable to respond. No. Let her live out her short life in the illusion of love and longevity. Let her not be shadowed by what I know…

Tom scowled. He always hated it when his inner justifications began to sound pompous and biblical. I have been a bastard, because I made a promise I cannot keep. I cannot undo that. But I can refuse to make another…

He lay back on the sofa, closing his eyes. He could feel the hard heel of a bad headache, planted deep in his brain. He could not cry from self-pity. He could not cry because he had hurt another soul. He could not cry because he was alone, because that was his choice.

He could not cry until his newspaper was delivered. He could not cry until he got up, opened the door and looked at the headline. He could not cry until he sat back down on his sofa, his eyes gulping the terrible words, the text of the Night of the Long Knives.

He could not cry until that moment, but then he did cry. He cried in great wracking sobs. He cried the tears of a man spat out of his sealed coffin by an earthquake. He cried because that night was like words written in the sky, which everyone could see.

He cried because the world now had eyes, and could see. See and act. Turn from the flames to come.

He cried because he might live. The world might live, so he could love.

And, he cried because the papers had not come before Jacqueline had left, because that might be a loss beyond repair.

Chapter 54

Quentin came home as soon as he read the newspapers. He was taking a train to Exeter; he got off at the following stop, turned around, and went straight back to London on the next train.

War is not inevitable; war is not inevitable, he thought, over and over, in time with the clicking rhythm of the carriage’s wheels, as he had done since a small child. Quentin had a terrible dread of inevitabilities. He regularly damned people, in his own mind, as being defeatist or resigned. The world is what we will, was one of his newer mottoes. If everyone accepts that war is inevitable, then war is inevitable…

Quentin was not alone in this formulation. His was an age without philosophy, and so the causes of the Great War were unknowable. The Unconscious had replaced the Absolute, and so petty misunderstandings had replaced moral evil. The Great War was the result of foolish pride, and immature, incremental one-upmanship. Everyone makes wild claims; no one can back down, and lo and behold—there is a war… The greatest slaughter in history had, to Quentin’s mind, the same cause as a bar fight among belligerent and uneducated drunks. The psychological approach painted a picture of leaders who were content to send millions to the slaughter to save face in a drawing room…

The contradiction bothered him not at all. Quentin believed in the State. He believed in the benevolent power of government. He liked the growing welfare state. He liked the idea that all social problems could be solved through an open-minded partnership between Business, Labour, and Government. Like most intellectuals in the 1930s, Quentin divided mankind into two groups. The first, which included the middle and lower classes, military men, and the aristocratic politicians, were those lost in a silly admiration of the past. They did not know what was really good for them. They had to be managed. Pacified. Controlled. The government would take from them, and share their wealth with the less fortunate. It was moral to share. This was unquestioned. And to compel people to be moral is exactly the same as if they had behaved morally themselves, of their own free will, in the first place. Society must help the less fortunate. Thus, forcing people to help the less fortunate through taxation and redistribution is moral. It is what they should be doing in the absence of compulsion anyway, so the compulsion is moral.

These thoughts ran around his mind over and over, as he read the newspaper.

It was truly a gruesome business. Last night, hundreds of Germans had been dragged from their beds and slaughtered out of hand. This Hitler fellow was clearly no one to be trifled with.

But—and Quentin had here to gather arguments for his wife—but surely this now meant that Hitler could let down his guard. A revolution would not have helped Germany. It would be worse if the Communists had gotten in. The Communists were international; they wanted to overthrow all Western democracies. At the worst, Hitler was nationalistic and racial. So he wants to unite the Teutonic peoples, Quentin imagined saying to Ruth, we give him the six million Germans in Austria; the three million in Czechoslovakia; the three hundred and fifty thousand in Danzig, perhaps. But then what? Where will he go then? There are no other significant groups of Germans elsewhere in the world. And Empires are exhausting. He cannot rule three foreign localities and then wage war. And if he moves eastwards, into Czechoslovakia, say, then the Russians will have something to say about it. Stalin won’t want Hitler on his doorstep. The last Russian war with Germany cost the Tsar his position. Stalin won’t stand for unbridled German aggression. Don’t cry, dear…

He knew that she would probably not be worried about Reginald—at least, not as much. If war came with Germany, then Reginald would be assigned westward, to negotiate with the United States for aid, probably, since there would be precious little to do with Germany. And if civilian bombing was threatened, then Reginald, Quentin, and Ruth would be moved out of London.

No, it was Tom who would weigh the heaviest on her mind. Tom the pilot. Tom, who seemed hostile to Germany, which was odd, because he had always liked that gray-haired busybody Gunther.

Quentin sighed, closing his eyes and sitting back in his seat.

It has something to do with Catherine, as well. Tom has always had a taste for simpleminded folk. No doubt that was why he couldn’t survive at Oxford. Cockney politics just wouldn’t fly there… It is strange. I don’t understand what makes Tom tick—not a bit—because he is both very intelligent and very simple. Bright, but unsubtle. Uncomplicated.

An image tickled at his mind; Newton sitting under an apple tree. Sometimes the most intelligent are the most intelligible…

Quentin shook his head. That nonsense wouldn’t help. His youngest son, though handsome, charismatic, and an excellent rower, was no genius. He never wants to find the cause of things, to fix things at their root. He just wants to fight what is; he never wants to find out why it is…

Too harsh, Quentin knew. It’s not as if I have any real understanding about what causes Nazism. There must be something deranged in the soil…

When he got home, Ruth was where he feared she would be. In bed.

Over the past few years, she had given up the practice of taking to bed during the day. True, she did go to bed earlier when she was sad, but she was able to pry herself from it in the morning.

Quentin remained vaguely guilty about his wife’s transformation. He knew, deep down, that he had not really helped her mourn her grievous losses. He had, in the eternal manner of the alpha male, attempted to perform tasks to distract her from her emotions. He gave her money, a fine house, holidays, all possible comforts and luxuries. Of course, the chasm between her inner poverty and outward wealth made Ruth feel worse. She felt, through much of the 1920s, that she had missed a hot-air balloon which was rising out of sight. There was no point rising or jumping for something so distant. And besides, she could never convince herself that her absence on the balloon was ever really noticed.

How had this been solved? Well, they had become poor, and Quentin had gone into politics. Material losses roused her, and she could finally do something to assuage her terror of war. She walked the campaign trail with Quentin, and gave speeches. Something grand and terrible was within her; something which made those with lesser losses want to cradle and save her. And obey her. She spoke of the need for peace so achingly that her words always seemed biblical in timbre. Ruth provided—as Quentin had suspected and hoped—the ‘heart of the candidate.’ He could be hard-headed, and leave emotion to his wife. He always grinned and deferred to her when asked about social issues. “My wife is the sentimental one,” he would say. “I married her for it!”

Thus, men voted for him because he was practical. Women voted for him because he deferred to his emotional wife. They were a team.

But they were joined against a common enemy. That much was clear. They were not a team facing each other, but facing the future. Ruth had not become better. The world had finally done what all Quentin’s machinations had been unable to do.

It had distracted her from herself.

But it was a delicate balance. Quentin needed a dangerous world to keep his wife from collapsing back into depression. But if the world became too dangerous, she would collapse back into depression.

Quentin opened the door. Ruth was sitting in bed, her head lowered; her arms hanging in their awfully familiar limpness. Catherine sat beside the bed, and Quentin got a strange sensation. This house is an emotional ecosystem which I am scarcely master of… And then, another thought followed: Reginald will never need comforting; he is a man of action. Tom cannot brush his teeth without weeping, but he does not need comforting; he just leaks, like a glass of ice water. But Ruth either stares or weeps emptily. I cannot comfort her. But now, I need her despite her self-indulgence. Hundreds of Germans are murdered, and my wife takes to her bed!

Ruth glanced up as Quentin pushed the door open. He mistook her expression of shock—and almost horror—and checked his head. Sure enough, his hat was still on. Unforgivable.

Quentin leaned forward on his heels. He put his newspaper on a lacquered cabinet. He clasped his hands in front of him, trying to assume the facial expression of a sympathetic nurse he had once had, at the age of nine, when he had had his tonsils out.

“How are you, dear?”

Her blue eyes were intense, terrifying. Her lip quivered.

“Shh, Ruthie,” murmured Catherine, touching her cheek.

Quentin imagined Catherine’s huge form enfolding his wife’s thin frame, like some reversal of a butterfly’s emergence. He imagined Ruth’s hand reaching out of Catherine’s enormous cleavage for a glass of water.

He felt an erotic stirring, and blinked in surprise at his own thoughts. The wife and the maid—what a threesome! Stop it!

Quentin stepped forward, taking off his hat and putting it on the bed. Then he sat at Ruth’s feet. He felt a sudden flash of irritation at Catherine’s continued presence. Who does she think she is? Some fat sister?

“I’m all right, Quentin,” said Ruth, in that weak, empty tone that really set his teeth on edge. “I talked to Reginald, and he thinks that things will turn out all right.”

“Good old Reggie!” cried Quentin, patting the cover, trying to find one of her legs.

“It’s… It’s like we’re going back in time,” Ruth murmured, her eyes filling with tears. Quentin looked away.

“It’s all… I feel like ghosts are coming back to kill us. No, not kill us. Make us walk with them. Hold their hands, which are not hands…”

Catherine crossed herself. “Don’t speak that way.”

“It’s true. I have to speak. Not speaking, all those years, did me no good.”

“Would you like some tea, dear?” asked Quentin, half-rising, giving up his quest for a leg.

“She needs for you to sit and listen,” said Catherine.

Quentin sat down. The dictatorship of women!

“Oh, Quentin!” cried Ruth. “I was too small a plot to bury five men in! I still dream of them within me, you know, sometimes, groping for a light.”

Catherine’s head lowered, and Quentin could see her eyes filling. A dictatorship of waterfalls! But he set his jaw and raised his eyes to his wife.

Ruth said: “I can’t…speak of them, now, so many years later. I had to bite off my words so many times that I just seem—obsessed. But they are warning me about the future, Quentin. They stand in a line and point to the east.”

“To Germany,” he said.

“It is only a few hundred of their own, but it has loosed something. It is something deeper than Germans, for Hitler. The men he killed were Germans. So ‘Germans over all’ is a lie. And if he is willing to kill Germans—which are the most important race to him—why would he stop with us?”

“He’s not coming for us,” murmured Quentin.

“Not now, not yet… Do you think Reginald can negotiate with them?”

“Reggie hasn’t been there long enough. He won’t be allowed to do anything that direct.”

“Oh come on. He and Cuthbert are thick as thieves. Reginald has influence. He’s writing the FO position for the newspapers.”

“Really?” asked Quentin, his heart glowing. Good lad! Clever lad!

Ruth’s face fell again. “We shall never escape.”

Quentin forced himself to ask. “What?”

“Our natures.” She shook her head quickly, making a flowing tear zigzag on her cheek. “Not our natures, but our weakness in the face of… Oh, Quentin—I can’t even say the word!”

“Evil,” said Catherine.

Quentin felt his anger towards her come back, but he did not want to upset his wife, who clutched to Catherine’s forearm.

“Yes,” said Ruth. “We are so content. So complacent. We think that everyone is like us. But we don’t negotiate with gangsters. And we have all the power in the world over them. How can we—how can we control anything over there?”

“Hitler says he wants peace. He has some complaints. We have to listen to them, to avoid war. We are in no position to wage war just now.”

“He wants—he says he wants what he already has.”

“Sorry?”

“Peace. He can’t attack. We disarmed Germany. He knows we won’t attack him. So he says he wants peace. The question…” Ruth’s face broke again. “The question is: how does he act when he has the power? He has no power over us. So he wants peace. But within his own land? Where he has power…?”

“And there, where he has power, he acted brutally… Last night…” Quentin shuddered. Despite himself, his wife’s terror and despair were worming their way into his skin. Be strong!

“So you think he is insane?” he asked.

Ruth nodded, then shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

Catherine scowled. “It’s what we say when we mean ‘evil.’”

“Catherine,” said Quentin. “Would you be so kind as to get me a cup of tea and some biscuits? I haven’t eaten since seven.”

Catherine paused for a moment, but there was no real possibility of noncompliance. She patted Ruth’s hand once more, then placed it gently on the bed, stood up laboriously, and left the bedroom.

Quentin took her place in the little chair. My Lord, he thought as he sat, my buttocks barely cover it—what was Catherine feeling?

“Dear,” he said, taking her hand. “I won’t pretend to you that the situation is not dangerous. It is. It is our most dangerous period since the war. But you know that Reginald and myself are absolutely committed to keeping the peace.”

“Yes…”

“And you know that we are both in rather unique positions to ensure that peace will prevail.”

“Yes.”

“And that we will work as hard as humanly possible to keep the peace.”

“Yes. Yes, I know, dear…”

“But?” asked Quentin, unable to keep a shade of irritation out of his voice. He had a memory of having exactly the same kind of conversation with Tom, when he was six, about a monster under the bed. Demonstration and reason are useless in the face of such paranoia…

“But—what if it is too late already?”

“There is no need to whisper!” laughed Quentin. “I don’t believe there are any spies in the closet, taking notes for Adolf.”

Ruth did not get angry—which was probably his intention. Her eyes just widened a little. “I mean it, though, Quentin. I mean it, and you should see that I mean it.”

“Yes. Yes, I know you do. So you think that there is going to be a war, and that we are all just doomed. Well,” he smiled, “forgive me dear, but the first thought that jumps into my mind, is that we had better probably keep you off the podium for just a wee while. Until you feel better.”

Ruth listened. She still did not become angry. Instead, Quentin found himself enraged.

“Quentin,” she said. “Do you think that there might be a war?”

“Of course! There might be a war. I might get hit by a bus. A rain of frogs might bury London alive. Anything is possible. Hitler cleans some house, I don’t think it’s the end of the damn world!”

Ruth burst into tears.

“What?” demanded Quentin. “What, goddamn it?”

She shook her head, her fist rising to her mouth. He always half-expected her to suck her thumb.

The whistle of the kettle rose from the kitchen downstairs. Quentin scowled. He had so many memories associated with that daily sound. Too many of them were like this. Like this damn moment. Me resisting her despair, she bursting into tears as if I have slapped her. He remembered a lovely evening, a few years ago, when they had sat by the fire, and Ruth had turned and said: “I love you.” Those moments keep things going, but they are getting too fucking far apart!

Quentin scowled even further. He did not like to swear, even in his own mind.

Forcing his hand, he reached out and patted his wife’s limp forearm.

He heard Catherine coming up the stairs. The whistling of the kettle continued. What the hell is she doing? Ruth sobbed on. Her hands began to twitch, the fingers curling in on themselves. Quentin watched them in fascinated suspicion. If she’s faking, it’s very real!

The door opened with a little bang. Catherine stood panting in the doorway.

“Ruth!” she cried, glancing at Quentin. “What is it?”

“Catherine!” cried Ruth, holding out her hands.

Catherine came forward, clambering on the bed, and pulled Ruth’s sobbing face into her massive chest.

Quentin frowned, staring at this merged beast of female suffering.

The wail of the kettle continued. Ruth sobbed. Catherine cooed. The sound of the telephone ringing rose from downstairs.

“Well,” said Quentin finally, getting up. “I’ll get my own tea then.”

Chapter 55

The feeling hit Wendy with a dull, cavernous shock. She thought that if a railway carriage were sentient, it would feel this way when coupled with a locomotive.

She was on the toilet. Her period was late. She knew.

She felt nothing but that shock. A man gets a job, she thought, which will pay him well, but which he does not want… Or, more likely, a man gets conscripted for a war to defend another man’s homeland…

She shrugged, then laughed, rubbing her forehead. Time to pop out another one, breeder. Tom’s face rose in her mind, and she felt a strange starfish of pain deep within her.

She had been fantasizing about Tom for some time. It was quite gruesome, actually. Greek. Incestuous. She fought with Tom, overtly or covertly, every time they met. She found herself forever driven to test him.

It was very primitive. Wendy needed to be sure that the man she desired could never be broken. Never ever. So she had to test him. Forever. I mean—what if he has gotten weak overnight?

The ‘why’ of the testing was never really explored. She had, lost in the hedgerows of her hidden heart, one of the deep secrets of femininity, which is a bottomless pool of acidic contempt for male weakness. In Wendy’s world, English men were like England itself—a sinking island surrounded by this rising sea.

It was only by marrying an Englishman that Wendy had really understood the value of Spanish men. Sure, they were heartless Mediterranean bastards, but they did not defer, and were not sarcastic and spiteful, and did not control you, and did not become embarrassed by everything you did—and they could fuck you to next Tuesday, if they had a mind. That was easy. Call a British man ‘weak,’ he gets huffy and sarcastic. Call a Spanish man ‘weak,’ he glowers and growls and fucks you to next Tuesday.

Tom could fuck me to next Tuesday, thought Wendy, all too often. She felt, when standing next to her brother-in-law, like a seething volcanic female sexual object. She was tense, itchy, weak-kneed. She just wanted to be screwed. To be screwed from behind, with her long hair grabbed and pulled, like reins. She wanted the squishy thumping. She wanted her face ground into the pillow. She wanted to feel his swinging balls. She wanted his throaty groans, his final maddening thrusts. She wanted to be screwed, and she wanted to cry afterwards. She wanted to feel his rower’s arms. She wanted him to growl without an accent. Reginald always fucked with an accent. Even when he used his self-consciously dirty words, it was comical. ‘Oh, darling, I am so in love with your vah-gina!’ ‘Oh, Reginald,’ she wanted to laugh back, ‘your pee-pee feels so good in my private parts!’ Fucking accountant.

Wendy wished she had screwed Tom at least once. Just so she could imagine that she was pregnant with his child. That she could present him with his child. His child he would have to protect. Protect, along with Jocelyn.

On the toilet, Wendy reached out absently and played with the loose caulking around the bathtub. But he would never have me, she thought, with a dismal depression. Even if I had met him during his legendary days of womanizing. I bet he went for the virginal princesses, the kind who bounced on daddy’s lap the very day before they bounced on old Tommy’s. Not a—not a party girl like me. Not a flapper hanging on by the flesh of her nails. No, I was destined for a weak man, because I am too strong. Too primal. I am a Viking raging through a monastery.

Wendy liked that image. She reached down with toilet paper and patted herself dry, making sure to stay away from her swollen clitoris. Otherwise, I’ll be in here all day…

Walking into the kitchen, she felt relief that she was pregnant again, and so could eat whatever the hell she wanted. Until the nausea comes, of course. Rifling through the cupboards, she assembled what Reginald used to call her ‘pregnancy platter.’ Six chocolate-covered digestive biscuits. A block of cheddar. A pickled onion. A glass of milk. A handful of hard candies. Smiling, Wendy brought the tray into the living room. You have to keep your strength up now!

As she sat down, she thought she heard… She cocked her head. Nothing from upstairs. Jocelyn was still sleeping.

Actually, another child would be good. God knows the single children are weird. Two can play together. Cancel each other out. And it will be fun to watch Reginald negotiate with them. Hullo, Mr. World Diplomat. Meet Jocelyn and Sally, ages five and three. They are having a dispute over a tin of Quality Streets. Would you mind sitting down with them to get them sorted? Thanks ever so much.

Wendy felt a thrill of oncoming humiliations. She smiled, chewing through another digestive. I wouldn’t want to break him if he wasn’t so goddamned vain! Lord Reg, master of all he surveys! Infallible! Omniscient! Cannot be contradicted!

A sniffle ran through her nose as she imagined Reginald coming home one Friday night. His head would be bowed, his hands folded in front of him, as he staggered through the door.

‘Oh my God, Wen—I really have no idea what I’m doing at that place!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Who thought I could ever be a diplomat? I’ve never lived overseas. I don’t have any foreign friends. I feel like such a fraud.’

‘Go on.’

‘I live my life, for the most part—no, for all of it—as if I know what I’m doing, but I don’t. I don’t know what I’m doing, Wen. I’ve been lording it over everyone because I’m terribly anxious. Insecure. I can’t keep up the pretense. Not anymore. I don’t want to. And I’m so terribly sorry for everything I have ever done to you. There’s only one thing I can do to make it up. I’ve called Tom, and he’s coming right over to fuck you till next Tuesday…’

Wendy’s head jerked up from the cushion. Bad nap! Naughty nap! Nap needs a spanking!

She put her ‘pregnancy platter’ down, then unbuckled her belt, slipped her fingers into her underwear, and truly went to town.

Chapter 56

Tom did not cry for too long. Practice makes for efficiency. He read the newspaper accounts of the Night of the Long Knives with a mixture of terror and joy. Terror at what the future held. Joy because it was clear, and so could now be averted.

He smiled, forgetting his heartbreak, wondering what his brother was up to at that moment. He imagined him—well no, Tom could not imagine Reginald doing a complete about-face. But he did imagine a terrible hour of doubt, and a possible re-evaluation. The most awful thing, he thought, is that the entire future of Reginald’s thinking—and possibly of England’s fate—will depend on the opinion of the first person Reginald meets after he doubts. Whoever fills his empty vessel.

Struck by a sudden impulse, Tom realized he should call Reginald. Do his part to right the sinking ship. Then, he remembered that he didn’t know Reginald’s work number. So he had to call…

Mother!

Tom jumped up. He ran over to the little desk, where his telephone was. It took three tries—not bad—to get through. The first time, the line went dead. The second time, it rang and rang. The third time—five minutes later—he got through.

“Yes?” demanded his father’s impatient voice. Actually, thought Tom, I only have to say ‘my father’s voice’; the ‘impatient’ is redundant.

“Hullo father,” said Tom.

“Goddamn it!” cried his father. “This tea is too hot! Wait a minute.”

Tom winced as the receiver clunked against some hard surface. Probably the coffee table.

“All right,” said his father, after half a minute or so. “You want your mother.”

“Sure, sure—but how are you?”

“Fine,” said Quentin shortly. “Scalded, but fine.”

There was a pause.

“You’ve read the papers, I assume,” said Quentin.

“Yes—I imagine that Reginald will be horribly busy.”

“Well,” laughed Quentin harshly. “Either he’s busy now, or you’re busy later.”

Tom frowned, not wanting to follow his father’s train of thought.

“This is abominably expensive,” said Quentin. “Are you home? I’ll have your mother call you back. She’s wailing away just now.”

“Is Catherine there?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“All right. Take care, Father.”

“Chin up,” said Quentin. The line went dead.

Tom jumped when he placed the receiver back in its cradle, because it rang again, just as he set it down.

“Hullo?” he asked cautiously, thinking it was probably just a bad line.

“Tom!” cried a voice.

Tom’s heart leapt. “Gunther!”

“How are you?”

“I’m—what, I can’t say everything over the phone. Where are you?”

“I’m in England. You don’t have to shout!”

“Good!” Tom smiled, lowering his voice. “Sorry—where?”

“Not half an hour from where you are.”

“So we can meet!”

“Of course. Be home. All right?”

“All right,” said Tom. He waited for a moment, his ear pressed to the receiver. There was just the hiss of voices. Tom shivered. As a child, he had thought that ghosts and vampires used the phone lines to get around during the light of day.

When Gunther arrived, Tom had already run to the shops to get tea, milk, bread, biscuits, jam, and butter. Even by bachelor standards, he was not used to entertaining.

They hugged for a long time on seeing each other. Tom had a European urge to grab the older man’s sideburns and kiss him on both cheeks.

“Come on—come in and sit down,” he said, wiping his eyes.

“Still a blubberer, I see,” smiled Gunther.

“I’ve had an emotional morning.”

Gunther saw the newspapers sitting on Tom’s ratty sofa.

“Not just that,” said Tom, following his gaze. “Do you want anything?”

“No,” said Gunther, patting his stomach. “They stuffed me to bursting on the plane this morning.”

“Where are you heading?”

“Do you have to work today?”

Tom shook his head. “Nothing happens Saturday. All my rich boys are in the country.”

Gunther nodded. “I was driving here. Just here.”

Tom smiled. “That is very kind. And—and, sending me to Germany was… Well, not kind exactly. But very…”

“I know. Can I move these?”

“Of course. Let me.” Tom tossed the newspapers to the floor.

“Ah hah,” murmured Gunther. “As one bachelor to another—even though I do not think you will be one as long as I have—you shall have to learn to tidy up in a few years. Youthful charm and good hair will land the ladies when you’re young—but then you must develop sophistication, grooming, and a well-appointed lair.”

Tom smiled. “I haven’t been much of the bachelor lately.”

Gunther nodded soberly. “Yes, I know. I have been there too.”

“Germany? When? Why didn’t you tell me? Were you there when I was?”

“Yes, but for different reasons. And in different circles. But never mind that. Tell me how it’s been since you returned.”

“How it’s been?”

“You’ve got a business, which is good. Better than you know. Your friend Klaus has joined the Nazi party.”

Tom stared at him for a moment, then blinked back more tears.

“I’m going to need some water,” he said, getting up.

From the kitchen, cranking out a glass of rusty water, he called: “That’s a real shame. Although I can’t say it’s a complete surprise. It’s going to be hard for him.”

“Not him,” murmured Gunther.

Coming back from the kitchen, Tom said, “Sorry?”

“Never mind. He’s become a flight instructor.”

Tom’s jaw dropped. “Say… You’re kidding!”

“It’s all too parallel for words,” said Gunther. “Did you two discuss this at all?”

“No.”

Gunther pursed his lips, then laughed. “If I were susceptible to the idea that things happen for a reason, I should truly wonder. This won’t be the last time.” He settled back in the sofa, then glanced down and frowned. “This is all going to come off on my suit!”

“That’s why I don’t wear one.”

“My God, it’s like you were raised by gibbons! Anyway, here’s the thing. I want to take you to meet Churchill.”

Tom nodded. “Of course you do.”

“I’m serious. You’re not the only one who believes there will be a war.”

Tom pursed his lips and turned his head slightly. “That clear, hm?”

“Crystal clear. I got it in the first paragraph. You wrote about peace in the past tense.”

“Well, I thank you for that. It was a real eye-opener.”

“When did you know?”

Tom frowned. “I think—when there were all these paramilitary pilots hanging around the aerodrome, and Klaus just thought they were enthusiastic hobbyists with a penchant for matching jackets. He’s smart, but dumb. That’s like Germans as a whole. They’re always surprised when their weird ideas bear weird fruit.”

“Not just Germans,” said Gunther.

“No. No, of course not.”

“Churchill. Let me tell you why. We want you to go back to Europe.”

“What!?”

“Just for a little while. Not Berlin.”

“Then where?”

“France, first. Paris. Then east.”

“To where?”

Gunther smiled. “To the Rhineland.”

“When?”

The older man laughed. “That’s what I love about you, Tom! One of the things. It’s already a done deal!”

“I never said that. I have a job. A business. And…”

The German man’s gray eyebrows knitted together. “And a woman, damn you!”

“Well, yes. Maybe. If I can grovel deeply enough.”

Gunther put on an outrageous German accent. “Joo Englanders are puh-ffect G-r-r-ovellers!”

“Gunther—why have you never married?”

“I think you have asked that already. As a child.”

“Answer me now. As an adult.”

Gunther shrugged. “Four reasons. First, I work in a secret sphere; bad for intimacy. Second, I travel a lot. Third, the woman I loved married another. And fourth, there will be a war.”

“Oh, come on!” cried Tom, his eyes wide. He took a step back, and almost slipped on the newspaper. He pointed down. “Not now. Not after this.”

Gunther smiled. It was a very, very sad smile. “Oh Tom… One of the hardest wisdoms in this world is understanding the degree to which people are capable of lying to themselves.”

“What? Oh really! You think that the world will ignore this?”

“The world,” said Gunther slowly, “is already in the process of ignoring it.”

“Those are just words. And this is the first time I’ve ever thought of you as paranoid.”

“I wish I were. I deeply wish it. But I know what will be in the Daily Mail this afternoon.” Gunther pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Tom. “That’s not the whole text, of course. But you know that.”

Tom read:

“Herr Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor, has saved his country. Swiftly and with exorable severity, he has delivered Germany from men who had become a danger to the unity of the German people and to the order of the state. With lightening rapidity he has caused them to be removed from high office, to be arrested, and put to death.

“The names of the men who have been shot by his orders are already known. Hitler's love of Germany has triumphed over private friendships and fidelity to comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the fight for Germany's future…”

He read the article three times. Gunther sat in silence.

When Tom was done, he had to control his urge to crumple up the paper.

“What do you do, Gunther?” he asked, his voice suddenly harsh.

“I can’t…”

“No! No. If you want to pull me into this, you have to tell me.”

“Why?” asked Gunther simply. “What if you’re tortured? Don’t you trust me? Do you think I am doing something underhanded? I saw Reginald from day one, and now he’s in the goddamned Foreign Office!”

Tom stared. Gunther’s voice had risen suddenly, and his face was dark.

“It’s about Reginald…”

“It’s about Hitler,” said Gunther thickly. “I work for Churchill.”

Tom nodded. “You work for Churchill.”

“Look, you don’t know this, and it will do you no harm to know, but Churchill has his fingers in the pie in almost every major European capital. He’s not some doddering old warmonger, good for a historical laugh. He has his own information network, second to none. We are inviting you to join it.”

“You… You want me to become a spy for Churchill…”

Gunther shook his head. “No. Not a spy. You are to do nothing illegal. But I showed your letters about Germany to Churchill, and he was very impressed. We get nothing useful from the British Ambassador in Germany, who is madly pro-Hitler, pro-appeasement. Everything is biased. We don’t know what’s going on on the ground. You have a good observing eye. We can’t make decisions about Europe if we don’t know what’s going on over there.”

“Why me? You’d blend in better.”

“I’m needed here.”

Tom laughed. “Oh, come on! ‘You go to the Front; I’m needed here.’”

Gunther smiled broadly. “Quite right. I keep forgetting you’re all grown up. Well, I am needed because the government wants me to work on a defense system.”

“The government? Who do you work for?”

“Sorry. I work for the government. I moonlight for Churchill.”

“So, where is the Great Man?”

“Not far. Chartwell. And Tom?”

“Yes?”

“Around Churchill, when you even think of the term ‘Great Man,’ don’t use quotes. He knows his own greatness. And thank God. We need one man in this island who is not prone to debilitating self-doubt.”

Tom nodded, then thought for a moment.

“You want me to fly to Paris.”

“Yes. You can get around the quickest in an airplane.”

“What is it like these days, city-hopping on the Continent?”

“You should be fine for awhile. We’ll register you with the Ambassador in Berlin.”

“The Hitlerian appeaser.”

Gunther shrugged, then stood up slowly. “Look, it’s not a perfect situation. I actually had some hopes for Klaus. Now it’s up to you.”

“And it all comes down to…” Tom paused. He handed the piece of paper with the editorial on it back to Gunther.

“Comes down to what?”

“Comes down to whether I think what happened last night in Germany will change people’s minds.”

“Tom,” said Gunther, taking him by the shoulders. “It is my sad, sad duty to report that most people in this world have no minds to change.”

Tom stepped back. “Sorry? That’s rather un-democratic.”

“Well, you know what Churchill has to say about democracy.”

“No.”

Gunther imitated Churchill reasonably well: “‘Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.’”

“See, that’s what I’m worried about. Style without substance. What do you mean about people being mindless? Before I cast my lot, I need to know what I’m defending.”

“All right,” sighed Gunther. He checked his watch, then sat down. “We have time. Will you sit?”

“Not just yet. I’m getting a bikky.” He went into the kitchen, and returned with a bag of biscuits.

“How intelligent do you think you are, Tom?” asked Gunther.

“Pretty intelligent, I think.”

“Who is smarter than you? I mean, that you know.”

“How do you mean? Marks?”

“Oh God no!”

“Then how?”

Gunther paused, then said: “How many people do you know who would have come to the conclusion that Germany—and peace—was doomed, from a two-week visit?”

“Assuming it’s so.”

“Well, let’s say that old Winnie is a pretty intelligent sod. He thinks what you think. So if you’re wrong, you’re in good company. Also, I happen to know that you opposed Klaus from the first time you met him. And it’s no accident that you and he are both training pilots.”

Tom snorted uneasily. “What are you saying? Fate?”

“Never mind. Too much. Does anyone see the future except you? I don’t mean anything mystical about that. The future from the present. The inescapable from the unconscious, if you like. Who is that intelligent?”

“I got kicked out of Oxford.”

“Oxford produces, with the greatest pleasure, appeasers like Reginald and Nazis like Klaus.”

“Perhaps appeasement is great wisdom.”

“No.”

“Perhaps…”

“No! You have to be more certain of your worth.”

Tom took a deep breath. Gunther held his gaze. Tom took another step backwards.

“All right, so I am intelligent.”

“Who—other than myself—do you share your thoughts with? Completely? Without frustration?”

Tom laughed—and there was a little bitterness in it. “No one.”

“So—what if you’re brilliant? What if you are surrounded by dribbling idiots?”

“Then wouldn’t I be too valuable to send to Germany? When they’re killing their enemies? Sorry. That was funnier in my head.”

“A man with an IQ of two hundred is not twice as smart as a man with an IQ of one hundred. A man with an IQ of one hundred is not twice as smart as a moron with an IQ of fifty. It’s an order of magnitude. You have as much in common with the average man as the average man has with a drooling idiot. You are alone! Brilliant souls have to find each other. We’re like water in the desert! Stop pretending that the average person has your capacity!”

Tom opened his mouth, then shook his head, as if to clear his ears of water.

“And it’s even worse than that,” continued Gunther. “It is the man with the IQ of, say, 125 who is the most dangerous. All he does is run around comparing himself with the average man. He thinks he is so much smarter. He looks down at his feet and feels tall, not noticing how far below the stars he actually is. These are the pretentious men. The men who love to order others around. The men who only think they’re intelligent. The vain men. The men who always lead mankind to disaster!”

“And…”

“And you have more in common with the average man than the pretentious man. The average man looks at a mug and says: ‘Ahah—a mug!’ The pretentious man looks at a mug and says: ‘Ahah—it only looks like a mug to you, because your intellect is limited and you are so easily fooled by your senses. It is far, far more than that!’ It is a con game! The genius looks at the mug and says: ‘A mug is a mug is a mug.’ And goes on to more worthy intellectual pursuits than trying to con the average man about what a mug is! And, as an intellectual, you are in fact surrounded not by common men, but rather pretentious men. Those who, for the sake of vanity, are even more stupid than the moron, who at least knows what a goddamned mug is!”

“All right,” said Tom, holding up his hands. He had never seen Gunther so angry.

“Sorry—it’s not you. It’s just that—when you look at the newspaper and think that somehow people will see what you see, and act on it… My god, I mean look at what Hitler has done in the past eighteen months. Imprisoned thousands in concentration camps. Abolished all civil liberties. Murdered opponents. He’s a fucking thug! And still we want to toady and negotiate. It’s like the police going to a gangster and saying: ‘Tell us your complaints, and we shall address them.’ The main complaint that the gangster has is that the police exist in the first place! How could that negotiation possibly work? I truly dislike that when we threw God out of the public life, we threw out Satan as well. But evil exists. It exists, and it walks the earth. And it’s coming for us. And I truly regret that we shall have to save the fools as well as ourselves.”

Tom suddenly remembered walking through Hyde Park and saying to himself: I would save the average man, but not the intellectuals…

“How does Churchill know me?”

“From the Oxford debate last year. His son tried to get the resolution overturned.”

“And it came back worse,” nodded Tom. “I remember.”

“He said: ‘How does that boy know all this?’ And I said, ‘I sent him to Germany on your coin, Winston.’ And he laughed and said: ‘Then it was money well spent; we shall all have to have a chat when you return.’ And so I have returned. And now, we shall be off to Chartwell.”

“All right, Gunther,” said Tom. “Let me get dressed properly.”

Tom disappeared into the bedroom.

The telephone rang.

“Can you get that?” called Tom.

Gunther picked up the receiver.

“Tom?” asked a voice. A very familiar voice.

“No, Ruth,” said Gunther. “It’s me.”

“Oh, God, Gunther,” said Ruth. “What are you doing there?”

Gunther glanced at Tom’s bedroom door.

“Saving him,” he said softly.

Chapter 57

Tom whistled when he saw Gunther’s car, parked out front.

“Nice, eh?” smiled Gunther. “MG PA 2-seater. I borrowed it.”

“All right,” said Tom, as they got in. “Any tips?”

“Well, tell me what you know about Churchill.”

“He’s… Well, he’s the last great romantic. He’s against Indian self-rule…”

Gunther’s lips tightened.

“What?” asked Tom. “He’s not?”

“We’ll come back to that. Go on.”

“He was born in the—what, 1880s?”

“1874. He was captured in the Boer War. He escaped and made his way through hundreds of miles of enemy territory. Sleeping in trains. It made him a celebrity. His father’s name was Randolph. He was an MP, like Winston. His wife’s name is Clementine. He quit the Conservative Party in—1931? Over Indian self-rule. He now sits in Parliament as an Independent. He writes prodigiously. He spends the morning in bed, writing and dictating. He drinks moderately, but constantly. His mother was American. Fairly irresponsible, if memory serves. She died of two broken ankles. He’s a free trader, but not a classical liberal. Believes in the market. Doesn’t believe in complete laissez-faire. One of the most powerful speakers of our century. Argues for rearmament.

“Oh!” cried Tom, as Gunther’s car shuddered to a halt for some lights. “That’s an argument of his I liked, about Versailles. He said that there was no way to get money out of Germany after the war. ‘If we demand money, they’ll just print more and devalue it. If we demand goods, we’ll harm our own industry. If a million German shoes arrive on our shores, what happens to domestic shoemakers?’ I thought that was very clever. And sweet Lord, but the man can make me cry. He is very passionate, and has a way of framing things which remind me that I am part of a larger story. The story of England. Of civilization. The world. That everyday matters don’t really matter. He makes me want to take up arms in a good fight. Not ‘arms’ arms. Spiritual arms. The truth. Oh, and the Dardanelles.”

Gunther nodded. “The Dardanelles.”

“Churchill was the head of the navy…”

“First Lord of the Admiralty.”

“Sure. In 1915. He wanted to take the Dardanelles with ships. But they turned back, and the land troops were massacred. Tens of thousands of men. He had to resign. And he ended up back in the trenches, as an officer. He has great physical courage. Not particularly religious. He is a great man.”

Gunther nodded. “That he is. All right. I can’t give you the definitive history, but you’ve got to get the story straighter. Churchill goes quite mad if people say that he is against Indian self-rule. He would never accept a debate at that level. ‘If I were against self-rule,’ he says, ‘how could I serve in Parliament? For that represents British self-rule.’ He is not against Indians. He is against religious extremism. He thinks that advocating Indian self-rule indicates a complete lack of imagination. An inability to truly conceive a people and culture utterly different from our own. He served in India, in the cavalry, when he was a very young man. He’s lived there, unlike most of the soft-minded men in his old Party. He knows what would happen if the British withdrew; the war between the Hindus and Muslims would erupt again, and tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of people would be murdered. Civil war. That is all he is trying to avoid. And no credible answer has been raised to that problem. So, he’s not against Indian self-rule. He’s against religious murder. Which I think is an entirely supportable position.”

“All right,” said Tom.

“And,” said Gunther, “don’t even mention the Dardanelles unless you’ve done a hell of a lot more research than I have on it. I don’t follow the story fully. Churchill was overridden by another man. The Admiral sailing the fleet turned back, against orders, on the first sign of opposition. It was a disaster, but it was a complicated one. Churchill took the bullet for England because he didn’t want the sorry state of Navy organization and discipline revealed during a terrible war. But the man knows his Navy.”

“Got it.”

“And rearmament. For God’s sake don’t try to debate him on anything that is in the newspapers. He’ll eat you alive. He’s very funny, but it hurts. He is not for rearmament. He is for defending England. If there were no credible threats, he would not argue for arms spending. He did nothing of the sort throughout the 1920s. Why not? Because no one and nothing threatened England. Now he says: ‘enemies are forging their arms,’ and everyone thinks he is a warmonger. It’s maddening. Those kinds of debates are pointless—he won’t even enter into them. ‘One does not blame the doctor for the illness,’ he says, ‘nor the surgeon for wielding the knife.’ And you can’t get more out of him.”

“Has he said anything about my father?” asked Tom. He stared out the window. He had been terrified at first; now could not wait to meet Churchill.

“Not in detail. I mentioned that you were Quentin Spencer’s son. He said only: ‘Those shopkeepers will be the end of us.’”

“Hm. What did he mean?”

“I’m no prophet, but I think he means… He’s talked about this only a few times. It’s quite terrifying, so he keeps it close to his chest. It’s all about the warrior class versus the merchant class. The aristocracy is the original warrior class. It’s all very complicated. They have an entire system for training their sons to be warriors. Grueling sports. Separation from the mother. Harsh discipline. A rigid hierarchy. He knows that they are a parasitic class in peacetime. He is quite complacent about that, though, because, as he says: ‘We know when to draw our swords.’ They know an enemy when they see one. That is the boarding-school system. Organized cruelty. You are oppressed, then you become the oppressor. You’ve been a bastard, so you know a bastard when you see one. Overseas. Like Hitler.

“But that’s all gone by the wayside now. War is considered obsolete, and the middle-class businessmen have taken over.” Gunther laughed. “They use the word ‘war’ in the most ridiculous ways. ‘A war on poverty.’ On unemployment. On alcohol. They know how to balance their books and spend other people’s money. But they lack imagination. International intelligence. They have had little lives of little rationalities. They have no conception of evil. They are narrow pragmatists. When they hear: ‘rearm,’ they hear: ‘go into debt.’ They hear: ‘harm the economy.’ They do not hear: ‘save the country,’ or ‘defend the people.’ They have forgotten—if they ever knew—that the government is, by its very nature, an agency of violence. It is a social institution with a monopoly on legal force. It is, fundamentally, an agency of war. The warrior class know this. The merchant class treats government as if it is a sort of business, with a budget, customers, a balance sheet, and five-year plans. That is nonsense. It is not a business. It has armies and navies. It has no competition. It throws people in jail. It rules a quarter of the globe. It is not a business. Running it as a business is about as sensible as running a business like a government. It’s all quite ridiculous. The merchant class negotiate with each other under one consistent law. They only know how to operate under the umbrella of enforced law.”

Gunther’s hands were white on the wheel. “But that is not how the world works. The world outside of local law courts. Countries exist in a state of nature. There is no real international law. They want to negotiate with Hitler for Europe as if they were negotiating with BMW for widgets. It’s insane. Utterly the wrong approach. The wrong sphere. You can’t invade BMW if you don’t get the contract. You can’t negotiate with a madman gathering an army together. The merchant class doesn’t understand this. They are untrained. They lack imagination. They cannot see evil. That’s why Churchill said: ‘These shopkeepers will be the end of us.’”

“That’s…” started Tom, then stopped.

Gunther laughed. “Don’t even try, Tom. Don’t comment on his ideas until you’ve had a chance to absorb them. It would be the height of vanity.”

“All right, but what about the League of Nations?”

Gunther smiled. “I’ll let him answer that, if it comes up. He’d probably shoot me dead if he knew I was paraphrasing him to this degree as it is. So forget about that. Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about this woman!”

Tom looked forlorn, and related the sad, short story of Jacqueline. And so it was that they passed the time of the drive.

Chartwell was a beautiful home, in the old-style English-brick-honeycomb manner. It sprawled in a large L shape, with well-positioned and well-trimmed ivy and bushes softening the brusque geometry of its brickwork.

As they pulled up to Chartwell, Gunther said:

“There’s one more story that might be useful to know. There are a number of terms which cannot be used in Parliament. Insults. A few years ago, a new Labour MP used a whole barrage of them against Churchill. Afterwards, the head of his party took him aside and said: ‘Look, chap, that’s really not on. You have to drive down to Chartwell to apologize.’ So the man took the two-hour trip down from London. When he arrived, Churchill’s butler let him in, saying that the Great Man was in the privy. The young Labour MP went upstairs, and stood outside the toilet, apologizing profusely. Churchill said: ‘Wait, wait. I can only take one shit at a time!’”

Gunther roared with laugher. “Can you imagine! Coming up with that gem, when taking a crap! Unbelievable! So remember: he’s the last Romantic, perhaps, but he’s also pretty earthy. Not a German Romantic, but an English one.”

Gunther parked, and they got out of the car. Tom smoothed his hair. Gunther grinned, looking at him. Tom shrugged and smiled.

“All right, all right. It’s not a date,” he said.

“Come on,” said Gunther, taking his arm. They walked up to the ivy-overgrown front door. Gunther rapped on the black wrought-iron knocker.

A butler opened it.

“Hullo, David,” said Gunther. “Is he ready for us?”

“Yes, sir,” replied David, stepping aside to let them in. “He’s in the garden.”

“He’s mad about his garden,” said Gunther. “Leave your shoes on.”

They went into the garden, and Tom saw a bald, thickset man of about sixty, kneeling against a wall, slapping bricks into place, knocking them down with the handle of a trowel, then scraping away the mortar with the blade.

“Winston!” cried Gunther.

Churchill got up—with surprising spryness, Tom thought, for a man of his age.

“Winston, may I introduce Tom Spencer.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Churchill, shaking his hand.

“And the same… Thanks—for your hospitality,” stammered Tom.

Churchill grinned. “I very much enjoyed the reports of your debate at Oxford last year. Though a blow to our cause, it had all the elements of high drama. Brother versus brother. I wish I had been there.”

“I’m sure I would have done better if you were,” said Tom.

“Unlikely, but very kind. It sounds as if you acquitted yourself very well. But come on—let’s have some lunch.” He glanced down at his hands. “Sorry about the mess. I lost track of time. A deplorable habit, but I’m too old to shake it.”

“We’ll wait in the dining room.”

Churchill nodded, then turned on his heels and went into the house.

He came down after changing and washing his hands. He asked his butler for some port, sandwiches, and a cigar. Gunther agreed to some wine. Tom declined.

Churchill laughed at this. “My god, but your generation is a healthy-minded lot! That’s why I find this appeasement business so strange. You exercise, watch your waistlines like brides, refrain from alcohol and tobacco—as if you were athletes. And then you want to appease Hitler. It’s most confusing. I should be on your side. I live poorly, and am surprised to have made it this far. I doubt I shall reach seventy. My father died young. I thought I would burn bright and short. But here I am, with little life left, and I live for the future. You lot, with your lives ahead of you, live for the moment.”

Tom nodded. It was hard to assimilate these rapid thoughts. Something like listening to Gunther in high dudgeon.

The port and cigars were brought. Churchill cut one, and lit it, puffing contentedly. “So, Gunther tells me that you might be interested in putting your shoulder to the wheel of our little cause.”

“Yes, sir,” said Tom, leaning forward in his chair. He was about to go on, but realized that he had answered the question.

“Why?” asked Churchill. “It’s scarcely a popular cause.”

“I—I think that there will be a war.”

Churchill nodded. “Is it inevitable?”

“For me? I—don’t know. I think so.”

“Why?”

“Because no one sees it coming. Well, not no one, but everyone that counts. Not to say that…”

Churchill held up his hand. “Please. I know that I am far from the center of power. With no chance of approaching it in the foreseeable future. We must always deal with facts, young man. Facts give strength.”

“Do you think that it is inevitable?”

Churchill paused. He and Gunther exchanged glances. Gunther nodded. Churchill took another pull on his cigar, sipped his port almost delicately, and said:

“It is inevitable that these two systems of thought—totalitarian and capitalistic—are locked in mortal combat in men’s minds. The post-war period has not been kind to capitalism. Property rights, which are the foundation of a civil society, have fallen into disrepute, and are everywhere in retreat. Men who profit from destroying property rights advance everywhere, in endless, implacable lines. Dictators. Fascists. Socialists. Communists. I have no choice but to fight them, because they would be the first to cut my throat if they ruled here. They claim the right of the common good, which is always the death of the individual. So these two systems of thought—the supremacy of the individual versus the supremacy of the group—are destined to be at war, probably for the remainder of our century at least. This war will be primarily for men’s minds and hearts, which is where the most bloody conflicts always occur. It is occurring now, in England, as we speak, and those on our side are falling in endless rows. The collectivists have a fast and unmovable grip on the mental life of this island. The collectivists and the pragmatists. The collectivists want to end capitalism and democracy, and substitute the rule of the group, as personified by one charismatic individual. It is the cult of modernity. It is far from modern. The pragmatists want to defend capitalism and democracy not because they are good in and of themselves, but just because we are used to them. It is a most contemptible argument. No one rouses themselves to feats of martial courage for the sake of history alone. Ideas do not gain truth simply by adding years to them. And, of course, it is contradictory. They say that our system is good because it is old, but say that we must respect the Nazis because they are elected. But Nazism is a statist virulence less than two years old, and surely should bow to the weight of millennia which our institutions possess. But they never think so clearly. The pragmatists have two great weaknesses, weaknesses that shall surely undo us. The first is that they are unable to reason from first principles. They do not value freedom, but England. They do not defend morality, but history. This is an utterly amoral position, and cannot be defended with any resolution. The second weakness is that they always try to measure their decisions based on results. They try to decide whether to rearm based on how rearmament will effect the economy. Or how Herr Hitler would perceive our rearming. Or how it might affect international stability. Or what our allies might think of it. Or whether it might offend Signor Mussolini. Or if it will get them reelected. They are the most dishonorable rabble I have even seen in my life. I would give my eyeteeth to have five ex-servicemen in high office. Not that it is always wise to have soldiers go and play at politics. But it would be a joy beyond belief to deal with people to whom words like ‘honor’ and ‘integrity’ had some meaning. If England faces even a potential danger, then we must rearm. The first duty of elected leaders is to protect their citizens. Not to play with socialist schemes for the betterment of the poor. Not to worry about balanced budgets and the effects of military spending on trade. It is not to make their citizens wealthy or give them jobs or tend them in old age. The first duty of a government is to protect its citizens from abuse. Both domestic and foreign. When danger threatens, you do not cast your eyes over your accounts. You do not try to guess the consequences of funding adequate armed forces. You do not worry about reelection. You lead, even if your followers do not like your choices. You act to defend the nation!”

Churchill was puffing hard on his cigar and waving his port.

Tom said: “Do you think that the present administration is capable of defending our nation?”

Churchill narrowed his eyes and replied: “I have to be sure of your discretion.”

Tom nodded.

“I cannot risk a loose tongue, young man!” he continued, his voice sharpening. “When people ask you how you spent your weekend, I will not have you saying that you sat and chatted with good old Winnie, and he said that we were doomed. Do you understand?”

“I do. You can trust me.”

“I cannot trust you,” said Churchill. “But I do trust Gunther. You cannot speak of our conversations. Not now, not a year from now, not in your damn memoirs. Is that understood?”

Tom felt some disappointment—but then chided himself for his shallowness. He inclined his head, and murmured, with soft gravity: “I so swear.”

Churchill’s eyes seemed to burn into him. The moment hung, and then Churchill’s broad face broke into a grin. “So you do. Welcome. But I have drifted from your question, which is inexcusable, but inevitable. I also pick my way through my thoughts. You asked if war is inevitable. This is my answer. I am no longer fighting to prevent war, but to assure my place in the Cabinet when it comes.”

Tom stared at Churchill for a long, long time. The old man held his eyes without smiling, almost gently, as a doctor might speak of sudden mortality. Tom’s chin contracted slightly. His nose stung. His eyes filled.

“But civilization will end with war.”

“But, Tom,” said Churchill softly, “civilization will end without war. If we surrender. And I would rather there be no world than a Nazi world.”

Tom touched his own cheek. “So we are all to die.”

“I cannot speak of that. But we cannot make moral decisions based on their possible consequences. The right action cannot be judged by its effects. We must resist evil, regardless of what happens. To flinch from defending ourselves because we fear the consequences will do nothing but cause our enemies to continually raise the stakes. To make it more dangerous for us to defend ourselves. To make it more unpopular. To sap our will with dire effects.”

“Yes…” said Tom. Gunther got up, poured a glass of wine, and handed it over. Tom held it in a limp hand.

“And England does not have the will to resist at the moment. This is one of those terrible periods in British history when we dither and argue as foemen forge their swords.” Churchill smiled. “That is a nice phrase. I shall have to use it somewhere. So Germany shall rearm, and we shall go to war. I continue to speak against what I perceive as inevitable because the Appeasers will be utterly unable to wage a war against those they have claimed to be worthy of negotiation. When they are betrayed by Herr Hitler, they shall be revealed as having betrayed us. The mettle of the people will not rise to save such cowards. The politicians will become confused and depressed. They will be unable to lead the charge with clear consciences.

“The only men able to lead in such a dire situation will be the men who have opposed Appeasement. I am the most vocal opponent of these craven compromises. When they lead to war, I will be the only viable leader, if I live that long. But I do not think it will be long.” Churchill smiled. “Before five years have passed, I shall justify all the money and power my class has possessed throughout history.”

Tom nodded, wiping his eyes.

Churchill laughed. “You are also a blubberer! Excellent! We shall get along famously.”

“Winston,” said Gunther. “We should really get to business.”

“Of course, of course. Here, young man,” said Churchill, leaning forward and passing a handkerchief to Tom. “It’s a lot, I know.”

“Thanks,” said Tom. “I—I know all this.”

“Of course you do,” said Churchill. “I read about your debate. I am just a—mouthpiece for people’s thoughts. I synthesize, condense and focus. That’s all a leader can do. If no one believes him, he just repeats himself until the situation becomes clearer.”

“Churchill…” said Gunther.

He laughed. “Quite right! Now, let’s get to specifics. We need a man on the ground in Europe. It’s really that simple.”

“Winston!” cried Gunther in exasperation, glancing at Tom. “Lengthy where unnecessary, over-short where details are required.”

Churchill laughed, lighting another cigar. “Be my guest. Take the baton.”

“Our intelligence community is in a shambles,” said Gunther, getting up. He coughed, went over and opened a window. “From the outside, it always looks like the house is smoking. We get nothing good from the Security Service. It’s always the same problem. They underestimate German strength, because they think that rearmament is a bad idea, and everyone loves to play politics. So, we need to get some good numbers.”

“How—how could I go about doing that?”

“You can’t,” said Churchill.

“So…”

“We’re just outlining the problem,” said Gunther.

“And I’m long-winded!” smiled Churchill.

“All right. We need to get a sense of what’s going on around Germany. In Germany, if you can, but that’s risky. Germany might start expanding soon, and we want to have someone there, on the ground, who can let us know what’s going on. Could there be any rebellion from within? What is the mood in the Rhineland? In Austria? Czechoslovakia? All the places with a strong German population. Are they dying to reunite with the Fatherland?”

“It will all be—hearsay, won’t it?” asked Tom.

“Yes. Yes, it will. But it’s essential. We have to humanize these people. What does the average British man think about Czechoslovakia right now? Nothing! The Poles? Some bad jokes about intelligence. Austrians? Skiing. They don’t know that these countries—Poland excepted—are all the vanguards of democracy against Soviet expansionism. If we allow them to get carved up, we lose the chance of a two-front war against Germany—unless the FO negotiates something with Stalin, which seems unlikely, given their current attitudes.”

“So—and forgive me, but I’m still not sure what you want me to do. Wander around and send my impressions?”

Churchill guffawed. “Well…”

“Winston has quite a network of European intelligence,” said Gunther. “More information flows through here than anywhere except MI5 and the FO.”

“But mine is more accurate,” grunted Churchill. “The ambassador in Berlin is a flawless bastard. If he ever sent one actual fact to Whitehall, instead of his fatuous opinions, I would give up port. The problem is willpower, Tom. Our treaties don’t mean a damn. The efficiency of our military is important, but still subject to the power of our will. The Great War was a war of attrition. Our blockade finally worked, but only after many years. You can’t win a war of attrition without willpower. We cannot beat Hitler and Mussolini—and possibly Hirohito, if Japan’s little Manchurian adventure is any indication—unless we can combine with other European powers. But if the willpower of our European allies is lacking, we shall have to cuddle up to the New World.”

Tom frowned and held up a hand. “What if our allies are weak, and the US remains isolationist?”

There was a long pause.

Tom swallowed. “Never mind,” he said. “Go on.”

“The will of the leaders is only part of the equation,” continued Churchill. “Leaders can prod their citizens onto the front, but wars cannot be won by soldiers who fear guns both ahead and behind them. They lose initiative, morale, and the will to win. So I have to know: what are the people of Europe thinking?”

Tom smiled, despite himself. He could imagine jotting that down on a ‘to do’ list: ‘find out what Europe is thinking.’

“And, we have to humanize them,” repeated Gunther.

“So, short stories and surveys,” smiled Tom. “Got it.”

Churchill laughed. “No. We have an assignment for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Times,” said Gunther. “Write articles from Europe. The Times will review them.”

Tom’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“Well, to be frank,” said Churchill, “we shall pass on your articles to an inside contact, who will use them.”

“I haven’t got a thread of journalistic experience.”

“You write well,” said Churchill—giving Tom a little thrill. As Mozart might say: ‘catchy tune’… “Gunther has shown me your letters. But don’t worry about that. We have to make Europe real to the average British reader. Not France, that’s easy enough. But the Eastern states. And the German people, too, if they have hesitations about Hitler. It would be a stroke of genius to advocate our cause as being sympathetic to the German people, who are groaning under a dictatorship of the most brutal kind.”

“But—will they really publish such things?”

“We don’t know,” said Gunther. “Certainly not all of them. Maybe very few. But that doesn’t matter. We’ll get them, absorb them, pass them on. Those that aren’t published will still count. Knowledge—any kind of first-hand experience—is always crucial.”

Tom nodded. “I understand.”

“And you will do it?”

Tom did not hesitate. “Of course. Of course.”

Churchill slapped his own knee. “Good man! Excellent! When?”

“I would like to finish up my current course…”

“Training pilots,” put in Gunther.

Churchill blinked, then laughed. “Really? I hate to take that skill out of England. But larger paths call.”

“I could leave in under five weeks.”

“That is excellent,” said Churchill. “Most satisfactory.” He clapped his hands together like a little boy. “Now, who wants to help me finish my wall?”

Chapter 58

Martin was not overly surprised to find out that Klaus had joined the Nazi party. His own relationship with the führer was a complex mix of hope, fear and disquiet.

For Martin—as for most churchmen in Germany—the end of the Weimar Republic had been the end of the ‘fourteen years of darkness.’ The secularism of the twenties, the decadence, the falling church attendance among the young, the hearty scorn of the urban classes—all that had put the churches, both Catholic and Protestant, on the defensive. They could not glower over helpless sinners and force them to kneel, as in the old days. Relativism did not serve the Church. The young, bearded, forest-strolling, guitar-strumming, and commune-living Wandervögel had not flocked to organized religion—not because they did not like religion. They just didn’t like organization.

But that was all gone now. The Wandervögel were gone. Fled, imprisoned or dragged into the endless columns of Nazi adherents. Martin should not have been surprised, but he was. He had been a priest long enough to know that every extreme personality trait is secretly united with its opposite. The Wandervögel often made the best Nazis. Those who reject authority—any authority—out of hand usually make the most terrifying leaders.

But now all that loose, painted, free-thinking nonsense had been brought to heel. Martin, the night that Klaus and Tom had come home late, the night when the radio carried the news of the Nazi victory, had felt a pain between his shoulder blades, and imagined that some kind of crusted, medieval, stone wings were sprouting from his regretfully modern shoulders. It was clear to him that this was the dawn of a new age. The age of unity. The age of purity. The age of Germany.

He had thundered out his approval from his pulpit. His words, he knew, were too complex for his simplistic parishioners, but he could not stop them. A great fire had erupted in his heart, and poured thick smoke into the twisting wind of his words. It was a loosening of all restraint—all restraint against some essential purity—and Martin did not try to stop himself, or wonder at the source of all his new energy.

Some sort of ancient bargain had been reforged. All was, once more, as it should have been. That fiendish Anglo-French Enlightenment, with all its secular rationality and separation of church and state, had finally been ejected from Germany. The führer, although a lapsed Catholic, had finally brought the might of his sword to bear on questions of faith. He had concluded a concordant with the Vatican, promising religious freedom for Catholics and allowing the Catholic Church the power to regulate its own affairs.

This had all seemed well and good to Martin. The alternative of rank Communism, with its materialistic atheism and wholesale slaughter of the nuns and clergy, had loomed large in his night terrors over the past few years. But now the Nazis were in, and the humiliations of 1918 were to be undone. Germany would become strong again, and its younger-sibling rage against the Enlightenment would finally be allowed to vent its spleen.

Martin had always loathed the condescension with which the French, English—and, to some degree, the Americans—had always approached Germany. It was with the maddening politeness of a repressed man visiting an unstable younger brother in an asylum. ‘And how is little, backward Germany today?’ they always asked. ‘Feeling all right? Not too unsteady?’ That kind of tone—always and forever present—made Martin’s teeth grind and hands itch to squeeze something. They were so goddamned smug, those sleek-skinned bastards! He felt that he had no purchase on such offensive sentiments. I tell them of the passion of my faith, they just pat my head and say: ‘that’s nice,’ although they do not think it is nice at all. They think my faith is childish. To them, my view of the world is much like the finger-painting of a rather backward child. But I am not a child! I shall show them—we shall all show them—the power of the German soul!

And so, Martin’s heart floated up to meet the führer’s empty grin and savage countenance. Here is a man who will bend to no one! he thought with dark glee, gazing at a poster of the Great Man. The resolution in his face was endless, inescapable, like a force of nature. He shall represent us in the world, and he shall never waver, or retreat. He shall win for us the respect that is our just due!

But something began to happen, soon after Hitler signed the concordant with the Vatican in the summer of 1933. Five days afterwards, he approved a sterilization program for the retarded, homeless, vagabond, and criminal elements. This drove the Vatican quite mad. Five days after that, Hitler began the process which led to the dissolution of the Catholic Youth League, and its eventual integration into the Hitler Youth.

Then, the wave of arrests began.

Hundreds of Catholic priests and nuns and lay leaders were arrested and charged with ‘immorality’ or ‘smuggling foreign currency.’ The tension seemed to be between—as it had been for England a few centuries before—the domestic state and a foreign-run Church. Hitler could not act too strongly; one third of Germans were Catholic. However, having given up all their civil liberties and property rights, it was most unlikely that any real opposition would come from the right to freedom of worship.

The Protestant churches were, Martin knew, even easier to dominate. The forty-five million German Protestants belonged to eighteen Lutheran and Reformed denominations. The rise of Nazism had further split the Protestants. From certain circles, there was a great drive to unite National Socialism with Protestant Theology. A new denomination had arisen, the ‘German Christian Faith Union,’ which supported Hitler’s race theories and violently opposed the Old Testament, with its ‘tales of cattle merchants and pimps,’ and took it upon themselves to rewrite the New Testament, to bring Jesus’s teachings in line with Nazi tenets. They demanded that all German pastors take an oath of personal allegiance to Hitler, and bar converted Jews from their congregations. Their rallying cry? ‘One People, One Reich, One Faith!’

Martin also watched the rise of another Protestant denomination, called the ‘Confessional Church,’ run by a former U-Boat commander, Reverend Niemöller. This Church also sought to join theology with Nazism, but without having to rewrite the Bible. It rejected the Nazi theories of race, and so did not reject converted Jews, or non-Aryans. It did not grant Hitler absolute authority in the spiritual realm. It demanded freedom of religious worship.

The pastors of the ‘Confessional Church’ were the first Protestants to feel Hitler’s heel on their throats. By arguing for freedom of worship, and refusing to condone limitless Nazi power, the Nazis and the Confessionals were clearly, to Martin at least, on a collision course from which only one could survive. He was not a betting man, of course, but if he was, he would not have put his money on the church men.

Historically, he knew, the Church possessed a very weak record of opposing absolutism. Freedom of conscience was a very new concept. Ideally, every man and woman should be allowed to choose their own path, for only free will could lead to God. In theory, an excellent concept. In practice, it emptied the churches quicker than communism. Free people just did not beat a path to the priest’s door. If they were not raised in the faith, they almost never came to the faith. Well, except for marriages, baptisms, confirmations, and funerals, which were scarcely enterprises the Church could survive on.

So, since political freedom clearly benefited only the Devil, it could scarcely be a virtue. The Republic had almost brought about the collapse of religion. Thus, the end of the Republic was the return of God.

The coming of the Nazis, then, gave the Church a new lease on life. But, since the Church was, in the Catholic case, run by foreigners, and in the Protestant case, hopelessly divided, the Nazis could scarcely benefit all the various religions at once.

This was quite clear to Martin. The robe cannot prevail against the sword. The Nazis had landed, for better or worse. It was better for religion as a whole, but would be worse for specific sects. Martin did not intend to be among the fallen.

This decision was reinforced when a wave of terror against the tiny percentage of Protestant clergy who did not wholeheartedly support the regime began in late 1933. Those who preached for freedom of worship were dragged from their pulpits in mid-syllable and viciously beaten in front of their gaping and scattering congregations. Then, a dismally dense pastor named Ludwig Müller was forced on the Protestants, as head of the newly formed Reich Church. His goal—direct from Hitler—was to unify and Nazify the German Protestants.

This did not bode well for independent thought, and Martin spent many a night in constant prayer. A most subtle test has been loosed upon the world, he thought. Does God want us to join, or fight? Religious impulse has been saved by the Nazis, but at the expense of individual conscience. What, oh what can the answer be? What does God value more? The free will of unredeemed sinners? How can sinners be damned if the Church is not there to save them? How can the Church save them if they are not free in their belief? God must be chosen, not bullied. But when sinners are free to choose, they choose the filth of the Republic over the glory of God… Speak to me, Holy Father! Help me cut this knot!

God did not see fit to help Martin flee his maze. The priest accepted this with all humility, and understood the problem within a few weeks. Since this is a question of free will, God is allowing me to make the decision on my own. But if God is allowing me to make the decision on my own, then surely He is implicitly favoring free will? But if he is favoring free will, then why did He allow the Nazis to take control? Unless the Nazis were given power by the Devil… But if the Devil is responsible for the Nazis, then why are so many more people going to Church now? If the Devil has favored the Nazis, then surely God must have favored the Republic, which was a time of great darkness and confusion for His Holy Church…

And so it would go, round and round, for hours upon end. Just as he was coming to a conclusion, an error in reasoning or contradiction in history would bring the whole edifice down, in a choking cloud of doubt and murk.

Normally, in times of spiritual crisis, he would turn to his wife. Martin truly believed in the old German saying about women, that their lives contained only ‘Church, kitchen, and children.’ I am too distracted by my knowledge of history and politics, he thought. She, with the touching simplicity of her homely heart, will point the way…

But it was not to be. His conversation with her ran thus:

“Renata, dear, I need your advice on something.”

“Yes?”

“I cannot decide whether to speak for the Nazis, or against them.”

“Do you love your eldest son?”

And that was it. No greater wisdom was forthcoming. She had always seemed such a reliable spiritual guide. On their wedding night, after the filthy deed was done, he had imagined that, in the past, she would have gladly turned over her children to the Inquisition if she suspected them of witchcraft. She lay, her eyes wide and worshipful, staring at the ceiling, her hands clenched by her side.

“I am so happy to have given up such pain for God!” she whispered.

Then I should take you again, thought Martin with sudden vehemence. But he knew he could not. He had barely made it through the first act.

But something had changed in her, since the ascension of Hitler. She had become more primal. Less ‘church,’ and more ‘children.’ He could not get any sort of political opinions out of her. Before, in the heyday of the hated Republic, they spent many joyful, venomous evenings scorning its decadence and spiritual horror, and rejoicing at the coming flames of purgation.

And now those flames had arrived, and were coursing through the land like a burning river, and Virtue walked the hills with fiery whips in its many hands. And Martin rejoiced, though he knew not what to do with his rejoicing.

He rejoiced, but Renata did not.

And then came that terrible evening, when the radio had spoken of their new Master, when Renata had called her children to her, as a secular shield which she feared would soon be torn from her flesh. Martin had never spoken of that night. His mind refused to settle on its meaning. Every time it pushed its way into his consciousness, he felt that it represented some terrible gulf between himself and his wife, which it would be a mortal sin to meditate upon. She was weakened that night, he thought, his jaw tightening to near-whiteness. She was weakened by our Common Enemy, who forever uses secular attachments to tear us from God. How often the eternal spirit is eclipsed by transient flesh!

He forgave her, of course, as he forgave everything except the Republic, because she had carried and borne their children in her flesh, and so was more prone to grasping their bodies than saving their souls. This is why God gives us fathers, he reasoned. To save us from the earthly sentimentality of mothers…

So he could not turn to Renata. He had never turned to anyone else. He certainly could not turn to any of his children. Klaus was the only one who had even the chance to understand. But Klaus would sneer at such spiritual matters. Klaus was a Platonic realist who had made his choice. He had joined the Nazis. They had never spoken of it. Klaus still lived at home. He worked ferociously hard. He slept five, six hours a night. He trained three rotations of Luftwaffe pilots every day. He had been given a jeep. He slept several nights a week at the aerodrome. Martin had been out to the airfield once, with Renata and the other children, and watched a mock air-battle, and demonstrations of precision bombing. Several thousand people had come to watch the exhibition. Martin and his family were in a prominent position, and he condemned himself several times over the course of the day for indulging in the sin of pride.

The crowd had roared in approval, their hands to their faces, as dogfights raged over them and bombs burst in not-too-distant fields. The young people were in a frenzy. With one voice, they screamed ‘Heil Hitler!’ every time a bomb exploded or airplane rolled over the crowd. They tried to out-shout the noises of war. Their cries mingled with the echoes of the bursting earth, and the scream of the sky slashed by metal wings.

That day, Martin had watched the crowd, searching for invisible attendants. Did angels or devils stand among them? He ground his teeth, unable to see, unable to decide. They were unified, but bloodthirsty. Happy, but virulent. But virulent in what cause? For surely Christ was virulent in the temple, slashing at the money-changers with His whip… He could not decide, he could not decide!

And there was something biblical about the sky-machines. It was the greatest show of aerial power since Lucifer had fallen. When the earth erupted, Martin imagined that it was the passage of an invisible devil, cast down from heaven. As the airplanes roared past, chasing and weaving, Martin pictured it as an aerial battle of good and evil.

And when the day was done, everyone was satisfied. Klaus’s face was a picture of pure, satisfied progress. His brothers and sisters swarmed over him, complimenting and offering assistance. The pilots saluted him as he reviewed them, resplendent in his blue uniform. His blonde hair was short; he had lost weight. His short hair made his jaw even more prominent; his thinness brought out the dark circles under his eyes. He was lean, exhausted, and self-satisfied. He had thrown up his objections and found his cause.

And Martin envied him. That night, he tried to talk it over with his wife, calling over from his own bed.

“Renata!”

“Yes?”

Are you asleep? The oldest joke in the sentient universe swirled in his mind, and he shook his head, annoyed with himself. “Did you enjoy today?”

There was a pause. He knew, from old experience, that she never, never lied.

“I was proud of how much he has accomplished.”

“Do you think it will turn out—well?”

“I don’t know.”

Martin propped himself up on his elbow and turned to her. “I—have to make a decision.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think I should support them?”

“I do not think it matters.”

“Excuse me?”

“They are doing well without your support. I think that Klaus’s support means more.”

He was stung, but knew better than to oppose his wife’s frankness. “Do you think they are from God?”

“Everything is from God.”

Equivocation was the closest she came to lying, he knew. He tried again.

“Do you think that I should serve them?”

“They are our secular masters.”

“I know. But they are extending their power into the spiritual realm.”

“Hitler is right when he says that his rise was shadowed by a more-than-mortal power. God could have prevented it…”

“Yes, but is it a test?”

“If it is a test, Martin, then you must take it.”

Her statement electrified him. “What? What?”

But she did not answer. She turned and faced the shadows on the far wall, and he knew he would get nothing more out of her tonight.

Take the test… Did that mean join the Nazis, or fight them? Was the test compliance, or rebellion?

He tried to turn over in his bed, but was trapped by his wife’s confining sheets. Her mother had been a maid, and she knew how a bed should be made. Human beings should be pressed between the sheets like kings and queens in a deck of cards.

Martin almost cursed, then wriggled out of his bed. He got up, threw on his dressing gown and slippers, and went downstairs.

Klaus was sitting at the kitchen table, marking some papers. He looked up with regret as his father padded into the room.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” said Martin. He dipped a stone mug into a barrel of water and sat at the table, opposite his son.

Klaus’s brows were pinched. His pen flew over the paper.

“No…” He muttered. “No…good heavens no. Nice! That’s not even an answer. Idiot. Hah! It’s basic math…”

“Can’t sleep,” said Martin impatiently.

“Warm milk,” replied Klaus, not looking up.

Martin was about to say that his son’s hair was too short, but realized that it was a rather senseless thing to say. Leave that to his girlfriend…

Not that there were any girlfriends.

One of Martin’s great secrets was that he had lived a loose life for over a year before joining the priesthood. Not even Renata knew about that. Nor his immediate superiors. He had traveled, drank, danced, fought, and bedded the kinds of women attracted to his gypsy intensity. He saw a life ahead of him without purpose, with a lazy serving of tattered nerve-endings. He saw himself falling through the floors of poor quarters to poorer rooms—to a street perhaps. He could find no life without structure. He could generate nothing from within himself. To find any shape at all, he required a container…

“Have you never had a girlfriend, Klaus?” he asked.

Klaus glanced up, grinning ironically. “The Party is our spouse, they say.”

“What about before?”

“What, English girls? In-sip-id…” He drew the syllables out.

“Never been in love?”

“Not with things of the flesh, Father,” he said, with a faint, scornful, dutiful voice.

“No, really. Man to man.”

Klaus looked up again, and his pen stopped moving. It was only then that Martin realized just how continual the scratching had been—and how cheap the paper must be.

“Man to man…” repeated Klaus. The ironic smile stayed on his lips. “No. I’ve never been in love.”

“I love your mother very much.”

“I’m sure.”

“A woman is the better half of our faith.”

Klaus nodded with a vague kindness.

“What do you think is the relationship between the church and the Nazis?”

Klaus shook his head slightly. “I am no theoretician, as I am constantly reminded. If I were such a thinker, I should never have had to be recruited in the—manner that I was.”

“I cannot decide, and that is unusual.”

“What is in your heart?”

“Nothing. Nothing that makes sense. I change my mind a thousand times a day.”

“So, wait.”

“What?”

“Wait. Don’t force a decision.”

Martin paused, then guffawed. “You and your mother!”

Klaus smiled.

“You both erupt with these little sayings, like tiny volcanoes. Boom! Just do this! And you’re always quite right, both of you. Makes me feel like a fool though.”

Klaus’s expression did not change.

“I know you want to get back to your work. Good. Idle hands… But—but what if they come for me?” asked Martin, his voice suddenly naked, and a little desperate.

Klaus leaned forward, and his eyes fell into shadow. “If they come for you, Father, then you will doubt no more.”

This statement satisfied Martin at the moment, but when he awoke again, lost in the darkest burrow of night, he found the certainty had fled again.

He was not a man to be satisfied with slogans, but slogans were all that was offered.

Chapter 59

Tom thought long and hard about going to the continent again. He felt a great excitement in his belly at the very prospect. No, he thought, not ‘going’ to the continent—flying to the continent!

All thoughts of Jacqueline vanished from his mind for the next two days—except for the occasional burst of self-congratulation about having made the right decision. He made long lists of things he needed, and planned possible routes, determining how and when to stop to pick up fuel and more money.

The current crop of pilots were due to graduate in four weeks. When Tom entered the classroom, he was greatly surprised—and slightly alarmed—to see Jacqueline sitting in her usual seat. His eyes raked over her, to see if she had dressed up—or down—to impress or frighten him. She returned his gaze without guile. He felt the force of her will, and suddenly remembered that she was the kind of woman who could sit in a class of men without fear.

After the class, she remained sitting while the others filed out.

He felt sad, suddenly, after everyone had left, and she was alone, staring at him, her books stacked neatly in front of her.

“I don’t mean to alarm you, Tom, but I don’t accept your reasons.”

Her voice was even. Tom nodded slowly.

“I don’t hand myself over to men. I’m not a party favor. Or a conquest.” She smiled. “And if I felt that, even a little, I would curse myself and never speak up. But I wasn’t a conquest, was I?”

Tom shook his head.

“No, I was much more than that. I was—the possibility of love. Not that quick, not that way, we were both greedy. But the possibility.”

“If I didn’t think that,” said Tom, “I wouldn’t have said what I said.”

Her lips pursed so tight it looked painful.

“Sorry,” said Tom. “I don’t want to be cryptic.”

“A friend of mine had her bloke sleep with another woman, and he tried to convince her that he did it out of love for her. Don’t be that bloke.”

“All right.”

“So you have some dark secret, which is very modern, very rakish, very ‘Foreign Legion.’ All right. We can’t be close if you don’t spill your secret. Just tell me this—is it an important secret?”

“Yes.”

“Is it about you?”

“No.”

“Your family?”

Tom paused. “No.”

“Some hesitation. So something about your family.”

“It’s very tangential.”

“So not a useful clue. Is it about a woman?”

“No.”

“A man?”

“No.”

“Don’t smile. This is not supposed to be enjoyable. A child?”

“…no.”

“Short pause. Children may or may not be involved. So: not about you, your family, men, women or children. My God—you’re in love with a camel!”

He smiled.

“Don’t smile, I said.”

“Don’t make jokes then.”

“I don’t know what is worse—you smiling, or me making jokes. Don’t answer. Men never know when to hold their tongue. Why are you smiling?”

“You take my course for six weeks, and only flirt with me after we—sleep together. You are either quite confident, or quite mad.” He suddenly grew serious. “You shouldn’t flirt. I’m going away.”

Her face fell somewhat. “You’re… Did you know this before we slept together?”

“No.”

“So you just found out?” Her voice was openly skeptical. “Right afterwards?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not a very good story.”

“I know. That’s why you should believe me.”

“Oh…” She wriggled out from behind the narrow desk, standing tall and brushing her dark hair back from her forehead. “That you know it’s believable because it’s not believable… Why would you want to torture me?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“And that tone—that’s even more believable. So tender. Why, Tom? Just tell me why.”

He shook his head slowly. It was like watching a statue disagree.

A tear ran from her eye. “And… You know that feeling, when you’ve met someone who you just know would be perfect for you… I don’t know if you know it, but I know it, and I hate it. You’re very cruel.”

Tom sniffed as well.

“Oh, don’t cry, goddamn it!” cried Jacqueline, turning to him. “If you’re not going to be picked up by the paddy wagon in ten minutes for a life of hard labor, you have no right to cry! You are the most exquisite sadist alive!”

He lowered his head. Say nothing! Say nothing! It was dismal, gruesome. The more he told her he cared, the more she should hate him. The more he spoke of his indifference, the more she would hate him.

But, he thought, what if we do something about the Night of The Long Knives? About these political murders in Germany? But even as the thoughts surfaced, he felt his heart sinking into the wet concrete of colossal indifference. As if we would do something, anything, other than promise to monitor the situation and regret Herr Hitler’s excesses. Would we really invade because he bumped off some fellow Nazis?

Tom shook his head with a shudder. He knew Reginald’s voice when he heard it.

He glanced up at Jacqueline.

“I am going to the continent for some time,” he said. “I care for you greatly. If I learn certain things on the continent, I shall get in touch when I return. Of course, you don’t have to wait for me. It would be quite mad. You are a very attractive woman.”

She started to speak, but he held up his hand.

“That’s all I can offer you. I do care, greatly, but I have no wish to torture you with paradoxes or contradictions. Please. Please leave.”

Jacqueline leaned forward, onto his desk. Her hair and face descended upon him like the great visage of a falling angel. She fell closer and closer, and then tilted his chin and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“Farewell, then,” she said. He felt one more teardrop fall on his upper lip, the salt spreading rapidly. Then, she turned and left the shack.

“Hullo?” shouted Tom, jerking the telephone away from his ear as a burst of static leapt out. “Hullo?”

“I’ll see if he’s here,” said a voice, so thickly accented that it took Tom’s brain a moment to translate.

“Hullo?” asked another voice.

“Hart?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Tom!”

“Tom? Is everything all right?”

“You speak French, right?”

“Umm—yes.”

“I need you to come with me. On a trip.”

“A trip? What kind of trip?”

“I—damn I wish I had time for a letter…”

“What?”

“Can you come to London tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Why?”

“I need you for something.”

“Will it be for long?”

“Yes…”

“What?”

“Yes!”

“How long?”

“A long—time!”

“Tom, what are you talking about?”

“I need you! Come tomorrow, and if you don’t want to stay, you can go back.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Because I’m budgeting, you know, for my doctorate. Can you come here?”

“I wish I could. Please, Hart!”

Crackle!

“All right, Tom. This is your one big favor.”

“Thanks, Hart. Thanks ever so much.”

The next day, at Euston train station, Hart was a little irritable. This was an unusual state for him to be in. Well, not unusual in and of itself, but unusual for Tom to see it. Acolytes always turn their best faces towards their gods.

“Hullo, Tom,” said Hart, wrestling with an enormous trunk. “Give me a hand, then.”

Tom helped him drag it off the train. Then, they picked up a strap at either end and began walking along the platform towards the exit.

“Thanks very much, Hart.”

“All right. Everyone gets one barmy request. So tell me what the hell is going on. No, don’t. Let’s sit down and have a cup of tea. There was a horde of footballers on the train, and my brain is still ringing. Dumb equals loud. Dumb equals loud.”

Tom smiled. They walked through the exit, and found a little tea shop up the street.

After sitting, and being served by a very pretty waitress, Hart took a deep breath, massaging a thin shoulder.

“So, flyboy…”

“I am going on a flying tour of the continent.”

“Crap.”

“I am.”

“Fine. Crap that you need me for that.”

“I’m starting off in France.”

“Oh, no,” scowled Hart.

“What?”

“Oh, no, you didn’t drag me down here so I could order brioche for you.”

“No. No. Have you been following the news?”

“In a ‘time machine’ sort of way. The papers at my village are always two weeks late.”

“Hitler has purged the Nazi party. Hundreds of people were murdered last week.”

“All right. So, you’re going to invade from France, and need me to cover you.”

Tom smiled, despite himself. “No. Did you ever meet my uncle Gunther?”

“No.”

“Well, he’s asked me to go. To Europe. He works for—Winston Churchill.”

Hart’s face went entirely goggle-eyed. “What? What!?”

“Shhh,” giggled Tom, glancing around. “You’re making me laugh.”

“Well, really! You’re flying to Europe to spy for Churchill?” Hart’s face turned somber, all of a sudden. “Actually, I can see that. The Oxford debate. If this Gunther fellow knows Churchill… How long will you be gone?”

“Indefinite.”

“So you want me to come for the French portion.”

“I do.”

“Well!” Hart settled back in his chair, his tea untouched. “I’m flattered.”

Tom smiled. “Good.”

“I have to be back in September.”

“Hmm… All right.”

“Wait a moment. What was that ‘hmm’ all about? You want me to chuck school and go wandering around the continent like some flying gypsy?”

“What do you think of war?”

“Don’t like it.”

“Do you think there will be a war?”

“What I think,” said Hart, without pausing to think, “is that there is nothing that you and I can do to affect the outcome.”

“That… All right, what about now? Now that I’ve told you about this opportunity.”

“Churchill is an independent. An entertaining distraction from the real business of governing. A gadfly. Not even worth swatting.”

“So you think that there’s nothing to be done.”

“Oh, Tom,” said Hart, with genuine sympathy.

“What?”

“I hate to say this. I don’t…”

“What?”

“Well, it’s going to give you some kind of structure, I guess, this European business. But if you had a career…”

Tom smiled sadly.

“Yes?” asked Hart.

“There will be a war.”

“Shouldn’t you have long fingernails, a dirty beard—and that phrase scribbled on a sign?”

“Why did you let me debate Reginald?”

“I never liked that toffee-nose.”

“What?” demanded Tom incredulously. “That was it?”

“And you wanted it. You know I can’t say no to you, Tom. Not proud of it.” Hart shrugged. “Maybe I am. Anyway… I’ll go with you to France, for up to ten days, if your airplane can take off with my trunk in the back. That’s it. That’s all. Surprise me with a request, I’ll always say yes. So, I’m telling you this in advance.”

Tom nodded slowly. “You have a passport?”

“Yes.”

Tom closed his eyes briefly. “Thanks, Hart. For everything. You are a great, great friend.”

“You soppy sod!” said Hart, staring at his tea, his eyes dancing.

Chapter 60

They flew to Paris the next morning. February 6, 1934. The flight took just over an hour. Hart was excited beyond words; his irritation of the day before had vanished. He asked hundreds of questions about the airplane, the controls, navigation, fuel consumption—and how long it would take to become a pilot.

After landing, they took a taxi into Paris.

“I was here in January of ’30,” said Hart, his eyes darting around the windows as the city rose before them. “For an exchange program. I definitely got the better of that deal. My God, what a place. I can’t believe you chose to learn German!”

“I knew it as a child,” said Tom. “Gunther taught me.”

“That’s one devoted uncle. Life’s too damn short to learn German. Separate prepositions? Der, die, das… They’ve got to be kidding. This is quite fantastic, Tom. This place completely escaped the Depression. When I left, there were a grand total of 812 people out of work. Paris is the City of Light. The cultural center of the world. The most beautiful human landscape anywhere. Everyone’s busy. Everything is cheap. More bookstores than you can count. Theatre, museums, galleries, cabarets…! I am, in a word, very happy to be back. And flown here too!” Hart laughed. “I get flown to the outskirts, then driven into the city—perhaps someone in Paris will pee for me, too!”

“Don’t the governments go in and out like fashion?”

“Sure, sure… But what do you expect? You have a giddy land of fierce individualists. But though the politicians stumble, and yea, though they fall, they’ve stabilized the franc and even had a budget excess of what, nineteen billion francs? Something ludicrous. No, no, my cynical friend, my stuck-in-the-bog, Anglo-Saxon war horse, this glittering cathedral is a haven where war can come no more!”

Tom smiled. “You are full of flights of fancy today.”

Hart turned from the view and grinned at him. “But isn’t this whole trip a flight of fancy?”

However, Hart’s perpetual grin began to fall as they entered the outskirts of the city.

“Was this the way I came in last time?” he murmured.

Outside the window, the streets were dirty. Young men marched in colored shirts, their jackboots echoing on the grimy pavements. Their taxicab passed two burning automobiles. On one corner, both Tom and Hart watched as a group of black-shirted hooligans overturned a kiosk selling newspapers. An old man struggled free as one of the men poured some liquid—petrol?—on the collapsed kiosk as another struggled to light a match.

Hart sank back into his seat. A shiver passed through him, and he tightened his light jacket across his chest.

“What the fuck…!” he murmured. Then, his eyes narrowed, and he sat forward.

Tom listened as Hart and the cab driver exchanged a rapid conversation in French. He tried to follow, but it was too hard. He caught only the ominous words.

“Well?” he asked, after Hart sank back into his seat.

“One moment,” he muttered. “It’s something to do with… There’s the left-wing, which is terrified of fascism. And the fascists, of course, who fear communism. But where the hell did they come from? All right, there was the Action Française… Sorry, Tom—they were a royalist group which advocated the destruction of the Third Republic, but no one took them seriously. When you’ve got opera, who needs the monarchy?”

“So, what’s going on?”

“Our driver says that no one wants democracy anymore.”

Tom put his hand to his mouth. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

“What?”

“It’s going to be only us, one fucking island, against the whole of Europe!”

“Hold on. Hold on. They can’t be that powerful yet. They just sprang up in the last few years. The Fascists and Communists. The Depression finally hit France—he says that since the autumn of ’31, things have been bad. He used to be a banker. Excuse me.”

Hart asked some more questions of the driver, then turned back to Tom.

“So, the Kreditanstalt bank in Vienna crashed in late ’31. Then, there was the financial panic in Germany. And then England went off the gold standard, and devalued the pound by forty percent. Two years ago, stocks crashed on the Bourse—their stock exchange. But our driver says that unemployment is not so bad…”

Hart checked the number with the driver, then said:

“Not more than half a million. Nothing like England, Germany, or the US. But it’s the worst they’ve had in a hundred years. So now they feel… Since the US also went off the gold standard in 1933…”

“Wait,” said Tom heavily, holding up his hand. “What does that mean? What is the ‘gold standard’?”

“Oh. Well, quickly, originally, a pound note could be exchanged for gold at any British bank. So every pound note that the British government printed had to be backed by an equivalent amount of gold. It meant that paper currency always had some tangible value behind it. Stopped governments accumulating big debts and then paying them by running the printing presses at the Mint.”

“So why go off it?”

“The Depression,” said Hart, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. “Governments wanted more money, to pay the unemployed, to try and stimulate the economy. Public works. But they didn’t have the gold. So they just said: fuck the gold, we’re going with just paper. So everyone’s currency fell. Here, though, in the midtwenties, the franc plummeted. Wiped out everyone’s savings. So now, no French government wants to touch the gold standard. So they’re priced out of foreign markets. British paper just can’t buy much French gold. So they have to deflate the franc. Bad for business…”

“What? What are you thinking?”

Hart’s face was pained. “Well, I just can’t figure out why they’d turn against democracy. England and the US, we just threw out our governments. We didn’t throw out government itself. Why would France go the German-Italian route? Not that they have yet, but… This is one of the central pillars of democracy…”

Every word falling from Hart’s lips buried Tom’s hopes, like a sapling under a landslide of bricks. The brief flare of optimism that had brightened his hopes a few weeks ago, when he thought that the Nazi slaughter might wake the world, burned itself out in that taxicab, speeding through Paris, and left nothing but darkness in its final hiss.

Hart turned back from another rapid conversation with the driver. Night was falling, and the shadows from the streetlights moved over Hart’s thin, pale face.

“All right, it goes back a bit further than I thought,” he said. “In ’26, when the franc collapsed and took all the savings of the middle-class with it, one Ernest Mercier founded the Redressement Français—‘French Resurgence,’ I guess. He said—his basic message was that a Parliament of politicians was a ridiculous way to run a complex postwar world. He wanted a Parliament of specialists…” Hart checked a word with the driver. “…technicians, who would know how capitalism worked and run it properly. This bloke is stinking rich; spent millions publicizing this idea. It’s sort of like Mussolini’s ‘corporate state,’ but it’s all the same bloody mess. Real entrepreneurs don’t do too well under old Il Duce. This lot is getting pretty punchy. They’re making speeches about marching on the Chamber of Deputies and using whips to clear them out.”

“So why doesn’t the government shut them down?” asked Tom, feeling another layer of icy fear settle over his heart, so that he could barely see it.

Hart asked the driver, who replied with great scorn.

Hart turned back to Tom. “Huh. All right. Apparently the government is not too concerned with Monsieur Mercier. Because there are the—militant leagues. The ones rioting in the streets. Every day. Shit, shit, shit…”

The thought struck Tom at that moment—and he thought he saw it strike Hart as well—that for Hart to return to England to work on a PhD whose completion was still several years hence, would be fiddling while Rome burned. (They both knew that the violin had not in fact been invented until many hundreds of years after the burning of Rome, but habits of language were hard to shake…)

Hart shivered again, then plowed on. “The royalists are doing well. They have street gangs called ‘Camelots du Roi.’ They’ve tried storming the Chamber of Deputies, but the police have kept them at bay. There’s been bloodshed, of course, which always makes things worse… What?” He turned to the driver, talked for a few minutes, then turned back to Tom.

“Well, this is just rumor, but apparently some people think that the ‘Comte de Paris,’ the heir of the Pretender to the throne, is agitating from Brussels. As if anyone would accept a restored Orléans monarchy! There’s also a group of street brawlers called the ‘Jeunesses Patriotes.’ Mostly university students. There’s ninety thousand of them—six thousand in Paris. They’re the ones in groups of fifty, with blue raincoats and berets. And also, a group called the ‘Solidarité Française,’ run by a perfumer, if I got that right. They’re in blue shirts, black berets, and jackboots. They say: ‘France for the French.’ They’re run by a Major Renaud, who claims one hundred and eighty thousand, with eighty thousand in Paris. Probably only a fifth of that, our driver believes, but I still think that we should just turn around and go home.”

“We can’t…” murmured Tom, his eyes vacantly distant.

“What, because of Winston? Hell, let’s just say that we came, it was bad, and left.”

“We have to go on.”

“You didn’t like Germany, right?”

“God, no.”

“Well, our driver has kindly informed me that there are over five thousand Nazis in Paris. Well armed. The best street fighters in the biz. Everyone parts before them. And, there are also the French veterans…”

“What have they got to do with anything?”

“They were on fixed pensions. They’ve been wiped out. No jobs. They’ve threatened to throw their fight into the streets if nothing is done. And they could walk all over the Third Republic. No officer or policeman would dare fire on them. As war veterans, they are revered by all Frenchmen. If they lose patience, even a little, the Republic will fall in hours.”

“Fuck me!” cried Tom. The driver glanced back, startled. Tom repeatedly thumped the seat between himself and Hart. It was stupid and immature, but somehow essential.

“Fuck it all,” he moaned. “Fffff…” He gripped his hands in front of him and squeezed his chest muscles. “Goddamn it all. I’m throwing myself in the Seine. Driver!”

“Shut up, Tom,” said Hart, obviously anxious. “Nothing has happened for certain yet.”

“Nothing can be done. Everything is falling apart. The center cannot hold.”

Hart looked at Tom, then leaned forward to their driver and asked a rapid question.

“All right,” he said, sitting back. Tom was hunched over, his hands hanging between his knees.

“All right,” repeated Hart. “There is, in fact, a bar at our hotel. Let’s run something up on Mr. Churchill’s account.”

The bar was unbelievably crowded, and Tom expected French to flow fluidly into his ears. Not because he had learned it, but because he spoke German, and there was something Germanic in the feverish eyes of the assembled patrons. They spilled their drinks. Snatches of songs droned through the smoky air. Everyone seemed to smell; the occasional scent of sweet perfume made the underlying acridity of unwashed flesh even more ghastly.

They had no luck making their way through the crowd. Tom pushed, but no one moved. Hart’s face was sweaty.

“Goddamn it!” he hissed, thrusting against a young man. The man turned to them. He had a long nose and blue eyes.

“Englanders!” he cried. “Sweet Jesus, but it’s good to hear some good old Anglo-Saxon English spoken in this hellhole!”

Hart’s eyes widened. “Hellhole!” he said. “This is Paris!”

“This was Paris,” the young man replied without offense. He thrust a cigarette into his mouth and extended his hand. “I’m William.”

“Hart,” said Hart. “This is my friend Tom.”

William leaned in. “I’m a reporter from the Chicago Tribune,” he said, shaking Tom’s hand. “What are you doing here?”

“We’ve come,” said Tom, “to see what’s going on in France. We’re working with the Times.”

Hart shot Tom a strange, quizzical look.

William laughed harshly. “Well, that’s mighty fine of you!”

“So—what is going on?”

“What, you want me to do your reporting for you? What are you, twelve years old?” He laughed again. “Kidding. I’m kidding. Forget getting a drink here. Come to my room.”

They pushed themselves out of the bar, and went upstairs.

In his room, William poured them some scotch. Their hotel was the Crillon, and it overlooked the Place de la Concorde. The roar from the crowd outside waxed and waned like sandy thunder. After handing them their glasses, William turned and closed the window. It helped, but not much.

“You boys just arrive?”

Tom frowned. William was in his late twenties, but spoke as if he were much older. It felt like an affectation. “Today,” said Tom.

“So now the Times gets interested in France. It’s about time! What’s your angle?”

“Just—to get a feel for the place.”

“Well, you are lucky bastards for coming today. Today, the shit has really hit the fan.” William paused to take a long drink from his glass. He drained it in one gulp, then poured another.

Why not just drink from the bottle? thought Tom, taking a sip.

William threw himself into an armchair, rubbing his face. Tom watched him, wondering if the American reporter didn’t strive a little too hard to achieve the appearance of the world-weary reporter.

“Corruption,” said William, draining his glass again. “Corruption is going to take down the Third Republic, possibly tonight.” He grinned sadly. “I hope you’re well rested.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hart.

“Have you heard of the name ‘Stavisky’?”

Both young men shook their heads. The crowd roared outside.

“He’s a Russian Jew, a swindler, who’s been floating municipal bonds, cashing them in, then skipping out when they come due.”

“What?” asked Tom. “Hart is the economics expert.”

“Well, Stavisky has friends in high places. They give him the power to sell municipal bonds—city-issued pieces of paper that pay you a hundred and five francs next year for a hundred francs today. He then sells them to banks for ninety francs. Then, when the bonds come due, it’s found out that the city cannot pay them. All hell breaks loose. Christmas, last year, it’s found out that 239 million francs worth of bonds issued by the city of Bayonne are worthless. The citizens are up in arms. A confederate of Stavisky confesses to helping him with the swindle. Ah, but the trail does not stop there. The mayor-deputy of Bayonne is caught. So are various other politicians. And the editors of two large Parisian newspapers. Then a prominent member of the Cabinet is found with his hands in the Stavisky till.”

“A bad business,” said Tom. “But one event…”

William chortled. “Oh no! Not one. This Stavisky fellow got convicted in 1927! His trial has been postponed nineteen times. He’s been walking free since then. And wouldn’t you know? The man responsible for postponing his trials for seven years, the head of the Paris Parquet, is Chief Prosecutor Georges Pressard—who just happens to be the brother-in-law of Camille Chautemps, a cabinet minister of long standing, and since last November, Premier! Stavisky vanishes after Christmas. And it’s mighty perplexing,” said William, his eyes mock-wide, “but the police just can’t find him! The population starts to go quite mad. Rumor has it that the Sûreté has given Stavisky a passport so he can flee France and keep all his connections secret. But he doesn’t. Finally, the police catch him on January 8, at the winter resort of Chamonix. But it’s very sad. Stavisky shoots himself, they say, just as they’re breaking into his room. But the thing is,” said William, leaning forward, “he’s still alive, lying in a pool of blood, for over an hour before they call for help. Sad to say, he didn’t make it.”

“Good heavens,” said Tom.

“And, although I have been here for less than a year, I have learned one thing about the average Frenchman. You can steal his money and make love to his wife, but woe to you if you happen to insult his intelligence.”

“But surely there would just be a vote of no confidence in the government,” said Tom.

Hart shook his head. “That really wouldn’t work. Since June of ’32, there have been six French governments, each lasting about three months before being overturned.”

“Ah,” said Tom. There was another throaty roar from the demonstrators in the Place de la Concorde. Hart stared at the window, both wanting to look out and not wanting to.

“Throw in all these financial scandals,” continued William, “and the fuse of the average French radical has grown mighty short. So, much like 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871, it looks like we’re in for a regime change of the most energetic kind!” William got up, filled his glass once more, then turned and toasted them sardonically. “And here endeth the history lesson!”

Tom sat down heavily on the bed, staring at the walls.

“This wallpaper is truly ghastly,” he said, then buried his head in his hands.

William smiled. “Say, that’s just what Oscar Wilde said. He’s on his deathbed, in a Paris hotel I think, and he’s looking at the ugly wallpaper, and he just says: ‘God—one of us has to go!’—and dies! Funny bastard!” Getting no response from Tom, he turned to Hart, jerking his thumb towards the bed. “Say—what’s eating this one?”

“He’s had a long day.”

“Well,” grinned William, “you’d better down a quart or two of coffee! Because it’s going to be a long, memorable night!”

“Would you mind if we tagged along with you?” asked Hart, glancing at the window as another groaning cheer washed up against the glass.

William smiled. “Of course not! Just stop insulting me.”

“’Scuse me?”

“I’ve absorbed some of the habits of the French. Who do you think you’re fooling? If you’re reporters, I’m Marie Antoinette. And—little-known fact—she actually said: ‘Let them eat brioche,’ which is much funnier, because it’s much more expensive than bread.”

“Tom?” asked Hart.

Tom looked up. His eyes were ghastly.

“What about the reporter thing?” prompted Hart.

“We’re not reporters,” said Tom.

“Well, thanks,” laughed William. “First, you’re emotionally involved. Actually, you have emotions. Second, you’d never come to cover France knowing shit-all about its history. You’d never let me give you a lesson. Reporters aren’t conscientious. They just hate to be anything less than a know-it-all. We’d have jousted about obscure facts. So, what’s your story?”

Tom gazed at him for a moment. He was not immune to vanity, but he had no real desire to impress William. “Do you think there will be a war?”

William stared at him for a moment. Beyond their little room, the crowd seemed to be screaming with one voice. Some aspect of William’s world-weary persona bled from his face, and he looked naked and frightened for a moment. “After tonight,” he said, glancing at the window, “ask me if I think it is something which is still coming.”

None of the young men wanted to leave the room. Hart thought this strange. Shouldn’t William be chomping at the bit for the story of the possible revolution?

Tom held William’s gaze. “What do you think is wrong with the world?” he asked.

William blinked. “The world? No, just your screwy continent. Your politicians are overstepping the line. It’s all gray. Take from the till, sure, but let the store make money. French politicians used to be experts at riding that gray line. They did well for themselves, but the people did well by them. Social contract. But sometime over the past few years, they just went nuts. They didn’t just have their hands in the till—they crawled all the way in! Not bad, not bad…” He smiled, and took a little pad from his breast pocket and jotted the phrase down. “…maybe add: ‘and closed it behind them’… No, too labored.” He looked up. “See, a democracy is all about balance. Special interests, individual interests. Corruption, good governing. Short term gains, long term gains. Do the right thing, get back into office. Argue on principle, smear your opponent. It’s all a game. It’s like health. Everything has to work together. Sorry—I’m terrible for writing out loud. Some sort of unholy greed took the ministers over. And to let this swindler, this Stavisky, run riot, right in the middle of them, was madness. They’re advertising their corruption then. Rubbing people’s noses in it. And in democracy, trust is everything. People have to trust their leaders. If your leaders are scum, why limit yourselves? Why pay your taxes? Why obey? So they can get rich? Nothing makes people more angry than the feeling that their virtues are serving the vices of their rulers. ‘You misbehave?’ they say, ‘—then we misbehave!’”

“It’s not enough,” murmured Tom, staring at the floor. William bristled for a moment, but then realized that Tom was not disparaging his analysis.

“What’s missing, then? For you?” he asked, taking a seat again.

Hart sat as well, on the other bed. Something very intense seemed to be compressing the air in the room. The oxygen seemed to be concentrated, or a hidden ether had arrived, which fed new thoughts.

“Well,” said Tom, “in England, we’ve had it as bad as anywhere else. It’s worse in England and America than here. But—we’re not tossing out all of our institutions. We throw out our parties, not the party system itself.”

William nodded. “But that’s because you are more conservative.”

“But why?”

“Ah, that’s history,” shrugged the reporter. “It’s like asking: ‘Why is a man the way he is?’ That doesn’t matter. The question is: what is he?”

Tom shook his head slowly, but did not answer.

There was a pause then, which is most unusual among new acquaintances. Finally, Hart jumped up.

“Look, I have to get something to eat,” he said. “I’m not dissipated enough to live on scotch alone.”

William grunted, glancing at his watch. They heard the sound of breaking glass beyond the window.

“Six thirty. All right, let’s open the door and see the sights.”

When they opened the door and stepped onto the hotel’s communal balcony overlooking the Place de la Concorde, even William’s jaw dropped.

About twenty or so men and women stood rigid against the railing of the hotel balcony, gazing at the scene of slaughter and mayhem below.

It was a kind of madness which Tom had never seen. Not even in Germany.

Several thousand demonstrators churned back and forth. A bus, turned on its side, burned by the obelisk. From the far end of the Place de la Concorde, the steel-helmeted cavalry of the Garde Mobile charged at the crowd, attempting to drive them back. They saw slashing sticks with flashing blades.

“They love those things,” muttered William, scribbling in his notebook. “Sticks with straight razors lashed to the end. They go for the tendons of the horses and legs of the policemen. They throw marbles and firecrackers, too, at the hooves of the horses.”

One horse went down. Its piercing shriek cut straight through the general shouting. The helmet of the guard burst up through the crowd, like a straining silver fish. His arms flailed. Then he sank down, into the churning sea of dark hats and caps.

“Will they kill him?” asked Hart.

William shrugged, then shook his head. Tom could see that he was vaguely disappointed to answer in the negative. “Nah. They don’t hate the policemen. They just want to get to the Chamber of Deputies. The Communists have published a list of politicians they have ‘found guilty,’ and plan to round them up and have public executions tonight.”

The sabers of the guards rose and fell in the crowd. It was like watching demonic farmers harvesting human flesh. The Communists and the Fascists mingled and fought as one, hacking at the legs of the dark riders. Tom could not help but smile, remembering the pairing of the two supposed-enemies in the transportation strike in Berlin the previous year. Don’t the French Communists remember what happened to their German brethren when the National Socialists got in? Slaughtered, one and all…

But for now, they had a common enemy. On the east side of the enormous square, a bulging crowd stood on the Tuileries, which had a slight elevation, and pelted the guards with stones, bricks, wooden chairs and iron railings they had torn up from somewhere. Tom wondered what a hurled brick felt like, landing on your head, even with the protection of a steel helmet. Probably do more harm to the neck…

William turned back from a young woman, who was standing next to him, and said: “They’ve been given orders not to fire. The guards are going to lose. This is it, boys. History, as it happens. I can’t believe we jawed for so long in there. I thought this was just another riot. There were five in January. Anyway…”

He turned back to the woman. Tom glanced over, and the woman seemed to throw her head back in surprise. Her arms flew wide, and she slumped back against the wall.

“What the fuck?” asked William. He knelt down quickly, feeling her wrist. Her gray eyes were wide and staring. Blood ran down her face from a small bullet hole in her forehead.

Hart backed away from the railing, scanning the square.

“No, no, no…” he said. “Not right, not right…”

“Get inside!” shouted William, looking up from the woman’s staring face.

The other men and women were all scattering back to their rooms. They said nothing. No one seemed to know the dead woman. Hart jerked the balcony door open and vanished into the room.

“Wait!” cried William. “Tom, help me get her inside.”

“She’s dead.”

“Of course she’s dead. You don’t walk away from that! Help me!”

William lifted the woman’s body off his chest. Her head lolled against his jacket in a sickening manner. Tom picked up her legs. The calf muscles rolled horribly under his palms.

“Hart!” he shouted, backing up against the door. “Open up!”

There was no reply. Tom and William ducked involuntarily as they heard a shot.

“That’s the first one I’ve heard,” said William inconsequentially.

“Hart!” screamed Tom. “Goddamn it!” He dropped one of the woman’s legs and groped behind him for the door handle. Opening it, he reached up her thigh and wrestled her fallen leg back under his armpit.

Hart was in the bathroom, vomiting. They lay the dead woman down on the bed, and Tom wondered for a brief moment whether the hotel would charge them for the cleaning of the bedspread. And the carpet. And the pillows. And anything I touch now…

Tom pushed the door of the bathroom open a little. The light was very bright. “Hart—are you all right?”

From his position over the toilet, Hart waved his hand backwards. He was seized by another vomiting jag.

“I’m going down to see what’s going on,” said William, with only a touch of false bravado in his voice.

“I’ll come,” said Tom, then wondered why on earth he would. I have a death-wish, because war is coming… “Hart?” he asked.

“Dunno…” groaned Hart.

“We’ve left the woman on the bed. Can you tell the front desk?”

Hart jumped up. He wiped his mouth, then spat in the sink. “I’m not staying here then!”

Outside the hotel, everything was dark. The streetlights had all been pelted or shot out. Shots were still being fired, both from the guards and the mob. The three young men were quickly separated. The churning mass of bodies cast Tom along, and within a few minutes he was on a bridge over the Seine, being inexorably thrust towards a police barricade. He could see the Parliament buildings beyond the barricade, and thought of two things simultaneously. First, Les Miserables. Second, that this seemed to be the last barrier between the mob and the Parliament. He wondered if the Deputies were still inside. They would have to be mad, he thought—and then: Why don’t they say that the politicians are all long gone? Then, almost at the same time: Because no one here would believe them. If they can’t get their hands on the politicians, they’ll burn down the buildings…

Then, as the crowd surged forward, their hands outstretched: Why am I always at the front of these goddamned things? He heard some explosions. Men to the left and right of him went down. Two policemen also fell. Some stone chips, flying up from a bullet striking the bridge wall, flew into his forehead. Tom knelt down, feeling his eyes. It was too dark to see properly, to know if his eyes had been damaged. A foot trod on his back, agonizingly. Tom jumped up, pushing at the flowing crowds madly, in a complete panic.

“You are a government of assassins!” screamed a man, holding the body of another man in his arms, trying to drag him away from the mob.

Why don’t they turn around? Tom thought, scrabbling at the bodies compressing him. But the bullets of the police only seemed to spur them on. Every piece of flesh Tom touched was nothing but rigid muscle.

He made it to the stone wall. The crowd pressed against him, and he was crushed against it. He tried rolling with the movement of the crowd, but it did no good. He was being ground against the wall. All his extruding bones were slammed and turned against the stone. He cried out in agony as the wall seemed to tear half his left cheek off. If I had a gun at this moment, I would make some fucking room!

In his extremity, Tom almost did not hear the changing sounds of the crowd. The howling vengeance which seemed to split the night air suddenly changed to bleating cries of terror. The unstoppable movement stopped, then began flowing backwards; it was like a tide turning, all at once. Tom could see the vague shapes of men on horseback, slashing at the crowd, and his heart leapt, despite his physical agony. The Republic is defending itself!

These fresh guards—and Tom could see that they were new, because they moved with decisive energy and resolution—were turning the tide. They did not use guns, but the flats of their sabers.

And there were hundreds of them.

Tom gave up trying to fight the crowd. Feeling close to tears, he just rolled up in a ball and pressed his elbows into the side of his face.

In only a few minutes, he was jabbed roughly. He lifted an elbow and looked up. An exhausted-looking soldier was staring down at him.

The man demanded something of him in French.

Tom stood up, holding his hands wide. The soldier grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and thrust him towards the barricades.

Tom walked along for a few minutes, his hands over his head. He did not think that the soldier was following him.

The barricade was a mess. Soldiers lay in groaning heaps. Orderlies were rushing back and forth with stretchers, carrying them away, towards the parliamentary buildings. Dazed, Tom followed them.

Inside the building, by the Chamber, the wounded lay in a corridor. Two doctors and half a dozen well-dressed women—The wives of the deputies? Tom wondered—tended to the wounded.

Tom stepped over them, towards a grand door. He could hear shouting coming from beyond it. It was not the baying of a living, mindless mob, but a more civilized, strained and helpless sound. Tom knew it well. He recalled it from Berlin.

It was the shouting of Parliament.

The large doors were locked, but Tom went up some ornate stairs and found a viewing balcony.

In the huge chamber, men screamed at each other, their faces red and distorted. They gesticulated in that mad, highly offensive French manner. Piecing together the few words he knew, Tom could tell that the debate was far from civilized. The words for ‘mother’ and ‘shit’ flew furiously.

They were also not above a melee. A short, bullish man was at the central podium, trying to raise his voice above the general shouting. As he waved a piece of paper, a man ran forward and tried to wrestle him down. The bullish man threw him back with ease. His assailant circled him with burning, beady eyes. The speaker paid him no heed, but continued to shout at the assembly, which continued to shout at each other.

Tom’s various aches and pains began to clamor for attention. He touched his left cheek gingerly. His fingers had been scraped numb against the wall, but he could feel bits of rock still embedded in his skin. His coccyx—what Catherine had always called the ‘monkey-bone’—felt as if it had been hit on the end with a sledgehammer. Both elbows ached abominably. His lower spine throbbed with the kind of sharp, deep-down pain which only the spine can produce. One of his little toes had been mashed at some point as well. He was afraid to take his shoe off.

As the shouting in the great chamber rose, more and more hysterically, Tom closed his eyes and leaned back, gasping at the pain in his spine. All his muscles went limp. I want to live on a desert island, he thought, because I cannot understand the passions of my species. Why is everyone so angry? How can they be so sure of all their causes? How can they kill for their beliefs? Does not the existence of other beliefs give them pause? Why can they never speak to one another? Why can they never sit down and reason together? Why does only one of them always have to survive? Why is it kill or be killed? Why did Klaus become a fucking Nazi?

These questions were self-pitying, in a way. Tom knew that. He was not always so rational. He did not survey this struggle from some great moral height. But he had to ask the questions, although they hung lead on every hook of his soul, because he was full of despair, and was seized by the sudden desire to hurl a bomb at the squalling, black-suited crew shrieking below him.

You stupid bastards! he thought, rolling his head from side to side, trying to escape the agony of his face. You are given the greatest trust of all, the trust of leadership—greater than parenting—and you descend to petty greed and self-importance and vain posturing and milk evil from your words and feast on those placed in your care…

A phrase popped into his mind, as his black thoughts mounted. Something about the British Parliament, something about how never under one roof were gathered so many incompetent men who could scarcely earn six hundred pounds a year by any other means.

A terrible thought ran through him then, and that was that his leaders were not intelligent.

It hit him full force, and seemed inescapable. The people I have put in charge of my life are less intelligent than myself…

It was a horrible thought, and Tom wished he could eject it from his mind—eject the thought, and return to the moment that preceded it, and never to have had the thought itself.

It was, of course, the thought of the mob beyond these walls, where vain fools fought with words under hanging velvet.

Another thought came to him then, which was: Why did these people want power?

He recalled something from Plato, something about how no man who wants power should ever be allowed to exercise it.

Where would these men be if there were no government?

He knew a little about Hitler’s early years. He had never been able to hold down a job. He was always broke. Painted and sold postcards. Lived in doss-houses. Down with the empty driftwood of humanity, among those who left no wake in their passage through the world.

And a thought began to tickle at him.

Hitler is not insane. He is evil, but that is not enough. He is—he is cunning. Cunning. Hitler has created a world where he is King. In the world that came before him, he was nothing. Now, he is everything!

Tom opened his eyes, and leaned forward. The bitter ravings of the French politicians in the great hall seemed different to him. Their sweeping arms, grand gestures, and flying spittle seemed to him like the struggles of single-celled organisms under a microscope. They each want a world where only one of them can survive. At this moment, each of them is nothing. They have no power, because their disputes are irreconcilable and they are evenly matched. They are a paralysis of opposites. But should one of them surmount all the others, then all power will be theirs. They are blocked, and only the sword of absolutism can thrust through. This is the death-throe of a society which has utterly lost the capacity to negotiate. Of a society without reason, common cause or higher values. A society of striking animals… Humanity has lost; now only brute nature rules…

A kind of calm swept over him then, and for the first time in months he felt the fear of war lift away from him. He took a deep breath. Nothing is terrifying when it is understood… It was the thought that inexplicable devils had been let loose in the world; that democracies were falling without rhyme, reason, or predictability, and that humanity was being dragged off a cliff by ghosts or invisible monsters, that had most frightened Tom.

And, of course, there is no real mystery in my brother… He suddenly felt that Reginald was sitting beside him, gesturing sardonically at the raging debris of the French Parliament, as if to say: What can we expect from the common fools of the species?

Reginald was a conformist. Tom’s frown deepened. His scalp ached.

My brother is hard to understand because he has no form. He is a clear container for every fashionable notion. He seeks to control others through pleasing them. Except that he has never sought to control me. But that is because I am a younger sibling, and have no power to offer him. No goodies to bestow. He cannot negotiate because he has no values higher than his own ambition. He can please, and flatter, and bully; intimidate and twist words. He cannot stand for anything.

He is a monster without form, as all monsters are.

He is what he is, and I must send Hart to him.

Tom stood up slowly, painfully, turned on his heel, and left the warring chamber without a second glance.

Chapter 61

Reginald lowered his head on his desk. It would be so lovely, he thought, to lie here and just evaporate into nothing…

In thirty seconds, I will get up. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh… All right, thirty more…

He struggled to stay awake. My head feels as if it has been stuffed with some sort of strange saliva. It clouds my sight, and conducts thoughts not…

It was August, 1935. His second daughter had been born one month previously. He would be happy to never go home again.

It wasn’t that they didn’t have the room, or the help. They did. In May, they had moved to a fairly nice house in Croydon. He took the train into work, with the other shuffling dawn zombies. He read the paper. His head fell down. He dribbled on his suit. He woke up like he was being shot out of the depths of the ocean straight into the stratosphere.

He was being killed, though. Slowly killed. It wasn’t pretty. He had two enemies. Well, three.

The first was his second daughter, Christina. Though he didn’t blame Christina so much. It was more Jocelyn’s fault. Jocelyn, who had entered their lives with great calm and staring eyes, who cooed and burbled and slept through the night and didn’t raise much of a fuss when she had to stay in her crib. Like me, when I was a child, by all reports… Jocelyn seduced them into having Christina, and Christina was a spawn of the devil.

For Christina, there was no point drawing breath, except to howl. She seemed to sleep in fifteen-second increments, every thirty seconds. She was terrified of the vacuum cleaner. She didn’t like it when the water heater started. Her startle-response seemed to be activated by daybreak. She clung and howled, right into your ear, and wouldn’t let go when she was put down. Getting out of her room was like planning a jailbreak. Reginald hated even going in.

It is doubtful that he would have, too, except for implacable resolve of his second enemy.

Ahh, the little wife…

Reginald didn’t even bother anymore. Wendy didn’t like him. She found any excuse to humiliate him. She criticized the house, his income, his sperm (it took her four months to get pregnant, and all the time she complained loudly that he was ‘shooting blanks’; he liked the idea of having a gun, though), his height (‘Oh, get a ladder, Reg!’), his parenting skills (when Jocelyn went through a biting phase, Wendy said: ‘She just wants some attention, Reg!’), his family (‘Nice lot: the Nazi-sympathizing father, the bed-ridden mother, and perpetually absent young stud’), his job (‘So, basically, you lie for a living. Ah well—like father, like son…’), his penis (‘Is it in yet?’), his physique (‘My god, Reg, do some press-ups before you become truly two-dimensional’)—and all this was uttered in the tone of such rank and persistent humor that he turned positively pale with the effort of keeping his hands folded in his lap.

He had tried, over the past year. They had had one terrific row—it was impossible to remember over what, of course—and she had completely frozen him out. For two months. ‘I want to hear nothing out of you except an apology,’ was her only phrase. She would take Jocelyn out of his hands without saying a word. It was quite gruesome. After six weeks, Reginald really began to panic. This wall of ice was too much. It made him feel less than invisible. Incorporeal. A panic of vanishing, he thought. Not vanished. Not gone. Vanishing. In the process of.

He went to his father. Not lunch at the club. Too many distractions. A drive. To see some wandering constituent organization. More than happy to drive you, Dad.

Reginald waited until they were outside of the city before speaking.

“So, Wendy and I had a crackerjack toss-up…”

“Apologize,” said Quentin instantly.

“What?”

“Don’t get into the details. Not with me. Not with her. Apologize.”

“She never accepts my apologies, Father.”

“Sure. You’re young. You have to have props. I can get away with it. I’ve had twenty-five years of practice. You need flowers. Reservations. Something sweet. Write a poem. It’s easy. Lots of words rhyme with ‘sorry.’”

“But…”

Quentin held up his hand. “You want to talk about the right and wrong. Doesn’t apply, son. Don’t bother. Women can nurse a grudge until it grows a beard. Look at…” Your mother, of course. But saying it out loud would be disrespectful.

“So it doesn’t matter.”

“Just apologize. Women have no power.” Quentin laughed. “Come on—you run the foreign office. I’ve talked to Cuthbert. Almost, anyway. You control the destiny of a nation. She’s got a maid and a cook. Be generous, you selfish sod!”

“But she’ll take it as a sign…” protested Reginald.

“Of what?”

“My—weakness.”

Quentin laughed out loud. “Your weakness? To a woman? Come on! If a boy scout picks on a prize-fighter, the fighter backs down because it would be unfair. Be generous!”

“I have to tell you, Father. I hate it. I really hate it.”

“Sure. Sure. We all do. It’s the price of having a woman in the bedroom. To use your balls, you have to give them up!”

Reginald was silent.

“All right, that was my annual outburst of coarseness,” grunted Quentin. “Don’t be so shocked.”

“Why didn’t you warn me about marriage?” demanded Reginald petulantly.

“Christ!” growled Quentin. “Anything you didn’t learn from seeing me and your mother, can’t be taught.”

Reginald scowled. There had to be a way out. His shoulders rose, then fell.

“So, what? How do you apologize?”

Quentin did not hesitate. “You pretend that you’re teaching her how to apologize to you. It’s the only way to make it real.”

“So… You…”

“Watch the road, Reg. You’d love for her to apologize to you, right?”

“Right.”

“So do what I do. I imagine that your mother has just said to me: ‘Quentin, my beloved, what’s the best way for me to apologize to you? What would work for you the best?’ And then I lean forward—rub your eyes hard beforehand, so they seem red—and say: ‘Sweetheart, I am so sorry, from the bottom of my heart, for all the upset I have caused you.’ Feel like you’re apologizing to your own heart for all the trials you have put it through by marrying such a woman. You might even pull a ‘Tom’ and really cry. Happened to me. Twice.”

Reginald’s eyes were wide. Then, he leaned forward and barked out a laugh.

“Christ, Dad—did you learn that in politics?”

“No, son. I’m good in politics because I learned that beforehand.”

“All right…” Reginald took his hands off the wheel and rubbed his eyes violently.

“No, not now,” said his father. “You’re going to mess around with this, pull over.”

Reginald parked the car by the side of the road, in a strip of wet grass by a hedge. The final stop of the brakes made them both lurch.

“Now, rub your eyes. More. Now, imagine that I have done you some great wrong, and… No, forget that. I have been a perfect father. Imagine that I am Wendy. And I say: ‘How should I apologize to you, Reginald?’”

Reginald frowned. “You should say… You should say…”

“All right. Steady on. You can’t say that part out loud.”

Reginald took a deep breath. “You should be sorry… You should…”

His head jerked back violently. He took a series of shallow breaths.

“I don’t want to…” he said, in a small voice.

“It’s all right,” said Quentin. He reached forward, his overcoat rustling loudly, and touched Reginald’s arm. “Say it, son.”

“You should be sorry!” cried Reginald. His face distorted wildly. His eyes were wide. His cheeks were red. He burst into tears. “I am so sorry. So sorry. For everything! I am just lost…”

“All right,” said Quentin uneasily, glancing around. It would be a very poor show to be discovered just now.

Reginald sobbed. He gripped the wheel and threw his head forward. The horn sounded loudly. Quentin’s heart jumped.

“Reginald!” he said, fear rising in his chest. “For God’s sake, man! Get a grip!”

“Oh God!” shouted Reginald. “You should be sorry! We are all so fucking sorry!”

Then, just as Quentin was really beginning to panic, picturing driving his raving son back to London to a sanitarium, all the emotion seemed to drain out of his son.

Reginald’s eyes cleared. He coughed a little. He wiped his cheeks and stared at his wet palms.

“Sorry, Father,” he said evenly. “That was strange. Pay it no mind. Stress.”

“Yes,” said Quentin warily.

“I had no idea,” smiled Reginald, “that I had such a capacity for drama and self-pity. Such an old woman.”

“Look, we should…”

“No. No, it’s all right. I can drive.”

Reginald started the car, and drove back onto the road. Quentin remained pressed up against the passenger door.

They drove for a few minutes, then Reginald laughed.

“You know,” he said, “Wendy is always at me to share my feelings! I should. I really should. I think she would enjoy that.”

There was one final enemy in Reginald’s world that summer of 1935. He could avoid his youngest daughter. He could alarm his wife with emotional outbursts.

He could, however, do nothing whatsoever about Mussolini.

Everything I have inherited is rotten, he thought, still unable to lift his head from his desk. He could feel the fibers of the paper seeping into the pores of his skin.

The League of Nations had been created in 1919, by thirty-two countries, to promote negotiation instead of war. If a League member was attacked by another member, the League would come to its assistance. There were three levels of League response: a polite warning, economic sanctions, and military intervention.

In 1931, Japan had invaded Manchuria. China had appealed to the League for help against Japan. After a long delay, the League finally passed a resolution against Japan and demanded that it leave Manchuria.

Instead, Japan left the League. Japan remained in possession of Manchuria and the League took no action against it. Sanctions were useless without the US, which was not in the League. England did not want to get on Japan’s bad side, since they were both naval powers, and England needed her navy to protect the Empire. France did not want to act alone. This did not bode well for the League.

The failure of the League had not been lost on Il Duce. Mussolini had domestic problems. The fabulous wealth promised by fascism was somehow failing to materialize. The population was getting restless. Clearly, it was high time to drag out the corpse of the Roman Empire and run a few volts through it.

Casting his eyes about, Mussolini’s beady eyes fell on Abyssinia, one of the last unconquered lands of Africa. Italy had failed to conquer it before, in 1896—but, reasoned Mussolini, that was before the technology gap had grown as large as it now was. Abyssinia had men with spears, and three obsolete airplanes. Italy could field a hundred thousand troops, armored tanks, and the latest aircraft.

So, in December 1934, Italian troops attacked a group of British and Abyssinian investigators at the oasis of Wal-Wal, in Abyssinia. In January of 1935, Abyssinia asked the League of Nations to arbitrate the looming border dispute with Italy. Mussolini refused to accept the jurisdiction of the League of Nations. This was tricky, because Italy was, after all, a founding member. Instead, he made a secret treaty with France. France would let Mussolini have Abyssinia if Mussolini would stand with France against any German aggressions.

The Italian army began to mass along the Abyssinian border. The Abyssinian leader, one Haile Selassie, demanded a League meeting. The League, in its wisdom, banned the sale of arms to either side. This well pleased Il Duce, because his army was already well-equipped, and it barred the Abyssinians from buying any weapons.

So now Reginald was responsible for working with the British representative at the League, to further clarify the FO’s position regarding the Abyssinian Crisis. (Reginald rather liked the term ‘Abyssinian Crisis,’ because it seemed to indicate that the Abyssinians were responsible for it.)

It’s all so fucking stupid, thought Reginald, closing his eyes more tightly. He didn’t want to lift up his head, for fear of getting dizzy. He also didn’t want to open his eyes, because he hated that exhausted, sideways view of his own office.

The Italians are going to invade Abyssinia, and they’re going to slaughter them. The League isn’t going to lift one ringed finger. All this stupid posturing. ‘Collective security’ my fanny. You get one shot to be a credible world voice. They failed in Manchuria. That’s it. All done. No point… Mustn’t sleep…

Reginald inhaled sharply, hoping to jump-start his brain with a strong shot of oxygen.

He couldn’t get Wendy to understand the Abyssinian Crisis. It seemed completely beyond her grasp. She didn’t like ‘Blackamoors,’ for one thing. They were related to Spanish men somehow. Why Reginald should spend his evenings fussing over some border conflict in Africa—when he could and should be home helping out—was utterly beyond her. She waved away all his explanations as vain and self-serving. He just liked having drinks with the boys after work.

Reginald could not help but feel the endless rage of the ‘worker bee.’ He brought home the money (though, true, the clouds of inheritance rained heavy over them), but what he did to earn it was considered foolish, like some sort of board game. Nothing serious. Nothing that anyone with half a brain couldn’t do.

And, like all true worker bees, he knew that it was such an explosive issue that it could only be brought up when he was prepared for a fight to the death. If he were prepared to stand naked under the endless hail of her resentments. If he were willing to listen to the phrase ‘and another thing!’ at least a hundred times.

And he wasn’t ready for that. That was a title-fight—the title-fight—and he had to be ready.

Visualization was one thing. He had to run through all possible permutations of the conversation. This thing could not be approached lightly. The worker bee did not assert himself—especially in the face of an ego-bloated Queen Bee—without sufficient training. Currently, they both controlled their complaints. If he were to uncork his—especially this one—then all restraint would be lost, perhaps never to return. A war is not a war if it remains undeclared.

And then, he did fall asleep, and had heady, pleasant dreams of Wendy’s adventures on a desert island, where she actually had to fend for herself, and had no one to blame, and no one to pander to her, and he loved following her around the island, invisible, giggling, as she raged against the indifferent elements…

Chapter 62

The size of the crowd was completely unbelievable. Tom had never seen even a tenth of the number in any single place. Tens of thousands of people milled, surged, boiled, and cascaded down streets like broken rivers. They changed directions madly, contradictorily, but in strangely consistent patterns, like the flights of small birds in high winds. Many of the protesters had curled lips and out-thrust jaws, and carried bats or sticks or knives or axes. It was medieval; torches flowed up over the crowd like the bright spurting blood of headless devils. The steam of the crowd’s hot breath surrounded the flames, giving the fires a swirling, ghostly base.

The voices of the crowd rose and fell. Tom asked every English-speaker for the latest news, the safest routes. The rumors flew that the government had brought in tanks and cannons to break up the crowd—and even that airplanes were being flown in from the military airport to strafe the streets. Everyone was ready to be outraged, violated, to enact the blackest acts of vengeance. Cries of horror and rage swept through the crowd. Tom tried to follow them, with his mind’s eye. He imagined that one man had been injured somehow, and howled out. The crowd, imagining that this was the first ‘whiff of grapeshot,’ or strafing airplanes, or rolling machine guns, became panicked and hostile. More and more took up the screams of terror and rage, and they swept through the mob, which surged to defend the stricken and avenge the fallen. The crushing crowd caused more casualties, and it took some time for the crowd to understand that, in its zeal to protect life, it was actually taking it.

The bodies would become so tightly packed—and this could happen at any time—that Tom sometimes found that he was pressed up against someone who was grievously injured. One lolling face turned, missing an eye. Another man was missing an arm from the elbow down; his face was pale, rapt. Twice, Tom pushed back at bodies squeezing him tight, only to realize, with a feeling as if he had received an electrical shock, that they were dead men, just being carried along.

More base hands were also at work, both for material and sexual profit. Tom gave up trying to protect his watch, his wallet and his genitals at the same time.

There was a constant cross-current through the crowd, which is what made it so crushing and insistent. There was always some imagined front, where atrocities were being committed and vengeance could be had. The recreational protesters were always trying to get away from these fronts, while the political ones were always trying to get to them.

There was, most of all, a sense of invincibility among the crowd. Tom realized why Rousseau had titled his book The Social Contract, because that cold February night, it was clear that here were several tens of thousands of people who simply refused to be ruled. And so they could not be ruled. It didn’t take much. Tens of millions of people in France. Tens of thousands—a tenth of a percent—decide to refuse to be ruled, and it all comes crashing down. Government is an illusion of acceptance, thought Tom. Leaders who forget the fragility of their power can destroy the world…

At one point, as well, for no particular reason, Tom felt a crashing, catastrophic depression. It always hit him in the stomach, opening up a terrifying void, over which his heart hung by a mere thread. It was utterly narcissistic, he knew, but Tom could not shake the thought that he was himself somehow the virus. I go to Germany, Hitler gets in. I go to France, society falls apart… I should martyr myself to a desert island, for the sake of humanity…

But the depression did not last. The thought was just too ridiculous. It helped, though, because it kept Tom free of crowd fever. He was mashed through it, scrabbled above it, and was cast back down, but he never succumbed to it. His lack of French probably helped, but sometimes depression is the only way to combat the tribe.

After the depression, though, as it always did, came the anger.

Tom caught sight of the gathered soldiers, who looked frightened, frustrated—probably because they must have been given orders not to fire—and exhausted. They suddenly seemed to Tom to be the despair of the failing democracies, which could no longer protect themselves. These fucking Communists and Fascists—nail them to the fucking wall, and see how long the movements last! Defend yourselves! Why are the only certain people in this square the most stupid and belligerent?

It is one of the oldest problems of morality, and Tom felt it most keenly on that terrible, frozen night. Those who know lack all conviction; those who do not lack all inhibition… Knowledge breeds doubt before it gives certainty; ignorance is certain to begin with. The rulers seemed to be cowering; the criminals marched without fear.

These were corrupt rulers, of course; Tom understood William’s story. But even he, sheltered British lad that he was, could tell that this Stavisky affair was just a pretext, or the symptom of the same rot which produced the rulers. Neither the government of the Third Republic nor the new totalitarians had any belief in the value of democracy. Those in charge of the shop were just looting it blind, because they have no faith that it will last… A democracy capable of defending itself would never have succumbed to that kind of corruption. The two were one and the same. The corruption drew the vengeful crowds; the corruption also blocked any resolute response from the soldiers. Imagine this crowd in Berlin—they would be slaughtered inside of twenty minutes! Hitler rules; the Republic hedges and begs…

But perhaps the light of democracy is past. Rome fell, and the light was out for over a thousand years. It is more of a pleasant interlude than a permanent fixture. The future is ruled by those with the better stories. Hitler has a story. The Marxists and Fascists have their stories. Democracy has no more story. Compromise and appeasement is not a story. It is the end of a story. It is the final act of an exhausted tale…

Tom’s scraps of thought, the last creaks of a caving world-view, were scattered by a momentous movement of bodies.

Before, the crowd had flowed and eddied; now, it surged. No one was trying to get towards the source of the screams. The sound of the mass had changed; it was not toying with insult anymore. Now, it was being hacked at, without mercy, without compromise.

The turnaround was stunning. Tom had taken it for granted that the mob would storm the Parliament, murder the politicians, and some sort of gruesome dictatorship would rise over the ancient corpse of majority rule. Everyone moved, despite constant counter-movement, inexorably towards the bridge over the Seine. The injured were passed back; fresh bodies moved forward.

But some final spasm of resolution seemed to have gripped the government. Wave upon wave of fresh cavalrymen plowed into the crowd. They did not hesitate. They used their revolvers. They slashed with swords. If dismounted, they fired at anyone around them. They were ferocious, and inexorable.

And they won.

Within the span of ten minutes, the Place de la Concorde began to empty. It was amazing. Tom threw himself into a doorway. He tried the door, but heard hysterical, threatening voices from within, and imagined a family in white nightgowns, with a shotgun trained at the door. He flattened himself against the wall, turning his toes away from the street, from the pelting bodies, hysterical screams—more than one person sprinting past was giggling madly, like a child who wants to be found—and watched the human flotsam empty from the great square, almost visibly. He recalled watching an hourglass once, loving the moment when the exit of the sand could be clearly seen from the top. This was just like that. The high-stepping horses thundered back and forth through the crowd. The soldiers lashed people into movement. Everyone still had one destination, but it was no longer ‘towards’—which naturally creates bottlenecks—but ‘away,’ which is a wide-open destination.

Within twenty minutes, the square was almost empty. The cavalry officers dismounted and began moving among the wounded. Some began reinforcing the barricades. They seemed quite relaxed, and Tom realized that they feared no more attack that night.

He realized that he had been breathing too shallowly for—well, a long time. He took some deep, dizzy breaths, leaning forward, his hand on the doorframe. Then, he poked his head out. Getting back to the hotel without being arrested was going to be a problem…

Except that it wasn’t. The soldiers paid absolutely no attention to him as he crept along, trying to hide in the shadows. It was still quite dark, so it was possible that they couldn’t see him. But, Tom supposed, they thought the war was over, so there was no point taking prisoners.

He stood under the balcony of the hotel, where the young woman had been shot only a few hours before. He was about to go in, when he was seized by a strong impulse.

I have to know where everyone has gone…

He ran around the hotel, into one of the many side streets. He imagined coming across a wide row of kneeling, long-coated politicos, eyes and muskets gleaming, waving him out of the way so they could charge.

Nothing. Empty.

Where the hell did everyone go?

They seemed to have melted into the air, or the sewers. He thought he caught a glimpse of a group hurrying around a far corner, but it could have been a trick of the darkness. Of course—they don’t know they’re not being pursued… He recalled the feeling as a child, playing tag or capture the flag—you run and run and don’t turn around…

As his breathing slowed, Tom realized that he was famished.

Well, today is quite a day of sensations. But it is better to be hungry in France than Germany. The food here might kill you, but it doesn’t make you want to kill yourself.

When Tom got back to the hotel, he went straight up to William’s room. A figure lay on the bed, sniffling.

“Hart?”

Hart jumped up, wiping his face hurriedly.

“Oh, fuck, Tom, it’s you. Of all the people to hide crying from! Thought you were William.”

“What happened to you?”

“I got caught up, then lost, then made my way back here. There was no one at the front desk, so I couldn’t get a room. I came up here. The door was unlocked. I wanted some scotch. I poured some. I sat down… On her feet.”

“Christ!”

“I screamed. I’m telling you. Drinking with a corpse. Fuck me!”

Tom sat down on the bed opposite Hart. The room was very dark.

“Wait for the light…” whispered Hart. “I took her downstairs. I’m telling you; it was like being in some goddamned Dostoevsky novel! She—rigor mortis, or something. Her body was like a board. It was disgusting. I put her downstairs. In a chair. Like a plank.”

“In a chair?”

“I couldn’t just leave her lying around.”

“Well,” said Tom slowly, “I suppose she was just too big to flush.”

Hart’s eyes widened; Tom could see it, even in the dark.

“When did you get so fucking callous?” he asked, but he was almost smiling. Tom could tell from the tone.

“Not our business,” said Tom. “We’re just two Brits, too fucking far from home.”

“Yeah. Not exactly in the Baedeker.” Hart paused. “Was it like this in Germany?”

“Yes and no. The madness, yes. Proximity murder, no.”

“I was thinking—was it a bullet from the police or the rioters?”

“Why? What would it…”

“No—if it came from the crowd, it was murder. From the police, self-defense. It helps me. I went through her purse.”

“Oh, that’s not a good idea. Didn’t you read All Quiet on the Western Front?”

“She’s a…”

“No, Hart,” said Tom decisively. “I don’t mean to sound ‘old world’ and heart-hardened, but I don’t think that knowing about her will help.”

“But she’s…”

“Did you notice her when we stepped out there?”

“Of course, she…” Hart paused, then his shoulders sagged. “No.”

“So why try to learn now? Much less reason.”

“Huh. When I was an undergrad, I read some newspaper from 1792. There was a murder on the docks. Some sailor, throat slashed ear to ear. And at least once a year—maybe more—I think about going back to solve that murder. Or—no, that’s not it. More like: how impossible it would be to ever solve that murder. Trail’s a bit cold. Eyewitnesses hard to come by. Unsolved. No justice.”

“Maybe it was solved.”

Hart started to say something, then paused. “Oh. I never thought of that. Because there’s this woman, shot right next to me. I drag her downstairs. Whoever shot her…” He waved his hand, his voice catching. “Forever unsolved. No justice.”

“No justice…” repeated Tom, staring into the darkness.

A silence stretched the space between the young men.

Finally, Hart spoke, attempting lightness.

“So, who won?”

“The government.”

“Good. Back to stealing.”

More silence. Their ears, so used to screams, slashes, and shots, still rung with the endless echoes of the mob mind.

“Hart,” said Tom finally. “I need something from you.”

Hart sighed. “You know the answer, Tom.”

“No, this is big. I need you to join the Foreign Office.”

Pause.

“Tom…”

Tom felt a sudden urgency possess him. His muscles went rigid. Do it now! he heard a voice within him shout, or everything is inevitable!

“Hart, there is going to be a war. Our island will stand alone. We have no defense against this virus. Except those of us who know it is a virus. If we don’t act, then the virus takes over. Everything will be lost. Us, now. America, in a generation. If we don’t act, the story of civilization will come to an end. The beasts of all our histories will return and rule. Possibly forever.”

Tom’s hands were shaking. He had never felt so energized.

“France will not stand. They have won tonight, but they will lose tomorrow. Not by force, but somehow. They have rotted from the inside. England has some, some kind of strength. Some willpower. I have seen it. Churchill… We can see it coming. Not me, that came from Gunther, but some people can see it coming. Reginald cannot. But those who cannot are bringing it—making it come. Fuck me, it’s too abstract. To hell with PhDs. You can’t be a professor for the Fascists. Or the Communists. You’re not that flexible. No one should be. We have to stand up now, Hart. It cannot happen next year, next month, next… It has to be now!”

Hart held up his hand wearily, and Tom suddenly felt very afraid. He had always been the dominant one in the friendship—but now, seeing Hart’s hand, he realized, or remembered, that his dominance only came about from Hart’s decision to submit. The social contract… The fact that Hart might choose this of all times to assert himself chilled Tom to the bone.

“Tom, you’re going to hate me for this, but you’ve been spending far too much time alone. You sound like those nuts outside. I can’t kneel to your soapbox.”

Tom closed his eyes. He was too sad to cry.

“Why do you think there will be no war?” he asked.

“There will be a war.”

“What?”

“Someday, before this world falls into the sun, there will be a war. It might even happen within our lifetimes. But Christ Tom, don’t you think that the Germans have learned their lesson? We won!”

“Barely…”

“It would just be the same damn thing over again. France, England, Russia, America. They’d get crushed.”

“Italy. Japan…”

“Christ, the Italians can’t even tie their own fucking shoes, Tom! What are you talking about? The Empire being brought down by Mussolini and a ragged band of Eyeties?”

“It’s going to happen,” said Tom, rocking slightly. “It’s going to happen.”

“Tom, why are you so angry?”

Something in Hart’s tone stopped Tom dead. His very heart seemed to quiver still.

“What?”

“You think that the world is going to war. Freud 101. You are at war with the world.”

“I am not! Am I?”

“It’s all the way through your undergrad, Tom. Fuck Marxism. Fuck socialism. Down with the Fabians. You got kicked out because you couldn’t toe the line. Are you so wise that you fight the world on purely intellectual grounds? I’m sorry,” said Hart, with genuine contrition. “I’m really sorry. Is it a father thing? A Reginald thing? Your mum? Some teacher? Who turned you so hard against the world?”

“It’s not—it’s not psychological. I love the world.”

“Yes, and hate its occupants. The two-legged ones.”

Tom sighed. He felt all the terror and depression in his soul convulse and compress into a dead white fist.

“Tell me why there will be no war,” he said emptily.

“What would me going to the FO do?”

“We would have a view from the inside.”

“You and Churchill.”

“Yes. And Gunther.”

“Is he some father figure to you?”

“Who?”

“Whoever.”

“It’s not psychological!” cried Tom, his inner pond overflowing with bile. “What is the matter with everyone? A mad dictator takes over in Germany, starts rearming, breaks treaties, promises to invade Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia. He murders his oldest and closest friends. And you are asking me about father figures? Jesus Christ, I should let all you children burn!”

“Well, it is a bit messianistic, Tom. ‘Only you can save the world.’”

“No. No, I can’t. I need you.”

Hart laughed, shaking his head sadly. “Oh, Tom. Let’s say Hitler is dangerous—I’m sure he is. But shouldn’t we go on with our lives anyway? If I change all my career plans—for the FO no less, which is a dead duck politically—for fear of Hitler, then hasn’t Hitler won? Hasn’t fear won?”

“I hate that goddamned quote,” said Tom. “‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ It’s utter crap. ‘We have nothing to fear but a catastrophic depression which brings dictatorship to nation after nation! That fucking woman on the balcony had more to fear than fear itself. Like a bullet in her fucking brain! How can you say that the world has not changed?” demanded Tom, jumping up. “Paris. Four years ago. The City of Light, you said. Paris, now. Random bullets. Sudden death. Riots. Murder. Don’t you think that the flavor of the world has changed just a bit? And you didn’t even go to Germany! Give me some credit, Hart! I know I am asking more than anyone without a great cause has a right to. If I’m wrong, fine, all right, you lose a year or two from your doctorate. But if I’m right, then we save the world. And—and it doesn’t have to be that long. Just a semester. You can make it up, you work like a beaver anyway. Four months. Just be there, tell me what it’s like. Because you are a moral man, Hart. A good friend. If the FO isn’t to you what Oxford was to me, no harm done. A few months diversion to tuck into your CV.”

Tom strode over to the hanging lamp, turned it on and yanked at the electrical cord. The lamp swung from the violence of his gesture, bathing the room in swaying light. He turned to Hart, his shoulders hunched.

“But if I’m right, if Reginald and his crew is in charge of the ship of state during the most dangerous times our island has ever seen, then you have to do something. Come on! You know Reginald. You heard the debate. You know where he will lead us. He’d give the Nazis the key to the city. Appeasement is in his blood. My—my family’s blood.” Tom’s wild tone slowed, almost stalling. “My father with my mother. Me with my mother… Reginald with Wendy—his wife…”

Hart smiled. “And you say it’s not psychological.”

Tom waved his hand. “All right, all right. It’s partly psychological. But that doesn’t make it wrong.”

He drew his breath in for another harangue, but just then the door burst open and William came staggering in, his face to his hands. Groaning, he sank down on the carpet.

“William!” cried Hart. “Are you all right?”

William groaned again, his shoulders shaking.

“Gooood!” he moaned.

“What? Is it your face?”

“God—I’ve been away from liquor so long I’m starting to get a hangover!”

“You son of a bitch,” said Tom slowly.

“Have you been out there?” cried William, jumping to his feet. He went to the little bar and poured himself a scotch. He drank it, then another. “Hell, shit and hootenanny! I’ve seen calmer stampedes!”

“Your ‘south’ is showing,” said Tom.

“What if it is?” demanded William. “I am going to get a god-damned Pulitzer! Running with the bulls? Fuck Hemingway—he should try his hand at running with the French! What, everything I’ve seen tonight… I’ll have dreams for a thousand years.” His voice rose. “‘Pen for hire! Name your price, but make it big, or step a-side!’”

He grinned at the young men.

“I’m going to check downstairs,” said Tom. “Maybe someone’s got back to the front desk.”

“No, you damn-well don’t!” said William, reaching for him. “I set you up, you Brit rubes, give you the dope, take you out for a trot. Sit down and have a goddamned drink!”

“Take your hand down,” said Tom, gazing at him.

“You don’t return favors?” slurred William. His eyes widened in genuine curiosity. “What kind of man are you?”

“Thanks for your advice,” said Tom. “Now be a good chap. Take your hand down.”

“Have a drink.” William’s voice turned petulant. “Don’t let me be.”

“No.” Tom’s face hardened. Hart frowned. It was Tom’s ‘rowing face.’ It won him races. It didn’t look as if it would win William anything.

“You damn Limey’s have a lot to learn about hos-pitality!”

Tom grabbed William’s hand and tried to move it off his shoulder.

“Awww,” slurred William, leaning in and tightening his grip.

In one fluid move, Tom hurled William away from him. There was a tearing sound, and Tom’s jacket split along the seams.

“What the…” William looked down at his hand. A nail stood out, blood running from the torn root. “That hurt, you Brit fuck!”

Tom’s voice rose in a manner which Hart had never heard before.

“i don’t want a drink!” he screamed. “do you understand?”

William’s body swayed. His face looked dumb and brutal. Hart stared, fascinated and frightened that this beast lay beneath the reporter’s pretension.

“You’re going to pay for that!” shouted William, still swaying. His eyes narrowed, and he stared around the room. “Just let me put my drink down, and…” William’s eyes fell on Hart, who smiled up ingratiatingly, in the timeless manner of those to whom living is pleasing.

“Are you gonna stand for this shit?” demanded William. “Are you married?”

“No…”

“Boy, you an’ me, we could go out and do some damage tonight. Paint this fucking town red, white, and blue. What do you say?”

“I…” Hart giggled.

Tom scowled. “Hart, I’ll be in the lobby, all right?”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and left the room.

William took a step towards Hart. “When was the last time you let a good one rip, boy? Shine that pretty face on the ladies, they’ll topple like bowling pins!”

Hart smiled. “I’m not much of a drinker.”

“Who’s talking about drinking? Let’s go fuck!”

Hart’s eyes widened. “What—what do you mean?”

“I know places… One night, out of your life, what do you say?”

“To what?”

“Oh for god’s sake!” cried William, smacking his forehead. “You’re as pale as a goddamned albino. Get up. Let’s go out for a little bit.”

“Where?”

“Where I take you,” said William, grabbing Hart by the sleeve. “Where memories are made. Things you never tell your grandchildren, but which put you in the earth with a smile on your face!”

Tom was fast asleep when the light came on. He had always been a light sleeper; his nervous system seemed to be forever scanning the spectrum of light and sound. Once, as a child, when his mother had come into his room to awaken him by taking his hand, he had felt certain that a spider was crawling on his palm, and had jolted almost a foot off the bed.

He felt all the unfair, supernatural irritation of those awoken suddenly, but with just cause.

“Tom?” whispered a fearful voice.

“What? What?” stammered Tom, turning suddenly.

Hart stood in the doorway, a hand covering one side of his face. His eyes were wide. Tom felt a slash of anger, tearing open a bag of harsh words.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Ohh…” quavered Hart. “I don’t think I’m quite cut out for this kind of nightlife.”

“What time is it?”

“Four.”

“Jesus. Sit down. Are you cut?”

“No, just…” Hart stepped forward, lowering his hand. His eye was ringed with black. His left cheek was mottled, red and purple. His eye seemed full of blood.

“William?”

“No—I lost track of him around two.”

“Well, sit down. Do you—is anyone at the front desk?”

Hart shook his head slightly. Tom wanted to shake it too, but harder.

“You need some ice. Let’s at least wet a towel…” He got out of bed, went into the bathroom, ran the corner of a towel under some cold water, then came back.

“Put this on your face. Lie back.”

He helped Hart lie down, then wrung the towel and placed it on Hart’s mottled, freckled face. Tom yawned. “Are you tired? Can you sleep?”

There was a pause. Hart’s single visible eye did not close. Tom brushed one of his friend’s wet curls back from his forehead, then let his hand rest on the cold skin.

“You know,” said Hart, “I’m trying to think, but I can’t remember a single time when I’ve ever asked you for advice.”

“Mm hm.”

“I mean, what problems have I ever had? Other than being me.”

“Were you ‘you’ tonight?”

Hart paused. “I…”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I mean, what is wrong with me? That’s—that stuff is all just what William likes to do.” Hart’s voice quavered. “Why did I go? Why can’t I say no? I’m like a goddamned Negro. Yah-suh! No-suh! Three bags full, suh! The only spineless Welsh miner. A slave holding his own whip.”

“Look, don’t go into such a…”

“No, I make myself sick. I’m such a cringing vermin. You like me because I worship you. Because I do anything you say. Get my bag! Return these books, there’s a good chap. Come to France! Translate!”

“This isn’t about us. Just—tell me what happened, if you think it will…”

“It doesn’t matter what happened. This is about me, Tom. About what’s wrong with me. Oh god, it’s horrible! All I do is read people, and give them what they want.”

“Appeaser…” murmured Tom, more to himself than Hart.

Hart almost smiled. “That—that isn’t the bad word you make it sound.”

“You—look, just tell me you didn’t do anything we’re going to hear about in the morning.”

“I don’t know what’s legal or not here. I smoked something. Got giddy. My hands were very big, and singing. We were at a flophouse. All right, a whorehouse. Apparently they’re big in the South. You know, I spend a lot of time scared of people, and feel very small, but these people—these men, there, but the woman as well—were all utterly terrifying. It’s about more than being beaten up. This is like a—a tribe of the dead. The dead and killing. People kept joking. One thin man used very ornate language. ‘Could you see your way clear, madam, to satisfying a little whim of mine, perchance, by sucking my dick until my forehead caves in?’ He was considered very witty. And some of them were very funny. One fat man, who was about sixty, used to be a burlesque dancer, and he stripped while everyone clapped. It was horrible. One of the girls, who had young hair and an old face, said: ‘Oh, I have a love-hate relationship with everyone. They amuse me, and I want to kill them.’ A man had brought his mother’s panties, for a girl to wear. They stuck their tongues out, but said nothing. I—I can’t imagine any of these people in daylight. They seem to live in a night that never ends. They wore lovely clothes, but seemed unwashed. Their sweat was greasy. They laughed without end. I would hate to be bleeding to death among them. They would joke and joke, and glance down and say: ‘Well, we didn’t ask you to bleed to death, did we?’ I can’t imagine them as children. I hope they get reincarnated as their own pets. I think their parents must be drunken ghosts. I think…”

Tom pressed his hand down on Hart’s forehead. “Hart, my friend. You’re rambling.” Although ‘raving’ was probably more accurate, Tom didn’t want to alarm him.

“It was the girl,” said Hart instantly, his voice changing into something less insistent, less outraged. Softer. More sorrowful.

“Everyone was mocking me for not going upstairs,” he continued. “‘Go upstairs,’ they said, ‘and give it to Ethel in the downstairs.’ I don’t know what that meant. So I went upstairs. I wasn’t myself. I just wanted to talk. No, that’s not true,” he said, his voice breaking. Tom lowered his head.

“I wanted to make—to have—to fuck her. I’ve never done that. I don’t know that I ever shall. I won’t get married for years and years. I don’t have your talents. I don’t—I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. How to do it. And I pretended to be so sophisticated. I gave her some money. I didn’t count it. Why—why would I want to look like a miser? And she was—coarse. I supposed they were—professional, you know. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought of it. But I’d always hated the ‘going-about-it’ business. But I’ve—when a waiter serves me my food, he makes me feel more at home. They’re supposed to pretend to like you. Maybe there are different levels. And I got a bad—waiter…”

“Hart…”

“I—I couldn’t tell if she was liking it. And I got it wrong. I thought it was on top, you know, opposite the bum. And I was going on, thinking maybe it was where it was supposed to be. And she laughed. Called me an idiot. And now it’s just something I have to get through, like a school marathon. I’ll never be a runner, but I have to finish this race… I know, I know… I touch her breasts, but she smacks my hands away and says: ‘That’s extra,’ and that made me—my heart chill. And—and I manage it, somehow, by thinking of other women, but it was worse than—you know, abusing myself. And she was making these sounds, not throaty, sexy sounds, but moans like I was hurting her. And when I went to wash myself, in the basin, there was red, blood. I could tell, even by the dim light. Do you know how dusty that light bulb was? Ugh. And I thought maybe that she was menstruating, and the thought crossed my mind that I should get a discount, but she just stared at me and said: ‘It’s late at night. Right at the end of my shift.’ Then she laughed and said: ‘Or did you think I was saving myself for you?’ And she cackled.”

“Hmmmm…” sighed Tom, trying to help Hart’s breathing slow down by example.

“Oh Tom, what have I done?”

“You have made a terrible mistake,” said Tom. “Be gentle with yourself. You had something to learn, something which should have been taught, but wasn’t and this was the manner in which you had to learn it. And it could have been a lot worse.”

“How? How?”

“Klaus has joined the Nazis.”

“Klaus has…” Under his own hand, Tom could feel wide muscles contracting along Hart’s forehead.

“You’re saying I could be a Nazi?” Hart’s voice strove for false outrage, but he could not sustain it. “Well…” he said, after a moment. It was not a confession of fact, but an admission of possibility.

“You did not destroy this woman. She has not destroyed you. You tried to conform to the wishes of a corrupt man. You failed.”

“Failed?” wailed Hart in despair. “I was there!”

“Are you going back?” asked Tom.

There was a pause, not even broken by the sound of breathing.

“No. No, of course not. I’d pay good money to never go back!”

“Then you have learned something important.”

Hart turned away. Tom let his hand trail along his friend’s forehead, to his sideburns. It was important to keep contact.

Hart whispered: “Please, please, please don’t say anything about the Foreign Office now. I couldn’t take it.”

Tom smiled, unseen. He paused for a moment, then said:

“Since you brought it up…”

Hart groaned.

“You’ll do well there. You’re already an appeaser.”

“Don’t joke.”

Tom pursed his lips. “All right. All right. How about this: do you think you’re stronger than Reginald?”

Pause. Hart nodded, under his towel.

“Don’t fall asleep yet. You woke me up. Let’s say that Hitler is stronger than William, and you are stronger than Reginald. Do you think he has a chance?”

Pause. Hart shook his head.

“Do you think I could get a position there?”

Hart shook his head.

“Do you think you could get a position there?”

Hart shook his head.

“Of course you could. Just tell Reginald you were here with me, in Europe, and that I am a lunatic, and he was right all along, and I was wrong all along, and you want to help the FO to stop me and people like me from screwing up the cause of world peace. You’ll be in like Flynn. He’ll name his firstborn son after you.”

“But my doctorate…”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” snapped Tom, jerking his hand away. “I swear to fucking god, you people make me insane!”

Hart turned around hurriedly. Tom had never spoken to him harshly before.

“What do you mean?”

Tom jumped up from the bed. “Oh, you know.”

“What?”

“Some rat-eared fuck like William comes along, and you kowtow to him. Whorehouse? Sure! Drugs? Sure! But I—an old friend, who loves you—comes along, you say ‘Oh, I need my doctorate to be a better Nazi!’”

“Tom!”

“It’s true. Whoever is the least rational around you gets your allegiance. Well I’m sick and tired of it. I’ve always tried to be the nice fellow, the one who reasons and asks politely and always takes ‘no’ for an answer. But that just means that all the driftwood of the world goes along with a nastier current. With blind, stupid bastards like William, who insist because they’re evil! Good men don’t insist. Evil men do nothing but insist. What is the result? Well, all the people who can’t or won’t decide for themselves follow the evil men! Don’t you see? You follow him, and resist me! Why? Why?”

Hart frowned, as if concentrating on a very abstract, very difficult problem. He did not seem to notice the tears which fell slowly from his one eye, like the endless dripping of a night tap. “But if obedience is my problem,” he said slowly, “how do I solve it by obeying you?”

“I’m not asking for obedience. I’m not asking you for a favor! Never think that of me! I am no dictator! I would never ask you to do something which was against your own self-interest. I’m not suggesting this to serve me alone, at your expense. You’re a young man. The danger we face is the gravest possible. Oxford will not vanish if we’re wrong. You have seen France. The change in Germany is even worse. You are susceptible to evil. We have to see inside the Foreign Office. You can get information to Churchill, which may avert another World War. You would be called up. You would have to kill or be killed. Millions of English women and children will die. The Empire will disintegrate. Hitler is rearming. He faces no opposition. He has sworn to take over Eastern Europe. We cannot allow that. You know that English continental policy for the past thousand years has been to prevent any European power from gaining ascendancy. Because we cannot stand alone against a power which rules Europe. It’s happening, Hart! It will only take four months from your academics to investigate this. But it could mean the world. Not metaphorically. Actually. The world, Hart. In your hands. Your choice. This moment.”

Hart pulled his towel away, revealing all the gore of his hidden eye. Tears and blood mottled the wet whiteness of the cloth. He frowned, then grimaced in pain.

“I still feel that I am acceding to your wishes.”

“No,” said Tom softly, closing his eyes in relief. “Submitting to reason is not personal. A ball does not submit to me when it falls from my hand to the ground. But to reality. To reality, Hart.” His voice broke. “You are the best friend a man could have.”

“Thanks, Tom. You—you are making me a better person. Against my will, but better anyway.”

Tom sat down on the bed, grinning and wiping his eyes.

“All right. All right, now tell me what the hell happened to your eye.”

Hart smiled. It was his first real smile since coming to France.

“Well,” he said, “I asked for my money back, of course…”

Chapter 63

The House recognizes Mr. Quentin Spencer.

Quentin Spencer: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is certainly His Majesty’s government’s position that our commitment to the League of Nations remains firm. However my honorable Independent colleague might prefer to tear up solemn treaties and chart his own course, regardless of history, honor, and the public interest, it is not our intention to do so. Signor Mussolini has threatened Abyssinia throughout the summer, and is massing his troops along the border. Abyssinia has asked for the help of the League of Nations, and the result of the deliberations of that august body has been twofold. First, it has imposed moral sanctions. Second, it has warned the Italian dictator that if he crosses the border into Abyssinia with hostile intent, the League will not hesitate to impose economic sanctions. Should all these events come to pass, then we have no doubt that the League will pursue the third option in its arsenal, and consider entering the conflict on the side of the Abyssinians. So, I find it hard to understand just what objections my honorable colleague has.

The House recognizes Mr. Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill: My objections, Mr. Speaker, are such as should enter the mind of any man who considers the question of Italian aggression free of cant and sentimentality. Signor Mussolini is a dangerous man, with an army of more than a hundred thousand souls, bent on a malign foreign adventure, aimed at winning him prestige at home. This situation is not unknown throughout history. In fact, it would seem, at times, as if history is composed of little else but these kinds of dangers. The choices we face are quite clear. We can either support Mussolini, support Abyssinia, or intervene to negotiate between the two. Now, however, you tell us that we have ceded the right to make these choices to the League of Nations. Very well. Let us turn our eyes to this beacon of collective security. Because negotiations have failed, the League has chosen to oppose Mussolini. They desire to cut Il Duce off from the materials of war. This is an admirable expression of international will, and the imposition of economic sanctions serves well to uphold the League’s express purpose, for sanctions work best if all nations participate. Thus, I have only one real question. If we wish to impose sanctions to stop Mussolini’s adventure, why have we excluded oil and coal from such sanctions? It certainly seems clear to me—and a moment’s thought will doubtless fix the fact in the mind of my colleague—that Mussolini can scarcely pursue a desert war against Abyssinia without foreign oil. If we have ceded our independent judgement to a international body, then let us at least agitate for it to pursue its mandate in an effective manner. I for one have great anxiety over these sanctions. I prophesy that they shall do little more than irritate Signor Mussolini without stopping him. We shall reveal ourselves as lacking the strength and resolution to tear his hands from the throat of Abyssinia. I submit, most humbly Mr. Speaker, that this is not an efficacious plan. In conflict, one must either refrain from striking, or strike to kill. In this instance, we are merely waving a red flag at a stomping bull, while lacking the means to either oppose it or get out of the way. And who shall say where this path shall lead? If we alienate the Italians from us, where else shall they turn in Europe for companionship? Certainly Signor Mussolini has more in common with Herr Hitler than he has with us. Both are virile, active, self-made and ruthless men. Both hold the seats of ancient civilizations in grips of steel. Neither man brooks competition. Both are expansionist. And both are watching the other. For be sure of one thing: even if we do not hold Signor Mussolini as much of a threat, let us remember that Herr Hitler is doubtless casting his eyes to the Mediterranean, even as we speak, seeing just how this test of international resolution will go. If we let Signor Mussolini win—and also drive him into the arms of his fellow dictator in Berlin—then we shall surely have gotten the worst of both sides. We shall have made enemies without making them fear us. And we shall have created one unified foe where before we had two divided. And I think that, should that be allowed to occur, it shall be recorded for a thousand years that this was the time when His Majesty’s government put personal ambition and petty politics before the security and welfare of this great nation, and many shall be the generations who will rue that choice, and curse our names!

[jeers, catcalls]

The Speaker Recognizes Mr. Spencer

Spencer: As always, our honorable colleague both entertains and horrifies us with his apocalyptic views of the situation. However impressive is his speech and passion—and there are times when I am almost carried away by his rhetoric myself, and expect a burning bush to appear in our midst—I am afraid that I shall be forced to return us to earth. As this House well knows, we are part of an international body called the League of Nations, and it is this League which has, after a great deal of debate, decided not to include certain materials in its sanctions against Italy. The exclusion of these materials may offend our honorable colleague, in which case he is more than welcome to take some time to visit the League in Geneva and make his case there—and take his time in returning. The truth of the matter, however, is that this decision was made by the League as a whole, and no matter how distasteful our colleague finds the operations of democracy, he is bound—by his position in this House, if not by morality and logic as a whole—to accept them. Asking this government to take a position against the League of Nations—which is supported by our own Foreign Office—is to demand that we operate utterly outside our mandate. And, as such, I consider the matter closed.

The Speaker Recognizes Mr. Churchill

Churchill: I wish to thank my honorable colleague, now into his fourth year as an oft-absent parliamentarian, for the lesson on the limits of our government. As a member since 1900, I always find it helpful to be instructed by newcomers. But I have another question for His Majesty’s government. It has to do with rearmament.

[jeers, catcalls]

Churchill: I shall be allowed my say! Mr. Speaker, as this House well knows, last year, the prime minister made a solemn pledge to retain air parity with every major power within striking distance of our shores. Now Herr Hitler himself has told our foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, that in March of this year he achieved air parity with England. And now, six months later, we can be sure that Herr Hitler has found it in his means to pull ahead of us. I have reliable estimates here in my hand that places German air power in clear superiority to our own, in numbers, modernity, and efficiency. I now call upon His Majesty’s government to tell us just what they are doing to fulfill their solemn vow. Are we to get more armaments spending? Are we to expand the number of new Hurricanes and Spitfires to be delivered to our gallant pilots? Do plans exist to expand the number of airfields? Have recruiting calls gone out to young British men? I await your answer.

The speaker recognizes Mr. Stanley Baldwin

Stanley Baldwin: I thank the right honorable Mr. Churchill for his question. This goes to the heart of national security, and must not be overlooked. This government is strongly committed to the defense of both our Island and our Empire. We have looked long and hard at the developing situations in Europe, and confess that our hearts are not at complete ease. We have devoted considerable efforts to determining the true strengths of our potential enemies. This is a most difficult task, which I am sure most members of this House can appreciate. Germany does not allow us to wander its lands with notepads and cameras. We must rely on a wide variety of sources. Now some of those sources tell a story quite similar to the one quoted by the honorable member from Epping. However, some tell a story in quite the opposite direction. I have myself personally seen reports which estimate that Germany possesses anything from half our air power to slightly above parity. Now, were I the master of infinite resources—or were I some sort of economic tsar, as we see in the Soviet Union—I should not hesitate to pour millions more into rearmament. However, two qualifications must be made to that potentiality. First and foremost, we are only now just recovering from a devastating economic depression, and do not have the money to spend on arms. Second, but only slightly less important, it has not escaped our attention that the current mood of the British people is not in favor of rearmament. Were we to plow on, regardless of the public will, we should doubtless find it hard to retain our position in this House, and may perhaps watch a government be formed—a Labour government, say—which might be more in favor of unilateral disarmament, and which might place its entire trust in the bosom of that League which the honorable member opposite finds so distasteful.

[applause, cheers]

The speaker recognizes Mr. Churchill.

Churchill: I find it hard to trust my ears… Please, just give me a moment. All right. In my long, long years in this House, I have grown inured to the inevitable art of the non-answer, but I confess myself to be astounded almost beyond words at the confessions of the honorable prime minister. I am certain that my memory is correct—and I shall personally check the Hansard archives to be sure—that last year, the prime minister did not promise British air parity ‘if I think we can afford it.’ He also did not promise air parity ‘unless the public believes otherwise.’ The public has spoken, sir, by placing you and your expertise at the helm. The public are civilians, sir, and have not the time, inclination, expertise, or information to study such complex matters as the European balance of powers, the motives and nature of our enemies, and the best methods of securing our defense. To achieve their defense—which is surely the first and final duty of every government the world over—they have placed you in command. They have given you grave powers in the trust that you will do what is right. It may be that certain members of society believe that we can effectively deal with the new dictator-nations by remaining disarmed, but that is not the truth of the situation, neither now, nor at any time in history. Can we imagine what would have happened in 1914 if we had approached the German kaiser with nothing but our naked selves and a trembling olive branch? Leave turning the other cheek to the Bible, sir. It has no place in a house of government. Yet to hear a prime minister of this country declare openly that he will not strive to defend the citizens who have so entrusted him because he might lose an election is staggering beyond words. You were not sent here, sir, to secure elections, but to serve and protect the British people. Our own army chiefs have said that war may come in as little as five years, and that Germany is likely to be our chief enemy. You yourself have pledged to protect us from our enemies by securing air parity with all countries within striking distance of our shores. We have strong evidence that our parity has been lost. I ask you what you intend to do about this grave weakness—a weakness which, given our open society, is in full view of the world—and you reply with vague opinions, a plea of financial constraint and an appeal to the prejudices of certain constituents. What purpose, pray tell, will it serve these same constituents if you present their new Nazi government with a balanced budget?

[jeers, catcalls, complaints]

Churchill: I humbly apologize for my last remarks, Mr. Speaker. I feel as if I am trapped in some terrible, monstrous dream, where we attempt to arrest an onrushing train with pious platitudes. I let my passions get the better of my good sense, and withdraw my remarks.

Chapter 64

In October 1935, Mussolini’s Grand Army crossed the border into Abyssinia. This land had been independent since the days of King Solomon. It was the only African country to successfully resist European invasion in the nineteenth century.

The Italians had modern airplanes, tanks, and flamethrowers. The Abyssinians had war drums, camels, and twelve obsolete biplanes. The Italians used poison gas and bombed Red Cross hospitals. The League of Nations applied some sanctions, but not enough to stop the war. The British let oil and coal sail through the British-controlled Suez canal. The French sold oil to the Italians. The League forbade arms sales to either side.

The Abyssinians were slaughtered.

Cuthbert was outraged.

It was the first time any of his employees had seen him anything other than bored and distemperate. It made them all panic. Each of them ran around, feeling the weight of the Abyssinian Crisis as he had been directly responsible for it. Cuthbert acted as if he had been against the League of Nations from the start, but had been overruled by his underlings—and now had the full magisterial right of a man who had given good but unheeded advice.

The truth was that the FO was in quite a bind, and Cuthbert felt it most keenly. Throughout his career, he had been in the position of unequalled expert. His detailed knowledge was consulted, deferred to, sought after, and never questioned. His position was a kind of weapon; his heavy, bludgeoning personality saw that it never went unused.

But now, things were crawling out into the open. The British public—largely due to propaganda coming out of the FO—were almost fetishistically enamored of the League of Nations. The League of Nations served Cuthbert perfectly, because he could blame the other members if a British initiative failed, and take personal credit if something succeeded. The greatest engine of the mortal world is the drive to avoid responsibility and fuel vanity. The League of Nations was popular with the people because it served the vanities of the leaders.

Cuthbert was in a very privileged position, and this position was directly threatened by Mussolini. He was the chief civil servant under Samuel Hoare, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Cuthbert had seen quite a few ministers stumble through the FO—it did not tend to attract the best and brightest—and had loved them all. They had the microphones and interviews, but spoke little but what Cuthbert wanted them to say. The word ‘democracy’ always made him smile. Ministers who went against the policy of the civil service—surely a more permanent and skilled layer—found unpleasant information leaked to the newspapers, or were given poor advice which got them kicked out. In the palaces of power, the civil service were neither king, queen, or courtier, but oxygen. An invisible, unfelt substance on which all pomp and power depended.

Being a great civil servant required two things, according to Cuthbert. One had to be very certain, and very patient. “The great virtue of the civil service,” he would say, “is that we are not subject to the vagaries of public opinion. We are the ballast of the ship of state.”

He was not a great fan of democracy, except insofar as the illusion of participation created the moral requirement of obedience. “They vote in the figureheads,” he smiled, “and we tell them what to do. If they succeed, they preen. If not, they leave. But we remain. We always remain.”

But Mussolini had done something which threatened to blow the lid off the whole scheme. If the League of Nations was revealed as useless, then the FO would inherit the whole European mess—a mess which had been created directly through its faith in the League of Nations. If we had taken the reins in 1925, after Locarno, he thought, we’d have the dictators well under heel by now. But the public and politicians wanted the League, and so we went along. And now that the League has proven itself useless, we are supposed to clean up their goddamned mess?

His was a rage without bottom. He called a meeting with Reginald. Reginald knew, going in, that nothing productive would come out of it except the draining some of his boss’s venom.

“All right,” said Cuthbert, pacing back and forth in front of his desk—an unprecedented activity. “We have this rogue Italian on our hands, and he is spoiling our day by gassing the wogs. The League of Nations is all a-aflutter, but you and I both know that it will come to nothing. It is a posturing, vain organization, as I have always said. So the shit is going to land all over us. We’ll have to come up with a credible position for the press, the people. What do you think?”

“I think we should reaffirm our faith in the League.”

“Right. Why?”

“Because if we back away from the League now, people will ask why. If we say: because the League is unable to handle the aggression of one of its members, then they’ll say: why didn’t you figure that out when it was unable to deal with the Japanese in Manchuria?”

“Ye-es. We have good reasons, but the horde never understands them. So we have to keep our shoulders behind the League. We can do that. But we can’t really leave everything to the League. Do you know, when the Abyssinians capture an Italian, they tend to castrate him? I’m not too pleased with the company we have to keep. But foreign policy is all about holding your nose, so here we go.”

Reginald shrugged. “So we have to wage a two-front war.”

“Yes. Publicly support the League. Privately, try to work something out between the wogs and Eyeties.”

“And, when we’ve done it, bring it to the League for ratification.”

Cuthbert laughed. “Nice touch. We support the group, but can also act as concerned individuals. We share our successes. Very nice!”

“Well,” said Reginald. “We can’t share this one.”

Cuthbert paused in one of his turns. “No. No, damn it. That such great ideas should never see the light of… We’ll have to get Sam to do it.”

“Will he do it?”

Cuthbert waved his hand. “Oh, they all want to leave their mark. They’re not comfortable toiling in obscurity. That’s our virtue. He’ll get it going. I’ll talk to him.”

Reginald paused. His conscience prickled queasily, like a rolling hedgehog. “There is one other possibility.”

“What’s that?”

“Close the Suez Canal.”

Cuthbert paused. “Sam can’t do that.”

“No, but he can recommend it. No Suez, no oil. No coal. Mussolini’s army would grind to a halt within a week.”

“What if he goes to Hitler?”

“Well, just from a devil’s advocate position, what if he does? Is that going to be any more dangerous than Hitler seeing that we can’t do a damn thing to stop aggression? That the League of Nations is a dead duck? And Hitler and Mussolini are very suspicious of each other. It’s unlikely.”

“Mmm. Interesting. But it doesn’t solve the problem of acting against the League. It’s a de facto economic sanction.”

Reginald smiled. “We dynamite it.”

“What?”

“Or disable the Suez in some other way. Everyone will know what’s going on, but we’ll have an ironclad cover story. We save the League, we save face, we stop Mussolini.”

“That’s…” Cuthbert laughed suddenly. “Why, I think that is inspired! Give me a moment.”

He walked back and forth a few times. Reginald watched him closely.

Finally, Cuthbert turned and said: “No.”

“Why?”

“Too risky. If Mussolini goes to Hitler, we’ll still be blamed. What if we do too much damage to the Suez? Not to mention the lost income. And we’d need some kind of cover story for the explosion, or whatever it was. That would have holes. And the private companies would have to be bought off. Too traceable, like all radical solutions. Inspired, my boy. Don’t get me wrong. But impractical. Still, hats off.”

Reginald looked up. His conscience sank back down, regretfully.

“Well,” he smiled. “I tried, at least.”

Cuthbert returned his smile, then scowled, went to his desk and threw an envelope at Reginald. “Oh, and listen, could you arrange an interview for this little fool?”

Reginald glanced at the return address, then laughed sharply. “Good God, no!”

“You know him?”

“We went to school together. You remember that Oxford debate last year? He was supposed to be my opponent, but gave it up for my brother…”

“Yes, just handle it please. It’s his fifth letter. And you need an assistant. You might have considerable travel in short order, and I’m not letting you get behind on your paperwork.”

“It’s too silly,” mused Reginald. “He must know how I feel.”

“Oh, put all that behind you. He has a master’s. He speaks French. If you don’t talk to him, I will.”

“Sure. All right. I will,” murmured Reginald, tapping the envelope against his chin.

Samuel Hoare, the Foreign Secretary, and Cuthbert met in a private room at Sam’s club at eight o’clock that evening. Because a political crisis was at hand, the air was blue with smoke. Silent waiters left eddies of air in their wake. Old men sat hunched forward in ungainly positions, their faces red, their bellies pressing against their thighs. Everyone overate. Manners were forgotten. Pate showed against the gumlines of snarling mouths. The great camouflage of the political animal—appearance—was being exposed by the growing reality of incompetence. Surveying the room, Cuthbert remembered a sentence from a terrible essay he had marked as a professor’s assistant, many years before: The sacred cows were coming home to roost with a vengeance.

Indeed.

As they spoke, Cuthbert noticed with pleasure that Sam was in the perfect frame of mind. He seemed irritated at Mussolini, as if Mussolini were acting against him personally. How strange that he should be bothered, thought Cuthbert, as a smoky waiter set down some brandy. A doctor should never hate illness, for without illness, there would be no need for doctors!

Sam rubbed his forehead with a limp hand, leaning forward in his creaky leather chair.

“Oh, Cuthbert!” he moaned, “I thought I was being put out to pasture, and here I am face to face with a snorting bull!”

“A bull is more Spanish than Italian,” said Cuthbert, taking a delicate sip. “Although the two metaphors work well together.”

“Oh, be serious!” snapped Sam, lowering his hands and raising his exhausted eyes. His blunt square face twisted. “When I think of what’s happening there, I get sick. Physically sick! I saw a cartoon this morning: a happy African village. Underneath, a caption: ‘barbarism.’ Next to it, the same village, in flames. Underneath: ‘civilization.’ It’s awful.”

“Well, the perils of the position, all that rot.” Cuthbert yawned. “What are you going to do?”

Sam gazed at his fingernails. “Appeal for peace?”

Cuthbert sighed. “And…”

“Well, I suppose I should fly out to see the League…”

“For what purpose?”

“They have to condemn it as well.”

“I see.”

Sam paused. “I know it’s not…”

“No, those are all sensible courses. Splendid steps. What would your father have done?”

Sam blinked in confusion. “My father was…”

“I mean: what would the men of your father’s generation have done?”

“Oh, they’d be sailing down the goddamned Mediterranean in dreadnoughts, making speeches and rousing our rural men and there’d be another Great War. But that’s out.” He paused. “That’s no good.”

“Do you think they’d be doing anything before that? Before that step?”

“Oh, for God’s sake don’t take that schoolmistress tone with me!”

“All right. Sam: they’d be negotiating.”

“With Italy? Abyssinia?”

“Both.”

“Hm. For what end?”

“Give something to each.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for Italy, the lifting of the sanctions. They’ll need rubber again at some point. For Abyssinia, the retention of some of their land.”

“Hm. Have you explored this?”

“Yes.”

“With which side?”

“Neither. With the French.”

“The French! Why?”

Cuthbert resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Sam—the French are crucial. They want to keep Italy away from Germany, so they’re still selling oil to Mussolini. They have a strong navy. And it will do Hitler some good to see the British and French acting in concert. Give him pause.”

“I see. We shall have to think on that.”

Cuthbert shook his head. “We have good word that Mussolini is sidling up to Hitler. Hitler is thinking of providing Il Duce with some of the materials the League is denying him. We have to act now.”

“So…” Sam scrunched up his forehead. “So, if we have to act now, then I’d better get over to France and see Laval. Get this thing moving properly. I’m sure that we can save something here. Mussolini needs oil. The Abyssinians need their land, or at least some portion of it. Everyone has to come out looking like roses. But,” he said, glancing up suddenly. “What about the League?”

“This will all be in the strictest secrecy,” said Cuthbert slowly.

Sam grinned, and winked. “Oho! So, we take it to the League later?”

“I would.”

Sam grinned even wider, then frowned suddenly. “Cuthbert, tell me something.”

“What?”

“Why don’t you take this damn job?”

Cuthbert almost laughed. “I’d say that I’m afraid of flying, but that would be wrong. I’m not afraid of flying. I’m afraid of falling. Actually, to be completely accurate, I’m terrified of that terrible smack that happens when you hit the ground from a great height.” Then he did laugh, waving a hand through the blue air. “No, not for me. Not for me at all.”

Chapter 65

Quentin could see that his wife was flailing, and he was consumed by indecision. To get close, to help, required accepting the risk of getting struck. To withdraw was heartbreaking.

In the autumn of 1935, Quentin was fifty-nine years old. He had achieved genuine standing in the political community. He understood the English mind. He could speak to the people. He lulled them. He spoke of patience, tolerance, and understanding. England and Europe were like an old married couple, or bickering children. The point was not to take sides, but to smile and relax. Human life was intimately bound up with conflict. We cannot pretend to love a world without differences. Let us save some of our affection for heaven!

And—and he had given up fighting with his wife. When they were younger, he now realized, some sort of terrible war had been going on, under the table. Only one of them could be right. It was the same with Reginald and Wendy. He wanted to say something, but frankly, she scared him. She had a tongue like an Amazonian blow-dart. And he didn’t want to make things worse for Reginald. Now that the second child had arrived. Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if the new ball of flesh could somehow feed my wife’s emptiness? Give her something to get out of bed for…

Well, that was unfair. She was out of bed. It wasn’t like the Terrible Twenties. She still came out for dinners, parties and events, but it seemed even worse than her being in bed. Before, she had been unhappy, and exhausted, and so she had cared for herself to the extent of taking to bed. Now, she was unhappy, and exhausted, but seemed to have given up on the idea that resting would help. So she came, and sat, and ate a little, and responded to questions usually within twenty seconds, and turned almost everyone she met into a little nurse, for a little while. Quentin was given sympathetic glances, because he was solicitous of her when they were in company, and refilled her water and offered to order more soup and to take her home early. She smiled, and nodded or shook her head, but seemed utterly, utterly vacant. It was worse than being lost. It was like having nothing left to lose.

Quentin shied away from this. It seemed terminal, and he felt in his heart that, to solve it, he would have to take his wife back to her very crib, pick up a warm bottle, and start over.

He was also becoming prone to sudden fits of weeping. That was all right for Churchill, who was a born blubberer, but it felt wrong for Quentin. He was supposed to be made of sterner stuff. Not some drippy romantic. Sometimes he wondered how Churchill could be a weeper and a hawk at the same time, but it seemed a puzzle too inconsequential to get into.

But Quentin’s weeping was accepted, in a way that Churchill’s was not, because Quentin had a genuine Cross to Bear. He was considered a good husband by the standards of the day, which is that he was solicitous, stiflingly gentle, and discrete in whatever else he might be doing. It was rather touching, like watching a senile old man trail his even more senile wife with a napkin.

But we’re so young! he would think, watching his wife. Ruth’s papery skin, wispy hair and sunken eyes spoke of some devil, nourishing itself on her veins, some sucking, twisted thing, and Quentin had to forcibly recall that he did not hate her, but her neurasthenia.

And, the truth was, they were not so young, not anymore, and this was becoming quite real to Quentin. He sometimes felt an odd sensation, when he was full of power, in the House, or making a speech, that his energy came from his wife somehow. His words had force because they leeched words of hers, which could now never be spoken. His skin had fat because hers had none. His lips were thick because hers were thin.

And, they were destined to die apart…

That thought was coming to him more often now. More often, and more and more keenly. They orbited the world, losing touch, drifting apart, to die alone in black space. Their paths, which he had always imagined would unite towards the end of things, were in fact curving further and further apart. I can barely see her now, and I am almost gone to her… Quentin sometimes sat in his study, wracking his brains in a fairly realistic manner, trying to discern how he had wronged her, and just why he felt that touch and forgiveness were so beyond their reach.

These musings were like little birds, scattered by an eagle of sudden anger. As if she has anything to condemn me for! Did I kill her father? Did I end his line?

But thoughts of Ruth’s father no longer had the power to rouse his ire. It was all becoming so abominably long ago. The past is a place we can do little more than imagine…

Something more recent, something more…

It couldn’t be Reginald. Two babies. Good career. Jumpy wife, but then Ruth of all people could scarcely blame him for that.

It must be. It must be Tom.

Quentin had lost track of his youngest son a little. That Gunther had slithered back somehow, and Tom had taken up with the aging bachelor. A picture of the future… Tom had thrown up a perfectly serviceable little business to go roaming about the continent for God knew what purpose. He wrote to his mother, of course—he was English—but Lord knows about what. Little impressions of travel. Surprise at the size of French bread. Little laughter at the antics of foreign children. A vague respect for the utterances of old folk in foreign climes. A sense that they had solved all of life’s problems. That they took their time. Held their families close. Pah! An emptying out of one’s soul and future for the sake of movement and sensation.

And then—and then Tom came back. It was for one day, and it woke Ruth up. And then, Quentin, who had mourned her sleep for many years, found good cause to regret her awakening.

In Ruth’s day, travel was a significant thing. She had never grasped that Tom could fly from Paris to his home in under an hour. He had to wait until the harvest was in, in order to have a good place to land, but in early December, 1935, Tom came home.

He did not stop off to see Catherine. He walked straight up to his mother’s room.

He had a speech prepared, but it died on his lips.

His mother’s gaunt head lay against the pillow, turned slightly to one side. Her mouth was open. He could barely discern her thin form, under thin covers. Her arms were beside her, he guessed. No books were by her bed. No papers. No needlepoint. No knitting. Nothing. A glass of water on a little cotton doily. It looked dusty. It all looked like a deathbed scene.

He said nothing, but walked to her bedside. Her eyes focused slowly on him. Her mouth opened a little. Tom imagined that she might burst into tears, and bleed away with salt whatever held her in its grip. He imagined holding her as the past broke away from her in a hot hiss, like a shell casing. It would lie smoking on the ground, and they would both observe it, and laugh in relief…

But nothing happened. She did not move. Her eyes did not well up. Her breath changed a little.

“Christ, Mother!” he murmured, his voice thick. He sat down and touched her hair. He could feel the roots. It felt like wispy stubble. It felt like an old doll’s skull. She blinked, but slowly, and swallowed.

“Tom,” she whispered.

“Where is Father?”

She did not shrug, or shake her head, or respond at all.

“Would you like some tea?”

“No…”

“How are you?”

“Not well.”

“Do you need—want—anything at all?”

“Just… Just sit. Here.”

Tom felt one of her arms move, against his thigh. He almost tore the blankets from her, so it could move more freely. Go wherever it wanted to go.

“How long have you been…”

She smiled thinly, but did not answer. He took her exposed hand. He felt her bones, like the wings of a bird. A dead bird. The revenge of long-ago loss…

Tom lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it for a long time. All anger against his mother left his heart. He burst through all her old, endless words like a trapped diver breaking the glassy surface of a serene sea. She is an oracle of our times, he thought, but we have no ears to hear…

“Mother…” he said, and then paused. The endless tears were back. Her dark, recessed eyes stared at him, and he tried to remember the last time he had cried with her.

“Mother,” whispered Tom. “Mother, there is going to be a war.”

Nothing changed in her expression, but Tom could feel it. It felt as if her bones were falling back from her skin, down an endless well or hole, and that her skin only remained because it had not yet noticed the absence of its foundations.

“There will be a war, and it will be the end of all of us. And I think you have known that for many years. I don’t believe in prophecy, except in our knowledge of people. There will be a war, and then there will be no more history, but if there were, our own family would figure in it. Not at the center, but not far from it. Not a chapter, perhaps, but not a footnote either. You knew this. You knew, all these years. You know it now. Doom is coming, the kind of doom we cannot stand, because it is not personal. It is not us that will end. We can always stand that. But this is not the end of the story, but of language itself. And I wanted you to know that I know that. And that I am sad. As sad as you. Perhaps we all are, Mother. The world is drying up, just like your heart. We are all trying to run away from a sky that is falling. Flames will take us. And I am sorry. I am sorry that you and I did not learn enough about each other. That we could not love each other as we should. As we might have…”

Tom wiped his eyes. His mother’s eyelids were lowering slowly.

“And I think—I think that you got better when I left because Father went into politics, and so something could be done. But then, having Father and Reginald in politics, in such a time as this, is worse than doing nothing. They will bring it closer. They will bring it upon us, although they do not want to. But they are not happy enough to fight for life. They do not love the world enough to save it. Or themselves. And so what you thought would save you is in fact killing you. And you know that now.” His whisper was as gentle as the slightest wind. “And I am sorry that you have to know. How do we live when we know that the end is coming? And I am breaking all my promises by coming to see you today. But it was—it was like I could hear you calling, in my mind, as if you were falling. And—and I can’t catch you, Mother. I cannot stop your fall. All I can do is learn about—what makes us fall. And tell you that I know…”

Ruth’s hand came up to his mouth. Her face turned away. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Gunther…” she said.

“Pardon?” asked Tom, leaning forward.

“Gunther—is your father.”

An electric shock ran through him, leaving him shaken and dizzy. He frowned painfully. “What? Gunther is…”

“Your father, Tom. Tom. Tommy.”

She sobbed then, very loudly, and Tom suddenly wondered if anyone else was in the house.

His mind flew back over the years. A family friend. Disliked by his father. By Quentin, he corrected himself.

“Before the war,” he said.

She nodded, staring away, and sobbed again.

“Christ! Reginald is only my half brother…” Tom felt something glad flicker through his heart, striking as it went, like the wing-beat of a huge bird.

“Oh, Mum!” he cried. “What we could have said to each other, over the years!”

“He is such a—good man. He has been a better father to you than… He has been your only good—parent!”

Ruth sobbed heavily, regularly. He tried to hug her, but the tight blankets constricted her. Instead, Tom hunched forward and gripped her shoulders, pressing his face against her cheek.

“My God, my God, my God,” he murmured, closing his eyes, his soul spinning into dizzy darkness.

Her hands came up and touched his wet face. She convulsed with sobs. They lay together for a long, long time.

Chapter 66

Cuthbert sent Reginald over with Samuel Hoare to talk to the French Prime Minister Laval about Abyssinia. Reginald’s French was excellent, and he claimed to have a good understanding of the Gallic mind.

On the airplane over the Channel, he prepped Sam.

“You have to remember,” said Reginald, “that the French mind is logical and juridical. Not empirical. Certainly not practical. That’s why they’re under the sway of Bolshevism at the moment.”

“Bloody Russians!” scowled Sam, trying to sip a scotch without spilling it. “So, how do we present it?”

“Well, this is what Cuthbert and I have come up with,” said Reginald, pulling a piece of paper out of his breast pocket. “First, Italy is to get the northern province of Tigre, and also the Ogaden area of Abyssinia. They get certain economic rights in the south.”

Sam grunted. “How much territory?”

“It’s about two thirds of Abyssinia.”

“Good Lord! Why would they ever agree to that?”

“Well, they’re left with a third, which is a third more than Mussolini will leave them.”

“Good God, I didn’t mean the wogs. I mean the Italians.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not a gift from us if they can take it by force.”

Reginald nodded. “Well, obviously we have to rely on world opinion a little. That’s the basis of the League, after all. And we hope to convince the French to stop selling oil and coal to the Italians.”

“They’ll demand that we close the Suez,” said Sam promptly.

“No. No, this has to be old-school diplomacy.” Reginald smiled, knowing how foolish it looked for him, at the age of twenty-six, to be telling Samuel Hoare, aged fifty-six, about old-school diplomacy. “It has to be all under the table. Constrictions, nods, winks, subtle but united fronts.”

“Nothing in the open. Because if it comes out…”

Reginald whistled. “If it comes out, Sam, we’re doomed. More than us. If the public gets a whiff that their government has lost all faith in the League of Nations, appeasement is doomed. England is doomed.”

“All right, no need to get so apocalyptic, young man,” sighed Sam, twirling his drink. “Everything is an emergency to the young!”

Reginald and Sam met with Pierre Laval in an ornate room in the British Consulate in Paris.

They thought they had come to speak about Abyssinia, but another topic quickly overshadowed it.

“My government,” said Laval shortly, “is far less concerned with Mussolini than with Hitler. In June of this year, your government signed a pact with Hitler allowing him to build thirty-five ships for every hundred ships that the British have. We registered protests with your government in the strongest possible terms. We heard nothing in return!”

Sam’s face grew dark. Reginald translated. “What, are we to no longer be allowed to sign our own treaties without French approval?”

“Limitation on the German Navy was a cornerstone of Versailles. You tore up a treaty for which millions of our young men died without consulting us! Do you know that your ratio for German shipping is generous enough to keep the German shipyards at full capacity for over a decade?”

“We have not come to discuss Versailles, or the naval treaty,” said Sam, through Reginald.

“But we have. For you are asking us to support your initiatives against Mussolini. Very well. Let us discuss them. Which aspects of Versailles are the British actually willing to uphold?”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“It is everything. What if Hitler moves to reoccupy the Rhineland?”

“Do you have any proof that he will?”

“It is a theoretical question, which is not so theoretical.”

“What does it matter?”

“If Hitler reoccupies the Rhineland, he will build fortifications. So we will no longer be able to march into Germany unopposed. He then has no need to fear a two-front war. He can begin to move against Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia. We will no longer have a dagger pressed against the back of Germany. What will your government do if the Germans attempt to reoccupy the Rhineland?”

“Why are we talking about this?”

“Because, Monsieur Hoare, if you are asking us to be strong against the aggression of Mussolini, then you must be equally strong against the aggression of Hitler. We do not want to alienate Mussolini, and then be left alone to face Germany.”

Hoare scowled, speaking rapidly. Reginald said: “Surely Monsieur Laval remembers that our two great nations have signed a solemn treaty in Locarno in 1925, to the effect that, if either of us were threatened, each will come to the aid of the other.”

“Of course,” said Laval. “However, the key question is this: does the unilateral abrogation of a treaty which results in a clear threat to France constitute an attack?”

“Please clarify.”

“If the Germans march into the Rhineland, France is not being attacked. But we then lose our greatest defense against Germany. We become vulnerable, and Germany becomes almost impregnable. Would that constitute an attack on France?”

“That situation would have to be analyzed when it occurred.”

“The situation has just been presented.”

“What would France do in such a situation?”

“That would very much depend on British support.”

“So, if we supported you, you would counterattack the Germans.”

“If we—if France were supported by the British, it would be a far more viable option.”

“So you would invade?”

“With British support, we would be in a far better position to invade.”

Hoare laughed. “Pierre, you are dancing. England could never support military action by France against Germany if France did not actually plan to take that action. Threats are always useless. And what if France goes Bolshevik in the meantime? Would England still be bound to support a communist state against a fascist state? It would be nonsense. Any government making such commitments would be tossed out of office.”

“So you would not act to defend France.”

“If the Germans went into the Rhineland?”

“Yes.”

“We would have to evaluate that at the time. What if they went in without weapons? What if there was a plebiscite run by the League of Nations, as in the Saar region, where ninety percent of the population wanted to go back to Germany? Would it be all right then? That would be nonmilitary. Who knows? You cannot determine these things beforehand. You certainly cannot. You will not make a commitment. Yet you ask us to.”

Laval thrust himself back in his chair, turning his face away. Reginald almost expected him to spit. “Then,” he muttered, “you will get no aid from France against Italy. And we shall have to pick our allies far more carefully in the future.”

“Pierre,” smiled Sam. “Don’t get so cross. You know that if France takes a firm stand against German aggression, then England is bound by the Locarno pact to come to your aid. It all depends on you. But we can’t be more resolute than you are. It makes no sense. All we can do is support your decisions.”

“So England will come to France’s aid if France responds with arms to any remilitarization of the Rhineland?”

Hoare nodded. “Yes. I believe that I can give you assurances that we shall do everything in our power to aid your fight against any German remilitarization of the Rhineland.”

Sam had to ask Reginald to translate this remarkable statement twice before he did so. Reginald did not relish returning this little tidbit to Cuthbert.

After the English declaration of support, the discussion flowed much more smoothly. The Abyssinians were duly carved up, and the Hoare-Laval pact was transcribed, with copies to go for ratification to the Foreign Offices of each government.

As expected, Cuthbert was enraged.

“That arrogant, pompous little shit!” he shouted, when Reginald passed on the news of Sam’s commitment to Laval. “What is he talking about?”

“The Treaty of Locarno.”

“Oh, to hell with that! That only comes into effect if Germany invades France. What, if they take back the Rhineland? It’s their own backyard. That’s like us marching back into Yorkshire. He thinks we’d go to war over that?”

“I had to translate…”

“Oh, don’t be a junior little weasel,” said Cuthbert with heavy contempt. “No one is accusing you. Goddamn it. Goddamn it all to hell!”

“Why…” said Reginald, then realized his voice was quavering. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Why is this so important?”

“Because I just had lunch today with Hermann Göring. One of Hitler’s insiders. Ex-pilot, in charge of the German Air Force. He asked me straight. He said: ‘If France attacked Germany, would England come to her aid?’”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t fuck around. I told the truth. We have no soldiers. We could perhaps apply some economic sanctions. For what they’re worth. I didn’t say that last bit.”

“Oh…” said Reginald, sitting heavily in his chair.

“I think he was probing our commitment to Locarno. He said that if Germany isn’t given the chance to expand, it will burst. ‘Like a capped kettle,’ he said. Christ, his breath…”

“So—what if they want to take back the Rhineland so they can—go east, without France waltzing in through the back door?”

“So? So what?”

“That’s… That would be awful.”

“Nonsense! Austria has three million Germans. They’re all dying to get sucked back up by the fucking Fatherland. Would you shed your blood to stop them going home? And they’ve pretty much given up on democracy anyway.”

Reginald’s face was pale. “What if they go further east?”

“They’ll trip over Stalin, who will know how to handle them. They go east, Stalin will meet them halfway. So Hitler will forever have an unstable and warring eastern front. It’s beautiful. Fascism and communism cancel each other out, and leave the west in peace.” Cuthbert shrugged and smiled. “Or perhaps they want a few colonies back. Hell, I’d give them India myself. It would be pleasant to see how Gandhi would fare under Hitler’s tender heels. He might miss us a little then, as they pulled his soppy, beady eyes out!”

“I…”

“My only point, Reginald the extremely wet-eared, is that none of Hitler’s territorial ambitions have to interfere directly with British material interests. We can’t fight him now. Even if we had superior force, we don’t have the population control he enjoys. We can’t shoot people if they don’t skip with flowers to the front. You get five bombs in the Strand, we’d have a revolution. So we let him have the Rhineland, he goes East, and starts an endless sparring match with Stalin. I have no difficulties swallowing that. Though, as always, I remain open to suggestions.”

“What if—what if Hitler is weaker than he looks?”

“Yes?”

“We could oppose him over the Rhineland, and… And he might fall.”

“He might,” said Cuthbert reflectively. “Although I think that the Night of the Long Knives put a stop to any nonsense of that kind. We’d need hard evidence. And then it would still be a very difficult decision. But we should stay open to it. You never know.”

Cuthbert jumped up suddenly, with one of his occasional bursts of energy.

“But that’s all nonsense. Right now, we have more pressing issues. Enemies closer at hand. We have to get rid of Sam.”

“Rid of… Sam?”

“Oh, Reginald, you should know about this. We can’t have ministers running around making commitments to our allies. We can’t have them interpreting complex documents like Locarno and broadcasting simplistic conclusions! What kind of goddamned sovereignty is that? And besides, the interpretation of Locarno is our business, not his.” Cuthbert sighed. “It always distresses me to no end when they forget that they’re just figureheads.”

“He tried to hedge…”

“Sure. Perhaps. But then, he jumped the gun, so to speak, because he wanted France to be on our side with Mussolini.”

“Shouldn’t he have?”

“What, on the first meeting? We’re so poor, we can’t afford to fly back? Delay, delay. Sam makes a commitment to Laval now, Laval is probably gone in four months. It’s French politics after all. But Sam’s commitment will hang on, as all the governments roll through.” Cuthbert smiled. “Everyone thinks that England makes a pact with France. Not so. Good god, what a horror! The fact is that a certain English government makes a pact with a certain French government. No one likes to remember that.”

“But that’s—not the legality of it, is it?”

“Well, that’s very French. Very juridical. No, we talk of eternal pacts, because we’re children, and sentimental. But it’s nonsense, like all childish things. Some communist government takes over in France—and there are many who believe that the Popular Front is a really the Communist Front. No, France is dying on the vine. Everyone in the business sector is taking their capital out of France. Why invest, just to have your investment nationalized? The cycle has begun. Less investment means the franc will plummet. More unemployment. More violence. This virus has struck before. There’s no need to be blind to the signs.”

“So…” Reginald frowned.

“Sorry, this is a lot for someone so new to all this.” Cuthbert grinned. “But you have a talent for this nonsense. I can tell. If I were sentimental, I might say that you remind me of me when I was your age. But you don’t. I was never such a handsome lad.”

“But… Thanks, but… Sam?”

Cuthbert leaned over him, his broad face eclipsing the single electric light. “Oh, here is where you must choose your sides, my protégé. Here is the line dividing light and dark. I know your answer, but I love the question.”

Reginald felt acutely uncomfortable, with his boss’s face hanging so low over his armchair. He wanted to wriggle back into the leather. And hide for a decade or so.

His eyes don’t look so tired now, thought Reginald in strange terror. It was true. Cuthbert’s eyes were wide, electric, sensual.

Reginald tried to laugh. “What are you talking about, Cuthbert?”

“You know. Do you want to know how I shall rid myself of Sam?”

Do I? wondered Reginald. He suddenly thought of his wife. Of her sneering face. He felt that he needed some sort of power in his life. Something to shut her up. But at the same time, in his mind’s eye, her scornful mouth was belied by the sight of her sad and tired eyes.

Then he thought of his daughters. Their bright eyes. Tight hands. Apple cheeks. If Sam is a danger to England… Then, he scowled at himself. Too sentimental by half, old chap! You’ll be selling children’s books next…

But he did want to know what Cuthbert would say next.

Why? He frowned. It was like being in a dream, when he had to run, but gravity was mostly absent, and every step bounced him into the sky, more high than forward. And something with suction cups shot forward from behind, hanging beneath him with an open mouth and dripping teeth…

Some muscle is unused. Some air cannot get through. He remembered his early childhood asthma, the endless frustration of being in bed while the world had fun beyond the windows and far away. He recalled Tom’s face, as he rose from the backyard trench, almost twenty years before, his face flushed with triumph, sycamore leaves clinging to his jumper, after his legendary bombing run…

After that, we always had to post soldiers facing backwards, thought Reginald with sudden, old anger. All my strategies were useless!

He tried to shake off his historical ramblings. Concentrate!

“Yes,” he said to Cuthbert’s low lunar features. The word had come out of him without thinking.

Cuthbert smiled, then rose and went to sit at his desk. He dialed his telephone.

“Al,” he said, “get in here. And be quick about it!”

He sat back, then smiled brightly at Reginald. Reginald blinked in surprise at Cuthbert’s transformed features.

“How their heels fly when they think they’re being fired!” he said.

A man came barreling into the room, clutching his chest comically.

“Yes, Mr. Rathbone?”

Cuthbert threw an envelope across the desk.

“Copy this. Drop it off at The Times. Anonymously.”

The man nodded, snatched up the envelope, then vanished.

Cuthbert laughed. “Exit one minister. Stage left!”

“Was that…”

Cuthbert nodded. “The pact is about to become public. And can you imagine having a Foreign Secretary so cynical that he’s willing to champion the authority of the League of Nations, while at the same time pursuing his own secret diplomacy on the side? Tut, tut. We are in for a most edifying moral spectacle. A hypocritical crowd tearing apart a hypocritical leader.”

And it was true. Within three weeks, Sam was gone.

Cuthbert had achieved his aim. He had gotten rid of Sam. He was even less pleased, though, with the man who took his place.

Chapter 67

Mussolini had robbed Quentin of sleep. It was most irritating. As Mussolini pushed further and further into Abyssinia, it felt to Quentin as if Abyssinia was some kind of kingdom of sleep, where every honest Englishman went nightly, to receive his standard ration of dreams. And as the Italians cut into the ancient heart of the dark continent, sleep fled for Quentin. The blacks scattered, gassed and flaming, and so the dark scattered for Quentin, and there was no more peace ’twixt dusk and dawn.

And, wouldn’t you just know it, as I fall, my wife rises again.

Quentin had not expected it. He had, in his heart, imagined her sinking further and further into skeletal absence, filling up less and less of the bed, until Catherine drew the covers back one morning to reveal nothing more than a wisp of hair and an empty nightgown. And then, the house would be haunted, he would think with a shudder. When they were very young, and newly married, before the war, Ruth had laughed at his insistence that he would get remarried if she died. “I’ll haunt you!” she cried out, shaking little pink fists. “I’ll haunt you!”

His whole life unrolled in the dark. Every day, he moved forward in time. Every night, he moved back. Back to times which could never be reclaimed. Times he loved—before the War particularly—but which were barred from long lingering by regret and a strange, striking guilt. Going back to a formal picnic in 1912, where everyone was dressed up, the crusts had all been removed from the sandwiches, the gaiety unforced, and the future a steady, easy climb. Ruth’s father was there, and her four brothers, and their girlfriends… And, at the last thought, he wondered, all of a sudden—Where were those young women? Still alive, surely. Are they as she is? Do they mourn all that was, is, and is to be, or do they sigh, wipe away a tear, and say: ‘Oh, he was such a nice young man. I forget his face, but I knew him, just before the war…’

His thoughts went around and around. There was no fascism back there. No war. No communism. The world had been solved. And then, striking like some evil, withered arm from the Middle Ages… 1914.

And who was I, in those days? Quentin wondered. Never such an idealist; never as Ruth was, with a tender heart, a gasp in the face of bad things, a wide, strong, silly smile. She used to say that I was a bloodhound, that I would always track my prey, and bring it down, but would never want what I had. That I was the kind of man who judged every action based on the possible consequences, which would make me effective but unhappy. Practical in the short run. Impractical in the long…

But have I really been? Impractical? I have a voice in world affairs. She keeps to her bed…

It was an old, old temptation, and he almost always succumbed. He felt, deep in his heart, that either he or Ruth could be right. Not both, not at the same time. It’s the same as Tom and Reginald, he thought—and then chased the thought away. They were opposed at some elemental level. She thinks I can be a good person only if I listen to her. I think she can only be an effective person if she listens to me.

But it was more than that. Deeper than that. It was more like a ‘world view.’ Is there a God, or isn’t there a God? Quentin smiled, despite himself, in the dark. He had not thought of his wife’s atheism in some time. Years. She had papered over her unbelief so well that he had forgotten that her façade was only paper. She has been a proper little Christian wifey, he thought, smiling faintly.

Quentin turned over, trying to find the right balance of eiderdown coverage.

And she was gone, for a long time, and that was all right, because I had to make my mark, and could not manage her…

He recoiled faintly at the phrase ‘manage,’ then swore softly aloud. As if she gave me any other choice… A familiar anger arose in his breast. Quentin honestly, honestly felt that his wife was trying to manipulate him with every breath. Every breath, every thought, was the same, like some monotonous jungle drumming, a faint rhythm of intergenerational war. You are a bad husband, she said, or spun, from her little lair by the top of the stairs. You are a bad husband. And I shall not love you until you become a good husband.

But that would never work. That would never do. It was her duty to love him. It had been her vow. Her pledge. God would judge her harshly. No doubt which was why she was an atheist. No, he would not humiliate himself by acceding to her every whim, by begging and scraping for scraps of her good favor. He was, he was stronger than that.

And so it went, all night. Quentin spoke to his wife, sparingly at best, but he thought of her all, all, all the time.

And when, in January of 1936, she came once more down to breakfast, he was stunned. He was much less stunned when Tom joined them a half an hour into a civil but silent meal, putting his usual great strain on both civility and silence.

Chapter 68

The previous day, Tom had stayed and talked with his mother for most of the afternoon, before going for a long walk.

After the revelation that he was not his father’s son—a strange formulation, but the only way he could really think of it as yet—Ruth had cried for a long time. Tom had held her, and rocked her, and fought his own terror, because he had not known whether she was crying because she had something to release, or because she was releasing life. (It would have been instructive for him to have been in the car with Quentin and Reginald that day when Reginald broke down, but of course if he had been in the car, it never would never happened. The Spencer men were nothing if not vain.)

So, as his mother cried, he was on the alert for false tears, or tears which went too deep to be recovered from. Men cry on their deathbeds because they can no longer undo the wrongs they have done. It is a farewell with endless regret. The endlessness of the regret makes the farewell necessary. They would rather die than apologize. That is why hell is so extreme. It is the only threat which can work against a lifetime of wrong.

Tom had spent a good deal of his childhood watching his mother cry. It was part of his weather. A self-pitying scatter of rain would sometimes descend, sometimes from a blue sky, sometimes from clouds, and sometimes from the ceiling. But it was a kind of exhausting crying. It was a crying which ended up in sad little sobs, a snuffle, and a sleep which did nothing to restore. It was an emptying-out. Like Wendy’s anger.

But this was different. When Ruth cried that afternoon, it was a strong, pulsing, meaty, earthy crying. It was a release. It was traversed by words, truthful words, and flowed towards a beautiful sleep—and a different waking.

Tom let her cry, because he knew that his mother had a tendency of becoming irritated if reasons were requested for her crying. And, years past, Tom had been bewildered. He cried, but he always knew why. His mother cried, and he never knew why. He would ask her, stroking her hair with his tiny hands, in love, in fear, but she would never respond. She would cry harder. He rarely pressed her. When he did—as puberty approached—she would hold up her hands. Then she would sob loudly. He would press on. Then, her head would jerk up, and her eyes would flash, and her face would twist, and her mouth would snarl.

There were to be no questions. They had never been allowed.

And, as he had gotten older, he had thought that it was never designed for him to know. Not consciously designed, but her grievous wounds could never be seen. He could change her dressings, eyes averted, but never look down. Never see.

Because what if there were no wounds?

That thought had occurred to him after puberty, when he grew from loving leech-feeder to aggressive questioner. The great question of stunted manhood—what the hell is wrong with my mother?—began to occur to him with ever-increasing irritability. It had caused great strain in their relationship. He began to think that she was faking it. That she was not sick. That she was using her father’s death. And his lips would curl at the thought. That she could use that, as a cover for her own acts. Her own… Her own—what? But before being told about Gunther and his mother, Tom had never known. He could not cry. He was too amazed. Too amazed, and too relieved.

After a long, long time, Ruth began to speak. Her voice caught. Her breath seemed to choke her. But bit by bit, the story came out.

“It was before the war. Before, when I was… He was in the German army.”

“Gunther?”

“Yes! Stationed near here. Some Army exchange program. He wanted to learn English. Improve it. I met him in a shop. My God, the man has the most passionate integrity. I can feel him even now, moving across the world, like a spot of light. He was devoted to Germany, at first. He and…Quentin would talk about nationalism. They agreed a lot more in those days.

“Quentin traveled. Oh my God, he would be gone. I can’t talk about—what that meant. I was young. And your father is not a…sexual man. Never mind. I’m making excuses. What happened was… It was less than—six months since Reginald was born. Your father—damn it, Quentin—had been away for months. It felt like months. Gunther threw up his commission. Renounced his citizenship. He was in tears. He had learned about the war. The war that was to come. He was in a panic. I was not so afraid. I have always loved the sight of a passionately moral man. He was like a preacher, but colder. Harder. Not really a panic, I suppose.

“We had been attracted to each other. He was nothing like Quentin. Quentin gets impatient about questions. Gunther can talk all night about truth and lies, right and wrong. He was much more confused in those days. He went in every direction. Madness. He swept me up.

“No, that’s nonsense. I wanted him. I wanted to touch something pure. I imagined running away with him. To South America. Hamburg. Somewhere. You know, when you do wrong, great wrong, you have to prepare for a long time. Lay the foundations with great care. You only see it brick by brick, but it’s building something you want. A palace of sin… Oh, Tom!”

Another wave of sobs slammed into her. Tom did not blink. This was an entirely new voice for his mother.

“He was weeping about Germany. About a war he said was coming. About what it would mean. To Europe. To all of us. Do you know that Quentin never really noticed that we were attracted to each other. Gunther and me. I hated him for that. I think sometimes that it started out as a flirtation. To see if Quentin would notice. That I was attractive. You can’t touch… But he never did. I hated him for that. And then, and then, I saw him see it one day. It was so predictable. I couldn’t help it. I arched my back. Gunther was teaching me something about croquet. Standing behind… It was so ridiculous. I arched my back. Good God, I almost fainted. I still thought it was a kind of play. Like flirting with a brother when you’re twelve. Harmless practice. I was a mother, now, after all, and not about to run off. And I saw that Quentin saw. It was impossible not to. So obvious, these questions and answers, after so many years of thinking. He saw, and he did nothing. Thought that I was a toddler, biting for attention. Every time… Oh God, Tom, you don’t know. Yes, you do, but you’ve given up. You can. A wife cannot. If you ask Quentin for attention, he thinks you are childish. But if you let him be, he never comes to you…”

Ruth’s voice broke.

“He never comes to you. He travels and goes to his club and meets with clients, and I had my children, but I was… A woman’s heart needs watering. I was becoming a desert.” She laughed weakly. “I always thought I was a dessert. But I was a desert. And I could not understand what I was supposed to do with my life. I was a tomboy, once. Don’t stare, it’s true. Four brothers. Even my aunts were tomboys. I can’t—I could never do that cake-and-gossip nonsense. Women make very little sense to me. Men… Men too. Except my family. I understood them.”

“Why…” Tom cleared his throat. He saw no point in trying to be brave. “Why did you marry…Quentin?”

Ruth nodded slowly. “I don’t know…” she whispered. “He was dashing. Every man I felt tender towards was uncertain in some way. That’s the worst thing about youth. Everyone who is confident is wrong. Because you know nothing. It’s the great choice of every woman—and oh God, how many of us live to rue it! A man that other women will envy. The single prize of a single day. Everyone else wanted him. I was weak! The men that I was drawn to were awkward, poor, passionate. It’s such an unholy curse! Do you want your children to have a great father, or great opportunities? The world does not seem to worship both, at the same time… Why choose? And how can you, just after you’ve learned to—tie your own shoes…”

“It’s all right…Mother,” said Tom. He actually had to remember to use her sobriquet, not her name.

“The poor in heart, or the poor in money… But I have not been right. That is why nature should give us our wombs later in life. A man rich in spirit will become rich in money. A man poor in spirit will lose. It’s not—it’s not absolute, but it’s true enough. When I was young, all I wanted were absolutes. I never settled for ‘true enough.’ No one ever taught me how. And your—Quentin was gracious. He was gracious, deferential. He made me feel like a glass rose. I thought it was respect, but—but it turns out that he just thought I was breakable. Fragile. See-through. Obvious. And how can something obvious compete with subtle things like business, the stock market, and world politics? I have been keeping too many secrets, I suppose, in order to draw him to me, to rouse his interest. But I can do nothing to rouse his interest. He made his mind up about me on our second date…”

Ruth paused then. Her face contracted, the muscles rippling, and it seemed to Tom as if she were falling down through old water. Like an Ophelia who lived too long, he thought, then hated the thought.

“What—did Gunther do afterwards?”

“Oh, he…” she started nonchalantly, then her voice broke once more. “He wanted to take me away. Your brother! What could I do? How could I leave? Like some dismal Russian wife. Trapped by a twenty-pound ball and chain. That’s why they nail you down. That’s the entire purpose. Why did he have to pay me any attention? Oh, but I chose him. But the envy of others… The need to eat. Who says: ‘marry for love’?”

Tom brushed a tear away. “Everyone,” he whispered.

His mother’s face grew very still. She turned to him, then said: “Oh, Tom. Don’t consciously try to kill me. Who outside of fairy tales? Or, who says: ‘here’s how to marry for love’? Or: ‘if you marry for love, the food will follow.’ Or, ‘if you give your children an education by marrying a man you do not love, they will become educated, and marry someone they do not love.’ Have you seen what it’s like for Reginald? That woman is a real witch…”

Her eyes were wandering. Tom said: “Mother. You.”

“He left me,” she said simply. “He resigned his commission and went to go and live in London. Tried to talk to Churchill. About the coming war. It was horrible. I was stung. I made fun of him any way I could. Said he was a crackpot.” Her hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened. “I—I destroyed his credibility. You don’t know how a woman can do such things. How much power we have in the case of—seriousness. Men rely on us so much for—judgement. They judge ideas and consequences. We judge people, and let them be. I mocked Gunther to Quentin. To Churchill…”

“You met Churchill?” asked Tom.

“Yes. Yes. Twice. I destroyed Gunther’s reputation. Insinuated that he drank. That he was perverted. A degenerate. All the while I was pregnant. Oh, Tom! I rushed into your father’s arms that night. I couldn’t stand the suspense! But it was all so useless. All it bought me was eight months. By the last, I knew. You hung so quietly in me. So quiet, so soft. As I would have been in Gunther’s arms.”

“But he was—around. During the war. I remember, so clearly.”

“Yes. He forgave me. He loved me. I fought him, before the war. I—I made his speeches about the war, about the Germans, laughable. I wrote letters to people. I—I—I did my part to bring it about. More than my part. And my father was so brave, Tom. So brave. They didn’t know, when they were going, what it meant. No one knew. But he wrote to me once. About this. It was in his last letter, the one before his—really last letter. He said: ‘If you see Gunther, tell him we are terribly sorry.’ Because they had mocked him as well. Women rule these things. God help the man who crosses the coven. So you see, Tom… I did my part to kill him. To kill them…”

“My God,” whispered Tom.

“And everyone was so kind to me. Even Gunther. My God, what a heart the man has! To forgive me, when I did so much to thwart his cause. So much against him. And really, after they all died, my men, what was there of me left to love? I don’t understand it. I really don’t. What does that mean, to love someone despite what they do? And now, now I am almost fifty, and I lie here like a toad. And still, he writes.”

“He writes?”

“Through Catherine. It was always that way.”

“Catherine knows?”

“Oh, she loved that man! He spoke to her respectfully, right from the beginning. He charmed her.”

“Oh, my God,” whispered Tom, his eyes widening. “Poor Reginald!”

“Poor… Well, yes. Yes, I suppose so. But I was more than prepared to love him. It wasn’t impossible. But he fought and kicked and… I am not Gunther. I cannot love someone despite their actions. I…”

“Perhaps Gunther loved you because of your love for him.”

“What? What? I…”

“You love him even now. Even here.”

“Oh, don’t start in on Catherine’s nonsense. Affairs are for the young.”

“Not an affair, Mother. It’s been twenty-five years. You are very loyal—for a fling.”

Tom saw sudden violence in her eyes, until she realized that he had used the word ‘fling’ ironically.

“He was the love of my life.”

“He is.”

“Yes. He is.” Her face crumpled. “But it killed my father, Tom! It killed everyone. I know it’s not true. I know. But it is. You only have to sin in your heart. But what if I had supported him? What if I had left your—Quentin? Do you know that I have the house that Gunther and I would have lived in designed in my mind, down to the last detail? It’s a house that never was, twenty-five years in the past, and I know what the faceplates on the light switches look like. What your brothers and—sisters look like. Their names. Likes and dislikes. How differently Gunther would have aged if I were cooking for him…”

Tom held up his hand. “It’s happening again…”

There was a thump from downstairs. Both heads jerked up. Throwing masks aside is very dangerous. Most often, they just get lost. Throwing aside is throwing away.

Their expressions froze; their tongues halted midsentence. But no more sounds came.

“Where is Catherine?” whispered Tom.

“Market.”

“So… So, Mother, it’s happening again. Gunther and Churchill are trying to stop the next war.”

There was a long pause. Tom did not try to fill it.

“And you?” asked Ruth finally.

“I am helping them.”

She nodded. It seemed inevitable, after all. The past unexamined is the future unrelenting.

Chapter 69

Klaus was astounded at the amount of human energy that can be released by pushing all conflicts into the unconscious.

He was an educated man; he knew that the Nazis represented a radical break with European traditions—but then, Germany had never really been a part of Europe anyway. That Europe. The Europe he had studied in England. The Europe of reason and compromise and all the natural difficulties of different viewpoints. In Germany, there were no different viewpoints. There was one note; you could play it loud, or soft.

Klaus had been out of Germany for six years. When he had returned, he had mostly stayed at his father’s house. He had spent a little time in the larger cities—mostly Berlin and Hamburg, but they became depressing as the Depression worsened. His city friends had scattered with the onset of Nazism; a few had fled, most had joined. His local friends—the rural idiots, he called them—were largely indifferent to politics. They were happy that the Nazis were in power, because they got to keep their farms, which had been mortgaged to the hilt during the Depression, when it was impossible to make a living from honest crops. But such city matters as freedom of the press didn’t trouble them much.

In his new ‘Nazi experiment,’ Klaus had tried talking to them about Hitler, but it didn’t do any good. It was quite fascinating, and he found it hard to avoid the alienating contempt of the intellectual. They could only see politics in the most local, tangible and practical of terms. They cared nothing for freedom, the Reichstag or the death of the Republic. They wanted good rains and dependable insurance. They wanted their sons to work and their daughters to get married. They wanted to go to church and sit with a pipe. They wanted to know the words to every song that could be sung. They were the rhythm of the land, of the seasons, of the decades between birth, marriage, and re-birth. When he was younger, Klaus thought that they might be wise, in their own slow, stolid way. But now, he knew that it was not so. Extend that principle, he thought, and trees become sages.

The Nazis were a curious bunch. Klaus could never quite decide if they believed their own propaganda or not. They would seem to—some at the salon evenings at Count Orsky’s were most passionate on this point—but in their very next breath, they could as easily say that all these lies were only designed for the masses, and that whoever swallowed such idiotic bait was utterly unsophisticated. Klaus could not follow their transitions.

Another curious item was the Nazi’s ability to combine a hatred of authority with an absolute allegiance to the führer. When Klaus, early on, began to point out some of the contradictions inherent in the Nazi theory of life and history, he was reviled. Any attempt to bring the authority of logic or experience on their beliefs was considered more insulting than a physical attack. They hated external authorities, but crawled before the image of Hitler without a thought. Most odd.

Their attitude towards religion was strange as well. Hitler was compared to Christ, as someone who suffered, fought, and bled for the sake of freeing his people. The Germans were the Chosen People (a phrase which, in conjunction with their anti-Semitism, was strikingly strange), destined by God to rule over mankind. Yet they did not like traditional Christianity. Endless arguments raged about the creation of a Nazi Church. Hitler was divine—there was little question of that. But what relationship did Hitler have to Christianity? The permutations were endless, the arguments exquisite. It seemed to Klaus, at times, as if he were transported back in time to some of the more obscure debates of medieval scholasticism. Where did the next generation after Cain and Abel come from? There was no other woman. Incest?

Nazis could not sit still for long. Well, that was only mostly true. Most of them could not. Some of them sat perfectly still. They had thin little round glasses, frozen facial expressions, and acerbic tongues. They were paper flesh around some sort of icy core. Coagulated rage, was a phrase which popped into Klaus’s mind from time to time.

There were those who were in it for the violence. That was clear. Klaus remembered this type from the twenties. The men who had come of age in the Great War, and had very little use for life in ‘Civvy Street.’ They lived for the military life. They were, in their personal lives, extremely disorganized. They loved the training, the uniforms, the camaraderie, staying up half the night singing, the regular meals, the external regimentation, the sense of purpose. They loved the excitement of violence.

Then, there were the degenerates. Something in the Nazi life had loosed the restraints of sexual deviance. It might have had something to do with Julius Streicher, who always carried a whip, had a legendary collection of bestial pornography, and had private parties which only the basest imagination could picture. Klaus was occasionally tempted to ask if Streicher was the kind of German who represented the Master Race, but never did. He could imagine the answer. Certain men are above morality. They represent a higher ethos. They cannot be judged by historical standards. Blah, blah, blah.

It wasn’t that Klaus didn’t believe in any of these things. He did, and he didn’t. He tried explaining this to his father once, soon after his indoctrination began. Martin was clearly going through some profound moral crisis, which Klaus found both amusing and depressing. To imagine that there is One Answer to all these questions, which have merely been placed in our minds as pleasant diversions…

Martin had asked him whether he thought the Nazis were immoral.

“I know that this is delicate, Son,” said Martin earnestly, one night after everyone else had gone to bed, “because you’re sort of in the thick of things, but I have to know what you think.”

“About what? The Nazis being immoral?” Klaus smiled. “I—I would say that that is sort of like the question posed to a man, the question of: how is your wife? His answer: compared to what?” Klaus laughed. “I think that is brilliant! You could spend your whole life thinking about that exchange, and still not be done.”

“In your heart. In your heart?”

“Oh, Father! You suffered a lot to get me educated. Surely you don’t want me to fall back on such a faulty oracle!”

“But they have concentration camps. It is rumored.”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure they do. I would actually be shocked if they didn’t.”

“So—what do you think?”

“I hope I never end up in one. But if I did, well, that would just be the next chapter in the story. You shouldn’t be so attached to things, Father.”

It was strange how, since the coming of the Nazis, father and son had changed places, as far as their authority went. Klaus sat, perfectly composed. Martin sat, hunched over, staring at the wooden table.

“I don’t know whether to act against them.”

Klaus smiled. “I am glad that you trust me enough not to think I will turn you in. Our relationship has improved considerably.”

“If you did…” started Martin, then paused. “If you did, then I wouldn’t have to decide. Just experience. Martyrdom is easier than questioning.”

“You can say that now!”

“What do you think, though?” insisted Martin, biting at his cuticle.

“Dad, you’re going to chew your hand off,” said Klaus gently, taking his father’s arm down. “First of all, I don’t think that my opinion is that important, but here it is. Part of me is horrified. I’ll be honest. I think of what’s going on in those camps, and I shudder. I feel sick. It’s a natural reaction.”

“Yes!” exhaled Martin.

“But then,” continued Klaus, “just when I’ve worked myself into a fine, traditional moral storm, I feel all the wind go out of my sails. In my mind’s eye, my ship goes from great storm to glassy sea, in an instant. And I think: so what?”

“So what,” echoed Martin, his eyes wide and empty.

“So what!” said Klaus, with sudden vehemence. “So these sows and piglets want to be ordered around. So they might all end up being shot. So what? What have they ever done to earn or keep their freedom? An illiterate man will always take a hunk of bread over the freedom of the press. And even these so-called ‘educated men’—what happened to them? They did not put up much of a fight! The early Nazis all came from the universities! And the Jews? What do they do? We strip them of everything, they don’t run. I actually get very angry at sheep that lick the knife which will open them up. Don’t you want to just crush them? You think: one good fight, one good show of resistance, and we will both be free! But they bleat and squirm to kiss your hand as it closes on their throats. Agh! Who wouldn’t want to rid the world of these people?”

“Intellectuals?”

“Whoever begs for their own immolation. The intellectuals? Who knows? Whoever. Because…” Klaus frowned, wiping his high forehead. Martin noticed that the color seemed to have gone out of his son’s fair hair. ‘Blonde’ had just become ‘pale.’

“Because,” continued Klaus, “there is one thing that is true that the Nazis say. One thing that… Well, they weren’t the first to say it, not by a long shot, which is why it has something… Might does make right, but might is not what most people think it is. It isn’t the gun. Might is not the gun. Might is the will to use the gun. Not do die for a cause, but to kill for it. Christ in the temple, whipping the money changers. People always follow whoever is the most sure. The most committed. The most consistent. Have you ever read the transcript of Hitler’s trial for the Beer Hall Putsch? It’s almost beyond words. Nineteen twenty-three. He tried to overthrow the government. Failed. Hauled in front of the court. The lawyers try to browbeat him. They say: ‘You just wanted to seize power.’ Hitler smiles and says: ‘But of course I wanted power. We all wanted to overthrow the government. I’m just sorry we failed!’ And they look like fools. He’s had the same message since 1920. Twenty-five points. Fifteen years. Who do you know who’s kept exactly the same beliefs for that long? And he says to the sheep—he screams at them—I will kill the Jews and go to war! And they bleat and titter and give him the shepherd’s crook. Hitler is like a principle of nature. He’s like the wind that blew down a crumbling wall. Blame the wind? No! Blame the wall! And all the walls to follow, like dominoes. Pop, pop, pop!” Klaus gestured violently.

“If you—if you knew what was going to come,” said Martin evenly, trying to keep the horror from his voice, “would you have opposed them?”

“Father, you can say it. Nazi. Nahh-zii. Come on, try it.”

“Please. Please, Klaus. I need to know.”

“Would I have opposed it?” Klaus frowned, looking away. “Would I have opposed it…? Can it be opposed?”

“What I mean is,” interrupted Martin, afraid that his son was going to go off on another tangent, “what if everyone was just waiting for someone to say: No! That’s what terrifies me. If I stand up and say: No!, then perhaps everyone will say: Oh, my God—I was just thinking that, and they will all rise up as one.”

“Rise up? Rise up?” laughed Klaus contemptuously. “From what? Who is unhappy? What glories were lost with the Republic? The November criminals, the signers of the Versailles Treaty, all dead. Everyone cheers. Just drive through town with a big picture of Hitler. Women will throw themselves at your car. In Berlin, they faint in his presence. It’s like going back to the thirteenth century and agitating for the overthrow of the Catholic Church. No one would have any idea what you were talking about. Not to mention that the Catholic Church might have an opinion of its own.”

“Something someone once said to me keeps coming back to me. He was looking at a picture of a hall of Hindus, all kneeling in prayer, thousands of them. And he said: ‘Everyone in that picture thinks that the person next to him is really talking to a god.’ He was a hopeless sinner, this man, but he had something. Not about God, but about this perhaps. This case of the Emperor’s new clothes…”

“Oh, that would be too bad, Father,” said Klaus softly. “That would be too bad, if you ever said anything like that to anyone else.”

“Yes. Yes, perhaps. But I have to answer to a higher authority.”

“A higher authority which put Hitler there.” said Klaus slowly. “Above you. Well…armed.”

“Sometimes there is the test of obedience,” said Martin. “And sometimes there is the test of disobedience.”

Klaus almost spoke, then got up and poured himself a cup of water from a stone jug. Martin could not help but notice how his son’s clothes hung loosely on his body.

“Let me ask you something,” said Klaus, returning to the table. As he sat, a ripple of displaced air guttered the candle. “Why didn’t you oppose them?”

“I have asked myself that daily. I believe in authority. The Republic could not last. But why all this murder?”

“You mean, you wanted to give a man absolute authority, but have him use it well.”

“Yes,” said Martin, without any trace of irony.

“What made you think that was possible?”

“Divinity. Divine power. If God put him there, He would guide his actions.”

“So you thought Hitler was divine.”

“Not Hitler, no. Don’t blaspheme. But his course. His cause.” Martin could not resist going for his cuticle again. “How could he have done it?”

“Ahh, the great question,” said Klaus, with slow sensuality. “The greatest question, I think, in the history if the world. How did he do it? How does anyone do it? It’s very simple, Father. Because we agree with him. We agreed with him from the very beginning. Germany was great. We were betrayed at Versailles. We didn’t start the war. Logic is French prejudice. Emotions are everything! Democracy is decadent. Strength is all! We are encircled. Either a nation expands, or it is destroyed.” Klaus snorted. “How were we going to fight him? We agreed with him!”

“Not all…” whispered Martin, unable to find his voice.

“Do you want to know one of the funniest things I’ve heard? Do you know where Hitler got his army? His civilian Stormtroopers? It’s the most wonderful thing! The government paid them. The government paid for its own executioners! The simple German taxpayer paid to be enslaved for a thousand years!”

“What are—what are you talking about?”

“Germany was the first welfare state in the history of the world. The American New Deal is nothing! The young men and women who joined the Nazi party turned over all their unemployment benefits to Hitler!” Klaus giggled. “Can’t you just love that with your whole heart? The Republic funded the Nazis! That’s another idea you could spend your whole life on. And we wonder why it fell? You see, the government is nothing but violence. Do you know what that means?”

Martin shook his head numbly. His son was on to something important.

“It means,” said Klaus, “that every time a man wants the government to do something, something to protect him or nurture him or care for him or educate him or save his soul or lead him—he is saying that violence can achieve goodness!” Klaus giggled again. He was very restless. “And this man, this very same man, will be shocked when the state turns against him! Why? Why? He has said to the government: use violence on my behalf! What can he say if someone says: more violence! Or, that the violence should be used on someone else’s behalf! What can he say to that? What? That the government should not use violence? But he has already asked the government to use violence! That the government should use less violence? But that’s like a master thief saying to a lesser thief: you should steal less. Not convincing. Not convincing at all.”

“But—I have never asked the state to use violence.”

Klaus scowled. “You support public education.”

“But—but that… Citizens must be educated…”

“Why? Don’t tell me for the sake of democracy. We were the most educated population on the planet, and look what happened to us! The government has to use violence. That’s all it has to use. Taxation is violence. Regulation is violence. Redistribution is violence. State education is violence. There is nothing else. You see, the strategy of the statists is to give you one good that you desperately want—universal education, or healthcare—and say that the government will do it. And so the violence begins. And here is where it ends.”

“So it should all…end? The government should do nothing?”

“Oh Lord, Father!” laughed Klaus. “I’m just an observer! I’ll probably think just the opposite next week!”

The conversation had not gotten them very far. True to his word, Klaus was of another opinion the next week. But his thoughts that night struck Martin violently—it was, perhaps, the start of his political education—and he pondered them for many, many days.

Klaus did view his Nazi-fication as a kind of psychological self-experiment. He tried out many different approaches, but settled on one final approach which seemed to work best.

A mind untended produces nothing but weeds. That was the fatal flaw of the emotionalists, the mystical Romantics who claimed that feelings alone were the road to truth, and that the ‘child within’ was our most sacred oracle. If that is the case, thought Klaus, then we would not need to control the chocolate intake of eight-year-olds.

Now Klaus’s mind was not untended. He had spent a great deal of time exploring his weeds. He knew them all. He thought they were flowers. He had no real willpower—not of the empirical kind—but he was greatly curious.

History had come to an end, he realized, because history is the study of causes which can be predicted—otherwise it is useless, for a history which has no effect on the future is nothing but a hobby—and now, in Germany, no cause could be predicted. Or, if it could be predicted, the prediction could never have any use in shaping the future. A historian realizes dictatorship leads to war. He says so. He is shot by the dictator. History is useless.

So, in a way, Klaus, as a historian and a person, had come to an end. And so, really, there was nothing to study anymore except his own ending. And to this he applied himself with his customary energy and curiosity.

First of all, he thought, you have to suspend critical judgement. Go with the moment. Contradictions are an indication of a higher truth. So is consistency. Whatever is, is true. Everything you feel is true—for you. If you hate Hitler with all your heart, then that is true for you. But it no more follows from the feeling that Hitler is hateful that Hitler is hateful than that blue is the best color, just because you like it most.

Impulses must always be followed. Klaus found this process very interesting. He expected, on adopting this rule, that both good and bad (to use an ancient terminology) impulses would follow. He would want to punch a shopkeeper and kiss an old woman. But it wasn’t so. He felt the urge to punch the shopkeeper, but the old women were safe.

But what to do, when he had the impulse? That was a tricky one. He was in a tobacconists, buying some chewing gum, when he realized he had an impulse to punch the shopkeeper. He was a man in his early twenties, with absolutely horrible acne. Handing over a mark note, Klaus felt rage and pity. Pity because the man was grotesque; rage because he inflicted it on people. He imagined the man cooking his eggs, and felt physically ill. He wanted to punch the man. But the thought of getting his burst-acne goo all over his fist was even more ghastly. He would prefer to shoot him from a distance.

Klaus didn’t have a gun, so he said:

“Keep the change. Your skin is disgusting. I would like to shoot you.”

If the man’s natural skin had been visible from under his acne, it would surely have gone pale.

Klaus found it compelling to speak his impulses out loud. He knew that it was cowardly, but gave himself some time to make the transition. He got more and more used to it. Of course, his Nazi uniform helped. He felt himself dissolving into his uniform as he walked and squawked. He saw a suit in a shop window, suspended by wires, with a hat floating above air, and shuddered.

“I want to break this window and set fire to the shop. And then stay and burn,” he murmured, then forced himself to turn and walk away.

He waited for more benevolent impulses to strike him. He would see a little girl hesitating before crossing a street, and would frown, waiting for his feet to take him over and give her a hand. Nothing. The beatings at home, for his younger siblings, had diminished, as Martin wrestled with his conscience, but Klaus would lie in bed, or on the sofa, waiting for the desire to go and kiss them better. Nothing.

He got more headaches, but it was easier in so many ways. No more wrestling with choices, consequences, endless questions. If I do not feel it, I do not do it.

There were exceptions, of course—just so the experiment could continue. Sometimes his hand would land heavily on his bouncing alarm at five o’clock. He should get up, eat, wash, and drive to the aerodrome by six. To train yet another flotilla of pilots. But he would lie there, letting his mind wander the blowing fields of his indifference. If I rise and go, or stay and die, what does it matter? To the universe? To my bed? To me?

But he would be shot if he didn’t go. You did not disobey the führer for existential reasons. Even if you were obeying him for the sake of an existential experiment. He was Austrian. Uneducated. Even though the World Spirit was in him, he just wouldn’t understand.

Chapter 70

Like most bored, dissatisfied people, Cuthbert was an early riser. It helped his irritation to be up earlier. He liked to sit in the solarium of his large London flat, sip tea, and gaze over the lightening, still-sleeping city. To be up early, while everyone else was still abed, was deeply satisfying. He felt like a virtuous farmer, coming back from milking, while his city guests still snored. As he watched the city, his hands wandered. It was a good time for some meaty scratching.

He jumped when the telephone rang. It was Saturday, March 7, 1936.

“Yes? What?” he asked. Cuthbert liked being snappy in the early morning; it gave the appearance that he was always busy, always exacting.

“Cuthbert, it’s Reginald.”

There was a short pause. When Reginald spoke again, his voice broke like surf against a cliff.

“Cuthbert—Germany has entered the Rhineland.”

They met at the office within an hour. It was just the two of them.

“How did you learn?” asked Cuthbert.

“My brother is there,” said Reginald. “He telephoned.”

“Does anyone else know?”

Reginald shook his head.

“Chin up, lad,” snapped Cuthbert. “This is where we earn our pay.” He grabbed a notebook from his desk and opened it. “All right. We make a list. Goddamn that Kraut. It has to be a Saturday. All our precious ministers are away for the weekend. Nothing official can happen until Monday. Except what we do.” He glanced down at his hands, which were shaking. “Gosh, the weight of the free world…”

“Can’t we telephone them?”

Cuthbert laughed. “My dear boy, if they had telephones, they could be telephoned. No, the world must grant them their rest. It’s hard, getting up for Parliament once a week.”

“None of them?”

“Well, Churchill perhaps… But he’s the last one we’d want chiming in on this little German adventure, hm? ‘For the sake of British honor, we must go to war! Bring me my musket, damn it!’”

“Eden?”

Cuthbert shook his head. “Out of town. They all are. It’s up to you and me. It’s time for a list. Pros and cons. Military response, or protest with the League? All right. Let’s start with the pros. Military response. Sends a message. Might push him back. Anything else?”

Reginald paused, then shook his head.

“All right. Cons. Another world war. France is between elections. Useless. The British population is entirely pacifist. They’ll get to test Einstein now.”

“Sorry?”

“Oh, you know, Einstein the pacifist. He said: if just two percent of the population stays home when called up, war cannot happen. We can’t throw that many people in jail.” Cuthbert smiled. “I appreciate his entry into my profession. I’ve sent him my opinion on particle physics. I’m sure he will find it about as useful.” He looked down at the paper. “We have no real army. What we do have is tied up in the Mediterranean. Our air force is pretty pitiful. Navy is good. Navy is always good. Good for a blockade. Not great for a land war. And, we have Locarno. If France fights, we have to support her. Thoughts?”

“If it’s Germany marching into her own back yard, it’s not worth a war. If it’s the thin edge of the wedge…”

“Then it is worth a war?”

“I don’t know,” said Reginald. His face was red. His forehead prickled with sweat.

“Sit down,” said Cuthbert. “You look all done in.”

“I… You know, I thought exams were bad.”

“It’s just another kind of test,” smiled Cuthbert. Reginald averted his eyes from that smile. “It doesn’t all come down to us. Let’s go to France.”

Reginald looked up. “Sorry?”

“Well, the French ministers are closer to us than our noble English ones. Let’s hire an airplane and go to France.”

“My brother is flying here.”

“This morning? Boy gets around, doesn’t he? Why?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Well, get him on the horn. Tell him we need a lift.” Cuthbert stood, and frowned, then sat. “Now, where is that paper?”

“What paper?”

“Oh, something we sent to the Cabinet a little while back. This German move has not been unexpected. They’ve been probing fairly openly. Eden told me that Göring asked him what England would do if France attacked Germany. In January, the French told us that the Rhineland was the question of the hour…”

By the time he landed, and made his way to Chartwell, Tom was almost exhausted with the emotional strain of the past few days.

He had been sent to the Rhineland by Churchill, who was convinced that a German move was imminent. He arrived to find the region in a frenzy. The locals believed that the ‘Führer was coming to take us home!’ They demanded a League of Nations plebiscite about reunion with the Fatherland. They demanded the tearing up of Versailles, of Locarno, of anything that kept them from their people.

Their eyes were wide, averted. They seemed to speak like gramophones. Everything felt prerecorded, robotic. Men told him proudly in bars that they were working on welcome banners in their spare time. Women shone with near-religious ecstasy about the coming of Hitler.

Word had gotten around, somehow, that the British and French were negotiating with Germany about returning the Rhineland. This was expected to take another few years. But it was widely derided. “What we want,” said one young man, “is not to be given back to Germany, but to be taken back by force! We are not England’s to give! But we are Germany’s to take! We are not a whore to be passed around. We are a bride to be ravished!”

Tom felt a terrible weariness on hearing this kind of talk. Weariness, and a desire to hit such idiots. It was hard not to become vaguely elitist and specifically murderous. The vast majority of humanity is too stupid to live! What the hell do they want to go back to Germany for? There is no wonderful party that they are excluded from. They want to have their faces mashed under the Nazi heel. They are delirious for it! ’Tis a consummation they devoutly wish for! What is the matter with these people? Don’t they have any sense?

Finally, he could take no more. After hearing yet another scarred table of young men fulminate about the ‘November criminals’ and the injustice of the Versailles Treaty, he lost his patience.

“You goddamned Germans!” he shouted, stunning them into a short silence. “You complain and complain about the Versailles Treaty, about reparations and lost land. Yeah, you lost sixty-five thousand square miles of territory and seven million people, and had to pay reparations. But did you know that, when you imposed a treaty on Russia in 1918, the terms were much worse. How can you complain about a harsh peace treaty when the ones you impose are much worse?”

There was a short silence.

“Goddamn them,” said one man finally. “They are Slavs.”

“We shall impose even worse ‘treaties’ on the Jews,” laughed another.

“Why do you want to enter a dictatorship?” demanded Tom.

“It is only a dictatorship to you,” said a third man. “For a German, to be commanded is true freedom. To sacrifice, to join, to submit to the rulers—that is divinity.”

“Ecstasy!”

“All we could wish for.”

“You Westerners are selfish. You live only for yourselves. We have a higher purpose.”

“We know joys you will never understand.”

Tom felt his face distort with rage. “But you will bring war!”

“War!” they all called out, clinking their glasses.

“Do you know,” said the first man, wiping the foam from his mustache, “that there is only one terrible death for a German. To die on a mattress is the worst possible ending. To fall in battle is glorious!”

“To glory!” they all shouted.

For a moment, Tom devoutly wished that he had not left his pistol in his airplane. In the next moment, he was glad that he had.

The thought had passed through him—with such force that he was sure he would have acted on it, if he could have—that he had two choices. Shoot these men now, while they were in their cups and helpless—or shoot them later, when they were armed, defended and sober. For it will come, he thought. Then he remembered the rain of bombs which would also come, and thought: That will also come. We shall kill each other, though we shall never see each other again.

Tom awoke long before dawn the next morning. He had slept fitfully, dreaming of endless, black, droning airplanes.

When he awoke, the droning was real. He could not see their airplanes, but they were all around him. He sat up in bed, his heart pounding. He almost expected to hear the bombs falling, to feel their impact through his mattress, but there was only the droning. And then, another growling engine.

He rushed to the window of his cheap hotel room. Below, in the darkness, a line of jeeps was coming down the street. A thin man in the front raised a megaphone to his lips.

“Germans of the Rhineland! Arise and rejoice! The Führer has come to take you home! Arise! Rejoice!”

Across the street, Tom could see shutters opening. In the darkness, his eye caught little ripples of gray movement.

Flower petals. Thrown from balconies and windows. Falling on the soldiers, grinning in the dark.

From the street, from the dark homes and shining eyes, the German national anthem arose:

“Germany, Germany, over all…”

Tom forgot to pay his bill. He was in his airplane within twenty minutes. He fired up his engine and took to the skies, racing across France, across the Channel, to Churchill.

Gunther was not there. This was the first time that Tom had had an interview with Churchill alone. The morning, shading up from gray, was cold, overcast, chilly. Tom could not stop shivering. Churchill woke up his cook and asked for hot chocolate.

Churchill was not dismayed in the least. He kept rubbing his hands.

“So, the wolf bites at last,” he said, with obvious satisfaction. “It was always coming. Now it is here. I am sad to be proven right. I am always called a hawk, by young and foolish idealists. But hawks can prevent war.” Churchill laughed. “I love Gandhi. He is a consummate showman. I can appreciate that. Everyone says: if every nation is pacifist, if every nation disarms, there will be no war. Everyone forgets that, if every nation is disarmed, the whole world will belong to the first nation willing to use arms. It’s like saying: if every bank stores its money in boxes on the street, bank robberies will cease. And they are right! There will be no more holdups. But the money will still disappear. We shall just have made the job of the robbers all the easier. Reduced their overhead, so to speak. It makes no difference if you hand over your money, or the robber shoots you and takes it. But that doesn’t matter now. This is our last chance. We shall not be able to do it without bloodshed. That chance evaporated last year. We must go to France. Will you take me?”

“Of course,” said Tom.

Churchill glanced down at his body, then wrinkled his nose.

“It is foolish, I know, but I must bathe. Sit on the toilet, and tell me more.”

Tom had never really expected Churchill to be so frank with his nudity, but it was the case nonetheless. Tom sat on the toilet as Churchill scrubbed himself in the tub, peppering him with questions and blowing the occasional bubble. The only concession that Tom made to propriety was that, whenever Churchill dropped his soap, and squirmed and burrowed for it, he averted his eyes.

The telephone rang a little after eight, just as they were ready to leave.

“Damn it,” said Churchill, hanging up. “More times than not, I regret picking that thing up. Letters let you think. We’re going to have to stop at Heathrow. Pick up Cuthbert Rathbone.”

“Who’s that?”

“He runs things at the foreign office.”

“Oh!”

“You know him?”

“My brother’s boss. Why are we getting him?”

“He can get us into the French PM’s office more quickly. And perhaps there will be a family reunion, from both sides of the divide. He’s bringing an assistant, he said.”

As the four of them flew across the Channel, Tom strained to hear their conversation from the cockpit, but it was impossible.

Reginald was cordial to Tom, but condescending. There was no doubt that he considered Churchill a dinosaur, and Tom a glorified chauffeur. They sat, all four of them, at ten o’clock in the morning, in the taxi to Paris.

“Look,” said Cuthbert. “I appreciate having an MP with me, but you cannot report any specifics of our discussion. You are not a member of the ruling party. You are not exactly disinterested. Your views are well known. I would appreciate it if you would say as little as possible during our meeting.”

“You will be asked questions, of course,” smiled Churchill. “If you had access to the plane, why not go and get Anthony Eden? I mean, me of all people, to come and talk to France.”

“You have many contacts there.”

“Of course. I spent a lot of time in France during the Great War. I speak French tolerably. But still, I do have to know His Majesty’s position on the matter of the Rhineland. I do believe that, come Monday, we can still combine with the French to push the Germans back over the line.”

“But why? Why would we? We were negotiating with Hitler to give the Rhineland back to him anyway.”

Churchill blinked. His body heaved as the car bounded. “The details of such matters are always complicated; the principles never are. If you are involved in a lawsuit with a man over the ownership of a car, and he decides to forestall the legal process by stealing it, your response should be clear.”

“These quaint examples might work well with the readers of the Daily Mail,” said Cuthbert, “but they don’t work with me. Things are more complicated.”

“The more complicated things get,” said Churchill, with steel in his voice. “The more simple principles are required.”

“Yes, of course,” said Cuthbert indulgently. “International incidents are just like a story out of Boys Own Paper.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“Why, get the French to do nothing.”

Churchill nodded slowly. His great body seemed to deflate a little.

“It’s not as much fun as playing at war,” continued Cuthbert, “but, of course, war is no longer something we can play at.”

“That is true,” said Churchill slowly, and it was clear—to Tom at least—that it was true in more than one way.

“Because if the French respond with force—which I don’t think they can do, because more than a fifth of their troops have been withdrawn from the Rhineland and placed in the Alps, for fear of Italian reprisals over their own Abyssinian boycotts—then England will be drawn in directly, through the Locarno Treaty, and we will have to place troops on the Continent for the first time since 1919. Against Germany. And I think we all know where that will lead.”

“Where?” demanded Churchill.

“To war with Germany, of course.”

“And how do you think that giving them the Rhineland free and clear will avoid such an outcome?”

“They—oh, Winston, you seem constitutionally unable to understand this. Germany is a proud country with a noble history. England cannot treat a great nation like a naughty boy forever. They are flexing their muscles precisely because we have constrained them so greatly. What if England had been banned from Shropshire by Germany?”

“But that does not matter at all!” thundered Churchill, his brow darkening. “We did not ourselves institute Versailles or Locarno, but those treaties exist, and carry heavy obligations. We cannot will them out of existence because we think they should have been written differently. Because if we do, then no British treaty will ever be worth anything. Because the next government can choose to uphold it or not, as they see fit and the occasion seems to demand!”

Cuthbert smiled. “I am happy, Winston, that you are taking the opportunity to get this all out of your system before we actually meet with the French.”

“What is your plan?” demanded Churchill. “Please, tell me that it’s more than registering a protest with the League of Nations.”

“Well, that is part of it, naturally…”

“I am not one of your pacifist constituents,” interrupted Churchill. “We both know that the League of Nations is dead.”

“Well, if it is,” replied Cuthbert huffily, looking out the window, “I have yet to be informed of it. It is still a central pillar of HMG’s foreign policies. And until we join the general exodus of the dictator nations, and formally leave the League, it remains a central part of our calculations.”

“What nonsense,” muttered Churchill, sinking back in his seat.

Tom wanted to know why Churchill had such contempt for the League of Nations, but knew that this was no time to expand his political education. He nodded at Reginald, who did not return the gesture.

The French consulate took an hour to locate Pierre Laval. Something had changed in his demeanor. He entered wringing his hands and pouring out profuse apologies.

Tom could not follow the discussions; his French was too poor, and the conversation too rapid. Reginald had to occasionally translate for Churchill, but the debate was, for the most part, quite efficient.

Laval knew about the German occupation of the Rhineland.

“We are trying to locate and bring back to Paris the major ministers, but we have a problem, as you know, because we have no government.”

“This crisis surmounts party politics,” said Churchill.

“Doubtless, doubtless,” replied Laval, “but we shall have grave difficulties acting in the absence of a mandate.”

Cuthbert thrust his jaw forward, trying to regain control of the conversation.

“What have you done so far?”

“We have cancelled some military leaves.”

There was a pause. Even Reginald expected the French to have done more.

“That’s all?” asked Cuthbert.

“Well, we did not wish to act without consulting our allies, of course.”

“What is your plan?”

“Well, that has everything to do with your intentions,” replied Laval. “Would you gentlemen like some coffee? Ah—of course, you prefer tea. One moment.” He got up smoothly, walked over to the high white door, opened it and called out some instructions. “Would you like anything else? Some eggs? Toast? No? Very well.” He came back and sat down. “It will be a few minutes.” He laughed. “Along with absent ministers, we have had to deal with an absent cook. For a Frenchman, that’s an even greater calamity!”

Seeing no returning smiles, Laval plunged on.

“But you have come for business, not brunch, so let us continue. Before I can advise my government, I must know what your government intends to do.”

“We have several problems,” replied Cuthbert. “The British public is quite set against France at the moment, because of the obvious cynicism of the Hoare/Laval pact regarding Abyssinia…”

“The name of this pact also includes an English name!” said Laval hotly.

“Yes, of course, but our minister has resigned his post. And then, there is the matter of your Mutual Assistance Pact with Russia, ratified—last month I believe?”

“What of it?”

“Well,” said Cuthbert, “the British public, despite some spotty Red elements, is solidly anti-Bolshevik. They look at Germany as a hard-done-by former power. They look at Russia and see a virus which could also strike them. And Germany.”

“Germany?” echoed Laval.

“It would do us little good to resist Germany in the Rhineland, if all it did was destabilize the German government. Hitler barely beat the Communists two years ago. They would try again. And if they won? The good thing about the Germans is that they only care about the Germans. They want to unite the German-speaking people. Very well. We do not speak German. But the Bolsheviks want to rule the world. I cannot imagine Hitler agitating in England. The Communists do already. Hitler is better for us than the Bolsheviks.”

Reginald leaned forward. “Also, if Germany turns Bolshevik, they will be united with Russia, and will be, in time, able to throw their entire might Westward, against France, without the fear of a two-front war, which is what cost Germany its victory last time. As we all well know.”

There was a pause as the tea was brought in and distributed.

Churchill spoke as they were all stirring. Cuthbert cursed himself for liking three lumps of sugar.

“Arguments from effect,” said Churchill, “can go in any direction we please. If we do this, then Hitler does that, and the Russians do the other. But that is not how we should make our decisions. It is impossible to predict the future. But this is what we do know. The German army has tripled in size over the past year. They have broken Versailles. They have broken Locarno. Herr Hitler aims to unite the German-speaking people. I do not agree with Mr. Rathbone that this unification does not concern our respective countries. I believe it does—most gravely. We are grappling with a thorny issue. Locarno clearly states that, if France is attacked, England must come to her aid. The question before us is this: does the unilateral abrogation of a solemn treaty constitute an act of aggression on Germany’s part? I believe that it does, and simply because of this fact. German tanks, airplanes, and infantry are in the Rhineland. If it is not an act of aggression, why is the military involved? And if it is an act of aggression, then it is clearly directed against France, because the demilitarization of the Rhineland was instituted to keep Germany weak on her Western borders, and to give France ample warning of a German attack. This considerably weakens France’s defensive position. The facts are clear. Locarno must be invoked. We must resist the German aggression.”

Laval nodded slowly. “And would you be willing to risk a general European war over this matter?”

Cuthbert started to speak, but Laval raised his hand. “I know your answer, Monsieur Rathbone. I wish to hear Mr. Churchill’s.”

“This is what I think,” said Churchill. His brow was knotted; his eyes narrow and dark. “If Germany is allowed to occupy and fortify the Rhineland, then her Western border will become virtually impregnable. She will be able to take a free hand in the East, against Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, and we shall be able to do nothing to stop her. If we allow Germany to become strong again, a general European war will become inevitable. All that will happen is that we shall be much the weaker—and Germany much the stronger—when war does come.”

“But would you not say,” said Laval, “that the invention of the long-range bomber has rendered modern warfare impossible?”

“‘Impossible’ is a dangerous word, Monsieur Laval. I do not think it has become impossible. Certainly not for a mad dictator who holds the life of his own people in little regard. But if we believe that the bomber has made war all the more terrible, then should we not oppose Hitler before his air force becomes strong?”

“He has already achieved parity,” said Cuthbert.

“Then we should not wait until he gains a numerical superiority!” retorted Churchill. “We should act now!”

“You know what would happen!” cried Cuthbert, his face growing red. “We bomb them. They bomb us. Hitler laughs at the carnage of the German cities. We get thrown out of government, and the Labour Party is given power. They sue for peace, and disarm. We shall get only one shot at opposing Hitler, Winston. Is this the moment you would choose to do it?”

“It is not my choice,” replied Churchill. “We are responding to a mad dictator. If this is the moment he chooses to test us, then so be it.”

“May I speak?” asked Reginald.

Cuthbert and Churchill had reached an impasse. They sank back in their chairs, glowering. Laval gestured for him to continue.

“The problem, as I see it,” said Reginald, “is that we don’t really know what we mean by a ‘state’ anymore. Most of the occupants of the Rhineland are Germans. The Saar region has voted to return to Germany, again, because most of them are Germans. Western Czechoslovakia. Austria. The Danzig corridor. All mostly German, or German speaking. We have for many years upheld the right of national self-determination. We shall not fare well if we oppose the right of the majority now, if that majority decides to return to Germany. And like all difficult problems, we have inherited it. After the war, plebiscites were held in regions favorable to separation from Germany, but not where separation from Germany would have been voted down…”

Laval interrupted. “That is because England and America would not consent to the breaking up of Germany, which France desired—and which would have been the sensible course!”

Churchill said: “We shall scarcely make progress if we argue decisions almost twenty years old. If we squabble over the past, we shall lose the future.”

“If we oppose the occupation of the Rhineland by force,” said Reginald, “we shall be reneging on our belief in national self-determination. It is one or the other.”

Churchill said: “The principle of national self-determination does not cover the slaughter of minorities. We say to a man: you have control over your own actions. But not if he acts for evil.”

“So,” snarled Cuthbert, “we must forever remain the world’s policeman?”

“The purpose of England,” replied Churchill, “is not to betray our allies and balance the budget. England has chosen—or been chosen—to become a moral force in the world. That decision predates Versailles by more than a century. We may disagree with that mission, that role, but we cannot undo it in one day, by words alone. It is our legacy, and it is not for us to cast aside because the burden becomes heavy.”

“These old-world crusades are a thing of the past,” snorted Cuthbert.

“But, Mr. Rathbone,” said Churchill, his eyes wide, “it is a thing of the past which confronts us now. A murderous adventurer of the old school. A warlord. A beast in human form.”

“He is not mad,” said Reginald. “We can negotiate with him.”

“With what?” asked Churchill. “What do we have to offer him?”

“Peace,” replied Laval instantly.

“But he does not want peace. He has made that clear. And he is not mad. Morally mad, of course, but very practical, in his way. Very cunning. He has not made a false move since the putsch in 1923. If we do not oppose him now, he shall continue his successes.”

“What practical aid can England provide us?” asked Laval. The scorn in his voice was unmistakable. Churchill winced.

“It will take us some time to build up our land forces.”

“How long?” asked Laval. Cuthbert sat back, a smile on his face.

“Some…months. Over a year.”

“And air forces?”

“We are—slightly better off. Some squadrons could be made available immediately.”

“Tanks?”

“We have one armored division.”

Laval laughed humorlessly. “Doesn’t a hawk need claws? A beak?”

Churchill bowed his head. “It was not my choice that we have languished unarmed for so long.”

“Do you know,” asked Laval, “that the Germans have moved 140,000 men into the Rhineland?”

Churchill started. “No. No. It cannot be so many.”

“This is the information we have at our disposal.”

“What if it is a defensive move?” demanded Cuthbert. “France signs a treaty with Russia. Germany feels encircled. They move to fortify their Western borders. That’s no reason to go to war!”

Churchill slammed his fist onto the table. “Perhaps! And perhaps Hitler likes Rhine wine, and doesn’t want to pay duties. Perhaps it came to him in a dream. Perhaps he wants a swim! None of that matters! The fact is that we have unprovoked aggression…”

“Versailles itself is a provocation!” cried Cuthbert.

“This violates Locarno, which was freely signed by Germany!”

“Germany has not been free since 1919!”

“You are very concerned with the freedom of the German state,” said Churchill scornfully, “yet care nothing for the freedom of the German people, who groan under a bloody yoke.”

“They voted him in!”

“Not all! We cannot decide our actions by trying to divine Herr Hitler’s possible motivations, thoughts, dreams, desires, or wishes. We have the facts. He has broken a solemn treaty with military might. The League cannot act against him. Manchuria and Abyssinia have seen to that…”

“And France will not act alone!” said Laval emphatically. “It will be perceived as aggression. England must join us!”

There was a commotion in the hallway, and then a tall, burly man entered, dressed in full military regalia. His face was round, saddened by excess gravity.

“General Gamelin,” said Laval, rising.

They all rose and shook hands. General Gamelin was the commander in chief of the French army.

“Gentlemen,” he said in a rough voice, refusing a proffered chair. “We have confused intelligence of German troop movements. One witness has said that there are not more than forty thousand troops. Also, we have reports that the German air force is similarly overestimated. They have been changing the insignia of the airplanes, as they land to refuel, to confuse us. We have no evidence of strong supply lines. It is my opinion that this is a thrust which will collapse under any determined opposition. The Germans are not ready to fight.”

“Are we, General Gamelin?” asked Laval.

The General paused, then nodded. “Yes. The increase in the draft from one year to two has swollen our ranks. We have strong artillery and tanks. We have cancelled all leaves, as of this morning. However,” he said, his eyes hardening, “we cannot respond to the Rhineland initiative without a general mobilization.”

“Ah,” said Laval, rather crestfallen.

Churchill scowled. “This is not surprising, is it?”

“No,” said Laval, “but Germany is frightened that we shall attack her. That is why she wants the Rhineland. If we mobilize all our forces, that might create a panic in Berlin. They might believe our move a precursor to general war. By seeking to avert war, we shall bring it on.”

Churchill smiled mirthlessly. “That is, in essence, the root of both our positions. You believe that appeasement will avoid war. I believe that countering aggression will avoid war.”

“History shall be the judge of that,” shrugged Laval, then smiled. “But you write history, eh Monsieur Churchill? Let us hope you are wrong, and can admit it in time.”

“I would rather be wrong on this than any other topic,” said Churchill fervently. He turned to Gamelin. “General, how long would general mobilization take?”

“We have suspected a move on the Rhineland since January. Not more than a few days.”

“Then this is my suggestion,” said Churchill. “England and France shall issue a combined directive for Herr Hitler to withdraw from the Rhineland. Combine this with general mobilization, and I am convinced that he shall withdraw.”

“And if he does not?” asked Laval.

“Then we attack the Rhineland, and drive him back!” growled Churchill.

“That is—an abominable proposition,” said Cuthbert.

Churchill bared his teeth in a smile. “One statement that I have often been reviled for is saying that there is no point having an army if one does not use it. Everyone thinks that I mean that the army should be used in order to justify its existence. But I mean quite the opposite. I mean that if one is perceived by one’s enemies as lacking the will to use military force, then one might as well not have an army. Not being willing to shoot is exactly the same as not having a gun—worse, in fact. If you choose to avoid the use of force in this instance, Monsieur Laval, you might as well disband your army, since they will never be taken as a credible force henceforth.”

“What an argument!” cried Cuthbert. “We must use it because we have it! We also possess poison—should we use it?”

“This argument is pointless,” said Gamelin, turning to Laval. “I await the orders of the government.”

Laval bit a nail. “The problem is—well, one of the problems, since there are many—is that we are not perceived as a legitimate government. We are seen as an interim government. Caretakers. We possess no mandate strong enough to commit France to war.”

“Which is why Herr Hitler chose to act now,” said Churchill softly.

Laval continued as if nothing had been said. “If we order a general mobilization of our armed forces, it would move us that much closer to war. If Germany is only taking the Rhineland for defensive reasons, for fear of our treaty with Russia, and because Hitler fears our aggression—and then we mobilize, thus confirming, in his eyes, our aggression, war shall become a self-fulfilling prophesy. And in slaughter, it will outstrip the last war as much as the last war outstripped all which preceded it. I cannot commit myself to such an action. Not in the absence of unqualified English support. Not in the face of such uncertainty. Not for the sake of a land we were considering giving back anyway. Not to protect a people who devoutly wish to return to their country. No. No. I cannot.”

There was a finality to his words which bled all energy and animation from the discussion. Cuthbert turned to Churchill in triumph, but Churchill was staring out the window, as if hypnotized by something beyond the glass.

Chapter 71

A child can go down, into the depths of parental numbness. It doesn’t matter how old the child is, or the parent. The umbilical is sometimes a lifeline, thrown to the future, with which a mother can hope to haul herself up the well of her own dying. And children can so rarely tear themselves from around that well. A parent present, but absent, can be the bottomless quicksand of an entire lifetime.

Tom thought about his mother’s revelation long and hard. It consumed him. Invaded him. He thought about it before going to sleep. He dreamt about it. It greeted him on awakening, during the instant evolution of abandoning sleep. I am a carbon-based life-form. I am human. I am Tom. I am not my father’s son.

He briefly considered writing to Gunther, but got stuck on the salutation. Dear… And it really should be something they talked about face-to-face.

It became more and more important, because in the weeks after the Rhineland crisis, Ruth seemed to go down even further. Something was gnawing at the root of her soul, and Tom knew that it wouldn’t be long until that root would give way, and she would fall further, into the numb, floating center of the earth.

The lengths of his responsibilities gnawed at him as well. Tom began to truly hate Quentin. It was not a resentful hatred. It was not just reactive. He hated both Quentin and Reginald, because they provoked suffering and then stood by with slight smiles as it writhed at their feet. They weakened people with scorn and indifference, then turned them over with their toes to mock their weakness. It’s like knocking someone down, then calling them lazy for lying around…

He felt some frustration with his mother as well, but much, much less. It is always harder to pin responsibility on the feminine. Ruth was not free; not politically, not economically, not socially. She had been forced to make a choice—by society, biology, it didn’t matter which—in the full blindness of youth, when her future was almost completely unconscious, and so inevitable.

Tom wept on waking one morning, thinking of his mother’s potential, and felt that he had come as close as he ever had to the root of her depression. She is a wonderful political wife. She is very intelligent. She is moral, quite moral, in her own way. She chose her husband for all the shallow, impractical reasons of youth. She was passionate—imagine her having an affair, then covering it up, then being so full of anger that she denounced her lover at every step. The will to keep such secrets…! For they were kept, and magnificently too! To have Gunther in our house, during the war… My God—I wonder if they made love that rainy day, when Reginald refused to put the destroyer away, when Gunther locked him away… She had a headache, and he ordered her back to bed. And Quentin let it all happen. Quentin had no idea—unless, of course, Quentin did have an idea, but felt that it assuaged something. Took responsibility away from him. To make her happy. And, of course, Quentin has secrets of his own. You can almost smell his secrets; they waft from his pores like spices left damp and underground…

It was hard work, burrowing through the choking maze of family secrets—like pushing his way back up into a womb of truth. Tom felt a kind of terror, mingled with a peculiar relief. It had always felt as if his family was sliding past him, or around him; We are all like magnets facing the wrong way: we rush to embrace, we slide around…

Lying on his bed, unable to get up in the morning, curled almost in a fetal position, Tom let endless little histories crawl through him.

Countless conversations where he had been suppressed by silence, by scorn, by evasion, by cruel humor. The feeling that Quentin wanted to spend time with Reginald, and spent time with Tom grudgingly, just to avoid the repercussions of perceived injustice. Quentin and Reginald would go fishing. For a weekend. Quentin and Tom would go to the motion pictures. For half an afternoon. And it was rare that both sons would be included in the same outing. A camping weekend would be arranged, with one or two other families, but Reginald and Quentin would drop out, and Tom would simmer all weekend, half expecting to come across Quentin and his brother toasting marshmallows around a fire, giggling at the success of their subterfuge.

When he was very young, Tom had a terror of being left behind, and now he had some more understanding of why. Reginald and the cook had once gone into market to get some vegetables, and Tom had wanted to be left behind. He loved the silence of an empty house—he wanted to run through it naked, and do dive-rolls onto the sofa. But as soon as the door had closed behind them, Tom had felt a terrible, gnawing ache in his heart. He was being left behind! All pleasure of having the house to himself was gone. He imagined everyone having fun in the market. Bursting into song and handing out free toys. Little metal cars and faded-stretched balloons. But when Reginald and the cook returned—Reginald having had his usual conspicuous fun—Tom wanted to be alone again…

The image of balloons lingered in Tom’s mind for a moment, like the ringing of a long sound suddenly cut off. Balloons… One red balloon, actually. In a bright blue sky. Leaving… Ah yes. It all came back in a rush.

One day, Catherine had taken Tom and Reginald to a county fair. It was quite a disappointment to both children. Little pony rides. Toffee apples. Unshaven men. Dirty, gypsy women who seemed to be wearing ten dresses. Everything was grimy, and smelled of oil.

But there were balloons. Catherine bought them one each. Then they wandered over to a large field, where little clumps of children stood. Catherine told them that the sign overhead said: ‘Balloon Race!’ You attached your name to a balloon, and let it go, and a town over, a man was waiting. If your balloon came down first, you won a big prize. Tom couldn’t remember just what. A pony came to mind now, but that was too ridiculous…

Reginald had clutched his hand white on his balloon string, refusing to let go, but Tom had entered the competition. He had let go of his balloon quite consciously, feeling the white little cramp in his hand loosen, because he was always terrified of letting go of his string accidentally. He, Catherine, and Reginald had stood, watching his red balloon rise into the blue sky. It seemed to go straight up. It was a strange day; it felt almost biblical, because it was the first day that Tom remembered seeing the moon in the sky during the day. It wasn’t far from the rising path of his balloon, and Tom knew that it was a very early memory, because he felt tense about his balloon’s chances. If it got snagged on the moon, all was over, It would burst, and hang in the sky, and Tom would get in trouble. Or, it would come back in a sad, ragged slither, and he would lose both race and balloon.

But, as he watched, Tom realized that he had lost his balloon, and the race was nonsense. He didn’t even know in what town the mystery man might be waiting. And the chance of his balloon falling into the man’s hands… He felt anger at his own participation—then, at his greed for the prize without a thought for the game. And Reginald knew, even then, because Tom’s strongest memory was seeing his brother’s leering face peering around from Catherine’s bright dress. He still had his balloon, and played with it for days, even when it could barely float anymore, and kept saying, as he giggled and batted it around: “Don’t worry, Tommy. Your prize will be here any minute now…”

Tom found himself wondering what had happened to that balloon. Perhaps it had floated down from the sky on the unsuspecting head of some unhappy little girl, and changed her whole day. Perhaps her life. Given her faith in the generosity of the random skies.

He shook his head, almost under the covers, low on air but unwilling to lift his blankets. No, it’s about my birth. He thought now about the balloon with string, and its resemblance to a sperm. A wild chance, not a kept certainty… It was hard to unravel. But that’s nonsense, thought Tom, almost angrily. I refuse to think that I could make such associations, at the age of five or six, before I knew anything about reproduction. I refuse to think that I can possess such knowledge. That I ever could, because—because if I could…

He sniffled then. His heart contracted in a painful ache. Because if I can have such knowledge, then everyone can have such knowledge. Then everyone knows what is coming. They are not blind. They are inviting…

That was too great a mystery to be absorbed. The idea that Reginald and his father—and Klaus, and those at Oxford who had voted to refuse to fight, and those who had voted for the Peace Ballot which influenced British politicians so much, and everyone who wanted to lay down arms for the cause of peace—the idea that this was not done in error, but in hidden knowledge, in, in…

In—what? What the hell am I thinking about? Am I laying the charge on the majority of the human race that they do not want to live? That they know what is coming, and encourage it because they do not want to live?

The thought electrified and horrified him.

Take a gun to a man’s temple, he will stare and shit and scramble. But if the gun is to come slowly, in the midst of a choir, and being praised by tall men in tall hats, and the man is told that he must shoot himself for the sake of the tribe… Then he will take it up. With a song in his heart, or with resentment and anger. No matter. He will take it up. Society is a pageant of sashaying suicide.

It was certainly the case with the Germans. With the cheering crowds in the Rhineland. Perhaps with the seething extremists in the streets of Paris. They knew what was coming. They could not claim ignorance. Hitler had been clear. Specific. Repetitive. Their mixture of freedom and compulsion was not working. They attacked only the free parts. The poison in my food is making me sick! Very well, let there be no more food on my plate!

And Hitler wanted war. He was specific about that. The Germans wanted to die in battle. They did not want long lives. They did not want grandchildren. They wanted an orgy of violence and a spray of red death. They wanted camaraderie, drinking, charging, and a savage release. They did not fear the trenches. Their living rooms held more terror.

And what kind of person wants this kind of life? What kind of sickness wants death, but is too cowardly to kill itself?

A philosophical sickness, of course. People who want to die kill themselves. People who believe that life is death want to kill themselves. When suicide is no longer a personal choice, but a universal absolute, it becomes war…

Tom shook his head again, pulled back his covers, and gulped some air.

This is getting me nowhere. How did I get from my family to Germanic nihilism? What gives Reginald pleasure? What makes him get out of bed in the morning? What gives him satisfaction? It must be his work, because he’s married to… Well, Wendy is another example of the principle that sexy in the beginning is bitchy later—a lesson which men always seem to need relearning. He likes Quentin; they get along. He doesn’t seem to take much pleasure in his children. He doesn’t have any hobbies. He must get a sense of self-importance from his position. He is in tight with that Cuthbert fellow, who seems to wield real power. Cuthbert’s views in Paris, over the Rhineland, became government policy…

This train of thought was also getting him nowhere. Tom had never been able to figure out his brother.

He threw his covers aside, and sat up, rubbing his face. Then he got up, put on a dressing gown and went to his mother’s room. From downstairs, he could hear Reginald and Quentin’s voices raised in argument.

“Mother?” he asked, knocking. Hearing the murmur of her voice, he went in.

She was sitting up, gazing out the window, chewing, a piece of toast in her hand, a tray on her legs. The orange juice was bloody.

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

Ruth turned and smiled. “Quite well, actually. I felt I was being pressed flat, recently, but I have a little more shape this morning.”

“We have to fight them, Mother.”

She stared at her son. He frowned. He could never be sure if she was upset, or rebellious, or agreeing, or just placid, waiting for more. He said:

“This is the only way out. The only way—forward. Quentin is…” She flinched at the word. “He is sort of a cornerstone of appeasement in Parliament. He’s always crossing swords with Churchill. If he changes his mind about appeasement, it won’t change anything about the voting, but—but it might discredit his movement. It will. No, I know it will. It has to. He’s a keystone. It will make people think. Give them pause. Everyone is so polarized. Absolute. If he crosses the floor, others might follow. It doesn’t mean war, Mother.” Seeing her stricken face, and feeling like a minor murderer, Tom sat on her bed, took her tray and kissed her hands. “It doesn’t mean that we’ll go to war. But it means that we’ll be ready if it comes. Because we know it’s coming. And it can only be averted if we’re ready.”

Ruth didn’t blink. Tom felt alarmed, but plunged on.

“I hate to ask, but I have no influence. I never had. No, I don’t hate to ask. I think that you have something to atone for, Mother. Not a wrong, but a lie. You have to do things differently this time. We all have to do things differently. I can’t stand this life, where everything happens over and over again. We have to be free to—to break free. You sacrificed your happiness to be with—with him, with Quentin. You fought against Gunther last time. Everything is a pattern. Reginald fights against me. Quentin fights against Gunther. You acted badly last time. But you were young. And now you know, and you have confessed to—me. And the years between, and the words we have spoken, what do they matter, if we still always act the same? Why think, why live, why speak, why be silent, why reflect, if nothing changes as a result? Oh, Mother! If I could take my—joy of life, my vitality, and give it to you, I would. Even if it was just for a day, to show you how life can be. But I can’t, and it drives me mad! All I can do is tell you what I think can give that to you. What you have to do to be happy.” He was weeping openly now, and her eyes were softening slowly. “God, I can’t stand that you are unhappy! That the last joy you had was with Gunther, over—twenty years ago. I would destroy society if its rules kept you from what you love! Because you do love him. I know you do. And he loves you. I mean, to have forgiven you then, and to still care now, so many years after. He has to, as you have to, because you both have this terrifying integrity. Otherwise you wouldn’t have suffered so much. And you don’t love him, that man downstairs…”

Her hand rose and slapped him. His eyes widened slowly, but he continued, his voice weakening to a whisper.

“I feel as if I’m sinking into quicksand, Mother. Going under. And I’m not alone. It’s worse than being alone. Everyone is standing around, arguing whether sand exists. Or telling me to will myself out. Do you ever feel that? I think you do. I know you do. And it drives me mad, because I can’t do anything else to save us. I can fly all over Europe and tell Gunther and Churchill what is happening, but it won’t be enough. I can feel it. Because it’s not information that we lack. Everything is wide open, for us to see. It’s not sight we lack, but eyes. And I need your help, Mother. I need you to talk to him, to change his mind. To do everything you did, all those years ago, against Gunther. But now, against him. Against Quentin. Against your husband. And it might not save us at all. But if the bombs come, and if we have done all we could to prevent them, then we can die content. Without guilt. Without guile. Oh, Mother! If you know what could be around the corner for you, if you did this thing, then you would jump out of bed and feel no more weariness in your bones. We cannot save the world. We can only save ourselves…”

“Stop!” Ruth whispered—and there was such horror in her voice that Tom’s tongue halted immediately, and it felt as if she had cast a magic spell upon him that would freeze his tongue forevermore.

“Stop!” she repeated, shaking her head slightly. “You do not understand. You are a brute of a man. A strapping man, without a thought to, to—for…limitations. How could I live?”

Tom willed his tongue to move. “You—you are not living…”

“Yes,” snapped his mother. Something fierce passed behind her eyes. “Yes, but I am containing all my wrongs. I am harboring them. A dangerous zoo… What do you think, that a woman can speak against her husband in public?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Such a public man? I would be ridiculed. I would have no effect. Can you imagine? A woman in bed with hysteria takes up against appeasement? Do you think that would do you any good?”

Tom nodded slowly. He felt another wave of pain, that such a brilliant woman—mother or not—should be so helpless. So impotent. That all who saw were silenced.

“Can’t you argue with him? You joined him on the campaign trail in ’31. Why? Didn’t that help him?”

“There’s just been an election,” she replied, the fierce animation leaving her eyes. “He doesn’t need me anymore…”

“Can you do nothing?” cried Tom, suddenly enraged. He wanted to shake his mother by the neck, to wring some semblance of life from her wasted frame.

“Shh!”

“Ohhh!” he groaned. “Why am I always the one coming in here and begging for action? You could stop a fucking train with a sigh!”

“Tom!”

He jumped up from the bed. “Dear God, I am just sad that I will have to burn with the lot of you!” He whirled and reached out to his mother. “Why can’t you act? Why do you say no to everything? To me, to Gunther, to peace, to action, to goodness, to saving, to any kind of effectiveness? God, all the goodness in the world is paralyzed. Why? Why do we let these bastards rule us? And what is his secret? How does he keep you so far down? I can’t even see you anymore, Mother. You spoke to me endlessly when I was a child. You filled me up with so many useless words. You complained about your father—yes, I shall speak, even of that. I shall even question the most holy of your altars! You did nothing but agonize over the war, and you never told me the truth, about any of it. About my—my father. About your father. The part you played in his death. In the deaths of all of them. The famous brothers. You used me, all those years, because you did not tell me the truth. You threw into me all the words you could not stand, because they were flies on a corpse of lies! If you wanted to tell me the truth, so be it! If not, why did you fill me with so many lies?”

Tom’s words struck home. Ruth’s eyes began to fill with tears.

“And now,” he said, his voice lower, “you are still making me do all the work, Mother. I have to keep coming in here to save you. And now I ask you to help save me. You, of course, as well, but that doesn’t matter. Just think of me. It might bring you some relief. Indulge me. Save me. Do what I ask. As I have done everything you ask.” The words tumbled out of him, from some endless geyser of core truth in his soul. “I fight against war, Mother, because you filled me with such a horror of war that I would do anything to keep such sorrow from the world. Such destruction. I have seen it so closely, Mother. You pressed my face to it, all the days of my youth. And now, when war is coming once more, you say that you are helpless in the face of it! I will not accept it, Mother. You cannot be so cruel. You cannot claim to have suffered, and then be so cruel to me. You cannot have harmed me with your false sorrow, then refuse to help me stop its true recurrence! Because if you refuse to help me now, I will know that I was used, all those years when I sat on this bed, a receptacle for your endless lies!” Tom paused, for a brief moment, as his eyes widened. “And—and you used me as well, just now, when you told me the truth of my parentage. Because you just wanted to unburden yourself. Not change. Not act. Just drive me mad with knowledge that could never be employed. And I will not be used, Mother! You are the last anchor holding me here. You get hit by a train, I come for the funeral and then never return. What, to sit with a false father and half brother? Fucking nonsense. So think about it, Mother. Think about whether you will decide to help me. Think about whether you want to make up for all the lies you force-fed me. Whether honor can be rescued from abuse. Think about it long and hard, because I know that I am the only reason you are still here, and if you do not redeem yourself, I will never come any more, and you will be alone with them, for the rest of your days!”

Tom was panting. He heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. He wiped his sweaty face with a quick, shaking hand. His mother turned her face to the door. It seemed perfectly composed.

Quentin and Reginald burst in.

“What the hell is going on?” demanded Quentin. “We could hear you from downstairs!”

“Nothing,” said Ruth brightly. “Tom was just telling me the funniest story.”

Chapter 72

The world was quiet for two years. There had been great fury as the Nazi beast settled into its lair, snorting flame and growing its endless scales. But after the remilitarization of the Rhineland, Hitler withdrew from foreign affairs.

The appeasers had won the day. They had left the dictator-nations alone, and the dictators remained satisfied with the torture and murder of their own peoples. The cancer of absolutism had gone into remission.

Tensions relaxed in the West. Most felt that a disaster had been narrowly averted. The voices still crying for rearmament—Churchill and, increasingly, Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary—were considered both amusing and irritating, like a passenger in a car still panicking two miles after a near miss.

Those who still considered Germany a threat were swiftly dealt with. Eden was fired. Churchill continued to harangue from his mount in the political wilderness. Sir Eric Phipps, the British ambassador to Germany, said clearly and repeatedly throughout the early thirties that Germany intended to take Austria, Czechoslovakia, expand into the East, and recover some colonies. He was replaced by Nevile Henderson, who agreed with Phipps, but said that such actions did not necessarily threaten British interests.

British foreign policy seemed wedded to the proposition that all efforts must be made to avoid the need for the use of force. This aim was more important than any other single consideration, including treaties, moral judgements, honor, or long-term national interests. If overt violence could be avoided, no violence was being done. It was a simple enough proposition.

In 1937, the rumors began. At first they were outside mutterings, vague intimations, but then they began to mount with unexpected rapidity.

Hitler wanted Austria.

The Nazis had been interested in Austria for a long time. In July, 1934, the Austrian Nazi party had murdered Chancellor Dollfuss in the most brutal manner, leaving him to groan out his life in a pool of blood for hours. Democracy had been suspended.

And Hitler was a new kind of virus, not just internally but internationally. He had been funneling millions of reichsmarks to the Austrian Nazis, funding their terrorist activities against the remnants of the state. He fermented endless strife and murder, which he hoped to use as a pretext for an invasion to ‘restore order.’

This kind of activity was not covered under any treaties. It was a new kind of warfare. It fed the evasions of the appeasers. Treaties covered formal declarations of war, columns of helmeted men marching across historical borders. They did not cover terrorism, puppet-states, and ‘requests for aid’ from ‘beleaguered governments unable to keep order.’ Hitler’s terrible genius was discovering that theatre could win more land than arms.

Hitler claimed that he did not want Austria. Or Czechoslovakia. Or anything, in fact, other than what he already had: the Saar region, the Rhineland. He had no more territorial ambitions in Europe. He told the appeasers what they wanted to hear. He undermined the hawks. Hitler, the consummate liar, understood the duplicity of the appeasers. He understood their terror of war, their pragmatism, their ‘beyond good and evil’ philosophy. They both understood each other.

The Germans were not subtle. They probed, they felt out the resolve of the Allies. One day in 1937, Churchill got a message from the German Ambassador von Ribbentrop to come and meet him in the German embassy. When Churchill arrived, he was shown upstairs, to a large ornate meeting room where von Ribbentrop awaited him.

The blonde German was in his forties. He was agitated and constantly fidgeting.

“Ah, Mr. Churchill,” he said, offering an armchair. “Thank you for coming.”

“I am glad to come,” said Churchill. “I feel that you have misrepresented my position in several speeches of yours.”

“Oh? In what manner?”

“You seem to indicate that I am in favor of granting additional territorial concessions with Germany.”

“And this is not the case?”

“It is not.”

“Ah.” Von Ribbentrop seemed nonplussed. He smoothed his oiled hair back from his broad forehead. Then he smiled, fine wrinkles spreading from the edges of his blue eyes. “But there is no need for this to be a misrepresentation.”

“Why not?”

“Because there is no need for England and Germany to be enemies.”

“No need in the world. Unless Germany has not finished her expansion.”

“But mein Gott,” cried von Ribbentrop. “You cannot expect us to remain hemmed in forever. From here to kingdom come. We have over sixty-five million people. Breeding like rabbits. The Führer likes children. And blondes. Are we supposed to start standing on each other’s heads?”

“So you are saying that Germany does have territorial ambitions.”

“Yes! Unless our population recedes. But this need not be of concern to England. Why should it be? Our countries have been at war this century, but it has not always been so. You are not still suspicious of Spain. Or France. Or even America, which stole the entire New World from your redcoats. We wish to be on good terms with England. We can help defend the British empire. Perhaps in exchange for a few inconsequential colonies. To satisfy the Führer’s vanity. He is a vain man, of course, but we all have our vices. Germany respects England. I respect you. Together, we could be potent. More than potent. Invincible. All we ask in return is for a free hand in the East. For space to grow. For we must grow either East or West. It is in no one’s interest that we grow West. All we require is some liberty in the matter of reabsorbing Poland and the Danzig corridor.”

Churchill smiled. “It is impossible. We could never allow that.”

Von Ribbentrop’s eyes flashed, but his lips compressed instantly. “Why not? What possible consequence could it be if we absorb the Danzig corridor? And Poland? Will England slaughter her youth to save such a detestable land? To come to the aid of such murdering Slavs?”

“It is not a question of the nature of the lands you wish to attack,” replied Churchill. “You could attack Russia, and we should still fall upon your throat.”

“Why?” demanded von Ribbentrop. “Why?”

“Because England will not allow Germany to become dominant in Europe.”

“Why? What have we done that is so terrible? Please do not repeat to me that fiction that Germany alone started the last war, for we both know that is nonsense!”

“But it is not nonsense. Germany did start the last war.”

Von Ribbentrop leapt up. “I consider that statement an affront to the honor of Germany.”

“Germany’s honor,” replied Churchill evenly, “died on the Night of the Long Knives. I do not consider the Nazi party to be the legitimate heirs to the land of Schiller, Goethe, Beethoven—or even Bismarck, who was a soldier who did not stoop to petty terrorism to achieve his ends, but rather fought in the open, like a man.”

“You are overstepping the bounds of hospitality!” cried von Ribbentrop.

Churchill stood, brushed his coat, then leaned forward, placing his knuckles on the desk. “I am a guest in this embassy,” he said in a low voice, “but this embassy is also a guest on British soil. You invited me here to hear the truth. Very well. I say that if you attempt to expand to the east, west, south, or north, we shall oppose you with all the means and allies at our disposal. And we shall not stop at your borders, like the last time. We shall drive into the heart of Berlin, and undo the very soul of Germany.”

Von Ribbentrop stared at him for a long moment. “Then, there will be war. It is inevitable. There is no way out. The Führer is resolved. Nothing will stop him, and nothing will stop us.”

Churchill nodded slowly. “But we will stop you.”

Von Ribbentrop laughed. “With what? Appeasement and broken treaties? Hitler was right about the Rhineland. Do you know, he didn’t sleep for the entire week beforehand? None of us did. We had nothing in the Rhineland! Our soldiers weren’t even armed. If England or France had stirred even a little finger, we would have been beaten back, and the army would have struck us down for taking such a risk. We would be no more.” He laughed again. “And now you say that you will stop us! Please, Mr. Churchill—you will make my sides ache! If you did not try to stop us last year, when we were far, far weaker, why will you try now, or next year, or the year after?”

Churchill said: “You must not underestimate England, Herr von Ribbentrop. She is a curious country. Many nations have broken themselves against our will because they misjudged our resolution. You must not make the mistake of judging us by our current administration, or its ignoble policies. If you talk of war—and it will be a world war—then the actions we take may surprise you. When the English people are presented with a great cause, they will rise as one. If you bring this specter once more to Europe—and to England, since our respective peoples will not escape this time—then we shall bend our will to nothing less than the utter destruction of your land and its people. And we shall bring the whole world against you, as we did the last time. But the result will be far, far worse for Germany. And for yourself, personally.”

“Ah,” snarled von Ribbentrop, his mask falling to reveal a feral skull. “Ah, England may be very clever, as you say, but she will not bring the world against us. We shall take the East and then, when we are satisfied, we shall turn to the West, and England shall either bow, or we shall take this island, field by bloody field.”

Churchill did not respond. He remained gazing into von Ribbentrop’s eyes. The German dropped his gaze first. Churchill took his leave with a heavy heart.

He went to his flat, wrote up an account of the meeting, and sent it to the Foreign Office.

It landed on Hart’s desk. Hart read it with a rising shock of apprehension.

Hart had been at the FO for two years. He worked for Reginald. He had taken the job at Tom’s insistence, intending to stay for only a few months, but something in the place had grabbed him by the neck and demanded that he pay attention. He reminded himself almost daily that he was a young man, not yet twenty-five, and that he could always afford another month or two.

Still, by 1937, he was almost ready to go back to school. Hart had never been much of a ‘people person,’ and could be acutely uncomfortable outside the realm of ideas and books. Pragmatism had never been his strong suit. He was, in fact, terrified by practical people. They always seemed so sure, so decisive. They never seemed to become paralyzed, as he so often was, by the other side of the coin. They had no doubts about appeasement. They did not prepare alternatives. It was not a strategy. It was a cult.

And, like all cults, it required enemies.

Hart had broken all social contact with Tom, because even a whiff of association would have cost him his job. Hart was responsible for reviewing all the correspondence coming in from the British embassies in France and Germany, and forwarding the important documents to Reginald. Strictly speaking, Reginald should have been reviewing most of the documents himself, but Reginald had been busy angling to get out of the FO and into something more politically charged, with a long-term view to a parliamentary position. Now that Europe seemed to have settled back down, the FO had returned to its rather dull routine of incrementally advancing minor British interests. Trade disputes, treaty interpretations, overseas budgets, general ‘pulse of the world’ business… Yawningly boring stuff.

Hart did not find all of that fascinating. In fact, reviewing correspondence was the least interesting aspect of his job.

What he did find fascinating was the personalities around him. Deep in his heart, he felt that he had to solve the problem of action.

All intelligence is limited, he thought, sitting at his desk and eating a ham sandwich, and in the realm of foreign policy, everything we think we know is as nothing to everything we don’t know. Yet these men are utterly confident. They seem to know what is exactly what. They do not hesitate. They can contradict themselves without batting an eye. They have no principles. They act as confidently and firmly as water.

This was fascinating, and it kept Hart at the FO for the crucial six months between the aftershocks of the Rhineland crisis and the rise of fears about Austria.

He did keep up a writing correspondence with Tom, who had gone back to Europe for almost a year, then returned to teach flying in mid-1937. Hart felt quite dismal about all the people who were having exciting, action-filled lives, while he rose early, scanned documents, and watched foolish men make instant decisions.

Reginald and Hart had never been friends, just peripheral acquaintances, through Tom. Working together did not bring them any closer. Reginald never asked Hart his opinion about anything. He took sheaves of papers without a word. They worked late sometimes, in silence. Hart did understand that Reginald’s home life was not the greatest, and it affected Reginald’s concentration. He lost his focus on occasion, and would come back to himself with a visible kind of ‘snap.’ Reginald was, Hart believed, decisive partly because he could not stand to be seen as indecisive. Any decision seemed better than the perception of indecision.

But there was more to it than that. Any fool could make snap judgements. But Reginald was not a fool. He might be unwise—Hart was fairly sure that he was—but he was no fool.

For one thing, he was an excellent politician. As Hart reviewed Reginald’s correspondence, he found it uncanny how Reginald always knew who to have breakfast with, or who to meet for drinks—and where, and what to order. Hart had no sense of that. He never had, which, he now realized, would make his academic career rather difficult.

He was dying to ask Reginald about this—skill? Talent? Ability? Soullessness? But he was sure that it would be the equivalent of asking the most dreaded question of the writer: ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ They just come. If they don’t, you shouldn’t be a writer. I just know who to have lunch with. If you don’t, you shouldn’t be in politics.

What Hart didn’t know was that Reginald was getting regular—and rather harsh—debriefings from Cuthbert about his dress, demeanor, answers, levels of politeness, condescension, scorn, and sycophancy. It is not always easy to become a political animal. Devolution can be an ugly business.

Cuthbert did, at times, despair about Reginald’s desire to please people. Especially more powerful people. Cuthbert constantly remonstrated his protégé about the boredom of effusiveness:

“Powerful people,” he would yawn, “are like beautiful women. You can’t pursue a beautiful woman because she’s beautiful. You can’t try to ignore her because she’s beautiful. Anything you do because she’s beautiful is what every other man does. You have to notice that she is beautiful—otherwise you look mad—and then you have to forget that she’s beautiful. It’s the same with power. You don’t react to the power. It’s very hard. It’s the final barrier of entry to the inner sanctum. I yawn. That’s my strategy. You’ll have to find your own. But you have to face your fear of power. Your lust for power. Then you will become incorruptible.”

Sometimes, Cuthbert would become embarrassed by his speeches. They were a little over the top. And he had a hard time keeping a straight face about the word ‘incorruptible.’ But Reginald was young, and had potential, and had to be brought along.

When Hart received Churchill’s report on his meeting with von Ribbentrop, he felt the blood drain from his face. He picked it up and went into Reginald’s office, without knocking.

Reginald’s face jerked up in fury and surprise.

“Sorry, Mr. Spencer,” said Hart, blushing and glancing at the door. “But this is important.”

“Give,” said Reginald, holding out a hand. “Where?”

“Here. Churchill.”

Reginald blinked. “Churchill? Has he received a promotion I am not aware of?”

“He went to meet with von Ribbentrop. At the…”

“I know who von Ribbentrop is,” snapped Reginald, scanning the page. “Oh, why doesn’t he ever just give the facts?” he murmured. “All this authorial intrusion. ‘It behooves our honor’? Good Lord! The man’s still fighting the Charge of the Light Brigade!” He turned a page. Hart stood in front of Reginald’s enormous desk, on the balls of his feet, feeling dizzy and ashamed, as if he were standing before a headmaster, awaiting punishment.

Reginald began flipping through the pages, faster and faster. Before reaching the end—and without looking up—he asked: “Why did you think this was so important?”

“Well, von Ribbentrop is saying…”

“I want to hear your explanation. I’m looking at Winston’s.”

“Germany is threatening to expand. Not just threatening. Promising.”

Reginald threw the report on his desk, sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Go on.”

“Well, what do you think?”

Reginald smiled. “I asked you, if you noticed.”

“Well, it sounds rather dire.”

“Of course it does. What are the barriers?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” said Reginald slowly, with insulting patience, “what reasons do we have to believe that it’s true?”

“You…think that Mr. Churchill might be lying?”

“Oh, lying, who knows? That’s for libel courts, not the FO. But Mr. Churchill desperately wants England to rearm, and doubtless our efforts in that direction are not moving quickly enough for his liking.”

Hart started to say something, but Reginald held up his hand. “One moment…” Hart thought that, for an awful moment, that Reginald was about to say ‘young man,’ which would be ridiculously pretentious, since they were almost the same age. But Reginald just continued: “Even if we accept Churchill’s account as utterly accurate—which would be a first in the annals of general human memory, let alone Mr. Churchill’s notoriously specific recollections—how do we know that Herr von Ribbentrop is actually transmitting Herr Hitler’s words? And even if he is, how do we know that Herr Hitler actually intends to carry out his plans? All three men have their different motivations and goals. All three men are probably bending the truth to advance their respective causes—as we all do. So what seems dire at first glance quite quickly falls apart.”

Hart fidgeted. He felt a prickle of sweat, and a little thrum of anger.

“Yes?” asked Reginald.

“So you think this is not worthy of attention?”

Reginald smiled. “Let me ask you this. Why do you think it is worthy of attention?”

Hart hesitated. There are so many reasons… “Because the Germans are saying that they have not given up on the idea of getting more territory. That they are going to be on the move again.”

“And?”

“And—if they took Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland…”

“All far, far to the East, yes?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“And then, they will bump up against Russia and, with any luck, do a good deal towards wiping each other out. If von Ribbentrop said—even if I ignored all the other barriers to acceptance—that they were planning on expanding west, then I should be more concerned, and possibly follow it up.”

He noticed that Hart seemed to be rooted to the spot, and smiled. “You have something to say—please, be my guest. You’re worth keeping on board.”

“He goes east,” said Hart rapidly, “and comes to some accommodation with Russia, then he is free to come west. And by then he’s taken Czechoslovakia, with the Skoda arms factories, and can incorporate all the armies of the eastern countries.”

“But if he makes a move eastwards,” said Reginald blandly, “wouldn’t Stalin come running into our arms? We would have Herr Hitler in a trap.” He rubbed his forehead with an index finger. “It’s quite touching, actually. Everyone thinks that they alone can see the future. But everyone can, including those far more intelligent than you—or I. Even if we say that Herr Hitler is just itching for a war, he cannot just throw his weight around without Europe and Russia reacting violently. Germany is in the middle of Europe, after all, and can always be crushed by a two-front war.”

“But in the last war…”

Reginald waved his hand. “Oh, everyone is always fighting the last war. Everything has changed now.”

“France has an agreement to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia…”

“Please do not presume to lecture me on French obligations,” snapped Reginald. “It would be insulting!”

Hart felt his forehead prickling with sweat, and became a little enraged with himself. To be personally frustrated is ridiculous, when so much is at stake! “So, if Hitler attacks Czechoslovakia, France will be drawn in—and we will have to follow France. Because of Locarno. Sorry.”

“Gosh,” said Reginald, his eyes wide. “Where would we be without you, Hart? For we poor idiots at the top have never even considered such—obvious problems. We should all have been taken by surprise without your prescience.”

Hart nodded. “I’m sorry, Mr. Spencer.”

Reginald shrugged. “Look, I know you’re underutilized. I can’t quite figure out why you’re happy to sit out there reading my letters, but I try not to spend too much time analyzing other people. Your motivations are your own. But you are an assistant. You’ll have to do a lot more than read letters around here before we can even think of taking you seriously. Is that clear?”

“Very clear,” said Hart. “I’m sorry for the intrusion. It won’t happen again.”

Reginald smiled. “Well, I give you permission in advance to throw my door off its hinges the moment that Hitler sets foot in Prague.”

Outside, in the hallway, Hart let down his habitual defenses utterly, and leaned his forehead into the white wall, against the thick paint, rolling it back and forth. As he walked down the hallway, he looked at the endless paintings of stone-faced old men, woodcuttings of hunting scenes, and prints of sheep and streams and distant mountains, and it seemed to him that this hallway just led back into the past, into a place that would soon be no more, and could never be revisited or retrieved.

Things went from bad to worse. On November 11, 1937, as the acidic clouds gathered over Austria, Anthony Eden went to meet with the new Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Eden, originally a staunch appeaser, had drifted into Churchill’s camp after going to Russia and witnessing the effects of Stalin’s endless Army purges. He did not believe that Russia would be a strong ally, and so felt that England had to rearm much more rapidly than she was at the present. He pleaded his case to Chamberlain, who became more and more impatient, and finally told him to ‘go home and take an aspirin.’

The sad fact was that, after years of supposed rearmament, England still could not send an army to France. The British Chiefs of Staff felt that getting close to France was a grave mistake, because it might provoke Germany. France was going through yet more convulsive successions of ineffective governments. The Popular Front was shutting down industries across the country. As early as 1936, the labor movement had achieved the forty-hour workweek, at a time when German arms factories were working around the clock.

Halifax, the Lord President of the Council, returned from Berlin and told Chamberlain that Hitler had informed him that the question of colonies was the only outstanding issue between Germany and England.

In mid-December, 1937, the former French Prime Minister, now in the FO, bet the British ambassador to Berlin that Austria would cease to exist within three months.

He won with two days to spare.

Chapter 73

Winston Churchill: It has come to the attention of the British people that Herr Hitler is on the verge of attempting an invasion of Austria. Will the Prime Minister be so kind as to let this House—and the British people, and such foreign ears as may be listening—know what he intends to do should this invasion come to pass?

Neville Chamberlain: As the right honorable Independent member well knows, there are over six million Germans in Austria who, at the end of the Great War, were not consulted as to whether they desired independence or unification with Germany, despite the noble principles of Wilson’s Fourteen Points. It is the specific policy of this government—as it has been for a number of previous administrations—to respect the principle of national self-determination. If Austrians wish to reunify with the Reich, it is scarcely a matter for this House to consider.

Churchill: I thank the honorable Prime Minister for his succinct reply. There is, however, a matter which still requires some clarification. What does the government intend to do if the Nazis invade Austria?

Chamberlain: If Germany invades Austria, we shall lodge the strongest possible protests with the Wilhelmstrasse. We shall also begin the sanctioning process with the League of Nations.

Churchill: And if these fail?

Chamberlain: With all due respect to the member opposite, I would like to say that I can only rationally deal with conjectures once removed. Herr Hitler has not invaded Austria, but I have answered the question as if he had. If Mr. Churchill wants me to go further and say what I should do if our responses to that possibility fail, then I must humbly plead a lack of omniscience in these matters. However, if Mr. Churchill can go further than me in prognostications, I invite him to do so, if he has brought his crystal ball.

Churchill: I can, I believe, answer that question, for it does not require any clairvoyance to understand Herr Hitler’s motives. I said, as long ago as 1930—three years before Herr Hitler came to power—that if he ever did come to power, the response of His Majesty’s Government should be simple. I said then, and I repeat now: if a mad dog makes a run for my trousers, I shall shoot him down!

[catcalls]

Churchill: I shall hold the floor. As this House well knows, Herr Hitler has repeatedly expressed, both in writing and speech, his desire to expand to the East, into the historic lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. If he takes Austria, he encircles Czechoslovakia on three fronts. The Western half of Czechoslovakia, called the Sudetenland, is home to three million Germans. If we accept his right to seize Austria, what justification will we have to demand that he leave the Sudetenland alone? If he takes Austria, he will surely take the Sudetenland. The entire integrity of the Czech defenses rests on the defense of their Western border, between the Sudetenland and Germany. If the Sudetenland is taken, the rest of Czechoslovakia will be helpless. It would be like taking away the Channel for us, or the Maginot Line for the French. And if this happens, doom will not be far behind. For then, Herr Hitler will have added almost seven million Austrians, and almost four million Czechs to his holdings. Over ten million subjects, workers, and soldiers. And his Eastern borders will be secure. Then where shall he turn? I can tell you in one word: France! To settle old scores. To avenge the perceived insults of the Versailles Treaty. To secure Germany’s Western borders, once and for all, all the way to the sea. This is what Herr Hitler has spoken of for over a decade. If we wait until he glares at us from beyond the Channel, it may be too late! We must act now! And if this House asks, what shall we do, I shall tell you. We must sign a solemn treaty with France, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and possibly Italy, to act as one against any annexation of Austria. Encirclement and loaded weapons is the only language that a brute like Herr Hitler understands. If we act decisively now, in the next week, and join forces with those with whom we possess, in combination, enough strength to contain Herr Hitler, we may yet see the collapse of Nazism before it has the strength to inflict a mortal wound on our continent. For history has shown many, many times, that if a dictatorship is prevented from expanding geographically, it inevitably collapses politically.

Chamberlain: I thank the honorable member for his survey course on European geography. I’m sure the pageboys appreciated it, even if the rest of us found it a tad remedial. The simple truth is that Germany is suffering under a perfectly legitimate historical grievance. The Versailles Treaty forbade the union of Germany with Austria, and was imposed without consultation. Two years ago, we saw the German expansion into the Rhineland, which has not been followed by any continued advancement. The treaty of almost twenty years ago could not have been expected to last forever. Also, Germany made moves towards Austria in 1934, but was deterred by the massing of Italian troops in Northern Italy. Hitler shall not be able to exclude Mussolini from his calculations. But, even were we convinced by Mr. Churchill’s arguments, what could really be done? Austria is almost the entire length of Europe away. We could not reach it by air. We have no land forces to speak of. Does Mr. Churchill hope to prevent the annexation of Austria with fiery speeches? For—and this is most surprising, given that Mr. Churchill is quite a fan of the Empire—it is no secret that we lack the strength to defend both Austria and our Empire. Thus, given that we have to make a choice, it seems to me wise to defend what we already have rather than to throw resources into a fight to defend what we have never possessed. And finally, given the difficulty of transporting our armed forces halfway around the world—and the admitted imminence of German action suggested by Mr. Churchill—it would seem unlikely that we would be able to intervene in time.

Churchill: It is unwise to allow errors to compound. We have neglected our defenses for many, many years, even as German militarism has been rising on the continent. Yes, we have refused to rearm sufficiently to meet the threat. This is why we must act in concert with the other Great Powers of Europe. If we achieve this, then General Beck, the leader of the German forces, shall see the following: France has an eightfold superiority in the Rhineland. He would face thirty to forty Czech divisions in the East, containing one and one half million well-trained, well-armed men. These divisions would be huddled behind a defensive line which, in years past, had absorbed the attacks of thirty front-line German divisions—the main strength of the German army at the time. And if Beck looks Eastward, he would see Russian airplanes, laden with bombs, lifting off from airfields in Rumania and Poland. The British Navy would be mobilizing and putting to sea, ready to strangle German imports. This is a war which could not be sustained by Germany for more than a few months. And it would be the end of Germany as a country, as a culture, and as a historical entity. Herr Hitler would be overthrown. That is my firm conviction. All he has been doing hitherto is bluffing. But soon, the time will come when he will not have to bluff. And by then, it shall be too late. And history—if history will even remain a discipline after a general Nazi victory—will not judge us well for muddling a hundred million people into total war!

Chapter 74

Tom did not know anyone in Vienna. He landed his airplane in mid-February, 1938, and took a room at a rather decrepit hotel only a few minutes away from the airfield. He was not a fan of Spartan accommodations, but Churchill had warned him to be as close as possible to the airfield, because he believed that events would move rapidly, and that getting out might be a problem.

As always, when Tom got into Vienna, he had the problem of trying to figure out who to approach first. He had noticed the number of Jews right away; yarmulke and corkscrew sideburns were everywhere. As usual, the life of the city seemed to be going on without interruptions or uneasiness.

He decided to go and talk to Sir Michael Palairet, the British ambassador to Austria.

He presented his press credentials at the British Embassy, but was informed that he would have to wait until four o’clock for an interview. Tom spent the time walking the ancient and beautiful streets of Vienna. He was astounded at the vitality of the city. He overheard intense arguments on street-corners, about the future of the city, and of Austria, under Nazi rule. As usual, Nazism was viewed as a temporary aberration, a movement which would self-destruct under its own virulence. Also, it seemed that many of the intellectuals did not think that the Nazi leaders actually believed their own propaganda. They could not really be that anti-Semitic, for instance, because such prejudices were so discreditable. No, it had to be that they needed the Jews as enemies to unite their people. It was a ‘necessary lie.’ This was not the first time that Tom had heard the phrase. It always reminded him of Plato, who had the same argument in the Republic. People are too dense to know what’s good for them. So, leaders have to lie.

Tom felt despair once more enter his soul. These beautiful buildings; the galleries, theatres, universities, and all the collective grandeur of a thousand years of exquisite architecture—all was defended, in essence, by people whose only response to an imminent and deadly threat was to play at amateur psychology. It was arrogance, and cowardice, and Tom could not help but wander the streets and wonder why this particular virus had taken such a hold of the minds of good and noble people. When did moral men become so impotent? he wondered.

But, as he rounded yet another corner and gasped at the wonders unfolded against the skyline, the thought struck Tom that it was quite unfair to imagine that the impotence of moral men was a notion that could only be applied to others. For what have I been able to achieve? he thought. I cannot stop Reginald, or my father, or rouse my mother. I have gotten Hart into the FO, but nothing has come of that…

And, he thought, I have been unable to tell Gunther that I know. That I know the truth.

Tom had only met with Gunther twice since the end of 1936. He had not met with Churchill at all. The first time had been purely personal. In mid-1937, Gunther had come to Tom’s flat in the late afternoon, and they had gone to dinner. The talk had been pleasant, consciously nonpolitical. Tom told the story of Jacqueline, who had vanished from his life. Gunther told the story of his own bachelorhood. He had, he said, been in love with a woman when he was younger, but she had been married, and nothing had come of it. Tom had been too moved to probe further. He imagined that this is what it must be like to have a father that you could really talk to, once you were in your midtwenties, and could chat with the ease of years and the natural relaxation of authority. To discuss, rather than be guided. He did manage to avoid weeping—at least until later—but it was an effort.

When he did weep, lying on his couch later, Tom briefly wondered where his blubbery nature had come from. He remembered Churchill’s emotional nature, and thought for a moment that his mother was lying, and it was in fact Churchill who had been his father. But Churchill was notoriously asexual, so that couldn’t be it. And if his mother were to have lied to him twice about his parentage, he would have to disown her.

After the passion of their last meeting, Tom expected every day to receive a letter from his mother. Covered with tears, but written at such an angle that he would know she was out of bed. (He had discovered this trick long ago; his mother’s letters were slightly more slanted when she wrote in bed. It helped him picture her mental state. If she said she was optimistic, but was actually in bed, that was bad. If she wrote that she was depressed or anxious, but penned the letter from her desk, that was not as bad.)

But no letter came. Nothing came. Not from any member of his family.

Tom was not blind to the consequences of yelling at his mother. She was the frail hibiscus forever guarded by still air and anxious gardeners. To bring any kind of emotional force to the maternal cobweb minefield was an unpardonable sin. But it was a great secret, of course, and could not be spoken of. Tom did not expect to receive even an admonitory letter from Quentin, or Reginald. However, he would know that the incident had been walled over when he received a dutiful letter of little news. But none came.

His relationship with his nieces was curtailed too, which was a constant source of pain. Hitherto, he had been a welcome addition to the Spencer family life, because he was very close with his nieces. Wendy never liked to leave them with strangers, but was comfortable, after only about an hour of instructions, leaving them with Tom.

Tom loved them to death. He loved them with all the passion of knowing that death was forever closing in. They were infinitely different, but endlessly the same. Jocelyn was a calm, focussed, silent child. Lillian, the second, was a screamer, constantly unsettled, but with a rapidity of understanding that was almost frightening. Tom believed that he understood them: Jocelyn was curious, and spent a lot of time poring over her impressions, and felt little need to make return impressions upon the world. Lillian was bitingly fast, but random and undisciplined. Tom loved them both, for different reasons. He found that his heart was much, much larger than he thought. Other than Catherine, when he was growing up, he had had precious little to love without restraint. But with his nieces, he learned that love was best when it was without restraint. It is a geyser, not plumbing. To fall into absolute adoration was a beautiful thing. Tom was forever driven to do whatever he could to protect his lovely nieces, for two reasons. The first was that the thought of them coming to harm made him both enraged and despairing. The second was that he hoped—against hope, true—that he might one day be able to have children of his own.

After Jacqueline vanished, Tom wrestled with his desire to get back in touch with her. In her application form for pilot training, she had—fortunately!—given her parents’ address, where she was staying at the time. So, he knew that he would always be able to get in touch with her, because in that part of the country, parents just didn’t move around.

Tom wrote several letters, but never sent them. He could not forget her, and found that, with a tangible ache, her face arose in his mind at the most incongruous times. When he was fixing an engine, for instance, he dropped a spark plug into the bowels of the motor, and he imagined her giggle, right in his ear, and almost dropped his spanner as well. Or when he was cooking his lonely meals, he imagined her sitting at the table and chatting about nothing in particular. Fixing her stockings. Smiling.

He had tried a few other women, but ended the dates prematurely. On his return from Europe, in 1937, he had started up his flying school again, but found that his charms had worn thin. Perhaps news had gotten around that he had bedded Jacqueline and refused to date her. Or perhaps he had spent too much time in one place to retain the proper title of Mysterious Man with Mysterious Burden. By now, it was probably Silent Man Drowning in Self-Pity.

So that was that. He was training pilots, with a committed ferocity that he did not question. These future knights of the sky would be able to stave off the deaths of millions for some weeks or months, but not prevent them completely. Tom imagined endless lines of shipping flowing across the Atlantic to the New World, taking women and children, and his heart would lift. But then, he pictured endless waves of German airplanes rising from aircraft carriers, and it would sink again…

But he wanted to kill where he would himself die. He wanted to claw the German pilots down in endless clumps, and then kick their heads across the burning countryside. Tom had little doubt that he would die in the sky. He would join the Royal Air Force when war came—not before, because he was no fan of authority, and didn’t want to be posted to India or Singapore—and, if it took too long to get an airplane, he would steal one and flame out in a burst of falling fire.

Tom glanced at his watch, then realized he had not changed it to local time. 3:40pm. He called a taxi, and went for his meeting with Sir Palairet.

Sir Palairet was a genial, moon-faced man with a toothbrush mustache and a high forehead. Tom was ushered into his office.

Sir Palairet was apologetic. “When you’re the most busy, everyone needs you. So, Mr. Spencer, you write for The Times?”

“I am a freelance reporter, but have connections with The Times. There is no guarantee that what you have to say will get published.”

Sir Palairet seemed a little disconcerted. However, he smiled gamely. “All right. A rickety soapbox is better than none, I suppose. Now, do you want to ask questions, or should I just let rip?”

“Let rip,” replied Tom, warming to the ambassador almost immediately. “As long as I can take notes.”

“Be my guest. Austria believes that England is her last hope. You have that? That has to be verbatim. If I might. Good. France is out. Every time Germany has made a move, France has been between governments. France is now between governments. Everything comes down to Italy. If Hitler thinks that Italy will intervene, he will not act. Going into Austria makes Italy vulnerable. That’s what happened last time, when the Nazis murdered Dollfuss. So Hitler’s entire will is bent on Mussolini. The British government is aware of this, but senior officials don’t want to give anything to Italy unless Italy withdraws its troops from the Spanish Civil War. Italy calls them ‘volunteers,’ but it’s pure nonsense. Chamberlain wants to drop that requirement. He wants Italian support against Hitler in exchange for England’s recognition of Italian authority in Abyssinia.”

“Wait…” said Tom, writing rapidly. “All right. Thanks. Go on. No—wait. What does ‘Italian support’ mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Sir Palairet, spreading his hands. “England doesn’t want Germany to annex Austria, but HMG won’t sign any treaties to that effect. Nothing exists in writing to express our will to prevent Germany from seizing Austria. Naturally, Herr Hitler is drawing the obvious conclusions. My perspective is, even if we can’t prevent it, we oughtn’t make it quite so easy for him.”

Tom’s pen stopped scratching. He raised his head. “You don’t think Hitler can be stopped?”

“Materially? Absolutely. The combination of any two Great Powers would be enough. At least four have a good motive, and for whom a German annexation of Austria would be an utter disaster. England, France, Russia, and Czechoslovakia. There’s no army here to speak of, so I don’t include Austria. Without England, the other three will never be able to get a treaty going; France is too unstable, and Czechoslovakia doesn’t trust Russia. But material concerns are the least important factors. In my view, anyway.” Sir Palairet smiled sadly. “If I thought otherwise, I should have joined the army. The real question is whether these countries have the will to threaten war.”

Tom swallowed, terrified of asking the question. “And—and you think not.”

“If they didn’t combine to save the Rhineland,” said Sir Palairet simply, “it won’t happen now.”

Tom’s pen stopped. He sat motionless. Of course it was true. It was true, and it had always been unspoken. There was something fascinating about a man who could speak such an obvious and terrible fact with such detachment. Churchill and Gunther were always passionate in their opposition to appeasement. Reginald, Quentin, and all the others were always scornful and contemptuous in their defense of it. Sir Palairet was neither. He spoke the truth, but did not rail either for or against it.

Tom was riveted. He put his notebook down. “What—what are you going to do?”

Sir Palairet smiled. “That was quick. The interview, I mean. Well, I’m going to take my family to America, and we shall live out our days.”

“Do you not think that anything can be done?”

A brief look of pain crossed the older man’s features. “Oh, it’s such a terrible thing to say to a young man. But no. No.”

“Why? Why not?”

“Oh, there are so many reasons. And I really shouldn’t be doing this. But.” He leaned forward, his tone becoming slightly more personal. “The leaders are not leading. They are not explaining to the general populace that conflict cannot be avoided by sticking our collective heads in the sand. The general populace is terrified of war. And for good reason. But no one is telling them that war can only be averted by strength. Even the term ‘appeasement’ contains a considerable lie. It suggests that England is appeasing by granting concessions which it could otherwise withhold. But if England is not prepared to use its military, then we can do nothing to prevent the dictators from taking whatever they want. It is not appeasement unless we can withhold some good. Otherwise, it is just inaction. It is not a strategy. It is just cowardice, plain and simple. And, there is one other thing. Well, two.”

“Yes?” asked Tom, his eyes dull.

“First, the current administration is composed almost entirely of middle-class businessmen. They are used to negotiation; they cannot conceive of war. Churchill, Eden, and the others are all old-school aristocrats. Our good old warrior class. They’ve been at this, by the bloodline, for almost a thousand years. They know what to do. And second, a strange perception has arisen that somehow treaties were responsible for the outbreak of the Great War. So these men are terrified of entering into or upholding any international obligations. They want ‘flexibility of action.’ So they won’t guarantee the integrity of any country. Maybe France. So the dictators can do what they please. If the only thing standing between Hitler and Austria is Mussolini, Austria will not last a month.”

Tom lowered his pen, and closed his eyes.

Chapter 75

Neville Chamberlain was an impatient man. A vain man, in many ways. A man who detested any excess of emotion. A man who believed that everyone could walk out of a negotiation happy, if everyone was willing to give up something. He believed that the world was mostly made up of children masquerading as adults, and that the majority of international conflicts could be avoided or averted if only people would just grow up a little.

Chamberlain believed that some kind of moral force operated in international conflicts. His knowledge of the world was very limited. He had been a domestic businessman, and then a politician, and had never operated outside the jurisdiction of a single, all-encompassing legal system. He believed, perhaps unconsciously, that the Law was more than statutes; that it had some real power in the world. In domestic negotiations, the absolutism of Law was implicit in every agreement. Men were honorable, and negotiated in good faith, because they knew that they would be arrested if they broke their word.

In the international sphere, a far different ethos prevailed. It had always prevailed, and probably would always prevail. Law exists within countries; between countries, nothing exists but a state of nature. Domesticity is ethical; the world between countries is pure anarchy. The law of the jungle. Kindness is a virtue of the hearth; in the chilly, amoral space between borders, strength is the only coin.

Chamberlain did not get along with Anthony Eden. Their antagonism began over the Abyssinian Crisis. Eden made his name by arguing for strong sanctions against Mussolini at the League of Nations—sanctions which he seemed willing to wage war over. He wanted to stand as one with the French, and was willing to work with Russia for their mutual protection against the Nazi threat.

Then, in January of 1938, the FO received a telegram from the American president, Roosevelt. FDR, alarmed by the growing tensions in Europe, wanted to bring all the European powers together for a conference to discuss their various grievances. Churchill found out about this, and was overjoyed. He saw it as a chance to bring the Americans in on the side of the British, by exposing them to the madness of the dictators. Also, he hoped that the conference would expose the dictators to the close relationship between England and the United States, which might give them pause.

Chamberlain rejected FDR’s offer. When they found out about this, both Churchill and Eden were amazed beyond words. Chamberlain was not experienced in world politics. To slap away a friendly hand reaching across the waters was arrogant beyond words. Chamberlain argued that such a conference would just result in the Americans lecturing England and France about moral principles, while leaving the thankless task of enforcement to them. In other words, a repetition of the Brussels conference about the Far East.

Eden was very concerned with the growing threat against Austria. He felt some personal stake in Hitler’s aggression. In March of 1935, Hitler had told him personally that Germany had no interest in Austria—a message which he had passed on to the Cabinet, and which had had its effect on British foreign policy. Now that Hitler was breaking his word, Eden was determined to reverse the damage that his own naïveté had caused.

They both met with the Italian Ambassador to London, Count Dino Grandi.

Grandi received them with grave courtesy. He was a proud man, with arrogant eyes, an aquiline nose and oiled, backswept hair. They got down to business right away.

“It is our intention,” said Chamberlain, “to come to a speedy understanding with Signor Mussolini with regards to Austria, Spain, and Abyssinia.”

“It is our intention also,” chimed in Grandi, “to keep and deepen the historical friendship between our two great nations.”

“Now, can you tell us what your government’s position is regarding Austria?”

“We have no fixed position regarding Austria.”

“Do you have any opposition to a German annexation?”

“We would prefer it if the balance of power in central Europe did not shift rapidly, but do not consider it a matter of the utmost importance.”

“You yourselves did oppose it in 1934,” said Eden.

Grandi nodded. “That is true. But many things have happened since then. We have become a pariah in the international community—largely due to the influence of this fair island—over the matter of Abyssinia. We find this quite incredible. England owns a quarter of the world, yet maligns us for taking over an inconsequential and backward African kingdom. To prefer primitive Negroes to the heirs of the Roman Empire—ah, that is too much to take!”

Chamberlain began to say something, but Grandi continued.

“And this matter of the Spanish Civil War… We have some enthusiastic young fascista who have taken it upon themselves to go and aid their brothers under General Franco. This is true. But it is not the fault of the Italian government that some Italians wish to go and fight against communism. Yet the British government is forever trumpeting around that we have something to do with these brave and enthusiastic young men. We also find this attitude incredible. It was my understanding that we were as one in our opposition to the Communists. You should be more complimentary. For it is quite clear that, should the Communists win in England, say, that you would all be murdered in your beds. So we should be shoulder to shoulder, not at sword’s length…”

“So you want British approval of your Abyssinian conquest,” interrupted Chamberlain impatiently.

Grandi paused delicately, shooting an appalled look at Eden’s pale face.

“This would be of help,” he said, after a moment. “An assistance.”

“And you want us to stop talking about your government’s involvement in Spain?”

“Ye-es.”

“And in return?”

Grandi picked at his nails. “Well, what is it you wish?”

Eden charged into the conversation. “We have it on record that Signor Mussolini has agreed to withdraw these supposed ‘volunteers’ from Spain. We are not partial to communism, but also feel that many principles of fascism are also anathema to our way of life. We do not wish to open any new discussions until Italy lives up to its former commitments. There is no point making new promises to us while your old ones remain unfulfilled.”

“Well,” said Chamberlain smoothly, “that’s a bit much, Anthony. Mr. Grandi, we are willing to speak on these issues, on the understanding that the matter of these Spanish volunteers can be looked into at some future date.”

Grandi did not smile, but a flush of pleasure spread across his sallow cheeks. “Of course, Prime Minister. We are more than willing to observe any inadvertent oversights we might have made.”

“I am, in fact,” continued Chamberlain, “more than willing to accept a fascist victory in Spain in return for aid against Hitler.”

“My God!” ejaculated Eden, appalled.

“Please excuse my rather excitable colleague,” smiled Chamberlain. “He and I do not always see eye to eye on matters of foreign policy. Yet the purpose and principles of such policies are mine and mine alone,” he said coldly, glancing at Eden’s shocked face. “So, let us continue…”

“But—a fascist victory in Spain would be an utter disaster!” cried Eden. “France would be encircled by hostile dictatorships!”

“Oh, I don’t think we have as much to fear from the Italians and Spanish,” chided Chamberlain. “Compared to Hitler, of course. Aren’t you always the one telling me how dangerous Hitler is?”

Eden’s face was almost purple. His left leg jiggled rapidly. “Yes, but that does not mean that we must sell out both Spain and France to oppose Hitler. We cannot oppose Hitler without allies!”

Grandi sat back, grinning, watching them both.

“Yet you do not mind making deals with Russia,” said Chamberlain. “Is that not just a little hypocritical? You can approach Russia, but I cannot approach Italy?”

“Italy is—Italy is not at the other end of Europe!” cried Eden. “Compared to Russia, Italy is right on our doorstep!”

Chamberlain smiled. “And so, in a far better position to help us with Austria, no? As far as I understand it, we shall have grave difficulties getting Rumania or Poland to accept the passage of Russian troops. Thus Italy is far more useful to us. Please accept my apologies, Signor Grandi. We really should try not to air our dirty laundry in public like this, but sometimes it seems to happen. Nonetheless…” he finished awkwardly.

Grandi smiled, and inclined his head.

It seemed clear to him where Italy should place her allegiance, and he made his choice clear in his report.

Two days later, Eden resigned. Lord Halifax, a staunch Chamberlain supporter, was put in his place. And so it was that the last of the anti-appeasers passed from the Cabinet, and the road ahead was cleared.

Almost immediately afterwards, Hitler received a message from Mussolini. The Italians would not interfere with his annexation of Austria.

And so the tanks began to roll. Just before dawn on Saturday, March 12, 1938, for the first time since the Great War, German troops crossed their borders to occupy another country.

Chapter 76

Tom had never seen such joy, and it was a terrible thing to behold.

Even the German troops were taken aback. Crowds of men, women, and children lined the streets, screaming themselves hoarse. Shimmering clouds of flower petals rained down on the armed columns, like unicolored butterflies.

He was watching the parade from the balcony of the British Embassy, with Sir Palairet. The Ambassador was in silent tears. Tom was not far behind.

“The strangest thing,” murmured Sir Palairet, “is that they genuinely believe that they are being liberated.”

“No Jews,” said Tom, looking for yarmulkes in the crowd.

“No, but they haven’t left. They think that… Oh, I don’t know what they think.”

“Where in Europe would they go? Can’t go East. Can’t go West.” Tom sighed. “I don’t know why they’re so happy.”

“Race…”

“Why do they care about race?”

“It’s what failures cling to. So they don’t have to do anything to be special.”

“This is more than the work of failures,” said Tom with a shudder. “This is something far darker. Deeper. Older.”

“Well, we handed it to them, didn’t we?” asked Sir Palairet sadly. He could not tear his eyes away from the procession.

“How?”

“We told them that a country was defined by culture. By race. By history. By…language.” He almost seemed to spit out the last word.

“What do you think a country is defined by?”

“The good,” said Sir Palairet softly.

The word was almost lost among the clatter of boots and the clashing of arms, but it hit Tom solidly, in the solar plexus. The good…

“If we wouldn’t allow it in our own houses… Our own country,” said Sir Palairet, “we shouldn’t allow it in the world. Where we can, without significant risk, oppose it in the world, we must. Morality does not end where the sea begins, or mountains rise, or tongues change. But that was the principle of the Empire, and we no longer love the Empire, and I fear that we are casting out the good with the bad. Someone said that everything was relative, and all force was equal, and we believed it, because being good is hard when you have to define it, and we beat a path back from our highest peaks, and most noble virtues, and left the doors wide open to the jackals. We called and called, and they have come.” He gestured at the endless line of soldiers. “Here they are.”

Tom knew that he should leave Vienna. He knew, because he was pressing his luck. He had lived through the triumph of Nazism, through several street riots, uncertain weather, and technical malfunctions on his airplane.

But he had never seen the Germans invade. He had briefly stayed in the Rhineland, two years ago, but then the Germans did not really want to take it over, not for political reasons. They just wanted to fortify it against the French.

Tom knew that there were many people in Vienna who would scarcely benefit from the coming of the Nazis. The Nazis were brutal, stupid, and certain. They were cunning, of course, as all predators are. A spider does not show itself until the fly is enmeshed. A tiger slinks through reeds very, very slowly. Patience and sudden striking is common throughout the whole animal and insect kingdoms, and Tom found it hard to credibly assign intelligence to Hitler and his pack of gutter elite. Intelligence has something to do with the world. The ability to manipulate others is not a facet of intelligence. It is just cunning. An adroitness for deception. A talent for fiction. Hitler has a capacity for language. It is his talent. But what he says is just emotionally forceful. It has no content. It is a talent. A mimicry. Not intelligence. Cunning.

So Tom had some idea what might happen to intelligent people under Nazism. By taking Germany, the Nazis had seized an educated country, and were currently in the process of de-educating it. University enrollment was plummeting. No one could do any independent, intelligent work. All they could do was mouth vicious, empty slogans. Intelligent people are not drawn to that kind of education, and unintelligent people are rarely drawn to education of any kind.

People more full of cunning than brains cannot stand opposition. Tom knew this from knowing Reginald. Their view of themselves is so false that anyone coming near them who speaks the truth—or even asks pointed questions—becomes an enemy. Not a team player. In British terms, an eccentric. In Nazi terms, dead.

So, Tom could not tear himself away. He wanted to see…

What? See what?

The intellectuals had been silent. They had scorned the alarm of certain sections of the population. They scorned people like Churchill, because Churchill did not even have a university education. They mocked those who became alarmed at the prospect of the Nazi heel blotting out the sky. And not a few intellectuals were Nazis themselves.

But what they worshipped were just the shadows of evil. Just bad ideas. He wanted to see them punished. He wanted to see their faces, when the black hearts casting those endless shadows came to call.

After a short dinner, Tom took to the streets. He joined the crowds, but was without fear. He was surprised at the number of women in the throng. But then, there was no chance of mob violence. No one could imagine—unlike in England, France, or pre-Nazi Germany—that the Nazi soldiers would hesitate to fire on civilians.

And this was a celebratory crowd. It was a new phenomenon for Tom, who had some experience in mobs. People screamed and laughed and hugged and threw each other’s children far into the air. It took some time for Tom to get used to the sight of children constantly dropping from the sky, like little screaming bombs. Bottles were passed around. A butcher had set up a barbecue in front of his shop, and was handing out chunks of sizzling sausage. A baker had trays of sweets. Random songs chased each other through the crowd, none seeming to last for more than a moment. Chants also rose and fell, but one took on with more regularity: “Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Führer!”

As he was jostled and jammed against the breathy, exultant crowd, Tom tried to understand their faces. He had never been frightened by joy before. Joy is a very, very rare emotion to see. More rare than grief. But this joy was like the joy of children told that school is gone forever. Or of a criminal, released on a technicality. It was the joy of vengeance—but not vengeance against anything in particular. Vengeance against reality. Against cause and effect, perhaps. Sweet reason. Or, Tom thought, remembering a little girl who was always messing up the little trench-wars of his childhood, it’s like a snotty little girl who pinches you, then runs and hides behind her bullying older brother, making faces…

It was a new time for a certain kind of person. A certain kind of soul. Of course, everyone knew the story of Hitler’s youth, how he lived in shelters for the homeless and never found his place in society. How he never got into art school. And how much does the world have to change for such a petty misfit to end up running it? And how many of his fellow misfits would roar with joy?

Tom was startled to feel the sexual energy of the crowd. It mostly came from the women, and it came as a shock. In all his prior mobs, the only sexual aspect had been the pinch-and-grope of the odd pervert who had merged with the crowd for obviously apolitical purposes. But here, before a sign carrying the frozen fury of the führer’s face, women would shriek and throw themselves forward. Some fainted. Most screamed, clutching themselves. Tom thought initially that it might be the tight repression of the spinster breaking loose, but he saw young, lovely girls gripped by the same ecstasy. And women with infants or children. No woman obviously past menopause, but still. If she was capable of ovulation, it seemed, she wanted to bear the führer’s child. It was all very Stone Age. They also threw themselves at the soldiers, and a thought kept nagging at Tom, as he saw yet another laughing soldier go down under a charging phalanx of women…

Well, it is very primitive, he thought, but it also makes sense. In a time of peace, women gravitate towards professionals. Intellectuals. Businessmen. In a time of war, they gravitate towards soldiers. Towards warriors. Towards…

Tom stopped as the thought struck him. Could it be? he thought, for a moment, before being swept forward to another random destination.

He remembered Wendy’s odd comments and looks, over the past few years. He recalled Klaus’s mother—What was her name?—coming to him the night before he left, for a very odd conversation. He hadn’t thought much of Wendy’s obvious attraction. Only that she was probably flirting with him to get Reginald’s goat.

But perhaps not. Perhaps not…

Tom couldn’t think in the crowd. He ducked into a doorway, but the bodies kept crushing against him. Someone was screaming that the führer had entered Vienna with the troops, and was going to speak from the city square. The call went up, and the crowd surged against him, crushing him up against a large glass door. Cursing, he tried to turn, but couldn’t. His cheek was being mashed against the glass; his breath was being pressed out of him. A woman beside him turned and screamed for the crowd to turn and go back. The sounds of people being crushed against the building mixed in with the mad plunge of the mob, desperate for a sight of Hitler.

Tom found it astounding that he wasn’t able to take a breath. Collectivism in action, he thought, and almost laughed at the subsequent thought. I thought many things, but I never thought that a glass door would get me…

Just as he felt consciousness slipping away, he heard a terrific, tearing crash, and fell forward. The glass door had given way. Fortunately, it had been made of some form of safety glass, and so didn’t kill him. A few people seemed to burst into the interior of the building with him. Tom forced his deadened limbs to move, and scrambled away from the doorway in a lurching, crab-like manner, fearful of being trampled by more people fleeing the mob.

But in another of the inexplicable movements of mass phenomenon, the crowd moved back from the doorway. The few people who had come through the door leapt up, brushed the glass from their coats, and ran back into the street.

Tom was in the front hallway of a newspaper office. He sat in a chair behind a reception desk, brushing his hands delicately through his hair, trying to remove the glass without also removing his fingernails.

He tried to think about the odd instincts of the women with children who had been attracted to him, and what that might mean about feminine instincts, and the future. But his thoughts kept returning to Jacqueline, who he was sure would have been just as attracted to him in peacetime. And the power of the original connection about women and warriors had been lost.

He got up. Evening was falling, and the street outside, while far from deserted, looked passable, with persistence and patience. He heard a gunshot, which was not terribly new, but paused as he was getting out of the chair, because he could not locate it. Or rather, he thought he could locate it, but…

Tom listened, feeling the natural irritation of trying to hear a specific sound in the midst of a general melee. He thought he heard a groan.

Coming from within the building.

Oh, damn my ears! he thought. I already know that they’re bad chaps!

But he could not leave. It had always been both his curse and his blessing.

He walked past the reception area and through a door, to a larger, open area, with a sea of desks and typewriters. A banner hung from the ceiling pipes exhorting ‘Truth, Accuracy, Honesty.’ There was another shot. A scream, a barked command, a groan. It was coming from a closed office at the far end of the hall.

Tom walked soundlessly over. He had come with his revolver, of course. After England, he had never entered a crowd without a gun.

He heard, in German, a bubbling voice, full of agony:

“But I have always supported our National Socialist brothers!” cried the voice. “Heil Hitler!”

Another shot. Another groan.

“Do not speak his name again!” barked a voice. “You are a mass of extremities.”

“But if you’d read… If you’d read…” The voice broke down into sobs.

Another voice. “We know that there is gold on the premises. We have found the safe…”

A third voice. “Hiding it behind a picture. Of all the things!”

“It was—I tell you, I swear… It was here when I moved in. It’s been a joke. It’s empty. I’m sure of it…”

“Just tell us how to open it!” said the first voice. “As an editor-in-chief, I’m sure you need your remaining fingers.”

“Oh, please, for all that is holy… If I could open it, I would…”

They continued to exhort the man. There was another shot. Tom fingered his revolver. He retreated behind a desk, hiding under it. The electrical cables were very dusty. He tried to think.

I would have the element of surprise. There are at least three of them. At least one has his gun out. If there are more, I am dead. If not, it’s still risky. And I wouldn’t want to be wounded, not among that lot. And even if I shoot them all, and kill them, how is that man going to get any help? It’s madness out there. The streets are in chaos. He might bleed to death anyway. And what if he is a loyal Nazi? He might denounce me anyway. Or a dissident? He might denounce me to get passage out of Austria…

But something new and unexpected entered into his mental chatter, like a panther sidling into a children’s party. Tom had always tried to be a moral man, but he had no idea that he was capable of this kind of morality.

Oh for heaven’s sake! Austria is lost. England is free, and yours to defend. And Sir Palairet says that this man supported the Nazis. I might as well try to separate snapping jackals!

Tom was rather shocked at this new thought. He felt something in himself harden. He had the image of a prison warden holding back his guards from a contained riot.

It would be a stupid and futile way to die, he thought.

He waited for five minutes. Just in case he decided to reverse himself. But he felt no impulse.

After another shot, he crept out of the building.

That night, in his hotel, Tom was unable to sleep. He could hear roving gangs of Stormtroopers running through the streets, dragging men and women from their houses. The cries of children were halted, far too abruptly. Women cried out for salvation from gang rape. Tom felt as if he were in hell. This was new. This kind of exposure was new. Listening to torture and murder was new.

He desperately wanted to run and run. Run to his airplane and fly to cleaner lands. But evil and trigger-happy gangs roamed the streets. Safety—relative safety—could only come from sunrise.

But when the sun came, he would fly west. He would fly west, to his blessed island. He would fly, and land, and kiss the soil still free of such horrors.

Chapter 77

It was a just matter of time, thought Martin.

The thought jolted him awake. He lay in the darkness, in his own bed. A little puddle of sweat had gathered in the depression where his lower ribs met, above his belly. His heart thumped in the dark like a distant jungle drum.

He could not remember the dream which had provoked his thought, but blessed it silently. A door had slammed shut, somewhere in his mind, and he had jumped into waking.

Martin smiled in the dark, letting the thoughts come rushing over him.

All of God’s social punishments have been short. Forty days of rain. Sodom and Gomorrah. Instantaneous. The casting out from Eden. Or if long, they have escalated. Like His punishments of the Pharaoh. Sequential. Incremental. Nothing comes, and stays, without God’s permission. My wife has been mounting crucifixes, without punishment…

A thought struck him, and he frowned. The Republic lasted for fourteen years… Ah, but it was getting incrementally worse the whole time! More and more ineffective!

So, the Nazis were a just punishment… More thoughts cascaded into him. We have been deemed too vain for free will. God has appointed the führer to keep us on a strict path. We are being compelled to be good. The failure of the Republic was ample evidence that we are not good enough for freedom!

He spent the next hour or so thinking in rapid, almost incoherent joy. It was such a relief! It could not be expressed in words. Tearfully, Martin thanked God for giving him the dream. The knowledge. The certainty. The faith, once more, to act.

He knew that he would sleep no more that night. He got up, rubbing his eyes—which remained obstinately dry and tired, despite the exultation in his soul—then threw a dressing gown over his thin frame, and went downstairs. He drank a long draught of milk, then lit a candle and sat down in his little cubbyhole, where his desk was.

He tried working on his sermon for the following Sunday, but he couldn’t concentrate. Ideas came out of him like water from a broken jug. And he had to keep closing his eyes. It was very frustrating. He put his head down for a moment…

Another door slammed, and Martin was jolted awake once more. It was early, early dawn. Hands seized his dressing gown and hauled him up from his tiny desk.

Martin turned around, and saw Klaus standing before him, his face pale.

“Why didn’t you stop it?” screamed Klaus, shaking his father’s shoulders.

Martin felt instant rage, and tore his son’s hands from him.

“You lay a hand on your father?” he cried, raising his hand.

Both Klaus’s hands came up swiftly, gripped in fists, and hung in the air in front of his father’s stubbled cheeks. Martin paused, frowning, as if trying to understand this new development.

“Did you say anything?” asked Klaus, his voice soft.

Martin could see that his son was close to tears, but felt none of the power that he normally did when his children started to break. His frown deepened.

“About…what?” From the corner of his eye, Martin could see a few figures gathering on the stairs beside the kitchen. His children were used to raised voices, of course, but… But only one raised voice, thought Martin.

“What’s happening?” asked his youngest daughter.

“Check Mother’s room,” said Klaus, not moving his blazing eyes from his father’s face.

“Why?” whined the girl. “Why isn’t she up? She’s always up!”

“Go!” cried Klaus. He looked away from Martin for a moment, propelling the child with the ferocity of his gaze.

After a moment, she wailed: “She’s gone!”

“Wh…” Martin’s voice cracked. “Where?”

“You didn’t wake?” demanded Klaus. “They take her from the very room you sleep in, and you don’t wake? I can’t believe it!” His voice thickened with passion. “When they come, they are never quiet!”

“I heard…” A door slam, thought Martin. And then I thought that the Nazis were good. “I thought I was dreaming.”

Klaus grabbed the lapels of his father’s dressing gown. “Why? Why did you let it happen? You lie around here, moaning about your conscience—and then you let them take our mother?”

Klaus’s face was cruelly distorted. Martin’s vision blackened around the edges.

“When is she coming back?” demanded the child.

Martin picked up Klaus and hurled him away. Klaus’s hands were still gripping his father’s lapel, and so they both pitched over, onto the floor.

Klaus punched his father full in the face. He was screaming incoherently.

The children on the landing were frozen. They had awoken to a world without reason.

Martin moaned. One of his teeth broke under his son’s fist, tearing a hole almost all the way through his cheek. His arms reached up, groping for Klaus’s face, trying to find some soft cavity to bury his nails in. But another blow came from his son, and he felt his neck twist painfully. A blinding headache shot up from his spine, filling his cranium.

“You thrash us our whole lives!” screamed Klaus, “and then just hand her over to them?”

“‘Them’ is you!” screamed Martin, not knowing why he said it. “‘Them’ is you!”

“And you let her put those fucking crucifixes up!”

Of the six children on the stairs, four put their hands to their mouths. They vaguely knew the word. It seemed to galvanize Martin. He threw his son aside.

Klaus rolled to one side. Some part of his rage was spent. He burst into tears.

“We’ll never get her back! The stupid bitch!”

Martin could not understand. The world would not come into shape. He swayed to his feet, looking up at the children on the landing. The eyes of the youngest were wide. He saw more complicated emotions on the faces of the elder children. The youngest, who worshipped Klaus, burst into tears.

“Don’t say that word!” she screamed, hugging herself and jumping up and down.

“I’m sorry!” cried Klaus, sitting squat-legged on the floor, his head in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

Martin turned and hauled Klaus to his feet. Klaus’s hands came up in a protective gesture.

“What has happened?” demanded Martin. “Drop your hands!”

Klaus sobbed. It was the terror of more than two years. He would be no use.

“Can you drive?”

Klaus would not meet his eyes.

“Can you drive?” demanded Martin, striking Klaus across the face with the back of his hand. Just to get his attention. The girl on the landing screamed.

Martin struck his son again. When Klaus’s face returned to the upright, his eyes were cold. Martin thought he saw an answering nod.

“All right. Then let’s go and see your Count Orsky.”

They drove in silence. The air in the automobile was inflated with emotion. Martin kept tonguing the tear in his cheek, and leaning out the window to spit what felt like buckets of blood.

Count Orsky was up, which was unusual, for he was not an early riser. He did not seem surprised to see them.

“What faces!” he smiled, leading them into the living room. “I hope my car is all right.”

“You have my wife,” said Martin.

“What, here?” replied the Count, looking around comically. “Sorry, but it seems like such a line from a melodrama.”

“She was taken from our house last night,” said Klaus emptily, not looking at either of them.

“How do you know?”

“I—heard it…”

Count Orsky smiled. “All right, keep your sources for now. The Reich is nothing if not just. Where was she taken?”

“To town.”

“So she is in the jail there. And it’s quite the opposite direction! So why are you here? I’m not a policeman.”

Martin swallowed. “She was taken because—because she hung crucifixes in the hospital.”

“That does sound dire. But I don’t see how I can help you. Unless you would like a drink.” He eyed Martin’s torn cheek. “Or some disinfectant. Please step back from bleeding on my carpet.”

“We were hoping you would…help,” said Klaus.

“Really, that is almost insulting! But I know how boys are with their mothers, so it’s all right. But the law is the law. I can’t be overturning it. How fair would that be? You should have come at night,” said Count Orsky, walking over to the bar. “I hate to drink in the morning.”

“That’s…” Martin leapt to his feet. “My son is a loyal Nazi. An honest Nazi!”

“Yes, and I think we have you to thank for that, Father. And, as a loyal Nazi, he should know that we can’t play favorites. The will of the führer is all. Isn’t that right, Klaus? I mean, how could she have been taken if the World Spirit had not…”

“Shut up!” screamed Klaus. He half rose from his sofa, then sank back, his eyes averted.

“I am sorry. Was she warned?”

Neither man replied.

“Well,” said the Count. “If she hadn’t been warned…” Then, he tapped his forehead impatiently. “But you are a priest, Father. She would not have been unaware of our religious injunctions. No. I’m afraid that there is no way out.”

“The—sentence?” Martin could not seem to raise his eyes.

Orsky knelt down and lifted the old priest’s chin.

The Count’s eyes were wide, as if to absorb and record every facet of the old man’s expression.

“Beheading,” he murmured softly. “Deee…capitation.”

Then, he glanced at his watch and pursed his lips. He turned his gaze to Martin’s face, his eyes softening with strange sorrow and deeply morbid curiosity.

Chapter 78

Despite Gunther’s exhortations, Tom refused to go back to Europe. They were sitting in Gunther’s rather bare London flat; Tom was on his way to meet his family for dinner.

“But everything comes down to Czechoslovakia, Tom!” cried Gunther, pacing back and forth. “If you’re going to back out now, there was no point going at all!”

“Nothing I write gets published!”

“All right. All right. We didn’t expect that it would. But you know—they’ll make for great memoirs after the war.”

“I don’t think there’s any hope for Czechoslovakia.”

Gunther shook his head. “Well, of course not. We’re not counting on Chamberlain changing his mind.”

“So—why?”

“Let Churchill answer that. He’s coming by.”

“Oh.”

“You seem… What is—in your heart?” Gunther smiled. “I’ve always prided myself in my ability to read your heart. But you’re a closed book today.”

“Tell me about my mother.” The words were out before Tom could consider them.

Gunther frowned. “What would you like to know?”

“That’s…an excellent question. What every boy wants to know about his mother, I suppose.”

“Ah. The truth.”

“Yes. And don’t say: ‘about what?’ If I knew about what, I wouldn’t need the truth.”

Gunther pursed his lips. “Before the war, you mean… How is she?”

“Now? I don’t know. Haven’t talked to her for a bit.”

“Do you run hot and cold with her? I never got that sense. I always felt…” Gunther paused, his brow furrowing.

“I never used to,” said Tom gloomily. “Not on the outside. In my heart, perhaps. Well, of course in my heart. Now Reginald is the steady ship of her favor.”

Gunther’s head jerked up. “Reginald!”

“Oh, she was hungry for grandchildren, and…” Tom shook his head. “No, of course that’s not it. I mean—how do you think she lives with—with that man?”

“Your father?”

Tom laughed mirthlessly. “All right.”

“Well, I don’t…like to think of that. He’s such a…”

“What? What is he? A usurper?”

Gunther threw Tom a glance that was almost fierce. “Why? What a word!”

“I don’t know,” scowled Tom. “It just struck me.”

A pause hung between the two men. Tom could see that Gunther was struggling about whether to ask more about what Tom knew. I don’t know why I’m so scared to tell him I know. I so much want for him to tell me himself… These hints are so unfair.

“My mother is fine,” said Tom finally, turning away deliberately. “But I asked her to do something she doesn’t want to, so things are cool between us.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“Oh, don’t you ever just ask?” snapped Tom. “For the hell of it?”

Gunther blinked, but had the good grace not to look surprised. “So tell me.”

“I asked her to turn against—Quentin.”

Then, Gunther did look surprised. He threw his head back and laughed. It was a long, deep and rich sound. “And how did that go?” he asked—and it was the first time that Tom felt Gunther was speaking to him as an equal. “No—wait. Let me guess. Her eyes grew defiant. Not of him, but you. She sat very still. Said nothing.”

“How do you know?” Tom asked gently.

“You get to know some people, over the years. Some people you know right away. It’s like the future you’re going to spend with them comes back and plucks your heart, the moment you meet them.”

“Did you love my mother?”

Gunther nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

“Did…”

Tom’s next question was interrupted by a sharp knock at the front door. Gunther rose, walked over and opened it. Churchill came in, shaking an umbrella, his overcoat stained with rain.

“Now, the south of France I can understand!” cried Churchill, dropping his umbrella and taking off his coat. “But why we defend this wretched isle is sometimes beyond me! How are you, Gunther?”

“Very well.”

“Tom!” said Churchill, overjoyed. Tom jumped up from the sofa. Churchill gripped his hand in both hands. “What a splendid job you did for us in Vienna! First rate. Will be of great value to future historians. Nice personal touches. Vivid. It must be nice to be home. Do you know that there were over one hundred thousand arrests in the first week of Nazi rule there? And as for the Jews, good God! It’s a rape and pillage, pure and simple.”

Tom nodded rapidly. The man was infectious.

“Something for the chill, Gunther, if you please,” said Churchill, flopping into an armchair. He had, Tom noticed, a way of ordering people which was entirely inoffensive.

Churchill fingered the rather lurid fabric, then winked at Tom. “He has German efficiency, but German taste as well. Now,” he said, half turning in his chair, “did you tell young Mr. Spencer about Czechoslovakia?”

“We got sidetracked,” said Gunther, returning with three drinks poised between delicate fingers. He handed them out, then sat down.

Churchill took a deep draught. “I’m going to miss quality port when war comes,” he said. “I give it up, you know. For solidarity. Not cigars. Have to think. But port. Now. To Czechoslovakia. This is what is going to happen. Herr Hitler’s methods are clear. Ferment local disorder. Fund terrorism. And then—present demands. Those demands cannot be met—for if they are, he raises them—and then, invades! It’s quite brilliant. Because the major question for the British and French, in regards to Czechoslovakia, is: if Herr Hitler invades because Czechoslovakia does not accede to his demands, is that the same as unilateral aggression? Oh, that’s just awful! I am trying to find a succinct way of putting it. Failing that, at least pithy. How about: if Germany demands something from Czechoslovakia, and Czechoslovakia refuses—and then Germany invades, is that the fault of Czechoslovakia? Only slightly better. That is the real question. The relevant question is: can Chamberlain find a way to blame Czechoslovakia for being invaded? That is crucial. Actually, more crucial for France than Chamberlain. France has a treaty, you know, Tom, with Czechoslovakia, and has to come to her aid if she’s attacked. And we, of course, have a treaty with France, and will have to come to her aid if she rides off in aid of Czechoslovakia. That is how it’s going to happen. That’s how we hope it shall happen. I can imagine a worse scenario, but we shall not talk of that.”

“Another drink, Tom?” asked Gunther, who could nurse a drink until doomsday.

“No, thank you.”

Churchill continued. “The Sudetenland is in Hitler’s thoughts. He wants it. He wants power, and the German-speaking people beyond the borders of the Reich are his means to achieve it. There are three million Germans in Czechoslovakia, in the West, where all the defenses lie. They are constantly complaining about being mistreated, which is utter rot, of course. They are the best-treated minority in the world. Would President Beneš be so mad as to terrorize a German population within reach of Hitler?” Churchill laughed. “What fools could imagine that? Oh, of course. All the fools in the press. And Hitler hates Czechoslovakia, as a creation of Versailles. So he will try to take the western half, on the pretext of absorbing the Sudetenland Germans. And then, he will take the eastern half, because there will be no means left to defend it.”

Churchill thumped his glass down. His small eyes grew devilish.

“But we mean to thwart him, don’t we? We can do nothing for Czechoslovakia. We have no real army. Our aircraft cannot reach it. However, with France, we can attack Germany in the west, while a million Czech soldiers keep her forces pinned down in the south and east, and Russian troops pour into Germany through Poland and Rumania!”

“No real army,” said Gunther.

“But we have an air force! We can support the French in the air. We can use the navy to strangle the ore supply from Sweden! We can keep the honor of our island!”

“And…” said Tom, then faltered.

“Yes?”

“And if we—don’t attack Germany over Czechoslovakia?”

“Ah.” Churchill settled back in his chair. “Then the night of the world will be far, far longer, and I may not live to see the dawn. But you shall help us see that this does not happen. You shall be our eyes and ears on the ground. And if some need arises for a back channel of communication, then you will be there for us!”

Tom pursed his lips. He glanced at Gunther.

“But perhaps,” said Churchill, leaning forward in his chair, “this is what was occupying yourself and Gunther, as I entered. Some reservation you have. You must share it with me, Tom.”

“I feel…hopeless,” said Tom. He opened his mouth to say more, but realized that everything he could add would be superfluous.

Churchill nodded. “I felt that way. I am a sound sleeper. My head hits the pillow…” His voice lowered. “But the night after I learned that Eden had resigned, over Chamberlain’s courting of Signor Mussolini… That night, I did not sleep. I lay awake all night, and I felt in my heart and bones that we were going to come to a most grievous pass, and that the lessons we would be forced to learn might be more harsh than we could survive. And I felt all my spirits lower, such as I have never felt before…”

“And then?”

Churchill shrugged, sipping his drink. “Well, the morning is the morning. It’s a tautology, but it always is. In the morning, I felt that I still had my part to play, and that I am a man who loves to solve problems, and take action, and that the coming years will afford measureless opportunities for me to match my wits against the best of the worst that the world can offer. And, that that may be the reason I am here, and I have never thought that Providence loads us down with more than we can carry.” Churchill smiled. “And that has been enough.”

Tom nodded slowly. His lips were pursed, and he found it hard to breathe.

“Oh, come now man!” said Churchill, handing him a handkerchief. “You mustn’t be shy of tears!”

Tom nodded, and sniffed, and blew his nose.

“So…” he said, after a minute. “You are not thinking of peace anymore.”

“No,” said Churchill, settling back. “Until 1933, we could have prevented German rearmament without the loss of a single life. Now, there will be blood. Herr Hitler will not be deterred by it. If he is a fish, it is his ocean.”

“So what do you hope for?” Tom was about to add: ‘personally, or politically?’ but realized that, for Churchill, they were unlikely to be distinct categories. “Do you want to prevent war?”

“I have always wanted to prevent war. And if war comes, I wish to prevent as much suffering as possible. The only way to do that is to inflict as much suffering as possible—as quickly as possible—on your enemy. Being good is hard, Tom. You must be strong. Harsh. Otherwise, weapons only exist in the hands of those who will use them unjustly. Good undefended is not goodness. Just cowardice.”

“Hm,” said Tom, looking down.

“Will you go back to Czechoslovakia?” asked Churchill, after a moment.

“You must tell me your plan first.”

“We shall go to war,” replied Churchill evenly. “And the current government will fall. And then I, or someone like me, shall lead. And then we will win, and be gentle with our enemies, and the world shall be free. For a time at least…”

Tom paused, took a deep breath, then nodded once more.

Chapter 79

They never found her body. They asked, wandered, begged, cajoled, tried to bribe, in an awkward and amateurish manner. The various officials they talked to seemed to take some pleasure in their need, their desperation, and sent them in some large, almost preordained circles, back and forth, round and round. They filled out forms, waited endlessly, and chased officials down alleys, when they realized the men they were waiting to meet often left through the back door.

After two weeks of this, Klaus sensibly pointed out that, with each passing day—and the growing heat of spring—the benefit of finding her body was diminishing rapidly.

Martin nodded grimly. His face, never very animated, had settled into a wooden mask. He reminded Klaus of the photos of Hitler sometimes, although there was something more just, slightly less primitive, about his father’s set features. More like a vigilante than a criminal. Same basic breed, but one step up. More than one, perhaps.

They spoke little during their navigation of the bureaucratic mazes. They had a purpose. They had to find her. They never had a chance to say goodbye. It had never even crossed their minds. Renata was never sick. She was not engaged in anything hazardous. A country parson’s wife. A rock…

It was on the way back from the last day they had spent at the police station, the mayor’s office, the morgue, the hospital, the prison, that they were walking back to the farmhouse. (Count Orsky had taken his car back, since Klaus was no longer coming to work.) It was early May. Birds darted and squeaked. Buds were opening like slow pink eyes. The earth was enslaved, but twenty feet above the ground, the air was as free as anywhere else in the world.

Martin strode along with his customary rapid gait. Klaus hurried along slightly, half a head shorter than his father. He felt irritation at this old, old problem. Even when he had been six, his father had walked as fast, and Renata, half-buried under her offspring, had constantly been forced to ask her husband to slow down. Yet her voice never became irritable, thought Klaus. He glanced over at his father, and felt a wave of hatred. Dead, dry oak of a man! The image of his mother expiring under the black shade of Martin’s selfish indifference kept recurring to him. The very seas dry up, beating against such endless cliffs…

Martin looked over at his son, and saw the hatred in his eyes.

“When I woke up, that night,” said Martin slowly, pausing almost between each word, “I thought that your new friends were part of God’s plan. I had the answer. Where did that dream come from?”

“I don’t know, Father,” said Klaus tightly.

“The devil,” said Martin. “The devil sent them.”

“Mother’s death doesn’t…”

“She was murdered!” shouted Martin, stopping and turning to Klaus. He lifted his fist. “Murdered!”

Klaus’s mouth twisted in scorn. “Your answer to everything in the world!” He imitated his father in an exaggerated fashion, brandishing his fist. “Who made you God’s perfect sledgehammer, Father? Who?”

“What—happened to your respect? You have new friends, who you think will protect you. But they will not protect you, my son. Not from the final reckoning.”

Klaus laughed harshly. “What final reckoning? Do you think there is some reckoning worse than this?”

“She is with God,” said Martin piously.

“She is in a ditch!” screamed Klaus.

Martin slapped him.

“Her soul is not in heaven! Insects are eating her eyes!” cried Klaus, backing away. He pointed a forefinger. “You did nothing to stop them!”

“You joined them!”

Klaus’s face broke into many shards. “I—they were going to shoot me! What did they do to you? Took notes at a conference? You say nothing at church. Not one word about resistance!”

Martin’s jaw dropped. “You—you don’t believe them then?”

“I believe that they were going to shoot me. And I wanted to live. I don’t know why. Not now. Not for this. If I knew I was going to live to see—this. Oh my god!” Klaus sagged to his knees. “I should have kissed that fucking bullet! And then Mother does… She does just that! Why? Why was she so unhappy that she took an axe!”

Martin tried to rally his voice. “She died for her faith.”

“She died for lack of love,” gasped Klaus.

“She was loved. You all loved her. I loved her.”

“You loved—her through God. Not God through her. She was just a saved soul…”

“What are you talking about? And what in your life kept these animals at bay? Your ‘World Spirit’? What moral commandments did your God of History impose? None! And you blame me for not acting afterwards, as I wrestled with my conscience! When did you act before, when you were free?”

“Shut up!” screamed Klaus, his hands clutching at his face.

“You traveled. You were free. You read half a library. You could have gone anywhere. Done anything. But you were here. With them…” Martin’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You could have left, even after… There are no travel restrictions. And Mother was taken because of you.”

“Lies! Lies! Lies!”

“Why was she taken? Hanging some crucifixes in a country hospital? Because the family of Nazi must be perfectly pure! By joining them, you killed her!”

Klaus sobbed, down in the dust of the rutted road. He whispered something into his hands. Enraged, Martin strode forward and tore them from his son’s face.

“What? What?”

Klaus raised agonized eyes to his father’s face, outlined against the blue sky. The birds were silent. Nature was still.

Klaus’s face was grimy, streaked with tears. “Why did you not teach me to be good?” he whispered.

Martin knelt down and gripped his son to his chest.

“We’ll fight them, son,” he murmured, stroking his son’s hair. “For her. For her. So we can all rest in peace…”

Chapter 80

All summer long, the Foreign Office was in a frenzy over Czechoslovakia.

German troops were slowly moving eastwards. Their training maneuvers drifted twenty miles a week. One week after the German Anschluss in Austria, the Russians had moved to give guarantees to Czechoslovakia. If Czechoslovakia was attacked by Germany, and France attacked Germany, then Russia would attack Germany as well.

For Cuthbert, it was a nightmare. He kept Reginald close to him during those months, constantly ranting about that ‘bastard state,’ Czechoslovakia.

“It’s a mongrel land, stitched together by the framers of Versailles, damn their unthinking hides. Every generation, it seems, must spill blood for the stupidities of the previous generation. All these treaties are designed to keep Europe in exactly the same configuration as 1919. But Europe is constantly changing shape. It cannot stay the same forever. The Germans want the Sudetenland. The Sudetenland wants to rejoin with Germany. It can all be achieved bloodlessly. Why, then, are we going to the brink of war to oppose a peaceful reunion which no one objects to?”

His former boredom had largely abandoned his personality. As rats will leave a sinking ship, so slow-moving fish will ooze out of a rising wreck.

Reginald had to constantly remind Cuthbert that he must not allow himself to get so agitated. It was no use.

“It’s like 1914 all over again,” said Cuthbert one morning, munching on a croissant. “I was here then, you know, just where you are now. And we felt all these treaties closing in on us, like icebergs crushing a ship. What kind of insanity turns the assassination of a Serbian archduke into a world war? Treaties, that’s what. Everything is conditional. I vowed to marry my wife, but she went mental, so I divorced her. The vow was: I marry you as you are now, and will commit to you as long as there are only reasonable changes. When you think I am trying to kill you, and keep running off with the children to hide in caves, why then I am allowed to rethink my treaty.”

Reginald was becoming quite comfortable opposing Cuthbert.

“Look, Cuthbert, the Czechs have a point. If they lose the Sudetenland, they lose all their defenses. If Hitler decides to take the eastern rump, they will have no way of stopping him. And they have some reason to put faith in France’s commitment to fight for her if she is attacked. And our commitment to follow France into battle.”

“Can you imagine,” murmured Cuthbert, “how terrifying that would be? Imagine this. Beneš, the Czech fool, has been seizing land along the border, to build fortifications—land almost exclusively owned by Germans.”

“He’s been paying them for their land.”

“It’s the principle, Reg. People always go to war over principles. They’re even worse than treaties. All treaties should be thrown in a pile and burned. Everyone claiming principles should be thrown on top. And Beneš has also been refusing to educate German children in their own language. And he’s hedging about using German as an official language.”

“But really, who would? They are a minority. We don’t do that with Welsh. Or Gaelic.”

“Yes, but we don’t have a madmen with thirty divisions drifting towards us! This is what terrifies me, Reginald. I haven’t slept properly in a month. Hitler says: do something to make the Sudetenland Germans feel special. Not much. Give them a parade. And Beneš refuses, out of some damn principle. And then—Hitler invades. Not right away, but it will happen. France goes in. Russia goes in. We go in. America gets dragged in. A second World War. The skies black with bombers. Children in flames. The end of everything.” Cuthbert slammed his hands together violently. “Principles and treaties, like lemmings, right off a cliff!”

“It doesn’t have to be quite like that. Hitler might be contained by resolute resistance.”

“Oh yes, brinkmanship with a madman is an excellent plan! The insane don’t tend to give way.” Cuthbert tapped his ring finger. “Trust me. I know. Their voices won’t let them. No. We have to hope that giving Hitler what he wants will lower the tension in Europe. A lion feasts, it sleeps. Would you let your little girls go up in flames to save Beneš and his stupid patchwork of a country?”

“I say!” cried Reginald.

“Well, don’t fool yourself,” said Cuthbert, chewing noisily at the last cud of croissant. “That’s what it will come to!”

In hindsight, what happened in August of 1938 wasn’t too surprising.

One morning, Reginald came in at his usual time. Seven a.m. It was a wonderful time of the day. He went to bed at nine thirty, an hour or so after the children, after doing the paperwork he had brought home. Sometimes, Reginald would go in and say goodnight to his wife, but she by now was such a solid lump of resentment that he found it most unsettling. She still nitpicked, but with much less energy than before. He had a wonderful excuse—he would just travel, or work late, dropping hints that his job was insecure. If he lost his job, they would have to rely fully on her parents for income, which was horrifying to her, because their money came with the price of endless intervention. So if she nitpicked, or nagged, or whined, or scolded, then Reginald would just vanish. It was not punishment per se, but rather a kind of aversion therapy. The basic male equation: bitch equals distance.

Of course, for Wendy, the reverse was true, and this is where they were caught. Distance equals bitch equals distance equals bitch… She had gotten to the point that she no longer wanted to change her husband, but just oppose him blindly, persistently. They no longer had sex—or at least very rarely, when hormones briefly overcame hostility—but he had not, to her knowledge, had an affair. Oh, but if he did…!

Reginald could be a fairly good father, at times. He played with his children. He could be quite physically affectionate—which surprised Wendy, because he came from such a chilly family (Except Tom! Always, except Tom!). But when Jocelyn or Lillian took a plunge, and he was around, he would scoop them up and kiss them better.

This always made Wendy feel belittled, humiliated, and strangely claustrophobic. She would take to the bathroom whenever Reginald held his daughters, because some sort of garish spotlight would be turned on in her dank and twisted soul, showing her tunnels and terrors beyond her ability to stomach. He can love, he can love—just not me, just not me, she would think, over and over, sitting on the toilet, her head between her legs.

Then, there might be a knock, and Reginald would laugh and say, “Do you think that Mummy has fallen in?” and the girls would giggle, and Wendy would feel sick to her very bowels.

So, Reginald liked getting up early, and getting out of the house before everyone else rose—and then, in August 1938, he got into the office and it was empty.

This was not too unusual. Hart did not start early. He was always five minutes late, which aggravated Reginald no end, but he had no intention of nagging a grown man. Cuthbert rarely rolled in before ten or eleven.

Reginald had a mass of paperwork to review. All the details of correspondence coming in from the European embassies. Several trade pacts which had been sitting with him for over a month. Some translated Italian documents. But they could all wait. He made some tea, then picked up his copy of The Times and settled back into his comfortable chair.

Ahh, he thought, scanning the front page. If only Wendy knew…

There were several basic lies which could utterly unravel the remaining civility in his marriage, but Reginald was confident that Wendy would never discover them. I say: I must come in early, dear, otherwise I should never be able to come home! If she could see me now, sipping tea in perfect silence, reading my newspaper. Because Lord knows there’s no sight a restless woman hates more than a reposing husband!

Also, there were his evenings. I have to meet foreign diplomats. This was true, but the professional content of those meetings existed only by implication. They would meet at the club, and sometimes the talk would go over politics, but mostly it was gossip. That is the great secret of the diplomatic profession. Nine-tenths of it is gossip. So you have to love gossip. You have to love ripping down the screen between public piety and private blasphemy. Decoding two-faced statements. Laughing at naïve trust.

Beneš was a popular target. Since 1933, Czechoslovakia was the only democracy left in Eastern and Central Europe. Beneš had been a central figure in its government for twenty years, and had managed to retain the integrity of his land despite its myriad disparate minorities. He had embarked on a strong program of defense building since Germany occupied the Rhineland in 1936. Privately, he had also largely discounted the French as viable allies, due to their failure to act against Hitler. The Anschluss in Austria had changed everything. Czechoslovakia was now surrounded by German power on three sides. Hitler was funding the Sudetenland Nazi party. Civil revolt had been growing over the summer. The pattern was clear. Hitler was slavering over the prospect of dismembering Czechoslovakia.

Hitler was strong, but Czechoslovakia was not a lost cause. It had one and a half million men under arms. Its defensive structures rivaled those of the Maginot Line. Its thirty-four divisions were an equal match for the new, poorly trained German army. It possessed the most advanced arms manufacturing plants in Eastern Europe—the famed Skoda works. Its population—except for many of the Germans—was strongly anti-Nazi.

However, Beneš had his weaknesses. He was a pacifist, and was haunted by the national memory of the Czech disaster of the White Mountain of 1620, which had subjected them to three hundred years of German rule. He claimed to rely on British and French guarantees, although there was real doubt as to their value. He neglected to build a stronger relationship with Russia. And, in the final question, it was unclear whether he was prepared to use his military and face the awful civilian death toll which would result from aerial bombardment.

However, in May of 1938, Beneš had shown some mettle. The gossip about Beneš had changed for a time in diplomatic circles. He was no longer a coward. Now, he was a warmonger.

In May, German troops had been massing on the borders. The leader of the German Sudetenland Nazis had been pressing hard for secession to Germany, as well as fomenting rioting and street-fighting.

Beneš had mobilized his army.

Alarmed, Hitler had backed down immediately. The lesson was not lost on the Western democracies. However, the lesson was not: mobilize, and Hitler withdraws. The lesson, instead, was: for God’s sake don’t let Beneš mobilize again!

Reginald turned the pages, slowly drifting to the ‘International’ section. His tea was cooling. He drank it faster, scowling because he had been unable to find the sugar.

One of the other basic lies of his marriage was that his job was in danger. It was almost impossible to be fired from the civil service. Even now, when the FO was under such a spotlight, being fired was almost inconceivable. If he made a terrible mistake, and plunged the world into war, Reginald might be reassigned. Moved out of the spotlight. But he put up with stagnation and politics in exchange for job security. If Wendy knew that, everything would change. The weight of her demands would increase exponentially. No, he had to keep her off her feet. Unbalanced. God knows she was difficult enough even when diffident. If she ever got the upper hand…

The telephone rang, but Reginald did not jump. He only jumped at home.

“Yes?”

“Lord Halifax here,” said a crisp, tinny voice.

Reginald leapt to his feet. “Yes, sir!”

“Mr. Rathbone was carried off last night. Heart attack. I’m coming in. Be there.”

There was a click.

Reginald’s hand lowered the receiver slowly. With a slight shudder, he realized how exposed and comical he must look; eyes wide, mouth gaping.

He sat down shakily. A most unexpected door had suddenly opened. And Lord Halifax was coming. Promotion! More travel. More time away from home! My God—he wasn’t even thirty yet! Almost, but… He could be an MP by the time he was thirty-five. Maybe thirty-four. A boy genius. A wunderkind. Someone to go down in the annals. Being toasted by the hands of hundreds of glittering, bespectacled faces. Giving advice. When he paused for thought, people stay silent. Any brash fool who tried to talk over him would be silenced by a hissing sea of ‘shushes.’ Glory was coming! Glory, and a triumph over—over Wendy. Wendy. And Tom. Ah, Tom!

Reginald closed his eyes sensuously.

Lost in dreams, he panicked when the door to his office opened and Lord Halifax came in. He leaned forward too quickly. His chair, on wheels, skidded backwards, and he had to clutch at his desk like a toboggan.

“Lord Halifax!” Reginald cried, wrestling to a standing position. He reached out his hand, then remembered that his desk was too deep to shake hands over.

“Mr. Spencer,” said Lord Halifax, staring at the hand, then shaking his head slightly. Reginald sat down again, scanning the Lord for contempt. He saw a little, he thought, and his heart sank.

“Cuthbert spoke well of you,” said Lord Halifax, taking off his hat and smoothing the remaining side fringes of his white hair. “So I am considering you for a tricky job. We are sending Runciman over to Czechoslovakia, to meet with Beneš and this Henlein fellow, to see what we can work out. Runciman doesn’t speak German. Cuthbert was to go with him. I’m thinking of you. Not just as a translator.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Reginald with feeling. Foreign hotels! Returning with gifts for his daughters! Easy love!

“I know that you’re not a man to whom ‘appeasement’ is a dirty word,” said Lord Halifax, “but I need for you to tell me how you would handle these negotiations.”

“Well, I would…” Reginald paused, cursing himself madly for a false start—for starting without thinking first. “I think that the key thing is to avoid violence. Once the swords are drawn, it’s all over. Power passes from us to the Chiefs of Staff. Power for good… So, if Beneš has to lose the Sudetenland to Germany, so be it. It’s going to happen sooner or later.”

“And France’s treaty? Daladier won’t be able to be silent on that.”

Reginald smiled. This part he was sure of. “Of course. They’ll bray loud and long about their obligations to Czechoslovakia. But I don’t think they will object to us finding reasons for them to extract themselves from such a foolish commitment.”

“And how will you do that?”

“Simple. The onus is on Beneš to avoid war. He has the power to give Hitler what he wants. If he doesn’t, whatever happens is the result of his choice.”

Lord Halifax pursed his lips, then nodded decisively. “Substantially correct. But you’ll have to fluff it up. Delegate everything you’ve got. You leave in two days.”

Chapter 81

Tom loved Czechoslovakia. His love for it came from his soul, from some deep, Catherine-induced part of him.

Most of the Europeans he had met were—with some notable exceptions—blind, arrogant, vain. They did not believe that they could lose their freedoms. They did not think that the Nazis were that bad. They thought that totalitarianism was a passing phase. They thought that everything was relative. They thought that the Western democracies would always save them if things got too bad. They did not lift a finger to save others. They screamed in self-pity as they were dragged to their deaths.

But the Czechs were nothing like that. They had been ruled by the Germans for three hundred years. They had no illusions about their Aryan neighbors. For the past twenty years, they had lived next to the greatest shadow in Europe. They had listened as all of Eastern Europe had cried out its hatred of Czechoslovakia, demanding its destruction. They knew that many of the Sudetenland Germans wanted Hitler to come. They knew that one in three Czech citizens were non-Czechs, and that hysterical nationalism appeared to be an uncontainable virus. They knew that France and England were largely committed to appeasement. They knew that their civilian casualties would be ghastly.

They knew all this, but they held their heads high and vowed never to surrender to Germany.

Tom noticed a tragic disconnection between the people and their leaders—particularly around the issue of the historical German occupation. For President Beneš, the possibility of a return to German rule was better than resistance. For the people, resistance was better than German rule. Given that it was the people who would bear the brunt of the bombing, Tom found the attitude of Beneš hard to understand.

The only fear that the Czech citizens had was of being sold out by the Western democracies, or their own leaders. They demanded to be given the chance to fight. Picketers protested in the streets, holding up a picture of a pile of revolvers, with the caption underneath: ‘We paid for them; let us have them!’

There was great excitement, through all sections of society. Czechoslovakia had a strong religious base, and the idea of heaven was not far from the minds of the citizens. To die resisting evil was no great loss. To live in acquiescence to it was worse. As one man put it: “What would you rather have—one moment of pain, followed by an eternity of bliss? Or a long, ghastly life, followed by an eternity of torment?”

After spending a few weeks in Prague, Tom traveled out to the Sudetenland. He found the Germans irritating, because they were only committed to reunification because the most deranged elements within them were committed to it, and Germans have never had much luck saying no to insistent insanity. And God forbid that they ever go against the group! They had no real minds of their own, and were gratingly evasive when questioned closely. Doubtless there was some fear of the future—who would want to be on record for being anti-Nazi when Hitler rolled into town… But they spouted pro-unification opinions even when drunk, or when Tom refrained from identifying himself as a reporter. Not that any of his pieces were being published, but still…

They were also experts at manufacturing enemies. They really thought that they were being oppressed by the Czechs, and would be liberated by the Germans. Tom avoided the Nazis, but questioned the locals closely.

One old man complained about schooling.

“The damn Czechs have stopped funding German-only schools. They’ve also banned private education, so now we have to send our children to be instructed in their bastard tongue!”

On closer examination, he confessed to being a bachelor, and childless.

A fat woman said: “They aren’t even publishing their edicts in German any more! They translate nothing! They want us to stop being German!”

Tom asked her which edicts she had been unable to read. Her face grew hard and hostile, and she turned and strode off.

My God, thought Tom, watching her fat ankles stomp away, but German women are ugly!

The Sudetenland Nazi party was, naturally, stoking all the fires of petty resentment. They demonized the Czech government, poured fanatical scorn on the idea of democracy, and spoke of the joys of being reunited with the Fatherland.

Tom questioned the Germans about the idea of ‘freedom,’ but didn’t get very far. It just didn’t register with them. They spoke with choking rage against Czech ‘oppressions,’ but when Tom argued that the Reich would strip them of all civil liberties, they shut their mouths and just glared at him. Tom wanted to thump them. He didn’t mind others disagreeing with him, but when people argue, and then just clam up when faced with a contradiction, it enraged him. Don’t pretend to argue! he wanted to shout, but knew it would do no good.

The annoying thing about the Sudetenland Germans was that Tom—and many Czechs he talked with—would be more than happy to get rid of them. They were difficult, unstable, resentful, and quite a few were open Nazis. They presented significant difficulties to the management of Czechoslovakia. Accede to them, or leave them be, and their demands increased either way. Oppress them, and they cried out for Hitler.

One professor he spoke to had a simple solution, which Tom described in a long letter to Churchill.

“This is what we do,” said the man, peering through a pair of rather German-looking pince-nez. “We ban the Nazi party. Hitler can’t fume about that—he’s banned all non-Nazi parties. We throw the Nazi leaders in jail. And then we mobilize. Hitler won’t be able to act right away, because he’s afraid of our defenses and army. And later, the issue will be dead. When you perceive an injustice, you have to act right away, or not at all.”

“But,” said Tom, “the British and French would raise a fuss.”

The professor smiled. “Well, you don’t make it a specifically anti-Nazi crackdown. Just act resolutely against any groups creating civil disorder. Round them all up! No moral government can accept a revolution from within. The British and French certainly don’t, either domestically or within the Empire. Look at Amritsar. It’s an internal matter, which has nothing to do with Hitler—and should be presented as such. If Hitler invades because of a Czech crackdown on internal dissidents, then France will be unable to wriggle out of her commitments. And so Russia and England will come in, and it will be all over in under six months.” The man sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “The only alternative is to let the Berlin-controlled Sudetenland Nazis keep escalating their demands, which will result in Czechoslovakia looking like the aggressor. Then, we will be lost. And it looks as if it will go this way!” said the professor, his eyes suddenly flashing. “And I cannot tell you how far it offends me to have such weak men negotiating on my behalf. For if they come, I shall not be suffered to live. Yet they deal with me as if I were a species of livestock!”

That night, Tom thought about the man’s statement for a long time. The state was murdering hundreds of thousands in Germany and Austria. The Jews in Vienna were being rounded up, robbed, beaten, raped, and slaughtered. The anti-Semitism which had taken years to inculcate in Germany had sprung up in Austria without prompting. Of course, Viennese Jews were very prominent, and very rich, and Nazism was as much about plunder as it was about lebensraum, but still… No one in England or France was overly concerned with the civilian population in the lands overrun by Nazism. But what the professor had said really struck home.

Tom remembered an old idea from the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century: A citizen faces more danger from his own government than from a foreign oppressor, because he can always take up arms against an invader, but his own government has a monopoly on force, and keeps him legally disarmed…

The application of this idea to the rise of Nazism was fascinating. The leaders of Austria and Czechoslovakia claim that they are moved to appeasement over the horror of the destruction of their domestic populations—but those populations are being destroyed anyway, through murder, imprisonment, and conscription. But at least in war, they can hide and arm and fight back…

It reminded Tom of something Churchill had once said in relation to the Spanish Civil War: “Naturally, I was not in favor of the Communists. How could I be, when if I had been a Spaniard they would have murdered me and my family and friends?”

This ability to see the tangible results of political decisions—or, more accurately, to see the inevitable result of certain premises—was one of Churchill’s most powerful gifts.

Tom thought of this in terms of Klaus, one night, when he drove out to the defenses ringing the Sudetenland. It was a warm night. Wispy clouds hung between high stars. From a hilltop, he could see over the walled bunkers, tank traps, and machine-gun nests, into Germany. To where Klaus struggled. Or didn’t struggle. And Tom thought of all Klaus’s undergraduate Kantian nonsense, all the vague, claustrophobic ideas which so grated against Tom’s empirical British brain. Where all that nonsense inevitably led.

And of course, he thought suddenly, we may yet meet in battle. Tom frowned and sat down on a patch of bare rock. It took him a few moments to find a place and angle to sit without anything digging into his rear. They were both fliers. It was not inconceivable. But most unlikely, he thought. We are both instructors, and they would never risk us… And even if they did; with a thousand fliers on each side, what would be the odds?

Tom glanced down, and noticed that his hands were clenched. Another thought struck him:

And though we were friends once, and he first taught me the joy of flying, I should still shoot him down without hesitation…

He smiled then, in the dark. Ah, the old Anglo-Saxon instincts. There’s a reason we own a quarter of the globe…

Tom returned to Prague the next day. He arrived in the evening, and found the whole city in an uproar.

It was September 12, 1938. Tom jumped out of his car at the first newsstand he saw, and bought a paper. That day, Hitler had made a speech about Czechoslovakia, which was printed on the first page. Tom scanned it rapidly:

“A great part of our people…delivered up to shameless ill-treatment without any apparent means of self-defense… The misery of the Sudeten Germans is indescribable. It is sought to annihilate them. As human beings they are oppressed and scandalously treated in an intolerable fashion. When three and a half million members of a people which numbers eighty million may not sing a song they like because it does not please the Czechs, or when they are terrorized and mistreated because they use a form of greeting which the Czechs dislike…when they are hunted and harried like wildfowl for every expression of their national sentiment…I can only say…that if these tortured creatures can of themselves find no justice they will get it from us… It was a short-sighted arrangement which the statesmen of Versailles devised for themselves when they called into being that monstrous formation Czechoslovakia.”

The rest of it was the usual paranoid Nazi rubbish. Tom looked up. Candles lined the windowsills of the little flats over the shops, all the way down the street. This was new.

He stopped a man running past. “What are those candles for?”

The man stopped, smiling humorlessly.

“They are all over the city,” he said. “Everyone is lighting candles. And it is said that when these candles have burned down, the state of Czechoslovakia will be no more.”

PART III

Chapter 82

Runciman was almost too much for Reginald to bear.

Cuthbert had had his faults, but had been able to rouse himself to some sort of passion about British interests and international affairs. Runciman was almost to urbane to draw breath. He smoked endlessly, through a long, black cigarette holder. He had lazy eyes, a long nose, and a tiny mustache. He was imperturbable. He yawned when their airplane had hit a chilly downdraft over some mountains. Reginald was used to yawns from Cuthbert, but this was quite another matter. Cuthbert’s indifference had been an affectation. Runciman’s was innate.

On the airplane, Runciman had made things very clear to Reginald.

“You see, my boy, it’s quite simple. All our negotiation will be a show. We’ve already talked to the German Foreign Office and asked them to give us a list of their demands. We’ve assured them that we are going to press Beneš into two dimensions to accept them. Classic diplomacy. We go, we lie, we return. We hint to Hitler what we might do—fight. We hint to Beneš what we might not do.” Another yawn. “Fi-ight.”

As Runciman dozed, Reginald’s hands kept wandering over the armrests of his humming seat. The image of his tiny little brother, in a garden shed, turning blue, kept coming back to him. It was accompanied by a question, which he tried to bat away with all the mental hands he could summon, which was enough for a hall-full of riotous applause.

But the question made it through anyway:

What am I doing here?

He glanced over at Runciman’s dozing profile. He saw that the older man had fallen asleep holding a cigarette, still burning in its holder, between two fingers. Reginald reached out and took it, to put it out.

“I say, old fellow,” murmured Runciman, not opening his eyes. “You want one, just ask.”

“Sorry,” said Reginald. “I thought you were done.”

Runciman grunted, turning to the window. Reginald stabbed out the cigarette. He remembered a time, as an undergraduate, when he had tried to smoke for a week, and had been driving when his cigarette fell from his lips into his groin, scalding his testicles, and he had felt trapped panic at his need to keep his eyes on the road, as well as to stop the burning…

Reginald sighed, closing his eyes. If I ever figure out the point of these random little visions…

His daughters had been heartbroken to see him go. They had clutched at him, crying at Heathrow airport, as he stood, distractedly watching a fire truck wailing past. Wendy stood there, smiling suspiciously. Reginald had imagined her getting the children up before him, in the dark, and spending a good hour coaching them how to make him feel as guilty as possible for doing his job. For keeping the bombs suspended, far above them, by force of will alone…

But he had kissed her goodbye anyway, and she had been the one to almost make him cry.

Just as he was leaving, Wendy had thrown herself into his arms, clutched him with almost-superhuman strength, and whispered into his ear:

“So lonely… So alone…”

The statement had been driven into his ear with such guile-less force that it had moved him deeply. He would be a better husband. He would. Stay home more. Listen to her drivel. It could be done. He was not above returning a volleyed olive-branch.

Reginald was stunned at the hospitality and generosity of the Czechs. Beneš, in particular, was very gracious. Reginald found this surprising—until he remembered that Beneš assumed that Runciman was the representative of an ally in his struggle to save his country. It was very sad, really, and Reginald often didn’t have more than one glass of wine at lunch. It seemed dishonest, somehow.

Runciman seemed to feel the same way. He came into Reginald’s hotel room one night, a little drunk.

“It’s not as if,” he slurred, waving his cigarette around, “we would keep Czechoslovakia the same afterwards. If old Adolf seizes it, and we all go to a merry old war, and we win, after God knows how long, what would be left of Czechoslovakia? A smoking crater, that’s what, let me tell you! It would never be restored to its current dimensions. How could it? It’s this fucking country that is causing all the problems in the first place!” His voice lowered. “You know what they should have done, those punch-drunk bastards who framed Versailles in the first place? They should have had a fucking plebiscite. They had them everywhere else! Why not here? I’ll tell you why, Reggie my boy… Because the Krauts here want to be part of the generalized Kraut-land! And why not? Germany for the Germans, I say! And now Hitler wouldn’t need to come calling, because he’d already have his precious Sudetenland.”

“All right,” said Reginald, helping the good Lord up. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me. Same side, remember?”

Reginald did not like the French ambassador very much. Charles Corbin was a terribly thin, terribly nervous man who had clearly been put out to pasture here, before events overtook the indifference of his appointment. Reginald briefly wondered why the French had not replaced him, but then recollected himself. No culture which puts snails on a dinner plate can be considered rational.

Charles was in a perpetual panic. At a private lunch, he probed British resolve with great delicacy.

“The grave danger,” he said, “is that we all get pulled into a war which we do not want and cannot win.”

Lord Runciman yawned. “Well, that’s a fairly obvious idea, isn’t it?”

“But you are in the boat with us, Lord Runciman!” cried Charles excitedly. “If we must go to the aid of Czechoslovakia, you are bound to follow.”

Lord Runciman was picking at his fingernails. “That is—as are many things—both true and false. If Germany wishes to reabsorb the Sudetenland, and the Sudeten Germans want to be reabsorbed, and the whole business can be achieved bloodlessly, then what is the problem? If France chooses to go to war over this, then I think that the British Cabinet might review our obligations to France.”

Reginald cringed inwardly at Lord Runciman’s words, but Charles seemed both unruffled and unsurprised. “But that is the great question, no?” he said. “Where does the principle of national self-determination end? A country? A province? County? City?”

Lord Runciman smiled. “My street? My house? My fingernail? Who cares? A surgeon doesn’t have to know why an arm exists, or what its philosophical definition is. You cut, sew, and go.” He paused. His smile broadened. “Actually, quite apt. We are amputating the toe of the Sudetenland to save the body of Europe.”

The Frenchman scowled. “But we do not know what it will or will not save. The rest of Czechoslovakia cannot be defended without the Sudetenland…”

“Of course, but we must be empirical. Even your juridical Gallic mind must recognize that. Hitherto, all of Hitler’s expansions have been for the sake of reclaiming German-speaking populations. If a man steals my watch, I may enter his house—even force my entry—to retrieve it. The framers of Versailles just cut Germany too close to the bone; that is all. Now we have to find a way of restoring to Herr Hitler what is his by historical right without losing the appearance of honor.”

Charles bit at his thumbnail. “But how? How to keep the appearance of honor? If we break our faith with Czechoslovakia, no French treaty will be worth its ink for a hundred years. Maybe more.”

“Well, let’s let next century take care of itself, hm?” murmured Lord Runciman indulgently. “We really must try to focus ourselves on the next week or so.”

“What does the British government propose to do?” asked Charles.

“We are going to press Beneš to accept the German proposals.”

“And if he does not?”

“Well, what do you think?”

“If he does not, then France will have to defend Czechoslovakia.”

“Why?”

“Because we have the ’24 treaty, of course.”

“And the treaty states that…”

“If Czechoslovakia is attacked…”

“But she won’t be…”

Charles scowled mightily for a moment, then relaxed visibly. “You know this? How?”

“I know this inductively. Not deductively.”

The frown returned slightly. “Explain, please.”

“If a plebiscite is held in the Sudetenland, and they vote to return to Germany…”

Charles sat up excitedly. “Then… Then…”

“Then, my friend, if Beneš mobilizes against the German Army, he is resisting a legitimate secession.”

“Ah!” cried Charles, clapping his hands together. “Ah! We must only help if he is aggressed against!”

“Otherwise, he’s a man attacking the police as they come to reclaim a stolen watch. He is the aggressor. He is!” Lord Runciman’s eyes flashed vehemently for a moment. Reginald felt a little queasy. It seemed reasonable, but it had to be restated so many times, and with such insistence, that it began to feel unstable. It was a lie hoping to become true by repetition and variation. Or a family story told so many times that it has become indistinguishable from memory…

Reginald shuddered, and propelled himself into the conversation.

“It will be viewed as a betrayal,” he said.

“Yes,” said Lord Runciman evenly. “But war will be avoided, and relief has a historical habit of sweeping scruples aside.”

“America will not be pleased…” murmured Charles, his nail coming back up to his mouth.

“Oh, you and your Americans,” said Lord Runciman. “You’re all just jealous that their revolution worked out so much better than yours.”

“Well, I have been trained in pessimism,” said Charles. “If we fail here, and lose Czechoslovakia, then there will be a general war, and we shall have to call on the Americans, just as last time.”

Reginald nodded. “And Chamberlain has refused Roosevelt’s offer of mediation…”

Charles turned on him sharply. “What? What?”

Lord Runciman shot him a savage look. “Nothing. Internal matter.”

Reginald sat back, his lashes lowered, his cheeks red. He swore at himself many, many times, using words and phrases he would never have dared utter aloud.

“If the Americans think that we are some sort of petri dish,” Charles was saying, “all feasting on each other for the sake of cowardice and expediency, they will not come to save us. They will be like policemen, watching a contained gang war. Hoping we shall wipe each other out and leave them in peace.”

Lord Runciman scowled. “Oh, you moralists! Everyone says: ‘Ooh, gosh, are we doing the right thing here?’ But none of you have the courage to act. You hedge your decision to do nothing—but still do nothing.”

“Churchill does not do that,” said Charles. Reginald, still burning from Lord Runciman’s rebuke, was still surprised that nothing seemed to offend the nervous man.

“Well,” smiled Lord Runciman, “there is a reason that Mr. Churchill does not have a place in the Cabinet. The likelihood of war rises with him—and vice versa. Hitler knows all about Churchill. Chamberlain does not want to offend Hitler, so keeps Churchill in the wilderness.”

“They almost met, you know,” said Reginald suddenly.

“Really?” asked Charles.

“Churchill was in Berlin. He was going to meet Hitler, but then said to Hitler’s aide: ‘Why is your boss so against the Jews? I could understand being against a Jew if he was undermining the country or breaking the law—but to be against a man just because he is a Jew? It makes no sense.’” Reginald laughed. “Needless to say, the meeting was cancelled immediately. I like to think of them sitting across a table. I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that meeting.”

Lord Runciman shrugged. “They’d just both go for their pistols. Churchill is half-American; he loves playing the Wa-ld West Sheriff. ‘Draw, pilgrim!’ Have to admit it, though—when it comes to saber-rattling, no one does it better.” He smiled, touching his palm to his chest. “It’s always such great theatre. Gets me every time. Tell me, Charles,” he said abruptly, turning to the French ambassador. “Is France ready to fight a war?”

Charles touched his fingertips together. “We have over one hundred seasoned divisions. Germany has forty-eight, untested and raw. Czechoslovakia has twenty divisions. England has two.”

“Yes,” said Reginald, “but we have a good deal of air power.”

Charles looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. “All right. The Siegfried line in the Rhineland remains unfinished. We estimate that the Czechs can hold out behind their fortifications for between three and six months.”

“What about the Russians?” asked Reginald.

Lord Runciman snorted. “That fool Stalin has just killed all his military commanders, right down to the battalion level. The Poles will never let what’s left of his army through their lands. Can’t say as I blame them. We’d never let Hitler come through England to attack Ireland. We’d lose both Ireland and England. Stalin might be able to send a few airplanes to Prague. Perhaps. But they won’t be of much material advantage.”

Charles had finished jotting down some notes. “We have one hundred and twenty-two divisions in total. They’re split one hundred and two in the East, and twenty in the West. Germany has forty-eight, but they’ll have to commit at least thirty-five, forty divisions to attacking Czechoslovakia. That leaves eight to twelve in the West, behind incomplete fortifications…”

Charles looked down for a long moment, then shuddered.

“If there was going to be a war for certain,” he said, “it would be better now than later. At their current rate of conscription, Germany will have one hundred and five divisions by this time next year. Assuming they take Czechoslovakia. But it’s worse than that.”

“What?” asked Lord Runciman.

“Well…” Charles looked slightly embarrassed. “Élan. Martial courage. The noble city the warrior fights for. If we surrender to dictators, betray our allies, and allow our cowardice to put ourselves in a vastly worse position, then what right will we have to ask our soldiers to lay down their lives for us? It’s like suing for peace. Once word gets out that the government is exploring peace terms, the soldiers all stop fighting. They wait and see. Rationally so.”

Lord Runciman nodded slowly. “But,” he said with effort, “that’s all—nonsense.”

Charles looked less panicked. Clearly, he had been arguing with himself—and with some success. “Why?” he asked.

“Because of air power. The Luftwaffe is very strong.”

“Really?” ejaculated Reginald, unable to stop himself. He had been hearing for years that the German Air Force was very weak. Then, he realized: Of course. The government has been saying that in order to avoid having to spend a fortune on parity in the air. But they’ll never get away with it! You can’t say that the Luftwaffe is weak one day, to suit appeasement—and then say it is invincible the next day, to suit appeasement. Churchill will tear them apart!

Lord Runciman ignored Reginald’s outburst. “All these land forces are insignificant compared to air forces. All that the Luftwaffe has to do is bomb the hell out of Paris for three days, kill a few hundred thousand Parisians, and France will sue for peace on any terms. No use defending a crater. And the bomber will always get through. No, no—we must continue our course. We must hope that Hitler will stop after the Sudetenland.” The old man looked at them soberly. “We do not have enough information to ensure the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people.”

Reginald could not sleep. He liked to go to bed early. He was thinking of hiring a prostitute. He had not had sex in a long, long time. He was worried, though, of bringing something home to Wendy. That would be an error big enough to grind him down forever and ever, amen.

The lunchtime conversation kept coming back to him. There was a core of depression, of depleted energy, of hopelessness, at the center of appeasement, that he had never noticed before. Before, he had always thought that those who opposed appeasement were the kind of men who had played too much with toy soldiers as children. Or boys who had been good at war games, like Tom, he thought, vividly recalling his younger brother’s face that day that he successfully flew the trench. All that goddamned joy…

And frankly, the risks were appalling. Reginald turned over in his bed, trailing the pale blankets like a cocoon, kicking his legs violently, to get free. As we get closer, he thought, it gets more and more frightening. Losing the Rhineland is one thing. Austria was another. Czechoslovakia would be quite another. Losing Czechoslovakia would be a disaster of the first magnitude. We should not be suffered to live…

The image of his daughters’ beautiful faces came to his mind, and he sniffed in the dark. Once or twice, he had read stories to them, and they had fallen asleep in the crooks of his arms, and he had had a vivid sense of using his body as a shield over them. That he would do that. That he would die for them. That he would exchange his life for theirs.

And if Hitler should send a stray bomber to London, he thought, and the image came to him quite clearly. He and Wendy being led to a white table in a basement. Charred bits of his daughters, spread over the tabletop, perhaps still smoking. A voice asking: “Are there any distinguishing features?” And he, thinking, Jocelyn had a birthmark on her ankle, and saying: “Please, can you turn over the—foot?”

And Wendy turning to him, as they left the hospital, and beating and biting at him, screaming curses, because he was in the Foreign Office, and he was supposed to protect them all, and then he was thrown back by her arms, which had suddenly become huge and green, like the legs of a praying mantis, and falling back against the building, and looking up to a droning sky full of bombers, and he screamed aloud, cursing God and praying for a direct hit. And Tom flew by, very low, giving Reginald the thumbs-up, and opened fire on an enemy bomber, which fell from the sky, straight at Reginald’s stretched and screaming face…

Reginald awoke. It had been a dizzying dip into sleep, and a most unwelcome one.

Those girls are my only justification, he thought, in a rare moment of humility. Even with all the mess that Wendy and I have made of our lives, our marriage, those girls wash us both cleaner than clean… And what I am doing here will either be invisible to them, or end them.

He imagined Wendy’s face, and felt a sudden stab of terror. We maul each other and circle around each other, as if we have an eternity left to correct all our mistakes. But we will die, and as we die, we will look back and curse ourselves for hurting what we had promised to love and protect…

He remembered their first meeting. A lonely, unloved girl, far from home, lost in Spain. And me, a brash runner, but lost, just the same. And we both need love so much. So much that we cannot stand it. So much that we strike out at it. And we are chained together, for some crime that we can neither of us remember. And we will remain chained together, until we learn to love our chains. Love each other. And only when we love each other, when we can speak the truth and forgive from the heart, only then will we be free. Because our only chains are ourselves…

Reginald was working himself into a fine sentimental frenzy. He turned over again, his eyes brimming, and stared at the telephone, black and gleaming in the dark.

He imagined calling her. Calling Wendy. He imagined how the conversation might go:

-Wendy?

-Reginald? What’s wrong?

-Nothing! Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to…

-But you never call when you’re working!

-I wanted to…

-I used to ask you to, so I wouldn’t have to worry. Remember? But I got used to worrying.

-Look, I just wanted to tell you that I’m—I’m sorry… Hullo?

-Yes, I’m here.

-Well?

-Well, what?

-I thought. Well, I thought you might have something to say to that.

-Well, what are you sorry for?

-Being—not nice. Selfish. Working late, even when… Even when I didn’t have to.

-Ahah! I knew it!

-But—I’m sorry.

-Oh, I see. And that makes up for over half a decade of me sitting alone, or putting the girls to bed without your help. That’s very fucking generous!

-But I am! I am sorry!

-Sure, and now you want me to forgive you. So you can feel better. But—and I hate to shock you with this, Reg—it’s not all about you. It can’t be. Not all the time. Not every—single…

-Don’t raise your voice, Wendy. I’m sorry.

-Stop saying that like you—want me to do something. You lie to me for seven years, then you don’t want me to be angry! What’s the matter with you? Why are you such a fucking…

-Wendy! We—we have to stop hurting each other!

-Oh, so you’ve had some revelation, and now you want me to start turning the other cheek? What happened, Reggie? No prostitutes in Prague?

-What? No…

-So what? What? What’s bringing all this on? You want me to even think about letting my guard down with you, I’d better understand what the hell is going on!

-I am—I am worried about a war. Very worried. Terrified.

-I see… And what do you expect me to do?

-Just—just listen!

-All right, Reginald. I’m listening.

-No—no, you’re not.

-My gosh, but you’re getting good at interpreting my breathing! Is this my ‘not listening’ breathing? Is it, Lord Reg?

Reginald’s tears were rapidly drying up. He tried another mental call, trying to recapture his sense of love.

-Wendy? It’s Reginald. Don’t speak, just for a moment, please. I’m here in Prague. I don’t know what time it is there. It’s night here. Very dark. Hang on, there’s an alarm clock here somewhere…

He scowled. Pitifully tangential. Once more:

-Wendy? Reg. I was just lying here, thinking about you, and how much we are losing by not getting along. No, I’m not blaming you. It’s both of us. It’s not? It’s not both of us? Well, who the hell is it then?

All right. No blurting. How about:

-Wendy? Reg. How are you? No, I just wanted to know how you are. What you’ve been up to. No, I don’t have to go to Prague to listen to you. Yes, I could have done it any time over the past seven years. No, there’s nothing odd-tasting in the water here. I just wanted to…

My God! The defenses on the Siegfried line might remain uncompleted, but his wife was pure Maginot.

Reginald frowned. He wiped his cheeks almost angrily. He went over a number of opening gambits, but could imagine nothing which would not evoke bitter scorn and endless rage from Wendy. He could think of none. Have we become nothing else? Is there nothing left of us but chains?

Reginald turned and stared at the telephone. In an instant, he became a near convert to the theory that nothing is coincidental, because it rang.

His eyes widened. Please please please please please please let it be her! It would mean so much! He scrambled for the light. She’ll ask me what time it is, and will make me feel like a complete idiot if I don’t know… He turned the light on, and turned the alarm clock to face him. Good God! It’s only eleven o’clock!

Reginald took a deep breath. He picked up the receiver.

“Hullo?” said a female voice. “I don’t mean to disturb you, Mr. Spencer, but the party said you would not mind being disturbed.”

“No. No, not at all. Please. Please, put her through.” He giggled. “By all means.”

There was a click.

“Hullo?” cried Reginald, thick joy in his throat.

“Hullo, Reg,” said Tom’s voice.

They met in the high-ceilinged, white-walled hotel bar.

“How did you know I was here?” asked Reginald, toying with a little wooden bowl of peanuts.

“I’ve been here over a month,” said Tom, with a mock-sinister smile. “I know everything. I was expecting someone from London. Halifax, perhaps. Who’s this Runciman fellow?”

“Walter Runciman,” replied Reginald. “First Viscount Runciman of Doxford. Parliamentary secretary. Local government boards. President of the Board of Education. Jack of all trades. That sort of fellow.”

“Like—Father!” laughed Tom. It was an odd laugh, but Reginald had no idea why.

“Yes, perhaps. But without Father’s enviable energy.”

“How is Mother?”

Reginald shot him a hostile look, but smiled over it. It was like putting rouge on a corpse. “Going down. I don’t know what you lot were on about in there, but she’s taken something quite to heart.”

Tom started to say something, but Reginald raised his hands quickly.

“No, no. Don’t say a word. I’m not getting caught in the middle.”

Tom smiled. “I thought you were the diplomat.”

“That’s right. I like to negotiate with a navy behind me. Family stuff is pure muck. Pure nonsense.” Reginald popped a peanut in his mouth. “And what are you here for, mon frère? General flyboy buzz-around?”

“I’m here to write articles.”

Reginald’s head swiveled quickly on his neck, seeming to wobble. “What? For who?”

“For The Times.”

Reginald scowled, clearly suspicious. “Oh really? How did you land that rather plum assignment?”

“A friend of Gunther’s.”

“Oh? And how is our favorite Kraut?”

“Well. Busy.”

“I imagine.”

There was a pause. Tom sat, wondering why he had called Reginald up. Reginald ate peanuts, wondering why Tom had called him up.

“How are the negotiations going?” asked Tom finally.

Reginald smiled. “Oh, you can’t expect me to be talking about that. Not to a world-famous reporter.”

“I’ve never gotten anything published.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Over a year.”

“And nothing published?” Reginald laughed. “Oh well, we all have to have our hobbies. I am sorry.”

“They are good people here, Reginald,” said Tom, with that sudden, emotional emphasis that so irritated Reginald.

“Yes, I can see that. Very nice.”

“The democracies are their only hope.”

“Do you mean Prague, or the Sudetenland? There are two halves to Czechoslovakia, you know.”

“These plebiscites are bullshit!” said Tom. “We both know that.”

Reginald smiled. “I know nothing of the kind.”

“How can one set of people force others to join them in a dictatorship?”

“Hitler was voted in, if you recall.”

“Yes,” said Tom moodily. “Yes, that was wrong, too.”

“I’m sure Hitler appreciates your opinion.”

“Are we going to stand by Czechoslovakia?”

“We have no treaty with Czechoslovakia.”

“With France then.”

“That is up to France. I only work for the British Foreign Office.”

“But you can influence them.”

Reginald laughed self-deprecatingly. “No, not really. Everyone just pursues their own self-interest.”

“You should… But so many people get their self-interest all wrong.”

“Really?”

Tom’s hand was tightening on his metallic beer stein. “Everyone thinks that there are just two possibilities: appeasement or total war. So it’s just opinion. And everyone who wants total war is insane. It’s too easy. Life is never that easy. If it was that easy, why are Churchill and thirty other politicians so against appeasement? Because appeasement and total war might be the same. As opposed to—standing up to the dictatorships and avoiding total war.”

Reginald laughed openly. “Oh, Tom! It’s a wonder to me that you got as far as you did at Oxford! First, you say: oh, it can’t be so stacked on the side of appeasement. And then you say that appeasement is both cowardly surrender and total war! Isn’t that stacking the odds just a little on the anti-appeasement side. You’ve got to jump off this—this polarizing fence you sit on. Everything is an extremity to you. Black and white, black and white.” Reginald sighed wearily. “But I didn’t come down to lecture you. I gave up on that long ago.”

Tom’s eyes had a faraway look. “Do you—do you remember that riot in London? Couple of years ago. That was—that was black and white.”

“Hm,” said Reginald, almost appreciatively. “You know, I never thought of it like that. You were a good person to have around. Not like Klaus! Gormless statue. Awash in love for the collective—and about to be mown down by it.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“To Klaus? Good heavens no. Not since you reported in from Germany.”

“He’s become a Nazi.”

“Has he?” murmured Reginald. “That’s a shame. Very bad.” He popped another peanut into his mouth. It’s nice to be away from the wife, chewing with my mouth open… “Well,” he said, “with any luck, we shan’t end up facing each other at bayonet-point.”

Tom looked at him.

Oh God, thought Reginald, amused. He’s preparing a speech!

Sure enough:

“Reginald—you have to stand up with Czechoslovakia. They need our protection. They can’t survive without us. They’re depending on us…”

Reginald held up his hand. “Tom, I know you love the view from your soapbox, but you have to know one thing. I know it’s not a moral thing, but we must be practical as well.” He leaned his head forward. “The problem, dear Tom, is that no one except you, Beneš, and the hundred or so Czechs who actually vote want Czechoslovakia to continue. No one else really gives a damn…”

Reginald had wanted to continue, for the sake of drinking deep the heady, endless pleasure of crushing Tom’s naïve idealism. But they were interrupted by the sound of a mournful song, coming from the darkening street.

The few people in the bar were drifting towards the large bay windows facing the street. Even the bartender gave up his lonely, polishing post, went over, and slowly drew the curtains wide.

The bar was on the second floor. Tom and Reginald went up to the glass. They could see the lights of many candles eddying through the imperfections in the glass. Tom opened a door, and they both stepped out onto a wide balcony. Tom’s shoulders were hunched and tense. He could not help but think of a similar balcony, a similar scene, in Paris, when the young woman was shot at his side…

But this was something quite different. These people were walking slowly, arm in arm, and singing. Reginald tried to summon a scornful smile, but the glow of the people’s faces, in the soft autumn light of many candles, seemed to stop his heart. He felt close to tears again. So, this is what it’s like to be Tom, he thought, but the thought hissed out, a little flame in the rising tide of his cynicism.

“What are they singing?” he asked Tom.

“Some poem… It’s about France and England. How we are united. How much they love us. Wait…

“A brother reaches from a sea of darkness

“To a brother in a bright boat

“An arm must come and take us from the sea

“What boat can sail on without its brother?”

Tom smiled, wiping his eyes. “Something like that.”

Reginald nodded, staring down. The crowd possessed a striking dignity. Reginald had always, always associated emotionalism with weakness. With showing your hand. Losing status.

But, as he stared, he realized something. If he had known more about himself, he would have realized that what he had suddenly understood was central to understanding Tom. And others, such as Churchill and Gunther. But such understanding was barred by many historical loyalties which, being unfounded on morality, were not open to question. To his father. To Cuthbert. To his position. To appeasement. To Wendy. To himself…

What Reginald realized, gazing at the river of candlelight, was that these people were both very passionate and very strong. Certainly more passionate than himself. Probably stronger too, though he did not think of that question for more than a moment.

Watching their slow, steady steps, their raised arms and still faces, Reginald thought:

They are very sad, and very resolute. If war does not come, they will cheer. If war comes, they will weep, pick up their axes, and weep as they behead their enemies. They will weep throughout their war. They will weep in both victory or defeat. They will weep to kill. They will weep to die. They…

Reginald took a deep breath. He could sense that Tom was watching him, and raised his hand to cover his profile, as if he had a headache. Reginald’s eyes were wide with horror and understanding.

They would rather die than lose the right to laugh and cry…

He frowned. Another thought came:

And I am living in a dictatorship, because I am not free to laugh or cry. A domestic dictatorship, which I wish to spread…

The word ‘No!’ came shooting up from his chest, but he grappled it down with inner arms. He turned to Tom.

“What is the matter with you?” he demanded fiercely.

Tom flinched, but gazed back at him.

“They need you to save them, Reginald,” he said.

“I should throw you from this goddamned balcony!” cried Reginald. “Who writes these scripts?”

“They live,” said Tom, taking a step forward. “They live where you do not!”

“Oh, come on!” Reginald laughed. “Stop being so melodramatic.”

“These people are facing the loss of their liberties, their loved ones, their professions. The best ones among them will lose their lives under Nazism. You can do your part to save them.”

“You’re not even getting published!” hissed Reginald. “You’re a fucking tourist! Wake up!”

“You felt it, though,” said Tom slowly. Reginald backed away. The other people on the balcony turned to them, unconsciously attracted by the dense concentration of emotional energy.

“You felt it,” continued Tom. “You still feel it. Look over the balcony, Reginald! You can see these people. You love them, deep down. If you save them, you will not have lived in vain!”

“Oh…oh,” faltered Reginald, taking another step back, striving for a sardonic tone. “So now I have lived in vain!”

“But if you betray them, after what you have felt,” said Tom, taking another step, “then you will have done a conscious evil.”

“Evil!” spat Reginald, raising his arms. “Come and see the prophet!”

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “In England, during the riot, years ago, you were cursed by a man who said that if you betray England, you will die. I say to you now, that if you do this evil, if you betray these people, our brothers, then you will not die. You will live to see all that you love turn to ash.”

“You’re—deranged!” whispered Reginald. He was pleased to hear genuine horror in his voice. He was less pleased to not know where it came from. Tom’s lunatic prophesies, or a vision of the future.

“Save them!” shouted Tom, gesturing at the singing crowd.

Reginald’s hands fluttered to his ears. It was not a delicate gesture. It broke Tom’s heart, which never seemed to have the time to mend. It was a gesture which was called upon to block, not his words, but a lifetime of surrender, and betrayal.

Tom thought of everything then. He thought that he understood his brother. He thought that his brother was laid bare, bright and clear, for the first time in his life.

Reginald betrayed.

When Reginald was pleasant, Reginald seduced, only to betray.

And what Reginald did to the world was but a small portion of what Reginald did to himself.

But Tom could not rouse himself to care for what remained of his brother’s soul. For what would happen to the world was vastly worse than what had happened to Reginald.

And—and Tom flinched visibly from this idea…

And, Reginald was the shadow of Hitler.

The appeasers lied. They betrayed. They scorned. They were not well intentioned. They were not cowardly. They were murderous. Because they were dead. Dead and gone. Inside and out.

The song rose around the two brothers, standing in opposition on the white balcony. The voices of the slow procession were infinitely sad. Tender.

They sang a dirge for all moral strength weakened by the acidic depths of an unknown past. Their song was an elegy for all which remains unexamined, and so becomes fate. For all the surrenders that must be endlessly defended. For all the wrongs that multiply through justification. For all the injustices forever repeated in the name of loyalty. For the endlessness of betrayal. For the vanity which imagines that every rule, every limitation, every exhortation to right action, is mere brute power and petty control.

As they sang, the Czechs mourned a world which had placed their fate in the hands of a man like Reginald. A world which had educated him, hired him, nurtured and promoted him. Sent him to their country, in its moment of agony, of extremity, of greatest need, to speak for them.

They sang as they walked because a world which had done all these things would never save them.

In the choice of the messenger, the message was clear.

Tom went into the hotel. He went down the stairs, his hand on the railing for balance. He stepped into the street, under the flowing surface of candlelight. An old man smiled sadly at him, holding out a candle. Tom smiled back, unashamed, his face streaming with tears. He held up his candle, to the flame of another. The light was passed.

Tom stepped into the stream of the singing crowd.

He sang with them, softly, though he was just learning the words.

Chapter 83

In the horrible haze of a bottomless depression, Ruth heard her door creaking open. She felt the blood drain from her face. Everything hits my nervous system with a ball-peen hammer! she thought in despair. I shall never see the end of this road…

Catherine came in. She stood at the foot of the bed, almost at attention.

“I’m giving my notice, Ruth,” she said.

Ruth tried to wriggle up in her bed, but her arms gave way, and she sort of sagged to one side. Suddenly, she felt very helpless, and said furiously: “Damn it, why?”

“The boys are gone. Have been for many years. There’s nothing for me to do.”

“You cook.”

“Anyone can cook.”

Ruth’s face stung with tears. “It’s me, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Ruth frowned. There was a strange scent in the room. Truth?

Catherine said: “I’ll be gone in two weeks. I’ll leave a grocery list for whoever comes after. What I cook. What you like. Your toast and jam. All of it. You won’t notice a thing.”

“Oh, Catherine—of course I will. You’ve been a part of this family for almost thirty years!”

“Yes, miss,” said Catherine. Her face was openly skeptical. It wounded Ruth.

“Why?”

Catherine shook her head slightly.

“No!” cried Ruth, managing to sit up. “Someone, sometime is going to tell me something!”

Catherine’s face did not soften. Ruth tried again.

“You are unhappy?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Because you never…”

Catherine smiled thinly. “Married? No, miss. You saw to that.”

“Oh!” cried Ruth. “That’s—harsh.”

“Why do you stay?”

“Where can I go? What can I do? Now, even Tom…!”

Catherine sat on the foot of Ruth’s bed. “What did he say? When you talked.”

Ruth frowned. Catherine was being very intimate. First, she had used Ruth’s name. Now, she was being most impertinent. But something in Ruth was panicking at the idea of losing Catherine. Something…

“He wanted me to oppose Quentin.”

Catherine nodded. “How?”

“But…” Ruth shook her head quickly, her eyes wide. She touched her chest. “Do you know, I don’t know who I would be without him.”

“Who are you with him?”

“Oh! Oh, please, let’s not be—theoretical…” Ruth looked away, but she could tell from the beating of her heart that Catherine was still looking at her. Looking out the window, she said: “What if there is no heaven, Catherine?”

No reply.

“Ohhh, I don’t believe. So everything could be put off. That can happen too, if you believe… But if there is no heaven, then I have spent most of my life in a bed. And then I will be no more.”

“If we don’t do the right thing,” said Catherine, “then life is not worth living.”

“Oh, he gets away with it!” spat Ruth. “He swaggers through everything! Gripping his waistcoat, making his speeches. He won’t get bombed!” she said, her voice rising. “He and his kind will take to the shelters while others scream at the goddamned sky!”

“And why shouldn’t they?” demanded Catherine, her voice suddenly harsh. “When we all let them? You lie abed and cry at the injustice of those who act! You fly from the world, then cry at the badness of the world! But all you have to do is act! If you surrender, you cannot complain!”

“Why?” wailed Ruth. “Why do you waste such words on me? I am nothing! Less than nothing. A burden. A bundle of nerves and a tiny appetite.”

“Yes…” murmured Catherine. Her fierce blue eyes softened somewhat. “I always wanted to be more than what I was. But I saved one of you. Loosed one strong ship on the stormy sea. He will help. Do his part. I couldn’t have no children. Couldn’t school myself. But I had something to give. Some good part to do. I thought I could help you, after Tommy left. But no. You could have a pill of happiness in your hand… All you would do is stare at it. Till you turned to dust…”

Ruth’s hands fluttered in front of her. “What am I supposed to do?”

“What is right! What is right!”

“Tell me!” shrieked Ruth. “Tell me, and I will!”

Catherine threw an envelope onto Ruth’s lap. Ruth stared down at it. Is this a resignation letter? But why? The handwriting was childlike and laborious. It was addressed to her. The return address? Brixton. A man named…

Uxbridge.

“What?” whispered Ruth, frowning mightily. She opened the letter and read it.

Dear Mrs. Spencer:

I was with your husband in the great war. We did something bad together. Many men died that did not have to. I want money. I don’t care if I go back to prison. He won’t talk to me no more. You are my last hope. If I don’t hear from you within two weeks, I’m going to the papers. Everything you love will go.

Please come to me at the address. I want little. I can save much.

D. Uxbridge.

“You—you opened this?”

“I open all the mail.”

Ruth’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, but you were going to quit.”

“I will. If we don’t take a taxi right now to this man’s lodgings.”

Catherine’s face was immobile. Ruth believed her.

“Help me up,” she said. “It’s been awhile.”

Uxbridge was at home. He did not have the appearance of a man who had many reasons to go out. His room was a little cupboard off the top landing of a flophouse. The walls were stained. The air was chilly. As the women walked, the wood creaked like the hold of an old ship.

Uxbridge took a minute to answer the door. He appeared to have some sort of bronchial ailment which was triggered by sound, for he emitted a wracking cough after they knocked. Then he shuffled over. Ruth braced herself. Uxbridge, she imagined, would have the sort of appearance not enhanced by bright light.

This was in fact the case. He struggled for a little while, but finally managed to open the stuck door. When he did, a dank smell rushed out of the room, as if overjoyed to escape. His face was—well, it had no clear patch of skin. His nose was shot through with blood vessels. His bloodshot eyes were sunk in dark circles. His forehead was freckled. Patches of deep grime muddied his cheeks. He opened his mouth only slightly, with the self-consciousness of someone with terrible teeth.

“Mrs. Spencer, I’m guessing.”

“Yes. This is Catherine O’Neill, my companion.”

“You’ll be coming in then,” he said, turning around and shuffling over to a mysterious pile of rags and blankets that served as a bed. “You’ll have to stand,” he said apologetically. “I don’t stand so much meself these days.” He grimaced, rubbing his calf. “Gout.”

“All right,” said Ruth, passing a hand over her eyes. She had been looking forward to a chair very much.

Catherine took her arm. “So,” she said, turning to Uxbridge, “what’s your tale of woe then?”

“Me’n Quentin were in the war,” said Uxbridge, who seemed to have half swallowed some thick, viscous matter just before the women arrived. “He was a supply sergeant. But you knew that, ’course.” He rubbed his face. The dirt did not move. “An’ so, one day, I’m paid to keep him from handing out grenades to an outfit. My thirty pieces of silver. See, we was always running out in those days. Of everything… Huar, huar, huar…” Both women flinched and drew their heads back as Uxbridge coughed, unwilling to inhale any of his obviously disintegrating lungs. “Scuze… So one outfit’d pay me to get them grenades, and there’d be a bidding war, and I thought I’d have more than enough money for kingdom come. But a man gets ill, over the years… Ill and alone. Many roads…”

“So you bribed Quentin?” asked Catherine.

Ruth wondered if she had ever heard Catherine use Quentin’s name.

“Oh, no. Why give up my goods? I made up a story. I knew things about him. There weren’t no clean supply sergeants in that war. Leastaways, none I ever knew of. So he don’t send the grenades to the outfit he was supposed to. He claimed that they was lost. I helped him, that night. Then I took the grenades off, and gave them to the men that’d paid me.”

Ruth frowned. To be so tired, and in the midst of this stench! “So—technically wrong, but the grenades were used anyway. Will anyone care?”

“But they weren’t used,” he said. “That outfit didn’t go that night. They just wanted them for sometime. But imagine it, miss. You lose some man you loved in the war… A thousand men died that night. They went against machine-gun nests without grenades.” Uxbridge laughed in a deep, phlegmy way. “Might as well have given them potato guns. If you’d lost a man you loved, ’cause he was unarmed, wouldn’t you care to know? Not so long ago. Not so long. Twenty years? A little more. I don’t think I’m even forty yet. Maybe a little more. Doesn’t matter. God keeps track for me…”

“So,” said Catherine, “it’s just your word then.”

“Oh no, miss. I’m not pretty, but I’m no fool. I got some money, in the past, from your husband. Couple times. Then he went dark on me, and I moved on. Then I found that I left this at me mam’s place, all them years.” Uxbridge lifted a clump of rags he used as a pillow and lifted out a piece of paper in surprisingly good condition. “When she died, I found it, looking for money. I found it. It’s his writing, your husband. It’s his signature. A receipt for the grenades he said were never sent.”

“Are you all right?” murmured Catherine. Ruth nodded. Catherine leaned in towards her, and whispered. “Get ready to go—quickly.”

Ruth did not respond. Catherine took a step forward. “May I see it, please?”

“Ehhh,” said Uxbridge uneasily, shifting back on his nest of rags. “You’re big. You could be quick.”

“It won’t be enough to convict him, will it? Without your word?”

“No… P’raps not…”

“Then?” Catherine extended her hand. Uxbridge handed over the paper.

It was a ‘Goods Received’ form. August 16, 1915. Catherine saw: 100 boxes, hand grenades. Underneath, Quentin had written: ‘contents checked.’ Then, his signature.

“My…goodness,” said Catherine. “That explains…”

“So, do you think you can do something for me, miss?” asked Uxbridge, a plaintive and pitiful note creeping into his voice.

“We don’t think so,” said Catherine.

Moving quickly, she turned around and walked swiftly across the uneven floor. Passing Ruth, she held out her arm and scooped her up as she passed, as a collector might net a butterfly.

“Heyyyy!” wailed Uxbridge pitifully. He lurched forward on his rags.

Catherine pushed Ruth through the door. Uxbridge was up, and coming to them. Catherine turned and said: “See a priest,” then went through the door just as Uxbridge lunged at her. She turned and, with all the strength in her frame, jerked the uneven door closed.

Another wail escaped Uxbridge, from the other side of the door. He scrabbled at it, but Catherine had shut it so tightly that he was unable to open it.

“Well come on, then!” cried Catherine, pushing a rather stunned Ruth down the stairs.

Downstairs, in the street, Catherine led her briskly along for a few minutes. Then, Ruth could go no further, and almost fell against her housekeeper. Catherine called a taxicab, supporting her.

“Euston station,” she said, as they got in.

“He—he can still go to the press…” said Ruth weakly.

“He’s got nothing without this paper.”

“Don’t we need him as—as a witness?”

Catherine shook her head. “The survivors will press for the facts. And he’s an MP. There will be sufficient interest. And the police can always force him to testify.”

“Why… Why are we doing this again? I know, but remind me…”

“For Tom,” said Catherine. Then, she smiled and turned to Ruth, who was sagging against her broad and fleshy shoulders. “Well, that’s not true. Actually, my dear, it’s for you!”

“That poor man…”

“Which one?”

“In that awful room.”

Catherine snorted. “Oh, of all the times to get softhearted! Men do evil things, they end their lives in misery. Either inside or out. He took bribes. Murdered. Attempted to blackmail. And you feel sorry for him? Save it. Save it for good people who fall on hard times. Because you’re going to need some strength. More strength. Much more.”

“Yesss…” Ruth did not seem particularly coherent.

Catherine glanced at the driver, then lowered her voice to Ruth’s bouncing ear.

“Your husband is blundering us right into a war. He’s right in there. In the middle. I know that’s what you and Tom talked about. He can’t hide anything from me. And shouldn’t. So now you have a weapon. You can make him change sides. Join with Churchill. That’s what has to happen.”

“No, you…” moaned Ruth, her eyes closing slowly. “You do it…”

“Oh, wives have such power, if they only knew…” hissed Catherine. “If women just lift a finger, they run the world! You have to do it. So you can both be saved!”

“Let me think…”

“No,” said Catherine decisively. “You have had over twenty years to think. Now, you must act.”

Chapter 84

When flying, Tom could no longer look down at clouds without thinking of them being pierced by bombs, like pebbles into snow, pop, pop, pop. He imagined being a bomber pilot now, flying over France, back to England, and praying for clouds to hide the flames, to conceal the acidic heart of a false angel.

And it felt as if the world would end. He had realized that, walking with the Czechs. They praised England and France, but in tears, like a man on his knees, declaring his love to a woman already packing her bags.

And he had never known such pain. On the balcony, with Reginald, he had known and felt for the first time that Czechoslovakia would fall, and France would fall, and Europe would end, and there was nothing that could be done to avert it. He could go to Germany and shoot Hitler, if he chose, but the weakness of the democracies would just summon another dictator in his place. Evil was flowing into the void of goodness. Morality had no more mountains; the lowlands were drowning in the new, black tide.

But it wasn’t new. Tom knew that. Germany had missed the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the separation of church and state, the humanistic movement, the rise of individualism, and the scraping of all metaphors from the skin of secular leaders. Germany had remained medieval, while the morality and integrity required to develop science took root in the lands around her. And then, this medieval land had taken in all the new science, and such savages now gripped guns and bombs and mustard gas. The devil can make no arms, because the devil is primitive and superstitious. But the devil can steal the arms from fallen angels, and come in search of God…

As he flew, droning through the great blue, Tom felt physically nauseated. He felt the coming shadows of his own demise, in his very bones. He imagined a clean death; letting his hands drop from the joystick, opening the throttle and flying into a sudden crater of fire. To be spared the final agonies of watching a loved one die… Would that not be worth it? Is not a clean and sudden death the most—beneficial?

But he lacked something… Tom lacked the… He frowned as he flew, wondering why the muscles of his arms stayed steady. I still have hope, he thought, with no small degree of irritation. I still believe that something will save us. America. Hitler has a heart attack. Churchill engineers a coup…

But of course, that was all stuff and nonsense. Even if Churchill got power today, there would be war. That much was certain; even Chamberlain knew that, which was why Churchill was kept far from the reins of power. And there could be no small wars any more. No border disputes. No isolated skirmishes. Everyone was in now. War could be ended only because humanity could be ended.

Tom thought of who he would miss the most. Who would I hate most to go ahead of me? It was three, and that was very sad. A woman I slept with once, and my two beautiful, beautiful nieces. Was that all? All? My father is a witch doctor, summoning the bombs with guttural gestures. My brother is inflicting his personal death on the whole world. My mother died sometime in the last two years. Catherine…

Tom tsked between his teeth, cursing himself for his ingratitude. Of course I… She would be the one I would miss the most. And there is precious little justice in the world. Those who caused the war should be the ones to fight it. Those who opposed it should be allowed to flee to the New World…

I wonder if I have the strength to watch her die… But she will probably be safe. She’ll be in the shelter with my…Quentin. And Mother. I wonder if that is why she is staying with them? But she would not last five minutes in a dictatorship. Neither she nor I… And I would live to see my nieces perverted. Wearing swastikas. Marching with tight fists and tight lips. Denouncing their parents. Denouncing me. And Quentin would be shot. And Reginald would be shot… Or do they reward the cowards who helped them? I doubt it…

Tom shook his head slowly, adjusting his sunglasses. The sky was fiercely bright; it burned around the edges of his lenses like the corona of an eclipse.

When I land, he thought, I will get three bottles of scotch and stay drunk for a week. It will be another year to war, likely, and I cannot stay sober the whole time…

He had never been much of a drinker. University parties, of course, some experimental excess. But now it seemed like the thing to do. If I could sleep until war came, I would. And then…

Tom’s thoughts stopped. He frowned, then loosened his muscles, because frowning brightened the sunlight around his sunglasses.

Well, why not join the Royal Air Force?

It seemed like such an obvious thing to do. He was a pilot. He trained pilots. They would probably make me an instructor. Yuck. But in wartime, when things get desperate and confused, surely I could trail my squadron and do my damage…

The thought excited him for about ten seconds. Then, his usual lethargy softened and felled his enthusiasm. Well, my boys, he imagined telling a class of young pilots, we shan’t be able to stop the bombers, but can you imagine the sight of London burning, from the sky? It will be the last and most moving sight you will ever see!

Well, why not? Why not give them the chance to decide their own fates? Why not give them the chance to fight back? Tom’s mind clawed at the wall of impossibility. The bomber will always get through. If we felled even five out of ten bombers, hundreds of thousands of people would still die… And the Germans will have fighter pilots to defend their bombers. We would have to fly in a straight line to shoot down the bombers; the Germans would be able to pick us off one by one, using whatever maneuvers they chose. And they will always have the advantage of surprise. It would take us almost half an hour to intercept them. They could already be turning around by then, leaving our mothers melted in the arms of their children…

For a moment, he was with the appeasers. Better to live underground than die in the sunlight… Such slaughter will destroy the island. We shall never recover. Even if we won, we would be destroyed. All life would pass from the old world to the new. We should be nothing but jackals, coughing among craters. The cities would have no water. The ghosts would pity the living…

Something almost came to save Tom, in that moment, as he droned over the clouds, fifteen thousand feet above Paris. Something old and Anglo-Saxon and almost Viking.

As he pictured the slaughter of his beloved island—and he did love England—and how terrible it would be, and how unprovoked it all was, his hands tightened on the joystick, and his vision literally burned red with rage, and he felt that he would become a fighter pilot just to murder the German pilots who did such things without reason…

And what will I do when war comes? Will I sit and listen to the radio and weep into my fists? What if there is a strong resistance? What if the British people rise to the occasion? What if we cannot even bury our dead, because the bombs keep hurling them back into the sky, but we defy Hitler nonetheless? What if I miss my country’s finest moment? What—what if I am wrong?

Tom almost changed his mind—almost, but then a terrific wave of depression slammed into his rage, and his head lolled on his neck.

There were no words for this particular emotion, because it was the absence of all emotion, and it was a terrifying thing. He experienced a vast, grim nihilistic emptying-out. The world became nothing but sky, and he nothing but air.

Chapter 85

Ruth vomited, the precious scrap of paper clutched in her fist. She did not keep quiet. She did not hold her hair back. Her customary terror of germs was gone. She was an animal trying to purge a poison.

When she had returned with Catherine from Uxbridge’s little room, she had been struck down by a terrible suspicion. She was no stranger to avoiding her own thoughts, but this one smashed through her defenses like a thundering locomotive through an opening-day ribbon.

When did my brothers die?

They died in 1915. In the summer. Quentin signed for the grenades in the summer of 1915. They were not terribly far from each other. The middle of France. None of her three brothers were in the same outfit; the army didn’t want to risk wiping out entire bloodlines.

And, strangely enough, the thought had struck Ruth with a grim certainty. She did not imagine that it would be anything other than what it turned out to be. It would be one of them, or… Or… The thought was striking, insistent. Or there was never any reason for you to have stayed in bed…

But that made no sense. How could she have known? My guilt was entirely about my father, she thought blindly, vomiting once more. My betrayal of my husband, my love for and hatred of Gunther, my complicity in the coming of war… I knew nothing about Quentin’s guilt. I knew nothing about what he had done during the war. I could not stand to ask—and now, I know, he could not stand to tell me…

But all lost lives are lived in the shadows of silence. Active silence. Silence that is a turning away. When you cover your eyes, you cover your mouth. And your heart. Your soul.

Ruth felt as if she would never have the strength to rise again. Catherine came knocking at the door of the toilet.

“It was a vile room, in truth!”

“No…” moaned Ruth. Her hands suddenly tightened on the cold-fish whiteness of the porcelain, and she bit down on her lower lip. She stood up suddenly, feeling dizzy and headachy. Lowering her head over the sink, she rinsed her mouth and hair. Then she unlocked the door.

Catherine stood there. Seeing the look on Ruth’s face, she took an involuntary step back.

“Where are the war letters?” asked Ruth softly.

“Upstairs,” replied Catherine, equally softly. “In the attic.”

Without a word, Ruth slowly climbed the ladder to the attic. Catherine came with her, wheezing at the exertion and dust.

It took them two hours. Ruth was aware of a vague concern about her husband coming home and finding them, and not being ready to confront him, but it was only a vague feeling. Much more powerful was the feeling that she already held the damning letter in her hand, and was just working her way to that preordained moment.

Catherine found the album, in an ancient dark green sea-chest. It had not been opened in fifteen years. She wiped the dust off it, wrinkling her nose.

“This is their final resting place,” murmured Ruth, staring at the streaks that Catherine’s fingers had left on the cover of the album. “We should have had more respect.”

“Don’t fall back to that,” replied Catherine, passing over the book. “That is all gone.”

Catherine opened the book. Some old photographs. This had originally been a holiday album, but then had been converted, in the last half, to the preservation of war memorabilia. Various official documents. Pay stubs. Leave passes. No letters. They were in a cigar box, in some other trunk. Unopened for fifteen years.

Ruth turned the pages without emotion. Catherine wheezed over and sat down next to her.

It was her youngest brother.

The others were close enough, but their death certificates were before the night of Quentin’s great betrayal. Wesley had been disarmed by Quentin. Wesley had been fed to the guns of the enemy like meat through a sausage maker. She had been partly responsible for her father’s death. Quentin had killed her brother.

Youngest brother…

For Ruth, it was a moment of great inner stillness. She felt as if she had reached the very heart of her family. Psychologically, she had achieved the greatest, deepest state of mind. She was curious.

Her youngest brother… She had never loved Reginald. Quentin had murdered her youngest brother. She had never loved her eldest son, the only child of Quentin’s. Quentin had always disliked Tom. The younger son, the mirror of the man he had killed.

And Tom fought against war, because he was the stand-in for the son her husband had murdered in wartime. Quentin was an appeaser because he had murdered his comrades during wartime, and war would bring back all his guilt. He had been evil during wartime, therefore all war was evil…

But because it was unconscious, it was inevitable repetition. No matter how Quentin might fight against the coming war, everything they did brought it closer and closer. If we do not question and oppose our wrongs, we justify them, and so must repeat them.

But—but Reginald? Ruth frowned. Some sort of electric current seemed to be playing through the void of her great, curious emptiness, like a wriggling eel of light. It was searching for the soul of her eldest son…

The eel’s teeth closed. Ruth’s breath caught.

Tom is the reenactment of the murder of the youngest son…

Reginald was reenacting Quentin’s wartime murder. The youngest son must die.

But how would Tom die? It felt true, but Ruth had no idea how it was to occur.

Well, of course. It was so simple. Tom was a warrior, through and through. Quentin and Reginald would betray England into a war, and Tom would fight and die. Tom would have to fight. It was his nature…

Ruth suddenly cried out. Tom’s last conversation with her, when he had begged her to act against Quentin… His passion, his desperation… It was his own life he was trying to save!

Ruth felt something brush her arm, and almost screamed. Catherine recoiled.

Chapter 86

The meeting had started with Reginald translating for Lord Runciman, but that situation reversed itself within fifteen minutes. Lord Runciman approved of Reginald’s responses so completely that he quickly let Reginald do the negotiations and inform him of the progress.

President Beneš had summoned them to his offices on hearing the news that Chamberlain was planning to fly to Berchtesgaden to have a private interview with Hitler.

“What can it possibly mean that Chamberlain is going to see Hitler, without insisting that the Czechs be present at such a meeting?” he demanded.

“It means,” said Reginald, “that he is trying to find a peaceful solution to this crisis.”

“And what would that be?” asked Beneš. “Giving Germany the Sudetenland? Leaving ourselves naked and undefended before them? We could have arrived at that compromise ourselves, in March—and gotten much better terms besides.”

“To be frank,” said Reginald, “I don’t know why Chamberlain has gone to Berchtesgaden. It is most unusual.”

“We do not even have a treaty with England!” cried Beneš heatedly. “Why are you negotiating on our behalf?”

“Well, England is a world power…”

“Not in my country!”

Reginald favored Beneš with an amused look, as if to say: it is so interesting to watch the rantings of idealists!

“He is going to discuss a plebiscite,” said Beneš gloomily, sitting back in his high chair. “He is going to say to Hitler: if fifty percent of the population want to join the Reich, England will not intervene.”

“Well, isn’t that the case? Wouldn’t you also allow a plebiscite?”

Beneš thumped his desk. “Oh, please! Would you allow a plebiscite in Northern Ireland? You are outnumbered a thousand-to-one in India, yet still you rule!”

“There are those who say we should not,” murmured Reginald, the half smile still playing on his lips.

“A country is not just whatever a thug can rule!” thundered Beneš. “A country is a moral union!”

Reginald shrugged. “I think that, were God to play a more active role in human affairs, that might be so. As it is, we can reasonably entertain many doubts about your thesis.”

“So you will sit and watch the rape of a fellow democracy? You will do nothing to save us?”

Reginald held up his hands. “First of all, President Beneš, that is up to France, not us…”

“If it is up to France, then why is Daladier not in Berchtesgaden? Why is your prime minister there?”

“Well, the French have been rather disorganized of late, and so…”

“So the British have taken it upon themselves to negotiate with the Germans on our behalf. That is fine. Fine with us. But if Mr. Chamberlain takes it upon himself to negotiate, he cannot expect us to be bound by the results of his interference. If we are not consulted as to terms, we cannot be expected to honor the results!”

“That is as you see fit, of course,” said Reginald. “If you choose to go your own path, you are more than welcome to. But then it shall be your own path. Your own.”

Beneš went pale. Reginald could not tell if it was from rage or fear. “You are not indicating that you expect the French to break their treaty with us?”

“I am saying nothing of the kind,” said Reginald. “I am saying that you should not dismiss British negotiations out of hand. Perhaps you shall have to surrender the Sudetenland. But the integrity of your remaining lands will still be ensured by British and French guarantees.”

“I have such guarantees now!” cried Beneš in despair. “They are doing me no good!”

The next day, Hart was in Paris, with Chamberlain, Sir John Simon, and the French leader Daladier.

Hart had been brought along to take notes. This was for one simple reason. The meeting had been called suddenly, and late, and Hart happened to be the only man left in the Foreign Office when Chamberlain had to leave.

“The question is,” said Chamberlain, “what are we going to do?”

“Our choice is clear,” replied Daladier.

“And what is that?”

“We must all do our duty.”

“I see,” said Chamberlain. “Am I to understand from that statement that France is willing to declare war on Germany to save Czechoslovakia?”

Daladier ducked his head and said: “I am sure that the answer to that is obvious. France will fulfill her obligations. We have a million reservists drawn up.”

“That is an excellent step,” said Chamberlain, rather sardonically. “And I have no doubt that you are in possession of an excellent plan. May I inquire as to your next move?”

“Next move?”

“Well, these things must be discussed to their natural ends,” said Chamberlain. “It would be of great assistance to His Majesty’s Government to know what plan the French General Staff intend to follow.”

“Well,” said Daladier, “we could not, of course, help Czechoslovakia in the East in any material way. But we could aid her by drawing off German forces in the West.”

Chamberlain smiled. “I hope that you do not think that I am bringing any undue pressure to bear on you in these matters, but we cannot go into this with our eyes and ears closed. It is essential to know the conditions before making any firm decisions. And we do require answers to questions which have long troubled British ministers in the past.”

Daladier swallowed. “By all means.”

Chamberlain sat down. “Sir John Simon has a list of our questions.”

Sir Simon stood up. “Monsieur Daladier, do you contemplate using the French Air Force over Germany?”

“Do we…? Ah. I see. Well, in all recent combats—and I am thinking of the Spanish Civil War in particular—aerial combat has been… It has figured. In some cases quite prominently.”

Sir Simon paused. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and an ex-lawyer, and an excellent cross-examiner. “Excuse me. I think that my question has been misunderstood, since it has not been answered. I shall try again. Please refrain from answering unless you fully understand the question. Now. In what way will the French Air Force be used in a war with Germany?”

Daladier pursed his lips, obviously wondering whether to be offended. Finally, he said: “The French Air Force would be used as a cover for our ground troops.”

“So you would invade the Rhineland.”

“If we were going to support the Czechs, that would be the logical next step.”

“We cannot make sensible recommendations based on what you think is the ‘logical next step,’ Monsieur Daladier! We must know the intentions of the French General Staff. Will you invade the Rhineland?”

“Yes. Yes, we would invade the Rhineland.”

“Is that your opinion, or is it the plan of the French General Staff?”

“In my understanding, that is their plan.”

“But you are not sure.”

“This has certainly been discussed.”

“Is it something that you would support?”

“Obviously, we cannot support the Czechs without invading the Rhineland.”

“So it is something you would support.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“But you don’t know if your generals support it.”

“They would have to, if supporting Czechoslovakia was our intention.”

Sir Simon took a deep breath.

“Monsieur Daladier,” he said slowly, “you have a treaty with Czechoslovakia. In this treaty, you are bound to come to Czechoslovakia’s aid if she is invaded. If Mr. Chamberlain’s mission to Berchtesgaden should come to naught, there is every reason to believe that Germany will invade Czechoslovakia. Do you plan to support Czechoslovakia?”

“We would never abandon our treaty.”

“Excuse me, but that is an equivocation.”

“It is not!” cried Daladier. “We are stating that we would honor our treaty.”

“So you would support Czechoslovakia and invade Germany.”

“Yes! We have our honor.”

“No doubt. Yet when we ask what your invasion plans are, you cannot tell us.”

“I can. I can tell you.”

“Then please do.”

“We—we would declare war on Germany if Germany invades Czechoslovakia. Then…”

“Right away?”

“Right away? Declare war?”

“Yes.”

“No. We would wait four or five days, to evacuate Paris.”

“Thank you. Go on. Please do not omit any more details.”

“We would then bomb industrial targets in the Ruhr and Saar. We would invade Germany immediately on land…”

“Would you mobilize the remainder of your army? You have only mobilized one third at the current time.”

“Yes, we would mobilize. When we met steep resistance, we would retreat behind the Maginot Line…”

“Sorry?” asked Sir Simon. “You would—what?”

“We would retreat behind the Maginot Line.”

“Why?”

“Well, we would hope that by that time, the attack on Czechoslovakia would have ceased.”

“And if it had not?”

“You are now asking me what our plans would be for a long-term war against Germany. I do not have that information. You could not expect me to. And now, I have some questions of my own.”

Sir Simon paused. “Very well.”

“If France declares war on Germany, will England also declare war on Germany?”

“Yes.”

“And what would England then do?”

“We would mobilize the Fleet and begin the blockade of Germany. We would send men, materials, and airplanes to France.”

“And how many divisions can you send?”

“Two.”

There was a pause. Hart looked up from his scribbled notes, shocked.

Daladier laughed. “Two! And tanks?”

“We could send a few,” said Sir Simon.

“So! You cross-examine me as to my resolution, when you can give me in troops what amounts to four percent of the German army! Do you have no shame?”

“We have the fleet,” said Chamberlain. “And it was the fleet, if you recall, that finally brought Germany down the last time.”

Daladier’s face darkened. “Of course. Of course it was your fleet. The million and a half French dead had nothing to do with it!”

“There is no point bickering,” said Chamberlain, smoothing his mustache. “What we came here to understand is what we are going to do about Czechoslovakia. And I believe that we have understood your position, Monsieur Daladier, and thank you for your patience. They say that the Great War arose from a succession of misunderstandings, and we have no desire to repeat that mistake.”

“No, of course not. But I do not think it will come to war.”

“This brings me to my next point,” said Chamberlain, rising. “Thank you, Sir Simon. In my meeting with Herr Hitler, we came to the following conclusion: I proposed that a plebiscite be held in the Sudetenland, wherein any population which votes eighty percent or more to join Germany will be allowed to do so.”

Daladier snorted. “Allowed—by who?”

“By us,” said Chamberlain, with perfect composure. “By France, England, and the League of Nations.”

“And if Czechoslovakia resists?”

“If Czechoslovakia resists, then we must let events take their course.”

“Mon Dieu,” muttered Daladier. “And you complain that I evade!”

“Then, if I am not clear, I shall endeavor to become more so. If Czechoslovakia resists the German occupation of areas which have voted to rejoin Germany, then we shall let her fight Germany alone. We shall not come to her aid, even if you choose to do so.”

“We…” Daladier’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat. “We cannot fight alone.”

Sir Simon smiled. “It would be inadvisable.”

“We had always understood that we would be fighting with the British against Germany.”

“But this is not a general war,” said Chamberlain. “Germany wants her German-speaking people back. They want to go back. If Czechoslovakia resists that inevitable reconciliation, she does so at her own peril. Then, she is not resisting invasion, but restitution. The Sudetenland should never have gone to Czechoslovakia in the first place. How could we go to war over something so ridiculous? Something we would never have agreed to or suggested in the first place? And we shall be remembered for this, gentlemen. I do not act with one eye on the history books, but we shall be remembered as the first statesmen to negotiate themselves out of general slaughter. It shall be the model for the future. War has changed to the degree that it has become unthinkable. Very well. Then let diplomacy also change. No more defense of arbitrary borders. If the forces of nationalism cannot be contained—and there is every indication that they cannot—then let us loosen the pressure on nationalism, and let cultures with historical continuity and a common language join together. I care not a farthing about whether the Sudetenland is part of the Reich or not. The only aspect which troubles me is the practicalities of the transfer. And President Beneš should not be too shocked. It is, of course, a delicate matter to suggest amputation to an ally, but he should never have considered the Sudetenland as an eternal part of Czechoslovakia.”

“Would England be prepared to issue a guarantee for what remained of Czechoslovakia?”

“I think that would be most unwise,” said Chamberlain without hesitation. “All we have to do is look at your current example to see what can happen when treaties bind one’s hands. Treaties are usually great liabilities and serious sources of embarrassment. However, should Czechoslovakia agree to certain restrictions—such as the repeal of her treaty with the Russians, and agreeing to accept the British Government’s advice on issues of peace and war—then we could contemplate such a guarantee.”

“But we have guaranteed Czechoslovakia in its current state,” said Daladier gloomily. “If we renege now, what faith would Beneš have in future guarantees? What faith would any power have in the honor of France? We should become a second-rate power in an instant. And there is great unease in France about abandoning Czechoslovakia. And in England too. More than forty percent of your own population disagree with throwing Czechoslovakia to the wolves.”

“It is the great question,” said Chamberlain with a little smile. “Would you rather keep France’s honor, and have her bombed into extinction, or sacrifice a little honor for the sake of her continued existence? I am more pragmatic than idealistic, but it is a decision each man must make for himself.”

“Yes, yes…”

“The only relevant part of our decision, as far as France is concerned, is that if you choose honor, war, and quite possibly your own self-destruction, you will do it alone.”

Daladier appeared not to hear these last words, but stared at the back of his hands, flexing them slowly. Then, he glanced up and folded his hands on his lap.

When Beneš received the message from the British that they had told Hitler that he could have the Sudetenland, he returned the message with a curt dismissal: “We were not consulted. We will not comply.”

The British and French Foreign Offices were thrown into a frenzy. Messages poured into Berlin that neither country had advised Beneš to take such a step. Chamberlain flew out to see Hitler once more. He proudly told the führer that he had managed to get the French and British cabinets to accept the proposal. Hitler said that he was no longer interested in plebiscites, but would march into the Sudetenland by the end of September. It was up to Beneš whether this would mean war or not.

The entire population of Europe braced for war. Children were hurried out of Paris and London. Ditches were dug in High Park. Gas masks were distributed.

In Prague, Lord Runciman met with Beneš, and said:

“President Beneš, nothing could be more honorable than for Czechoslovakia to bow to an overwhelming force, rather than to plunge the world into another war which would be the end of European civilization. You will go down in history as a great man if you surrender territory now which you had agreed to surrender in a few months if plebiscites were arranged.”

Beneš almost threw the old man out of the office.

The pressure on the President was immense. Cables arrived hourly.

From Chamberlain:

“However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war simply on her account.”

From senior British government official Horace Wilson:

“You should now be told starkly how matters stand. You do not seem to realize that you are in danger of being completely overrun. Your best course seems to be to withdraw troops from areas to be occupied, leaving Germany to effect a bloodless occupation.”

On the evening of September 27, 1938, as German troops began massing on the border, from Chamberlain:

“Germany will attack almost immediately unless you accept the German terms by 2:00 p.m. on the twenty-eighth. This would result in Bohemia being overrun. Nothing that any other Power can do will prevent this fate for your own country and people. HMG cannot take responsibility of advising you what you should do but we consider that this information should be in your hands at once.”

Beneš sent a message to the Czech chargé d’affaires in Berlin: “Please inform the Germans that Czechoslovakia knows something about dying with honor.”

Chamberlain took to the radio to speak about the letters he had been receiving:

“It has been heartbreaking to read of the growing anxiety they reveal and their intense relief when they thought, too soon, that the danger was past. If I felt my responsibility before, to read such letters has made it seem almost overwhelming. How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.”

Late on the evening of the twenty seventh, Beneš sent a message to Hitler. Czechoslovakia would consider any crossing of the border by German troops as an act of war. He demanded that the major powers convene an international conference to discuss the matter of the Sudetenland.

On hearing the news, Chamberlain ordered the mobilization of the British fleet.

On the following morning, the Italian Ambassador arrived at 10 Downing Street with a message from Hitler.

The conference to determine the fate of Czechoslovakia was to occur at 2:00 p.m. on the following day. The twenty-ninth of September, 1938.

In Munich.

Chapter 87

Wendy pulled the car into the small gravel parking lot which lay beside Tom’s block of flats. The children had been quite mental during the drive up from London, so excited to see their uncle. Their favorite living male, thought Wendy dismally. They usually shake hands with their father, and throw themselves at their Uncle Tom’s legs…

Wendy checked that she had her little travel bag with her, and took the girls upstairs to Tom’s flat.

Wendy had telephoned him that morning. She had first said that she needed to get out of the city, but he had hesitated. Then, without a twinge of guilt, she had put Jocelyn on the telephone, to ask Tom if she and her sister could come up and see him for a few hours. And could their mummy come? And so it was arranged.

Tom opened the door. Wendy could tell that he was in a somber mood, and her knees went weak. My poor, wounded, grieving knight. Reginald was never somber. He got irritated. Enraged. Petulant. Giddy. Never somber.

Jocelyn and Lillian flew into his legs. Tom smiled, and helped them clamber up his lanky frame, into his arms. They both began to babble at once, then tried to hit each other for interrupting. Tom demanded kisses first, and they obliged, though wrinkling their pretty little noses at his stubble.

They all entered. Wendy said that Tom’s flat needed a woman’s touch. This comment made him even more somber. She declared that he was a born bachelor, a natural heartbreaker. He smiled a little at this. He asked if they were hungry. They all had some soup. The girls both sat on Tom’s lap. He kept kissing their hair absentmindedly. This action kept breaking Wendy’s heart. Reginald only caressed his children when they were in public. It was never absentminded. Never unconscious.

Wendy asked Tom if he would mind watching the girls while she had a little nap. It was fine. She pulled out a Noddy book, and the girls begged Tom to read it to them. He acquiesced.

Going into Tom’s room, Wendy was struck by its lack of ornamentation. Of course, he was a man, so she could not expect more than one old pillow, but he should at least have some little pictures on his wall or on his bedside table. She craned her head around his little bed (where two could only lie intertwined!) and saw that he had no bedside table. A few books. A Dickens. A Nietzsche: The Antichrist. A Flaubert. Wendy frowned, surprised. All she knew of Tom’s intellectual life was that he had been thrown out of Oxford for failing to secure a scholarship. Reginald, who had taken his degree with honors, only read the newspaper and his inbox. Her heart thrilled to Tom’s unsuspected life. She pictured him reading by the light of three or four candles (of different height, for balance), on a hot night, his little blanket riding his lean hips, brushing his damp hair back, his eyes fierce and concentrated…

Shivering a little, she listened to the sound of uncle-and-children settling on the sofa, then opened Tom’s closet door silently. Some boxes. Two belts lying on the floor. Tsk, Wendy thought, irritated for a moment. But she pictured herself, squatting on her heels, picking up his belts as he stood by the bed, laughing and thanking—not like Reginald, who snapped at her for moving his things. Wendy scowled. To be thanked for what comes naturally to me—how precious that would be! Not to be fought for all my instincts… To be able to help, and to be loved for helping… Not to have all my gifts rejected as insults…

Wendy’s breath caught involuntarily. She froze, squatting, cocking her head. No movement. Just the murmur of big and little voices.

She stretched out on the bed, wriggling under his blanket. The pillow was a little sour, but that mixed with everything natural about Tom, and she ground her head into the cotton with animal abandon. His head rested here every night, filled with plain manly mammalian dreams… It did not awaken and cast cold critical eyes on the world. It did not always require peace and solitude, but could tumble in a happy tangle of growing limbs. It did not always try to control life and the world, but rippled and meshed with it, as Wendy imagined a tree full of leaves bent and merged with the wind. Life could live around Tom. It was not caged and shaved and cross-examined…

Outside, Tom sat with one child nestled in the crook of each arm. The afternoon sun streamed over them, softened by the slightly dusty windowpanes.

Something had quieted the children… Tom had a theory, which was that children were quieted by intimacy, by soul-to-soul contact. When their tender nervous systems were not played like overtightened violin strings by hysterical throwing and tickling. The girls had been in a car for almost two hours. But they lay still in his arms. Tom put the Noddy book down on his lap, as they talked quietly, almost in whispers. Not because Wendy was sleeping in the next room, but because their ears and words were soft and tender.

“When I was a little boy,” murmured Tom, “there was another little boy, and there were these jokes going around, which went like this: I’d tell you the joke about the high wall, but you’d never get over it. Or: I’d tell you the joke about the blunt pencil, but you’d never get the point. That sort of thing. I don’t know if they’re still popular, that kind of joke. So I said to this one boy: I’d tell you the joke about the trash can, but it’s just a load of rubbish. And the boy followed me around all day, saying over and over: no, it’s all right, you can trust me. I won’t tell anyone. You can tell me the joke about the trash can. I won’t think it’s rubbish.” Tom smiled. “And even when I explained the joke to him, he still thought I just didn’t want to tell him the real joke. ‘That was the real joke,’ I said. But no good.”

“Knock, knock,” said Jocelyn.

“Who’s there?”

“Mandy.”

“Mandy who?”

“Mandy lifeboats—we’re sinking!”

Tom laughed. “That one was old when I was a boy!”

“Knock, knock,” said Lillian, tugging on his ear.

“Who’s there?”

“Banana.”

“Banana who?”

“Knock, knock,” Lillian repeated.

“Who’s there?”

“Banana.”

“Banana who?”

“Knock, knock,” Lillian repeated.

“Who’s there?”

“Banana.”

Jocelyn wrinkled her nose. “That joke’s supposed to end sometime, you know!”

“I know! Knock, knock!”

“Who’s there?”

“Orange.”

“Orange who?”

“Orange you glad I didn’t say ‘banana’?”

Tom smiled. “I’ve never heard that one before. And I certainly was glad that you didn’t say ‘banana’ again. Now say this five times fast: ‘red lorry, yellow lorry.’”

Both girls tried. Lillian was better at it. Then, Jocelyn told Tom to say the letter x over and over.

Tom shook his head. “I can’t talk about sex with you lot!”

They told about twenty minutes more worth of jokes. Then Tom read to them. And they seemed to be enjoying the story. Tom tried his best, but could not refrain from crying. He kept imagining a rocket of some kind coming in through the window and blowing his ribs through their little skulls. And although it was a terrible image, it was not terrible in the imagining. It happened in slow motion, and clouds of dust rose to obscure their final ending. And classical music was playing somewhere. The music made Tom cry. He could not keep it out of his voice. The children could tell.

“You’re wrong,” whispered Jocelyn, pointing at a smiling picture of Noddy. “It’s not a sad story.”

“I know,” sniffed Tom, kissing both their heads.

“He’s crying on my head,” said Lillian, a little petulantly.

“Sorry.”

“Why are you crying?” asked Jocelyn.

Tom pursed his lips and shook his head. He became suddenly afraid that Wendy would open the door and be angry at him for some reason.

“Do you miss my dad?” asked Jocelyn. “I bet you do.”

Tom frowned. He couldn’t think of what to say.

“Do you like our dad?” said Jocelyn.

“I…” Tom paused. His mind raced in a million directions. How much of this would get back to Reginald? Would Tom be banned from seeing his nieces? How would Wendy react? She wasn’t the most stable of creatures. But how could he lie to these little girls? One lie at five can breed a lifetime of misery.

“Your dad and I have our… We disagree sometimes.”

Jocelyn nodded slowly. Her blonde hair rose in little bunches against Tom’s jumper. Lillian seemed absorbed in tracing a picture of Noddy, but Tom knew—as a younger sibling himself—that pretending not to listen was sometimes the best way to hear.

“What do you fight about?” asked Jocelyn.

“What does he say?”

“He says that you are stuck up. And don’t bend. He says: how can you walk if you don’t bend your knees? Or tie your shoes?”

“Uh,” said Tom, feeling his blood rise. So—the thought police have been at work! “What does your mummy say?”

Lillian said, her finger still tracing the picture: “She says you’re very nice. They fight about it.”

“So why do you fight?” asked Jocelyn, twisting in his embrace to look at him.

Tom thought briefly how little all her organs were. How little, and how receptive to growth. And how, without growth, they would turn on themselves and die…

“We don’t fight,” he said, knowing it would only buy a moment.

“You know. You know what I mean.”

“You know what your daddy does?”

“He talks for all of us,” said Lillian.

“Well—I don’t think he talks for me very well. Sometimes.”

“So why don’t you talk instead?” asked Jocelyn promptly.

“I do,” said Tom. “But no one listens.”

There was a pause. Tom had a brief vision of Wendy listening from beyond his bedroom door.

“So you’re mad because no one listens?” asked Jocelyn finally.

“That’s not his fault,” added Lillian.

“No,” said Tom. “I think it’s dangerous, what he says. I think it will make a lot of people fight.”

“Will it make you fight?” asked Jocelyn, settling back in his embrace.

Tom nodded, then realized she could no longer see him. “Yes.”

“No fighting,” said Lillian, turning the page. “Just share.”

“What does Daddy say that you don’t like?” asked Jocelyn.

“There’s this bully,” said Tom, “who wants things. Your dad says: give him these things, and he’ll stop being a bully. I think if we give him these things, he’ll become more of a bully.”

“That’s Hitler,” said Jocelyn, tweaking Lillian’s arm. Lillian jerked her arm away. “I don’t like bullies,” said Jocelyn. “But you have to turn the other cheek.”

“Yes,” said Tom. “Yes, that’s what they say. And that’s good for some things. But not everything. Not the whole world over.”

Jocelyn chewed her hair a little over this one. Then she turned back to look at Tom. “So, where is it bad then?”

Tom almost smiled. Then, before he could answer, the door to his bedroom opened.

Wendy looked quite lovely. Tom noticed it almost reflexively. Her hair was tousled; her lips seemed more red and plump; her azure eyes were striking. He noticed the length of her legs, and her slender calves. She smiled radiantly.

“Children, it’s time for your nap,” she said languidly.

There was much complaining—especially from Jocelyn, who said that Uncle Tom was explaining Daddy. But Wendy seemed quite intent in getting the children to bed. She lifted them from Tom’s embrace, and let Lillian hang on to the Noddy book. She promised to wake them in an hour. She even seemed unembarrassed when Jocelyn—who was rather fussy—complained about the smell coming from Uncle Tom’s pillow.

Within ten minutes, the children were settled. Wendy returned to the living room, then said:

“Tom, do you have anything to drink?”

He smiled. “Do you mean ‘to drink,’ or ‘to drink’?”

“That second one.”

“Scotch.”

She smiled languorously. “Ahh, yes. Of course. Please.”

Tom got her a drink, and sat back on the sofa. Wendy stretched out from the other end, putting her stockinged feet in his lap.

“Would you be an absolute dear and rub my toes a tad?” she asked. “That damn accelerator is stuck, and I’m positively cramped. Ahhh, thanks… Just hard enough. That’s niiiice…”

Tom kneaded her foot. “So, how’ve you been?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s been hell with Reginald out of the country.” Wendy smiled, and Tom realized that she was being sarcastic. For some reason, a few hackles rose on the back of his neck. “He really is a pompous windbag, isn’t he? Not that you could say anything that blunt to the girls. I keep wanting to tell them that their daddy is not how men are supposed to be. I can never trust him to discipline them. He’s either too harsh or trying to win them over. Yuck. Lord, this scotch is good. I haven’t touched a drop in—oh, forever. Can you switch feet? You’re so good, I might ask you to do one of my calves. They are still one of my better features. One of the few of my attributes Mother Nature left unblemished by pregnancy. But don’t let me do all the rambling. How are you, Tommy?”

“Ohh, not bad. Sad. Definitely sad.”

“About what? What could you have to be sad about? Single life, good looks. Mmm. Strong hands. A career that’s more than just primping for reporters.”

Tom smiled. “Oh, listen… I had enough trouble hedging with your children. Don’t even ask.”

Wendy shrugged. “So, it’s about Reginald. Please—of all people! You shouldn’t hold back with me. I’ve been thinking of leaving him. No—don’t stop!”

But Tom could not restart his hands. He glanced at the travel bag Wendy had brought with her. She did not follow his glance, but seemed to know where it led.

“No, don’t worry, I haven’t come to seek refuge here. I’m in no mood to spark that kind of fraternal feud. It would make Cain and Abel seem chummy. But I am thinking about it, nonetheless.”

“When—when did you first think of it?”

“I won’t answer if you don’t rub,” she smiled. “It’s a long drive back.”

Reluctantly, Tom restarted his massage.

“That was a clever question,” continued Wendy. “I would have to say—on our honeymoon.”

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I’m surprised it took that long,” said Tom, then regretted it immediately. “Sorry—that was abominably flippant.”

“He took a little sailboat out, on our second day. He wouldn’t wear any sunscreen. He pretends to know everything about sailing. Idiotic. The wind takes him away, away… He’s this tiny little dot on the horizon. I picture him cursing the wind and waves. Never himself. Never himself. I think: if he falls off the end of the world… Mmmm, that’s nice.” Wendy shifted a leg. “You may do a calf, Mr. Spencer. He comes back, and is enraged that he has a sunburn. I couldn’t imagine what to say. It’s no fun even to say: ‘I told you so.’ It just makes him angrier. But I like that, sometimes. You know, how it’s fun to tell a vain woman that she has a pimple. Play with their vanity. Because my God, but he’s a vain creature. I thought it was a mostly female vice. He’s obsessed with how others see him. You should see him when the phone rings. He can be screaming at me, all purple—but his face fades and he runs to answer the phone and says: ‘Hullo, Reginald Spencer here!,’ all charm and good humor. It gives me the willies. No. The creeps. He’s a creepy man. So false. So false.” She laughed. “Can you see me telling the judge: he’s false, so I must leave him? The judge would laugh and say: Mrs. Spencer, you show me a marriage that’s not false, and I’ll release you from yours. And so I would have to stay. So sad. So very sad…”

Tom stopped rubbing Wendy’s calf midlength. Her head was lolling on the far side of the sofa. All his senses were alerted. If not for the nieces, he would have stopped the direction of this conversation, and taken her someplace public for tea. But he was terrified that she might…

“You know, Tom,” she murmured, her throat almost clogged with nostalgic sensuality, “you really remind me of my first beau. You know, I let myself be passed around a little, later on, before I met your brother. I think that I had the great misfortune of meeting my true love too early. I didn’t take rejection very well. He didn’t reject me per se; just wanted to wait. But I’ve never been good at deferring gratification. Now or never…”

“Listen, Wendy, I have to know something.”

“What, Tom?”

“Am I causing any problems between you and Reginald?”

She opened her eyes and regarded him with frank challenge. “Whatever do you mean?”

“What I say.”

“I do not understand.”

“No?”

“Not at all. Do you mean your politics? I don’t care about politics.”

“OK. All right. I just wanted to know…”

“Know what, Tommy? Know whether I desired you?”

“Look, if I’m wrong, I’m wrong.”

“And what if you’re not?”

Tom started. “What?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. Just get me another scotch. Please.”

Tom got up and poured her a little more.

“Oh,” she said, regarding the tumbler. “How very Scottish of you!”

“You have a long drive,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the sofa. “As you said.”

Wendy looked at him, then laughed out loud. “Oh, please don’t tell me I’m making you uncomfortable. After all these years? Let us say that I desire you terribly, if you like. If that feeds your ego. How much could we get up to, really, with my children a mere heartbeat away? You are safe, Mr. Spencer. Now sit down and be comfortable.”

Tom sat down, his head spinning. Wendy turned and gazed out of the window, tracing her fingertips over her thigh.

“So, we are going to be frank,” she murmured. “Remember—you brought it up. He is terrible in… He never ever touches me.” Her breath shuddered slightly. “I really don’t know if I’m at all attractive any more, Tom. Sorry about being so badly flirty. It’s not about you. It’s about me. Oh you’re attractive, of course. A blind woman can see that. It’s something about… You are clean in a very rare way. Clean and healthy. Kind. Giving. Loving. Resolute. A modern knight. Not one of these fucking oily, slippery courtiers. Piling on each other to reach…” She sighed. “I don’t know what. Power, probably. Reginald is so kind to every stranger he meets. He bends over backwards to make them like him. He almost forces them. Then, once he has them—once they think he’s the most noble and competent man in creation—he runs off to the next one. And they all trail after him, like the sad tail of some broken kite.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I feel that I’m in a kind of hell, Tom. That I’m losing my soul. To him, to his world. To all these lies and manipulations. I have to get away. I can’t breathe there, Tom! I can’t!”

“Shh,” he said, rubbing her shin.

“Please help me,” she whispered, looking away and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“What do you want me to do?” asked Tom. “I’m so sorry.”

“Do you hate him?” asked Wendy. “Everyone loves him so much. I’m all alone. Everyone loves him. It would mean so much for me to know that someone else sees him. For what he is. An infectious ghost.”

Tom hesitated, struggling mightily. Finally, he said. “I…don’t like him. And it’s not just—not just us two. Our mother. Ruth… As well.”

Wendy’s face turned to him, her eyes blazing in triumph. “I knew it!” she cried out, slapping the back of one hand into the palm of another. Tom heard the girls stir in the next room.

“It’s always the goddamned mother, isn’t it?” she demanded, her cheeks flushed. “That’s what they say. That’s where they always lay the blame. So—even his own mother doesn’t like him. How’s that, eh Reggie-boy?”

“Oh—you can’t use that!” said Tom, aghast.

“Oh, no!” she laughed. “No, of course not. It’s enough for me to know!” Her face grew suddenly serious. “But thank you. Thank you, Tom. I really thought I was going mad…” Her eyelids fluttered. “Would—would you mind giving me a little hug? I feel very shaky.”

Tom drew a deep breath and hesitated.

Her eyes welled up once more. “Please!” she cried, holding out her arms.

“All—right,” said Tom.

And then, she was upon him, almost without transition. It seemed as if she were wriggling against him the very moment that he uttered his last word. Her body was convulsing—her hips writhing, her back arching. Her hands were in his hair. She was kissing his neck, licking his ear. Tom heard a creaking sound, but thought it was the couch.

“Oh, Tommy!” she panted, her hands everywhere. “I want…”

He could not help his response. He threw her from him, against the coffee table. She skidded back, falling on her behind, her hair and eyes wild. She scrambled to her feet, her fingers crooked into claws, and then saw her two children staring from the open bedroom door.

“Mummy?” asked Jocelyn tearfully. “Is Uncle Tom all right?”

Wendy stood there, her mouth open. Tom buried his face in his hands.

Like a little bridge, Lillian’s hand came up and pointed at her mother.

“X, X, X, X, X, X…” she whispered.

Chapter 88

Events had moved away from Reginald and Lord Runciman. Chamberlain had flown to Munich to speak with Hitler alone, which was unprecedented.

Lord Runciman was nonplussed.

“I mean,” he said, half reclining on a leather sofa in the British Embassy in Prague, his chin resting on his chest, “what is the point of having a Foreign Office if you just fly out and do your own negotiations whenever it suits you? I mean, the abominable vanity of the man! Here we have been dealing with Germany for twenty years, and he just up and flies to Munich to meet with Hitler on his own! My God! And imagine—one of the most wonderful things about having diplomats is sending them to negotiate for you while giving them no power at all! The most common sentence in the diplomatic language: ‘I shall have to check with my superiors.’ Buys time. Creates distance. Here, there’s nothing. A dictator doesn’t understand democracy. Chamberlain has to lay all his cards on the table. Who’s Hitler going to have to check with? His mummy? Goddamned fool!”

“Why do you think he went back?” asked Reginald.

Lord Runciman snorted. “Because Hitler changed his demands. We know that. Chamberlain fought mightily to give Hitler the Sudetenland—he had to flex all his political muscle to pull that one off. Duff Cooper wanted war. Eden was criticizing Chamberlain in public. Forty percent of the British public disapprove of Chamberlain’s stand on Czechoslovakia. And there’s always Churchill, chomping on the bit. But he pulled it off, the old fox. But then he goes back to Hitler, trembling from head to foot from all his political exertions, offering him the Sudetenland, and our lovely little Austrian says: no sir, Mr. Chamberlain, that’s not what I want anymore. Now I want Czechoslovakia divvied up on racial lines. Not just the Sudetenland for me, but also one million Hungarians back to Hungary; a hundred thousand Poles back to Poland, and several million Slovaks back to Russia. The current Czech government and its troops to withdraw back behind these racial lines. And plebiscites over all disputed areas—not just the Sudetenland.”

“My God,” whispered Reginald. “That would be the end of Czechoslovakia.”

“Of course. Of course it would be. That’s why the Czechs are mobilizing. That’s the sound from the street. They’re overjoyed. They think that the Germans will come, the Czechs will hold out heroically—and then us and the frogs will come in out of guilt. For them, it’s the great battle for civilization. They, my young friend, are also fools.”

Reginald frowned. “Why? We’ll have to come in if they fight.”

“The Czechs? That is very likely. That is why our entire policy is, at the moment, entirely geared towards ensuring that the Czechs do not fight.” Lord Runciman shuddered delicately. “My God—can you imagine? Another world war…”

“But—won’t we have to? I don’t mean to appear too naïve, but the French will have to fight. Then we’d…”

“Yes,” said Lord Runciman impatiently. “But that’s not the purpose of it. Not at all. If Hitler comes up with something we can force down Beneš’s throat, then by God we all line up and start shoving! If Beneš fights that—if he resists our compromise, then we wash our hands of him and leave him to his fate. This is no time for gratuitous principles. We’re all staring utter destruction in the face. Our nose is down the muzzle. It’s all up to Beneš now.” Lord Runciman sighed. “And now he’s gone and mobilized. And we’re all bleating down the line to Hitler, stammering to reassure him that we didn’t tell him to mobilize, oh no, not us.”

“So—you disapprove?”

“Oh, the whole thing is an unholy mess. We’re long past the point of doing anything intelligent now. We can stop eating cake now, but we already weigh five hundred pounds. I don’t know why Beneš doesn’t see that. He’s bleating too, how he’s being mistreated and abandoned. He doesn’t see how things stand. Everyone has run away, but he’s still marching forward. He’s crying out: ‘Come on, chaps’—we’re all in a bunker saying: ‘Good luck!’ and taking odds on the number of seconds he has left. An unholy mess.”

Reginald swallowed. “What—what would you do, if you were…”

“Do? Good Lord! You’re asking a doctor how to save a terminal patient! If I were Beneš, I’d agree to whatever Hitler demands. Give him the Sudetenland, whatever he wants, and hope that it really is his last territorial claim.”

“It can’t be. No, it can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because not too long ago, he said he just wanted the Sudetenland. Now he wants more. Before that, he said he didn’t want Austria. Before that, he said he didn’t want the Rhineland. The man cannot be trusted.”

Lord Runciman laughed, imitating a cockney accent. “Well, sonny, that’s an eye-opener. Of course he can’t be trusted. The man murders his own war companions, old party members since day one, and we think he’ll be squeamish about lying? We’re hoping to chase down and hold him to some imaginary grain of goodness and honor in his person? It doesn’t exist.”

“So—so why did you come?”

“I didn’t think I’d like the Czechs so much. They really are quite noble. Very brave. They’d rather die than surrender. It’s going to be awful.”

“And—do you think that there is really no hope then?”

Lord Runciman shook his head slowly.

Reginald paused. “But they’re all meeting in Munich at the moment. The British, French, Germans, and Italians.”

Lord Runciman smiled. “And what are they meeting for?”

“Well—to decide the fate of Czechoslovakia.”

“Then who, pray tell, is conspicuously absent from the nations you spoke of?”

Reginald paused again. “Ah.”

“Two dictators, two appeasers. I think it will not go well for Czechoslovakia. Mark my words: nothing will happen at Munich which has not already been decided.”

Reginald was about to reply when a steward came and bowed.

“Telephone call for you, sir.”

Reginald looked up, surprised. “Really?”

“A lady. Your wife.”

“Ooh,” grimaced Lord Runciman. “Better get that then.”

Reginald was having a hard time hearing her. This was for two reasons. First, because the line was bad. Second, because she was crying, and he had never heard her do that.

-Reginald?

-Yes! Yes! Hullo? Is everything all right?

-Yes. I—just had to talk to you.

-What has happened? Are the children…?

-The children are fine. Fine. Oh, Reginald—when are you coming home?

-Soon. In a few weeks. At most. Why?

-I…

-What? Pardon? Look—you’ll just have to speak up!

-I miss you.

-Well that’s nice, but can’t you put that in a letter? We have to keep this line open. I’m getting looks.

-Reginald…

-What? I have to…

-Reginald…

-What?

-He—attacked me.

-What? What?

-He attacked me. Your brother.

-You… Please repeat that. I want to be sure I have it right.

-Tom attacked me. Oh, Reginald—the children saw it! They have it all mixed up in their minds… Reginald? Are you there?

-Put it in a letter. Listen, I’m sorry I have to be away. But put it in a letter. I’ll write to Tom. Put it in a letter. Is there anyone there you can talk to? A friend?

-I was trying to talk to Tom when… When…

-All right—please try and hold yourself together. This is wretched, wretched timing. Wendy—Wendy, you have to be strong. Listen—listen, you’ll have to put it all in a letter. Send it express. I have to get off the line. We need it—I’m being signaled that it’s needed for a diplomatic call. Try me at the hotel tonight. You know where I’m staying? What? Yes, good. Well, hang on. Stiff upper lip. We’ll sort it out when I get home. I said, we’ll sort it out when… Hullo? Hullo? All right then.”

Chapter 89

The telephone rang late at night.

Tom awoke from uneasy dreams of being some sort of green praying insect, and recalled everything from the previous day immediately. He knew it was Wendy. Some damn story. Some horrible apology. Some justification. Some blame. Her eyes had been on fire with hatred when she had swept out with the crying children. She had even forgotten her travel bag, which lay by his front door. He would have to send it back.

He really, really didn’t want to pick up the telephone. Her unhappiness had nothing to do with him. After he had thrown her off, after she had clambered to her feet and seen her watching, pointing children, she had stared at them for perhaps twenty seconds, then whirled and slapped Tom hard across the face.

The ringing went on. Tom put his pillow over his head. He couldn’t help but notice that Jocelyn had been right. It was a little sour.

There was a short silence, then it started up again.

After about five minutes of constant ringing, Tom heard thumping and bellowing from his neighbor: “Answer that, or I’ll break down your goddamned door and answer it myself!”

Tom got up and stood over the black jangling telephone. His eyes followed the cord. I should just unplug it, he thought, but then thought of his beloved nieces and thought that perhaps Wendy had come to her senses, and was calling to apologize and offer that they put it all behind them. Fine with me, he thought. I’m more of a breast man than a leg man anyway.

He picked up the receiver.

“Yes?”

“Tom!” An angry male voice. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Who… Hart?”

“Yes. Christ Almighty, you take heroin to fall asleep? It’s a goddamned flat, right?”

“Right but… Sorry. I thought you were someone else.” Wait—why am I apologizing? “What time is it?”

“Three. Well, it was three when I first started calling. Probably three thirty now.”

Tom took a deep breath. “Why are you calling, Hart?”

“You put me in this purgatory to keep my eyes open. Well, they’re open. Boy, are they open. We have to meet. I have to meet with your friend Churchill in the morning. Should be Churchill. Unless you know anyone with more power.”

“Why?”

“Not on the telephone. Come to London.”

“You should—come here. Churchill is not far.”

Pause.

“All right. No, that’s terrible. Come to my flat.”

“Why?”

“I’m not at work. But I might have to go back.”

Tom made some instant coffee so strong it resisted stirring, then got in his car to drive to London. He thought of flying, but didn’t know what the airports would be like this time of night. Although, he thought, it’s not too long before early morning flights.

He arrived at Hart’s flat a little after five in the morning, after driving very fast. Normally, Tom was a very careful driver, because he hated the stereotype of ‘fast-driving-pilot,’ and because he wanted to reserve his luck for air emergencies.

Hart was up. Pacing. Awash in coffee.

“Tom, all right, that was quick, very good. Did you fly? Doesn’t matter.” He was rubbing his hands feverishly. Tom knew better than to try talking him down.

“History, Tom—do you know we are right in the middle of history? If I were a religious man, I’d say, why me, God? But I’m not. And I never believed any of Klaus’s rot about the ‘universal spirit.’ So there it is. This is what I heard. This is it. I was working late last night, and Halifax’s door was open…”

“Isn’t he in Munich?”

Hart shook his head rapidly. “And I thought I heard German. So I sidled over. Very stupid. But something drew me. And I caught a glimpse, just as if I were walking past—but very softly. And a German man was sitting in Halifax’s office. A German military man. Very, very well decorated.”

Tom’s mouth dropped open, which was very gratifying to Hart, who firmly believed that he was in possession of one of the greatest pieces of gossip in recorded history.

“Have you ever heard of a German named General Beck?” he asked.

Tom shook his head.

“I looked him up. Very big. Close to Hitler. This man in Halifax’s office—I never got his name, we’ll call him General X—he said that General Beck has become quite disenchanted with der Führer. Thinks that: all right, it worked three times, with conscription, the Rhineland, and Austria. But he now thinks that Hitler’s gone potty. That they’re not ready for war against Czechoslovakia. Not with the whole world. And he’s not alone. There are others…”

“Others—what? What do they want to do?”

Hart blinked, as if he was sure he’d already told him.

“Overthrow Hitler, of course.”

Tom’s legs buckled right where he was, and he went down, right onto the carpet.

Hart leapt over and helped him up.

“That’s what I did, right in the FO, almost, except I was terrified of being heard. Come on, get up, you’re not hurt, it’s shag.”

Tom sat in an armchair, absently rubbing his knee. “All right,” he said, his voice harsh with hope. “They want a coup. Who? Be exact—you want to bring this to Churchill, he’ll grill you until you can’t see straight.”

“I had my notepad with me, thank God,” said Hart, taking it out of the breast pocket of his rumpled suit and flipping it open. “Beck started opposing Hitler a few months ago, when he got wind of plans to invade Czechoslovakia. He said: no more adventures. Hitler said: screw you, the army is a tool of the state. So Beck resigned. General X says to Halifax: ‘By the beginning of September, they had taken the necessary steps to save Germany from this Austrian lunatic.’ They think that the majority of Germans view another war with utter horror. Apparently Hitler drew back from Czechoslovakia in March only because no one came out for one of his parades. Anyway, they don’t want to kill Hitler, just arrest him, establish a military Government, and tell the people that they were forced to act because Hitler was leading them to utter disaster. General X doesn’t think the German people will mind being spared certain carnage. Some elements, but not many. Just the madmen. But he argues that the submissive nature of the German people—which makes them obey Hitler—will also cause them to obey his successor.”

Tom tried to swallow, but failed. “Look, I need some water.”

“Help yourself. I have pots of coffee, too.”

Tom went to the kitchen, poured some water, and came back, limping slightly.

“All right—how many?” he asked.

“Eight. Generals Halder, Beck, Stülpnagel, Witzleben, he’s the commander of the Berlin Garrison, Thomas, Controller of Armaments, Brockdorff, commander of the Potsdam garrison, and Graf von Helldorf, who is in charge of the Berlin police. The Commander-in-Chief, General von Brauchitsch, was apparently informed, and approves.”

“Christ!” groaned Tom. “I am so sorry I didn’t answer the telephone earlier. But who would have guessed… Who…”

“It’s all right,” said Hart, his eyes shining. He looked down at his notepad. “This is their plan. They hold one panzer tank division close to Berlin, which is easy to conceal as part of the troop movements towards Czechoslovakia, so it could reach Berlin in one night’s travel. This is the Third Panzer Division, commanded by General Hoepner. It’s stationed south of Berlin. Hoepner is going to occupy the capital, the Chancellery, and all the big Nazi ministries and offices at a signal from General Witzleben. Also, this man Helldorf has made meticulous plans to arrest Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, and Himmler.” Hart looked up. “All they need is for Hitler to be in Berlin. He came from Berchtesgaden on the fourteenth. They made their plans.”

“So then?” asked Tom, for some reason terrified of the answer.

“So they are ready to go, but at four o’clock, Witzleben’s offices tells the others that Chamberlain was coming over. Tells everyone about the Four Powers conference in Munich. So they all get together. Have a meeting.” Hart took a deep breath. “And at that meeting, they all agreed that if Hitler’s bluff worked, Halder, as Chief of Staff, could not reasonably call it.”

“What? What does that mean?”

Hart looked up, his brown eyes dark and strangely sober. “I think it means that if Chamberlain decides to fight for Czechoslovakia, then there will be no war. Not even a little one. Hitler will be overthrown without a shot being fired, Germany will withdraw her troops, and everyone can come home.”

Tom stared at Hart for a long moment, hearing his heart thudding in his ears, then leapt for the telephone.

Chapter 90

Reginald was enraged. He was beyond words. Even his famously acidic pen was not up to the task. Before, when he had written angry letters to Tom—most notably, after the Oxford debate five years previously—he had taken great pains to channel his anger into appropriate channels. But now, he thought, there are no appropriate channels.

If he had been in England, he truly thought, he would have challenged Tom to a duel. There can be no more compromises. No more pussyfooting around. Now, I have to draw a line. To attack my wife, when I am off defending his lazy, worthless hide…! This time, Reginald’s rage knew no bounds. He found that he could whip up his restless troops with a bare minimum of rhetoric:

His whole life, he has been jealous of me, the little fuck! I have everything he wants, but is too cowardly to take! I have a good degree, a great job, a beautiful wife, obedient children, a lovely house, and the respect of my peers. He sits in a little room, mucking about with airplane motors and nursing all his bitter, self-induced wounds. And to imagine that I am somehow to blame for all his failures! I risked my reputation at every turn to help him. And what do I get in return? Oh, he can sit and whine and plot with Hart and Gunther and all the likes of that sad little lot. He can even undermine me with my children—they are, after all, my children, which is scarcely a contest. He can leer at my wife and leave footprints on my carpet. But when his bitter rage overflows and he touches her in anger, in lust, in the sick desire to destroy all that we have built together—when I am thousands of miles away working for a safety that protects him as well—ah, that is too much! How I would love to take his twisting, whining neck and throttle all the spiteful life from its windpipe. How I yearn to…

And so on. And on and on.

He was sitting in his hotel room, trying to avoid having the third of ‘three-drinks-too-many’ when the telephone rang.

It was Lord Runciman.

“Come to the bar, young man. Your opinion is required.”

Cursing, Reginald changed, knotted his bow tie and went down to the hotel bar. Lord Runciman was sitting in a booth with a rather obese man with a little mustache and heavily oiled hair.

Lord Runciman smiled and gestured. “Reginald Spencer, meet Fletcher Islington. Fletcher has flown down this very night to ask our opinion of our good friends the Czechs. I’ve given him mine, but I know you would approach me with puppy-dog eyes if I did not allow you your participation.”

Lord Runciman was a little drunk.

“Here’s the thing,” said Fletcher, leaning forward and wiping his face. He had bad teeth, and constantly gestured in front of them as he spoke, like a magician of decay. “We have been approached by eight German generals with a remarkable offer. They say that if we call Hitler’s bluff, and guarantee to support Czechoslovakia, then they will lop his head off, politically speaking. So what we want to know is—and Lord Runciman has already given me his opinion—what will the Czechs do if we guarantee their borders…”

Reginald held up his hand. His heart was hammering hard. “Do you mean the 1919 borders? The original ones, before all this started?”

“The same,” wheezed Fletcher. His breath was bad, too. Reginald briefly wondered why no one ever told him this, then realized that, of course, everyone thought this, and it did no good at all. “The question is,” asked Fletcher, “will they fight?”

“Why would it matter?” asked Reginald. His jaw was rigid. He wanted to bite both men. And the table. He kept seeing Tom’s handsome head bending over his pale shaking wife, like the cover of some awful third-rate romance novel. With the children watching…

Fletcher glanced at Lord Runciman, who shrugged. He turned back to Reginald. “What do you mean, why would it matter?”

“Well, if these Generals are going to decompose—sorry—depose Hitler, why would the Czechs have to fight?”

Fletcher nodded. “Well, we’re concerned that the generals might not act until the German troops are engaged on the border. Just so Hitler, if he escapes the coup, won’t be able to summon much resistance. And so, if the Czechs will fight, we might risk supporting them, since it will get rid of Hitler.”

As he sat there, in the smoky booth, Reginald thought he heard a distinctive ‘click,’ and some basic inner structure seemed to fall away from him. All of Europe seemed to unfold in his mind’s eye. With himself at one end. And Tom at the other. And he had a sudden, overwhelming desire to…to…

“It’s a trap,” he said.

Fletcher’s head darted forward. Lord Runciman frowned.

“A trap, young man?” he said. “You don’t seem to understand the…”

“It’s a trap,” said Reginald with exquisite calm. “This is what is happening. Hitler wants to declare war on England. Maybe not this minute. Perhaps after dealing with Czechoslovakia. But soon. Early next year. And this is his casus belli. His just cause. We’re supporting a coup against him. I will tell you what will happen. We will accede to these German generals, or whoever is representing them, and then Hitler will miraculously discover this plot—and our complicity in it—and then he will feel free to act against us.”

Fletcher blinked. “But—that’s incredible. Why us? He would have to come through France first. Why not use France for this plot instead?”

“Because France has no real government, and hasn’t had one for what, ten years? And the point is not to single out England, but to separate us from France.”

“Separate us? How?”

“Have we informed France about this extraordinary offer?”

Fletcher paused. It was enough. “Do you really think so?” he asked, his voice hushed.

Reginald ticked off his fingers. “We don’t tell France about this German plot. Hitler discovers it. He declares war on us. France says—and who could blame her—well, England, you made this decision alone, so you must take the consequences alone. And our great alliance—the only hope to stop Hitler—is in tatters.”

“But what if it is not a ruse—a trap?” demanded Lord Runciman.

Reginald leaned back and spread his hands. “What does it matter? Perhaps it is not. No—let us say that it is not. What then? Suppose the plot fails. Are you saying that, even under torture, none of the eight generals will tell Hitler about England’s complicity? To save themselves or their families? Of course they will. That’s if the plot even comes to fruition. It probably won’t even get that far. They could get caught any number of a million ways before they lift a finger. What if the panzer commander changes his mind? What if even some of his men remember that they’ve made a personal vow of loyalty to the führer?” Reginald felt a great black satisfaction rolling through his chest as he spoke. “Do we really want to be mixed up in all this? If they are so certain of the virtue of their plan, why do they need our help? Why inform us? Why do we have to stand up to Hitler for them to depose him? And even if they do depose him, they will only replace him. And remember that their objection is not that Hitler shouldn’t be invading Czechoslovakia—just that he’s doing it at the wrong time. So they wait a year or two, with their new dictator, and then they try again. What will we tell our good British citizens then? I can hear it now, as we force them to fight… ‘Well, we effectively installed this new dictator, and now that he is so much stronger than Hitler, please go and kill him for us!’ Our government would collapse within a week. No, gentlemen, it really will not do. We should reply to these German generals that their internal coups are their own business, and they should just let us know what happens. Otherwise, when we have become tangled up in a plot to kill or depose him, how shall Hitler negotiate with us in the future? It is pure, pure nonsense, and if you want my opinion, there it is!”

There was a silence in the booth after Reginald’s speech. He sat slumped back in his seat, as if he had lost some essential part of his skeleton.

Fletcher wiped his mouth, grimaced, then jumped up.

“I have to make a telephone call to London,” he stammered. “Right away!”

Reginald gestured limply. “Ask at reception…”

The fat man turned and struggled through the crowd, cursing loudly as he pushed.

Lord Runciman turned to Reginald. His eyes were wide in wonder. He smiled graciously, tipping an imaginary hat.

“My God, Reginald, you are a brave man. Even if such inspiration had struck me, I would have hesitated before accepting such a mantle. If you are wrong, historians will track you down and nail your hide up as the centerpiece in some museum of shame. Do you really believe all that?”

Reginald passed a hand across his forehead. It was coming. He could feel it. A headache of rare—almost biblical—proportions.

“Oh, you know, Lord Runciman,” he murmured, “I don’t have much respect for thought. Most philosophy is just the striving of weak men for justifications to do nothing.”

Chapter 91

Father Martin was utterly surprised at himself. He sat in the first pew of his little whitewashed church. He looked at the back of his hands. They were very old. The skin was mottled and wrinkled; the veins and tendons bulged. He moved his fingers, and felt the muscles slithering all the way up his forearm. He cupped his hand, slowly rotating his wedding ring, his head lowering.

Martin felt immense. He felt larger than his church. He felt as if he were squatting over the black land of his birth. This is the soul of a man, when joined with God…

Now it was clear. Now the lesson had been learned. Every red spatter was bathed in the whitest, most divine light. His wife had been struck down. For wanting to hang crucifixes. It was all resoundingly simple, and Martin felt huge beyond any human scale. He thought back over his mental life of the past five years. It had all seemed so confusing. That cannot have been because the signs were unclear, but because he was uncertain. Because he lacked faith. But now, his wife’s wedding ring was lost somewhere; it had gone to join the general confusion of general atoms, and her soul was in God’s care. Because I could not care for her, thought Martin, his brow contracting in pain.

He felt at one with everything. He felt as if his little flesh were the whole universe. He felt united with endless love, infinite light. Everything had settled within him.

And, as is so often the case, once he had decided his purpose, his next action was clear.

He was going to preach.

The Nazis were from the devil. The Nazis were murderous thugs, petty arsonists bent on setting the whole world afire. The Nazis were pure evil.

Martin’s head lowered towards his hands a little more. It is all so clear, in hindsight. God is not political. God is not tribal. The individual conscience is—and must be—utterly sovereign. The soul cannot cede its moral authority to another agency. Force has no place in the determination of moral choices. God gives us free will, which no government or group can override. The moment Hitler demanded that each German swear an oath of personal loyalty to him, I should have known. ‘There shall be no false gods before Me…’ We invited the devils because we were afraid of responsibility. We gave them our souls because we no longer knew how to tend them. A lazy, fearful man can always find someone else to tell him what to do. And I was that man. I was afraid. I feared for my children, my wife, myself. But that choice was never mine to make. My relationship is with God, who gives all things. For fear of endangering my wife, I submitted to evil masters who murdered her outright. I could have had a fight. Instead, I chose submission, which destroyed me without even the honor of a fight…

Martin took a deep breath, and raised his eyes to the little crucifix over his altar. He had always loved this little church. This little nest of old stones. This sanctuary, this safe, this womb of God. And he felt something he had not felt for many, many years…

The world is always at war, between good and evil. Between freedom and force. Between individual sovereignty and group power. Between conscience and obedience. And we forgot that, for some reason. We chose to focus on the details. Who said what. What happened when. And so we lost ourselves. If one regards only details, one can always submit…

And something came to him then, on his night’s reverie in his empty church.

Almost…

I was almost a good man, so I became the worst man. I almost fought for goodness, and so I brought about its death. I pretended to wrestle with my conscience, and so I betrayed everything I loved. I almost tried, and so discredited trying. I almost resisted, and so damned resistance…

Then, he wept. It was soft, and silent. It was all the endless tears which come too late. The world warned me, and kept warning me. Every warning became more bladed, more sinister. And still I wavered. Still I doubted. And now all my hesitating seems so futile, so stupid! Why did I have to wait for death to defend life? I am supposed to guard the farthest walls of humanity; the walls before the greatest devils. And they come over the wall and I squint and doubt. And they come loping and baying across the walls and still I hum and wonder. And they come barking down my lane and still I counsel patience and prudence. And then they tear apart my wife and now I say: this lesson is too harsh. But it is not too harsh. It is only harsh because I was a coward. The wages of sin is death. And these devils were a long time coming, and they did not hide their approach. And now that they stand above me, twitching and drooling, I shall at least curse their presence. I shall not survive my cursing, but my voice might carry a little…

And it was this that I feared the most. Standing up and being in danger. Because I have been a tyrant. Could I have stood up to the Nazis without apologizing to my children? Force cannot be used in morality. But I beat my children for failing me. I beat my wife for disagreeing…

Martin sobbed. His head was almost upon his knees. His back ached with the strain of bending over. He felt like an accordion full of seawater. Bending over squeezed salt tears from his eyes.

In his extremity of agony—and there is no agony on earth greater than moral transgressions felt too late—he had a terrible thought. It was so strong, so simultaneous with his pain and terror, that he felt that it might have come from God. Or from his late wife, now with Him…

Renata put up the crucifixes because she would rather be with God than me…

And then…

Renata put up the crucifixes to save her own soul. From me. Because I was leading us down the easy path, the compliant path, toward the Everlasting Fire…

And he felt, then, such a sudden and overwhelming desire to be with his wife that he would have attacked an armed Nazi commander then and there, if one could be found. He wanted to be with Renata, to thank her for her courage, her lesson—and to apologize for his own vanity, in his family and in the world—for his use of the sword when words were required, and his use of words where the sword was required.

But it will not be long now, he thought—and with that thought, peace entered into his heart. His life was now to be measured in days. His words would bring the devils, but would not bring down the devils. Martin thought of his wife, on their wedding day. Her hope, her bliss, everything he had destroyed.

He closed his eyes, straightened his back, and folded his hands.

Soon, they would be together.

Chapter 92

On September 27, 1938, Chamberlain made a personal broadcast to the anxious British people:

“To-morrow Parliament is going to meet, and I shall be making a full statement of the events which have led up to the present anxious and critical situation.

“An earlier statement would not have been possible when I was flying backwards and forwards across Europe, and the position was changing from hour to hour. But to-day there is a lull for a brief time, and I want to say a few words to you, men and women of Britain and the Empire, and perhaps to others as well.

“First of all I must say something to those who have written to my wife or myself in these last weeks to tell us of their gratitude for my efforts and to assure us of their prayers for my success. Most of these letters have come from women—mothers or sisters of our own countrymen. But there are countless others besides—from France, from Belgium, from Italy, and even from Germany, and it has been heartbreaking to read the growing anxiety they reveal and their intense relief when they thought, too soon, that the danger of war was past.

“If I felt my responsibility heavy before, to read such letters has made it seem almost overwhelming. How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.

“I can well understand the reasons why the Czech government have felt unable to accept the terms which have been put before them in the German memorandum. Yet I believe after my talks with Herr Hitler that, if only time were allowed, it ought to be possible for the arrangements for transferring the territory that the Czech government has agreed to give to Germany to be settled by agreement under conditions which would assure fair treatment to the population concerned.

“You know already that I have done all that one man can do to compose this quarrel. After my visits to Germany I have realized vividly how Herr Hitler feels that he must champion other Germans, and his indignation that grievances have not been met before this. He told me privately, and last night he repeated publicly, that after this Sudeten German question is settled, that is the end of Germany's territorial claims in Europe.

“After my first visit to Berchtesgaden I did get the assent of the Czech government to proposals which gave the substance of what Herr Hitler wanted, and I was taken completely by surprise when I got back to Germany and found that he insisted that the territory should be handed over to him immediately, and immediately occupied by German troops without previous arrangements for safeguarding the people within the territory who were not Germans, or did not want to join the German Reich.

“I must say that I find this attitude unreasonable. If it arises out of any doubts that Herr Hitler feels about the intentions of the Czech government to carry out their promises and hand over the territory, I have offered on part of the British government to guarantee their words, and I am sure the value of our promise will not be underrated anywhere.

“I shall not give up the hope of a peaceful solution, or abandon my efforts for peace, as long as any chance for peace remains. I would not hesitate to pay even a third visit to Germany if I thought it would do any good. But at this moment I see nothing further that I can usefully do in the way of mediation.

“Meanwhile there are certain things we can and shall do at home. Volunteers are still wanted for air raid precautions, for fire brigade and police services, and for the Territorial units. I know that all of you, men and women alike, are ready to play your part in the defense of the country, and I ask you all to offer your services, if you have not already done so, to the local authorities, who will tell you if you are wanted and in what capacity.

“Do not be alarmed if you hear of men being called up to man the antiaircraft defenses or ships. These are only precautionary measures such as a government must take in times like this. But they do not necessarily mean that we have determined on war or that war is imminent.

“However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that. I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living; but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake, and that the call to risk everything in their defense, when all the consequences are weighed, is irresistible.

“For the present I ask you to wait as calmly as you can the events of the next few days. As long as war has not begun, there is always hope that it may be prevented, and you know that I am going to work for peace to the last moment. Good night.”

The meeting at Munich, between the Four Powers—England, France, Germany, and Italy—on September 28, 1938, lasted for fourteen hours. The debate began at noon, and ended at two o’clock in the morning of the following day. Neither the Russians nor the Czechs were invited to be present. The exclusion of the Russians was a grave error, because no guarantee of Czechoslovakian independence could carry any weight without Russian participation. It was a clear signal—more clear even than the exclusion of the Czechs—of the intent of the conference.

Czech representatives did come to Munich, in order to present the conclusions reached to their government. They were placed in a hotel room, which was locked from the outside and guarded.

The conference was conducted in three main sessions; there was a lunch break at three o’clock, and a dinner break at nine. These were tense sessions, but in essence, nothing was being decided at Munich which had not already been decided beforehand. Hitler, Chamberlain, and Daladier were making little progress, and then Mussolini introduced a memorandum (which had in fact been secretly approved by Hitler the day before), which stated that the occupation of the Sudetenland could take place in five stages, instead of one. These stages were to take place over ten days; the first four by October 7; the last by October 10. Chamberlain was pleasantly surprised by the reasonable nature of these proposals. Hitler also dropped the Hungarian and Polish territorial demands.

An international commission was to be set up to determine the final borders. Hitler accepted this quite casually. Chamberlain was surprised by the latitude which Hitler was prepared to grant the international commission.

France and England agreed to guarantee the remnants of the Czech state. After the German occupation, six months of free travel was to be allowed in and out of the Sudetenland, to allow for voluntary relocation of those unwilling to live under the Nazis. Czech farmers were to be compensated for their seized lands. All disputed areas were to be offered a plebiscite to determine whether they would join the Reich.

The results of these clauses were predictable. After the Nazis marched into the Sudetenland, no one was allowed out. The Reich demanded the return of the Jews and anti-Nazis who had fled to the remnant of Czechoslovakia, and the crippled Czech government complied. Most refugees were sent to concentration camps or murdered. No plebiscites were ever held. The new British and French guarantees proved as useless as the old ones.

Six months after Munich, Hitler swallowed the remnants of Czechoslovakia. England and France did nothing.

Chapter 93

Ruth was not by nature a confrontational person, and she agonized over her decision to confront her husband for over a week. It was, for her—and quite literally—the worst thing in the world. Something about demanding something from him—enforcing her will—made her feel as if she were hanging from a frayed rope over an endless chasm.

And what was worse, the events at Munich—which she followed daily in the newspaper—were forcing her to act, and act now. The endless excuses of procrastination were being overshadowed by the need to do something now, immediately, before the time was lost. It’s now or never, she kept thinking, and ruminated for a long time on the last word… Because the ‘never’ has already been happening for twenty years. The ‘never’ is not in the future, but was in the past…

Every time she made a decision, or fixed a time, she shied away. The confrontation and herself were like opposing magnets. The more effort she put into bringing them together, the more they seemed to fly apart.

Her attitude wasn’t helping. After enough time, even badly married couples can hide very little from each other. She was nervous, and prone to outbursts, headaches, and speaking out of turn. It seemed impossible to confront him. She must confront him.

It had a lot to do with Tom. Ruth knew, in her heart, that she would not see him unless she acted. Oh, she might see him at family functions—or even have the odd, stiff lunch—but it would never be the same again. Never be as it once was. When he was her secret, lovely heart. But it was more than that. It was about much more than Tom. I want to exist before I die, she thought.

But Quentin was always busy, and Ruth didn’t want to warn him of what was coming. If she went to him and said: I need to speak with you about something of great importance tomorrow at seven p.m., he would be tipped off, and all would be lost. He would be busy, or distracted, or would have time to think up some sort of counterscheme…

And—and he would need time to think. This was the worst part, the part that caused her to bite her nails to the bone. But I cannot give him time to think! It will all be over then! I must force him! I must force him!

To do what? was her first thought. But that was quickly resolved by the newspaper. To oppose Munich. To change sides. To join Churchill and—and Gunther…

This is what Ruth wanted. She wanted it for so many reasons. To impose her will, for once. To have him listen and act upon her wishes. To do something brave. To swim against the social current. To make the deaths of her brothers and father mean something. To take a stand. To oppose Reginald and support Tom, for once.…

And there was more. It was also about her own soul. Her own mistakes. To redeem Ruth for the part she played in the two years leading up to the First World War. A public apology to her two greatest loves: Tom and Gunther.

Ruth thought of going straight to the newspapers. But she recoiled from that. It would be easier, in some way. Quentin would never have to know who had done it. He would think it was that horrible man Uxbridge. But that would mean that whatever happened would quickly get out of her control. The government would take over. Quentin might go to jail for the remainder of her life. Assuming there was no statute of limitations. Was there? She couldn’t inquire without tipping her hand.

And it wasn’t enough to eliminate a supporter of Munich. She had to reinforce those who opposed it. She had to force him to march from one camp to the other, under the eyes of all opponents. Then, she could respect him. Then, she could sleep.

It happened without warning. Ruth had been fretting at the problem for so long that when her mouth started speaking, it took some time for her brain to catch up. For a few dizzy moments, she recalled sprinting across a neat lawn, when she was very little, in hot pursuit of a much-loved rabbit…

It was nighttime. She had been unable to sleep. Terror had so pervaded every one of her waking breaths that she felt like a glass statue, filled with visible decomposition. It was becoming too horrible. She was sitting up in bed. Unbearable. The tension, the terror… Her covers were thrown aside. She marched into Quentin’s room without knocking. He was snoring, and she had a sudden vision of smashing a vase over his snorting, stupid, sleeping face.

“Quentin!” she hissed. The last thing she wanted was for Catherine to come up and see this. Catherine would take her side, and so seal her fate. Like with Tom.

He did not stir. Ruth stood there, in a complete rage. Those who have done wrong sleep like drunk dogs; those about to do right have not slept in weeks!

She walked around his bed and flicked on his bedside light.

She sat. “Quentin!”

He groaned and stirred. One eye opened, scanning, unfocussed. Then, both jerked wide. He sat up so hurriedly that he knocked his skull on the headboard.

“Good God, Ruth!” he cried in alarm. “What is it?”

“I have to talk to you.”

“Yes? And about what? And why can’t it wait?”

“You have to change your mind about Munich.”

“Why? What? Munich? They’re meeting tomorrow. What are you talking about?”

“Quentin, it will be war!”

He scowled contemptuously. “Ruth—my God! You’re too old to still be seeing shadows under the bed. I’ll worry about the next war. You just keep obsessing about the last one.”

She slapped him. It was a hard slap. Her arm was rigid. She saw her sweeping thin muscle. His head jerked. His lip curled. He struggled to get out of bed, but her thin weight kept his covers down. He kicked his legs away from her, and got out on the far side.

“You stupid bitch!” he snarled. “I’m going to a hotel.” His breath was coming short. “Coming in here, yanking me out of a sound sleep, slapping my face.” His fists curled. “I have never hit a woman, but I am not opposed to it on principle.”

Ruth felt as if she had committed a mistake. The feeling overwhelmed her, that she had failed before she had even begun.

But then, something almost miraculous happened. She got behind her anger. She supported her slap. It happened in a moment, and gave her a voice she had not heard in thirty years.

“Quentin, you will change your position on Munich!”

He grunted, thrusting his thick legs into some trousers. “This debate ended when you started slapping.”

“You will do it for me. For Tom. For Reginald even. For England. For the future. You cannot continue to support a policy based entirely on the principle of ‘stand and deliver.’”

“Heavens, how my political career has been held back by a lack of midnight lectures on foreign policy from comatose—housewives!” He spat the last word.

Ruth was shocked at his attitude, but was already behind her anger, so it did not escalate.

“You will not listen to reason?”

“That’s good, coming from you!” said Quentin, pulling on an undershirt.

It never goes how we think it will, thought Ruth in amazement. Planning is pointless, because we can only plan for ourselves. I never thought of him going to a hotel. Ah well…

“Quentin, do you know a man named Uxbridge?”

He was struggling with his suspenders. His hands, face, body, all froze. His eyes came up, and Ruth flinched visibly. So, here is his private hell, she thought, in amazement.

She recalled him moving through a crowd of well-dressed dinner guests at some fundraising event in Brighton. He was glossy, cheery, friendly, and looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Her husband was wonderful at playing this part. She had constantly fallen for it. But we can all be moral for strangers, she thought. It is so easy to impress those just passing through… But we can only be judged by those who remain…

But here was what was underneath. The private volcano which fed—demanded—his pleasant and chirruping little public forest. His ease. His geniality. His oily confidence. And he knew it was coming, this reckoning, thought Ruth. He knew it, and always pretended otherwise. He had to pretend otherwise, because he knew it was coming…

“Don’t speak of that!” hissed Quentin, his eyes narrow and predatory.

“I have met him.”

“Why? Why would you meet him? Who is he? He is a senile old man by now. Everything he says is false. He came to me first…” The pieces of his story were already falling into place, Ruth saw—and Quentin was already in the process of believing them. “He came to my office and threatened to blackmail me. For a job. Yes, I knew him in the army. And I might have been prepared to help an old war friend. But not a blackmailer. I have my standards. Please don’t tell me that he has taken you in. That indicates a singular lack of loyalty on your part, Ruth.” Quentin sat on a little chair. “Tell me what he has told you. I’m sorry for blowing up. I was startled. And I don’t think I’ve ever… That you’ve ever slapped me before.” He smiled. “And I think I would remember that. You have quite a right hook. Most professional. I’m sorry.” His eyes narrowed. “What did he tell you?”

“He told me nothing. He showed me a receipt for some grenades that you later claimed were missing. He said that you had turned them into sausages.”

Quentin laughed. “That’s quite a feat. That receipt is a forgery. Why would I do that? Even if you think I was capable of such a thing, why would I do it? I had money back then. If you’ve met this Uxbridge chap, you’d know firsthand that he’s not the sort of fellow able to offer a bribe capable of interesting me.”

“My brother was in that division.”

As soon as Ruth used the word ‘brother,’ Quentin shuddered from head to toe. The chair creaked violently. Ruth knew that her husband was fighting against the urge to vomit.

“No!” he whispered, his eyes wide, staring at the carpet. Then, he shuddered again, but more delicately, and looked sideways up at Ruth. “No, he can’t be using that. That’s too inhumane. I’ll kill him if he’s going to try using your loss to get to me. That’s beyond monstrous. Someone with that kind of genius should be…”

“He was fighting for us, Quentin,” said Ruth softly, picking at a little tuft on the blanket. “You could have confessed, but you kept it secret all these years. And now, you’re trying to set it right. With Munich. But because all your actions are based on a lie, it will just make everything worse. You are so close to telling the truth. Working so hard for peace. You are almost a pacifist. But because you are lying, you are the worst warmonger on the planet. You will bring us all to ruin.”

“You want me to—confess?” whispered Quentin.

They both knew that the moment of confession—at least between them—had already passed. Ruth let it go by without a comment.

“No, Quentin,” she said. She wanted to throw herself on the blanket, and reach towards him, towards the awful, icy gulf where his soul used to hang. But she steeled herself—she could not fill that gulf. It would just empty her.

“I want you to switch sides. You must join Churchill’s camp. Speak out against Munich. It’s the only way to stop what’s happening to you. To us. To England. To the world.”

“The world!” he snickered. “Oh, my wife, my beloved, my Ruth… I’m not a pacifist. I don’t give a shit about the goddamned Czechs. I’m just trying to keep us in vittles, as they say. Would you come and live with me in a little cramped room? A room like Uxbridge’s? I don’t think so. Material comfort is all I…want.”

“So many people died because of what you…”

“It was war!” he suddenly shouted, pounding a fist into his thigh. “You think I went and killed them? Pulled the trigger? Am I that much of a warrior? Men died! Your brother won’t be coming back to life, even if you destroy me from tip to toe! Let it all go, Ruth! The past is dead and buried. Look to the future!”

“I am looking to the future, Quentin. And I am seeing more of the same. The past is not dead. Not for us. Certainly not for you. You have to tell the truth.”

“But you’re not asking me to tell the truth. You’re asking me to lie. To change sides. Which is it to be?”

Ruth paused. She had never really thought of it as lying.

“I want you to change sides. You know what will happen if you don’t. This will be published. Investigations will begin. I don’t know how long the army keeps records, but I suspect it is a long, long time. You will be discredited. Thrown in jail, perhaps.”

“And you?” demanded Quentin. “What will you do, with me in jail? And what will Reginald do? Oh, I know, he’s not your favorite, but try to find one little facet of your stony heart that feels for him. Tom has nothing to lose. He’s got his annuity. But Reginald will lose his job. His career.”

“But—why?”

“This is England, Ruth. The sins of the fathers are the futures of the sons.”

Ruth paused, then nodded slowly. “That doesn’t matter. I am resolved.”

Quentin gazed at her for a long time. She had found a kind of peace. He could see that. But he was not finished.

“Ruth,” he said softly. “Let us forget the world for a moment. Forget Munich. What do you think will happen to us, if you force this upon me? We shall still have to live under the same roof. For another twenty years, perhaps. Will you be able to stand it? It is an important question…” He suddenly burst into wracking sobs, his chest raising and lowering convulsively. His wife’s hand twitched towards him. He spoke in jerking sobs, every word thick with old, coagulated feeling.

“I might be carrying this secret… It’s every other day, if not every day… And I have set myself against them, these endless fucking historical winds… I have tried too hard to do so much good. But Ruth—I am trailed by ghosts in uniform. It was such a jigsaw puzzle, back then, at the beginning. I thought it could go together any number of ways. But it can’t, Ruth! It can’t. It’s one way, just one way, or all your days burn… And I can only forget by falling into other people. By becoming something else. A ghost, like them… Oh God! I didn’t know it was so wrong!”

Quentin fell off his chair onto his knees, wracked with sobs. Ruth tried to stop herself, but she crawled over the rumpled bed, sank to the floor, wrapped her arms around her sobbing husband, and cradled his balding head in her old, old hands.

Chapter 94

Churchill was an early riser, but usually spent the morning in bed, after his bath, reading, writing, and dictating. He was a little annoyed when he heard the doorbell ring at seven o’clock. His valet came up the stairs and informed him that two young men had come to see him.

When he came down, he scowled when he saw Tom sitting in his living room, with another young man.

Both men jumped up.

“Good morning, Mr. Churchill,” said Tom. “This is Hart Collins, an old friend of mine.”

“I see,” said Churchill, shaking both their hands. “And what can I do for you young men at this ungodly hour? Not that I owe you any favors, Mr. Spencer.”

Tom blushed. “What? Why? Not that you should, but…”

“What are you doing back from Czechoslovakia?”

“I didn’t think I would be—do any more good there.”

“Really? Well that is a fine sentiment. I imagine that everything should work thusly. Certainly, if a man is tired of his duty, he should cast it aside.”

Tom swallowed, then said: “Hart works in the Foreign Office.”

“Mr. Churchill,” said Hart, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. “Last night, I heard something about a German plot to overthrow Hitler if England and France stand up for Czechoslovakia.”

A ripple ran through Churchill’s pink and meaty frame. He seemed to sway back slightly, and both men had the impulse to leap forward to steady him.

“My God!” he cried. He took a step towards the sofa, then frowned and changed course for the bar. “Scotch and soda?” he said. “It’s morning, so not too strong.”

Tom glanced at Hart and shrugged. “We’ve been up all night, so it’s not really morning. Certainly.”

Churchill brought the drinks over. They all sat.

“Now, young man,” said Churchill, glaring at Hart. “You do realize that I am not a member of the cabinet.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, as such, if you break confidence with Lord Halifax, your lawful master, you shall be breaking confidence with His Majesty’s Government in the most grievous manner.”

“I do.”

“And you are prepared to risk censure, the loss of your career, and possibly some jail time for this?”

“My God—of course!”

“Good man.” Churchill rubbed his hands together. “My God, this is potent gossip! Have the French been informed?”

“No.”

Churchill scowled. “You are sure? Absolutely sure?”

Hart paused. “I do not know of any communication to the French. But it stands to reason that…”

Churchill lifted a commanding hand. “Please. Give me the facts, and I shall rely on my own considerable experience to supply the reasoning.”

For two straight hours, Churchill cross-examined Hart on every possible aspect of what he had seen and heard. It was an exhausting process. Tom watched it in fascination. Churchill’s acute and precise mind seemed to fill the room like a heady, invisible gas. All interruptions were ignored. No food was brought. Tom was able to scrounge a little nutrition from a bowl of sliced lemons on the bar.

Finally, Churchill seemed satisfied that he had gotten the whole story. He lay back, in his dressing gown, absently scratching his thigh.

“Would you say,” asked Tom tentatively, “that it is a question of proof?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if Hart could get some proof of…”

“No. Proof doesn’t matter in this context. Anything we got would be illegal, and cause the public to level their guns at us, not the government. The question is: what to do?”

“Can you expose them?” asked Hart, his voice hoarse from answering questions. “Somehow?”

Churchill turned his massive head towards the young man. “Expose them? In what manner?”

“Say that the Germans have approached the government with this offer. The French should know, at least. It might affect their calculations.”

Churchill snorted. “It is unlikely that this information will substantially alter their resolve.”

“But, they should know it!” said Tom. Exhaustion, scotch, and lemons were making him brave.

“Yes…” murmured Churchill. “They should know it. It would not be bloodless, but it might avert the worse… But that means that Hart will go to jail.”

“Me? Why? I mean, I know why, but how?”

“Everything always gets out,” said Churchill. “You’re here, aren’t you? What were you working on last night?”

“A memorandum comparing Godesberg with what’s being proposed at Munich at the moment.”

“They’ll trace when it was sent. You were probably the only employee there. Someone will remember. You will pay.”

“I see…” Hart looked at his fingers. So soft. He had escaped manual labor for so long…

He looked up at Churchill. “I will take that risk.”

Churchill slapped his own thigh. “Honorably spoken! Would it help, I would take you up on your fine offer.”

“But—it won’t?” asked Tom. Hart sat back in his chair, passing a shaky hand across his forehead.

Churchill paused. “Well, I must now ask for your discretion. For this must stay here—as must your information, Hart.”

Both men nodded.

“Since—oh, about March of this year, since the first Czech crisis, I have not been working to avoid war.”

Churchill paused for a moment, then continued.

“The next war—more of a continuation of the last war than a new one—should be called the ‘unnecessary war,’ because no war in history has been more preventable. Until 1933, at least, it could have been averted without the firing of a single shot. By 1936, perhaps a few hundred dead and wounded in the Rhineland. But now, things have gone too far. I cannot—there is nothing that anyone can do to avoid a war between England, France, and Germany. So, I am no longer working to avoid war, because that is impossible. You just have to thumb through Mein Kampf to see that.”

“Then—then what are you fighting for?”

Churchill’s eyes turned feral all of a sudden. “Why, for when war comes, to win it!”

Tom nodded slowly. Hart was staring at his hands again.

Churchill grunted. “Now, if I take this information to Parliament, and expose the current administration, both they and I shall be discredited. They for concealing secrets, me for stealing them. They shall ask: how, Mr. Churchill, did you get this information? And they shall be quite right to ask. And if I say: a young man in the Foreign Office brought it to me, then they shall ask: why, pray tell, did you listen to him? And not report him? And then reveal this highly confidential information in the most public arena this island possesses? And then, Mr. Spencer, when Hitler masses his armies and airplanes on the shores of France, who shall stand against him? Chamberlain? Halifax? Eden? None of them can lead, because they have all been compromised by appeasement. They shall explore possible peace terms with Herr Hitler, and this island shall fall, and the history of our race shall come to an abrupt and possibly irreversible end!”

By the end of his speech, Churchill’s face was red. Tom stared, having no idea how anyone could stand against the passion of the old man. He was irresistible.

“So,” said Hart glumly. “We can do nothing.”

Churchill suddenly smiled. “I have not said so. There are many ways of bringing an unpleasant truth out into the open.”

“What are you thinking of?”

Churchill’s eyes twinkled. “Come to the House tomorrow, and you shall see!”

Chapter 95

Sunday morning, Martin arose at dawn, as was his custom. After thirty years of preaching, he still felt excited and nervous to be speaking to a crowd. A small crowd, to be sure, but each soul was an infinity of influence.

Klaus was up too, which was unusual. He was sitting at the kitchen table, turning some papers over in his hands.

He was pale, drawn, thin. Nazism had not been good to him. Deep in his core, Martin knew, his eldest son was still an idealist. But there are ideals which feed and fatten, and others which starve and excavate. Martin was blind to his son’s capacity to put ideology above life, health, happiness, and natural virtue, because he was a priest, and would be the last one to speak of such things.

Klaus was beyond unhappy. Mere unhappiness is a transitory phase, a dip in the natural rhythm of living, no more out of place than the emptying of lungs before being filled by another breath. But Klaus was not in a natural place. He was no longer a rational animal, sleek in the pursuit of healthy prey, of advancement and achievement and all the mellow fruits of natural aging. He was a cancer, a neurotic, chained zoo animal, biting feeding hands and its own haunches. He had crossed over to a land wherein there was no comfort. He had a map of paradise, and no thorns could bar his way. He was full of the most evil, horrible sentence that human beings are capable of: he believed, in his core, as his father did, that the future would unfold as God willed it. Inshallah. God willing.

And so, in his heart, he worshipped brute, naked power. Everything which came to be was God’s will. Those who win have God behind them. Success is virtue. Might is right. What ethical standards can oppose the natural unfurling of God’s infinite will? Nothing can occur which is not sanctioned by the greatest, most infinite goodness. Evil men act, and good men do not. Evil men rule, and good men submit. And the natural result of such awful thoughts is that good men feel more antipathy towards good men who resist than bad men who rule. Resistance is blasphemy…

For Klaus, Inshallah was not God, but rather the Universal Spirit. But it didn’t matter. It could be God, or Race, or Class, or Malthusian doctrines, or lebensraum. It didn’t matter. Whatever was considered an inevitable pattern of history destroyed morality. If Germany was destined to expand, or capitalists destined to exploit, or the Aryan race designed to rule, opposing such inevitabilities was madness.

“Father,” said Klaus. “Soren and Kris are being called up. Conscripted. This came on Friday. The Nazis are going to take them.”

Martin sat down heavily. His hair was tangled, his chin spiked with tiny stubble. He smelled. He folded his hands and settled his chin on his knuckles.

“The Nazis…” he murmured. “They are not beyond these walls. They are not a ‘they.’ They are an ‘us.’ This bloodline is ending, because of our errors.”

“No,” whispered Klaus. “Not ending. The girls will join the National Socialist Women's League. Hitler wants them to have children.”

Martin smiled sadly. “Yes, but our family will end, because they shall have to disown me. Forget that I ever was. If they want to survive.”

“Why?”

“I miss your mother so much,” he said simply. “I am very surprised. Regret is the worst thing in the world. Well, not the worst. But close.”

“I think she knew you loved her.”

“She knew nothing of the kind!” snapped Martin. He laid his fingers on the back of his son’s hand. “I can’t remember when life came to be—like this. So empty. Cold. I have chilled the whole world.”

Klaus was struck by a thought. He spoke very softly. “What are you going to say today, Father?”

Martin sighed. “Oh, I am going to apologize to your mother. To Soren and Kris. Make amends. With my maker. I have let a great plague into the land. You too, my son. We stood by and were merely curious at its passing. That’s not enough. Refusing to fight is not enough.”

Klaus shivered. “Oh, they were impossible to fight.”

“That is a statement which, being spoken, becomes true. What if we had fought, from the beginning, from the first signs?” Martin smiled and caressed Klaus’s hand. “You are going to die, Klaus. It won’t be long now. Eighteen months, perhaps two years. And Soren and Kris are going to die as well. The girls, I don’t give them much of a chance. There’ll be nowhere to hide. We didn’t want to provoke the Nazis, but they just kept coming. Hitler once said, about Czechoslovakia I think, to Mussolini: ‘Whoever wants to join in the feast had better help in the kitchen.’ There’s something very true in that. And we helped in the kitchen, somehow. Society pays us to guard its most hazy borders. The borders between good and evil. Where evil can be driven back with words alone. But we failed. We could not decide. We loved something other than our fellow men. We were without honor. We raised no alarms as evil slithered past us. We…liked it, for some reason. I don’t know why. But it doesn’t matter. Because I am no longer afraid of evil. Of myself. Or death. And I miss your mother…”

Klaus held his father’s hand in both hands. He felt as if Martin was sliding down a well, or into black quicksand, and not struggling. “Don’t do it, Father,” said Klaus, his throat congested. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“But you are asking me to stay and kneel and be silent,” replied Martin. “I cannot do it.”

“There are… There are better ways to fight them. I know it. You’re running away again. To speak now and be jailed would do nothing. But to save some people. Some Jews, perhaps. Some gypsies. Some writers. Try to get them out. Then you would be doing some good.”

“That—that was never my job,” said Martin sadly, staring at the scarred kitchen table. “That is the course for men of action, for revolutionaries and resistance fighters. The only men who can act now were those who we betrayed, who depended on us to protect them. I have let them all down. I cannot join them now. It would be dishonest. And besides,” he said, raising his eyes to his son, “would you join me on those ramparts? Passing refugees over the wall of the Reich? Would you defy your black Count? Can you recall all the pilots you have trained, who will be sighting women and children down their bombsights? No, we are both enmeshed in it. From the beginning. Perhaps from before the beginning. Perhaps it began because of us…”

They sat in silence for a time, these two men, who so loved the invisible, and so became ghosts. They did not look at each other. Their hands were intertwined, but motionless.

Finally, Martin stood up. He cupped his son’s pale face in his broad hands and kissed him on his forehead. His lips rested for many seconds. Klaus felt his own head grow heavier in the cupped hands of his father. Then, Martin turned and left the house.

Almost as soon as the door closed behind his father, Klaus was startled by the sound of the telephone. It was Count Orsky.

“Klaus, good morning. We need you early today. Can you come at eight instead of nine?”

“I…”

“What? What’s the matter? Are you unwell?”

“Just…” Klaus felt tears gathering. He willed them back. “My father is very unhappy about my mother.”

“Yes, it is a terrible shame. Perhaps an error. But we cannot argue with upstairs.” There was a short pause. “Why? What is he planning?”

“Oh—nothing! Nothing…”

Count Orsky laughed. “Klaus, you cannot lie to me. You were going to shoot me, remember? We can have no secrets.”

“He’s…just depressed.”

“Oh—Sunday! That’s the day for preaching, yes?”

“He’s…he’s taking the day off. Not well.”

“Well, put him on the line then. We’ll cheer him up. Get him a Führer-bride. With deep piety and big tits.”

“No—he’s asleep…”

“Ah. Elusive little fucker, isn’t he? Well, no matter. Come at eight.”

“I—I’m not feeling well, either.”

“So? Our Führer is prone to constipation. Still he leads! Eight.”

“All… All right.”

“Forward into the future, Comrade Klaus!” laughed Count Orsky. “Time is unidirectional!”

There was a click. Klaus hung up. In his mind’s eye, he saw his father striding a country lane, flames in his eyes. As he rounded a bend in the road, a real fire flamed before him, and he marched forward, singing and smiling, his Bible smoking and curling in his cracking hands…

“Klaus?” asked his brother Soren, coming down the staircase. “Father has gone?”

“Yes,” said Klaus, closing his eyes. “And you and Kris are going as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are being conscripted.”

Soren came and sat down silently. There was no scraping of the chair. No rustling of clothes. “But there is nothing else to do, for now,” he said. “We cannot lead lives really, independent of what is demanded. And Kris will be relieved. He’s been very angry.”

“Soren—do you think it was wrong of me to join the Nazis?”

“Wrong?” Soren frowned. “Well, that’s very individual. And it’s the same question as: should I go upstairs and shoot myself because I am being told to join the German army? I don’t think that Czechoslovakia has done us so much wrong. Perhaps I shall shoot the innocent. I probably will. But to shoot myself, who is also an innocent, what would the point of that be? Ah, these things are too complicated for us. And now, we have to do it all anyway, so what’s the point of thinking about it. It’s like wondering which way to fall.” Soren shrugged. “Gravity decides for you. It’s like mourning Mother. She made her choice. I can respect that…”

“Don’t—don’t you miss her?”

“Oh, terribly. Bodily. But what could we do? She was pious. We shall meet again.”

Klaus drummed his fingers on the table. “I want to fight, Soren.”

Soren smiled. “Then you should fight, Klaus. You should fight.”

Klaus ran all the way down the little path to his father’s church. He saw no one along the way. The congregation was already there. They were murmuring.

For the first time in living memory, his father was late.

Klaus waited for an hour. His father never appeared. He fended off questions from the villagers. His heart was collapsing, like a folding acidic bag. He could barely see. The world was scalding him. Every brick he saw was resting on regret.

Klaus ran back to the house. He jumped into his car and drove to the aerodrome. He ran up to Count Orsky’s house, ignoring those who shouted at him from the runway.

Count Orsky received Klaus with obvious displeasure. He was in a meeting, and had only a few minutes.

“My father has gone missing,” panted Klaus.

“Don’t you love that line from Oscar Wilde? ‘To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’ You must take more care of your belongings.”

“Was it because of what I said this morning?”

Count Orsky smiled. “How could it be? This morning, your father was ill at home, and fast asleep.”

“Do you know anything of this?”

“I know what you have told me. If your father was home, and has gone missing, check the closets. Under the bed. He can’t be far. Now go and teach your pilots. It is rude to keep people waiting.”

Klaus leapt forward and grabbed Count Orsky’s forearm. Something black and oily flashed over the older man’s face.

“You cannot dismember my whole family without consequences!” shouted Klaus. “I will not stand for it!”

Klaus felt himself flying through the air, and was shocked at the eel-like strength in Count Orsky’s arms. He fell hard against the stiff back of the sofa, and sagged to the ground, doubled over and winded.

“Oh, so now you stand up, you vermin!” snarled Count Orsky. “Now you say to your little gods: spare my family! Yet you cared nothing for the families soon to be bombed by the men you were training. Haha—here, I shall resurrect your father if you recall all of your pilots. But no—you have given us more than four hundred pilots. They shall fly two missions a day. Over Czechoslovakia, if we do not achieve our aims at Munich tomorrow. Over Poland. Over Rumania, France, England, Russia, North Africa—everywhere we choose to send them. And don’t tell me that you didn’t know it was going to happen. We have never lied!” The Count’s voice rose. “Never! And now you come to me and grab my arm and say that families must be saved?” He pulled a revolver out of a holster and stood over Klaus’s wheezing frame, waving it. “Oh, God, I should shoot you now, to spare you the consequences of your actions. If I had any pity, I would. Do you know how easy you were to corrupt? Do you know what evil you have unleashed on the world? I am not talking about the pilots! And now the death you have bred—so lovingly—has returned, and now you whine and complain? Oh, God! You make my skin fucking crawl! I should shoot you! I should! God! Give me the strength!”

Klaus crawled one or two feet along the polished wood of the floor. He was a compressed ball of utter desolation. He imagined that his father and mother were not waiting for him, just lying in ditches with surprised and disappointed looks frozen on their bloodless faces. And he wanted it. He wanted it so much! Nonexistence. His fingers twitched. If he had been able to grab the gun from Count Orsky, he would have blown his own head off with a giddy laugh. But the Count kept dancing over him, just out of reach.

“I mean,” he said, “you and your father don’t even worship the same God! You just worship the future! Whoever wins! He died for his beliefs, like his demigod. Can you live for yours? Can you? Are you going to turn back now? What would be the point? Klaus, Klaus, please…. Where would your father have fit in? And did you even want him to live? Would you have sacrificed your life for his? You always complained about him. You fought with him all the time. And he is with your mother. He got the martyrdom he wanted. Who has a right to complain? If it were not preordained, would not the World Spirit have intervened? And why did you tell me that your father had turned rancid? You as much as told me, the local Nazi leader, who had ordered the death of your mother, that your father was going to preach against us. You lied to me! You sided with him. Oh, God, you hypocrites. You tell me: ‘Kill my father.’ It is done, and then you upbraid me! Why? Why can you not stomach the strength of your hatred? It is pure nonsense! You wanted him dead! The moment you turned to the World Spirit, you signed his death warrant! The moment you told the world that ‘might makes right,’ you killed your parents!”

Klaus writhed, gasping. “Might—does not make right…”

Count Orsky laughed. “Could we have won without what you call ‘the world spirit’? Was that not what tortured your father? How could we have risen without Providence lifting us up? Whoever wins is right! That is what you told the world! That was the birdsong that called us vultures down from the trees! Might does not make right, but we thank you for the camouflage! Might does not make right. It is even better than that. Even more wonderful! Might does not make right. Might makes right—inconsequential. You give us the guns, and then mutter and doubt over words, as we stride the world, clad in the endless armor of your language! Know the truth, Klaus Heppner. We killed your father. You and I. We had to, because we are your children!”

Count Orsky exhaled mightily. He took a shaky step backwards. He touched his groin.

“Now look, you’ve gone and got me all excited.”

Klaus felt as if he had been falling forever, through an endless dark. Klaus suddenly reached the bottom, and became blackness.

“I want to fight,” he said in a wholly new voice.

Count Orsky left his groin alone for a moment, and cocked his head, like a little bird. “What?”

Klaus sat up, rubbing his head. He no longer felt the need to blink.

“I want to fight. No more training. I just want sky and guns.”

“We’ll shoot you if you do not train.”

Klaus gazed up, smiling. “So shoot me.”

Count Orsky sighed in pure, sensual appreciation. “Ahh, ladies and gentlemen! He has arrived!”

Chapter 96

Ever since he had first moved to London, Tom had occasionally come to watch parliamentary debates. He had seen some scintillating performances, but nothing quite like this.

Churchill’s task was very, very delicate. He wanted the government to admit that it had been approached by the German military with an offer of a coup in exchange for a firm stand for the preservation of Czechoslovakia. However, he could only hint at such an approach. To state it openly would discredit him. But Churchill remained optimistic. He had, as he said, spent the last decade in the political wilderness, without a party, and had grown rather fond of the role of professional gadfly. And rarely in the history of Parliament had self-interest and morality coincided so deeply. “In fact,” he had said, as they all drove up to London together in Tom’s car, “if, given this new information, the current administration chooses not to support Czechoslovakia in her extremity, then I confess I am at a loss as to divine their motives.”

“It could be,” Hart said, “that they still believe that appeasement will avert war.”

“You are too charitable, young man,” Churchill replied. “It is no virtue. They have German generals telling them directly that if they pursue appeasement in the matter of Czechoslovakian independence, all Europe will be plunged into the nightmare of general war. I don’t see how it could be any more clear than that. No, I’m afraid that it is one of the oldest sins. Vanity. They cannot change a course they have argued for since the early thirties.”

Hart seemed undaunted, which Tom thought very brave. “They could think that we shall be in a better position to fight Germany in another year or two.”

“That is true. I have thought long and hard on that matter. I have only three objections. The first is that, if they plan to fight Herr Hitler, then they should be talking to the Russians, because Germany cannot be effectively opposed without a two-front war, and if Czechoslovakia falls, Russia is the only remaining power in the East. God forbid Herr Ribbentrop gets to them first! But the current administration is not talking to Russia. Second, if they thought we should be in a better position to fight Germany in another year or two, then they should be doing all in their power to ensure that such will be the case. They should be unrestrained on armament spending. Yet they are not. And third, if they were bent on opposing Germany next year, or in 1940, then they should be mending fences with France, which is not being done. No, my young friends, they are muddling all of us into a general war. This may be occurring with the best of intentions, but the best of intentions will do nothing to reduce the resulting slaughter.”

This last speech had silenced Hart, and turned Tom a rather nasty shade of green. Churchill had grinned at them wolfishly.

“But don’t fret yourselves into oblivion. Many a dictator has fallen before, through the simple error of underestimating the spine of our island!”

So now, as the first parliamentary debate over Munich rose to a climax, Churchill made the following speech:

“The question before us remains quite a simple one. A fledgling democracy is being threatened and bullied by a far more powerful dictatorship. It seems to me that the attitude in this House has become something quite extraordinary. Were I to wander into this House from some foreign land, and knowing nothing of the events, I would be utterly led to believe that poor, defenseless Germany was being bullied by big, mean Czechoslovakia. For we have developed a strong tendency to blame President Beneš for refusing to submit to indignities which we would never even contemplate for our own land. If we were asked by Hitler to cede Dorset, or build a bridge across the Channel for the easier conveyance of his troops and tanks, we should spit in his face and oil our rifles. Yet we counsel our sworn ally to submit to him. And history does not tend to be kind to false counselors. All our deceitful and hypocritical words will return to haunt us.

“The other aspect of our dealings with Czechoslovakia is that we have led them down a path which has done them nothing but harm—and they have followed us only because we promised to do them good. There is no doubt in my mind that, had we been clear with Czechoslovakia from the beginning, they could have secured better terms with Herr Hitler than the terms we are now forcing upon them. We are like a lawyer who has rejected a minor plea bargain on behalf of his client, and now presses them to take a much heavier sentence. Again, this shall not bode well for us, for the honor of this land, or the health of its inhabitants. All British citizens know the dark deeds of Richard the Third, because history has a long memory for betrayal from on high.

“That having been said, I wish to pose a question to Lord Halifax. We all know that the dramatic debate in this House of a few days past was cut short by Alec Douglas handing the Prime Minister a note indicating that Herr Hitler had agreed to the current conference at Munich, wherein the fate of Czechoslovakia is being decided, even as we speak. What I wish to know is whether His Majesty’s Government has received any other last-minute communications from the German government.”

Lord Halifax stood. “Is my honorable colleague’s question whether or not we have received any communications from the German government in the last few days?”

Churchill scowled. “This is neither my question nor my intention. Given that we stand on the precipice of the most calamitous war that can be imagined, I wish to ask if there is any additional information that this House, the British public as a whole—as well as our allies on the Continent—might find useful to have in their possession?”

“Does the honorable Independent member opposite have anything in particular in mind?”

“This House,” said Churchill darkly, “will please note that my honorable colleague is refusing to answer the question plainly. Perhaps the question remains obscure to him?”

“The question is not obscure, Mr. Speaker,’ replied Halifax calmly. “The honorable member opposite, however, is. Does he refer to some specific communication, or is he trolling for some suspected piece of information? Because I am at a loss as to know how he imagines that I am kept abreast of every piece of paper that flies between our two countries—especially at such a crucial juncture.”

“Then, Mr. Speaker, let me put my question as clearly as possible…” Churchill paused, shuffling slowly through his notes. Various groans rippled through the House. This was an old trick. Churchill always committed his speeches and questions to memory, but paused to flummox his opponents.

Finally, Churchill raised his head. “Does my honorable colleague wish to inform this House of any substantial changes in attitudes or communications from any segment of German society to His Majesty’s Government, the knowledge of which might benefit either this House, the English people, or any of our allies?”

There was a pause. Little sighs spotted the House as everyone drew in their breath. It was clear to every man in the House that Churchill was fishing for something. It was also clear from Lord Halifax’s expression that Churchill was not casting his line into a lifeless lake. At that moment, everyone realized that the government had received extraordinary news from somewhere in Germany. And, seeing the slow compression of Halifax’s lips, they knew that they would not hear what it was for many, many years to come.

“There are no communications,” said Lord Halifax eventually—and a little awkwardly—“that we are prepared to talk about at this time.”

There was a long pause. Lord Halifax sat down. Churchill did not. The House was perfectly still.

“Then,” he said, after a minute or so, “I fear that the fate of Czechoslovakia is sealed.”

Then, he sat down, lowered his eyes, and did not speak for the remainder of the session.

The afternoon held one other surprise, however. Tom and Hart were about to leave when Quentin stood up. The Speaker recognized the honorable member from Hillington.

Tom was quite surprised at his—stepfather’s?—tone. It was dull, lifeless. He had admired very few of Quentin’s thoughts—and fewer still of his actions—but he had always held a regretful respect for his abilities as a public speaker. He had a decent amount of passion, could be acerbic and funny with an insult—always just within the bounds of parliamentary protocol—and was a master of staggeringly effective closing remarks.

But this afternoon, he was without fire. He was bereft of metaphor. He spoke like a somnambulist. For some reason, this excited Tom terribly, and he leaned forward, almost over the front of the overcrowded spectator’s gallery. The hand of Mother! he thought, almost afraid to breathe.

“Mr. Speaker,” said Quentin, “it has come to my attention that I have been remiss in my duties towards Czechoslovakia. While I formerly argued that allowing the reunification of all German-speaking peoples was the only way to defuse tensions in Central Europe, I now believe that I was in error. While I realize that today’s debate is in no ways a debate, and that I shall do nothing to explicitly alter any policy of His Majesty’s Government, I still wish to stress that I have changed my mind about Czechoslovakia, and that I now support standing up to Herr Hitler on the matter of the incorporation of the Sudetenland by the Reich.”

Quentin stopped, staring at no one, into the middle distance. The House was confused. Was he going to go on? If so, why was he pausing for so long? If not, why start speaking in the first place? Why publicly change your mind so unconvincingly? The House generally enjoyed the heady screeching of a position being suddenly reversed. But nothing like this had ever happened before. These alpha males did not change course unless under the greatest pressure, either of external concerns or internal conscience. They didn’t just discard their former opinions with an indifferent shrug.

Finally, the Speaker said:

“Well, thank you for your comments, Mr. Spencer.”

The House turned to other business, and Quentin’s strange confession faded into odd oblivion. It was two weeks before it resurfaced.

Chapter 97

House of Commons, October 3, 1938

Duff Cooper: I have always been a student of foreign politics. I have served ten years in the Foreign Office, and I have studied the history of this and of other countries, and I have always believed that one of the most important principles in foreign policy and the conduct of foreign policy should be to make your policy plain to other countries, to let them know where you stand and what in certain circumstances you are prepared to do…

I believe that the great defect in our foreign policy during recent months and recent weeks has been that we have failed to do so. During the last four weeks we have been drifting, day by day, nearer into war with Germany, and we have never said, until the last moment, and then in most uncertain terms, that we were prepared to fight. We knew that information to the opposite effect was being poured into the ears of the head of the German State. He had been assured, reassured, and fortified in the opinion that in no case would Great Britain fight…

I had urged…after the rape of Austria, that Great Britain should make a firm declaration of what her foreign policy was, and then and later I was met with this, that the people of this country are not prepared to fight for Czechoslovakia…

I besought my colleagues not to see this problem always in terms of Czechoslovakia, not to review it always from the difficult strategic position of that small country, but rather to say to themselves, "A moment may come when, owing to the invasion of Czechoslovakia, a European war will begin, and when that moment comes we must take part in that war, we cannot keep out of it, and there is no doubt upon which side we shall fight. Let the world know that and it will give those who are prepared to disturb the peace reason to hold their hand." It is perfectly true that after the assault on Austria the Prime Minister made a speech in this House—an excellent speech with every word of which I was in complete agreement—and what he said then was repeated and supported by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Lanark. It was, however, a guarded statement. It was a statement to the effect that if there were such a war it would be unwise for anybody to count upon the possibility of our staying out.

That is not the language which the dictators understand. Together with new methods and a new morality they have introduced also a new vocabulary into Europe. They have discarded the old diplomatic methods of correspondence….

I had hoped that it might be possible to make a statement to Herr Hitler before he made his speech at Nuremberg. On all sides we were being urged to do so by people in this country, by Members in this House, by Leaders of the Opposition, by the Press, by the heads of foreign States, even by Germans who were supporters of the regime and did not wish to see it plunged into a war which might destroy it. But we were always told that on no account must we irritate Herr Hitler; it was particularly dangerous to irritate him before he made a public speech, because if he were so irritated he might say some terrible things from which afterwards there would be no retreat. It seems to me that Herr Hitler never makes a speech save under the influence of considerable irritation, and the addition of one more irritant would not, I should have thought, have made a great difference, whereas the communication of a solemn fact would have produced a sobering effect.

After the chance of Nuremberg was missed I had hoped that the Prime Minister at his first interview with Herr Hitler at Berchtesgaden would make the position plain, but he did not do so. Again, at Godesberg I had hoped that that statement would be made in unequivocal language. Again I was disappointed. Hitler had another speech to make in Berlin. Again an opportunity occurred of telling him exactly where we stood before he made that speech, but again the opportunity was missed, and it was only after the speech that he was informed…

Then came the last appeal from the Prime Minister on Wednesday morning. For the first time from the beginning to the end of the four weeks of negotiations Herr Hitler was prepared to yield an inch, an ell perhaps, but to yield some measure to the representations of Great Britain. But I would remind the House that the message from the Prime Minister was not the first news that he had received that morning. At dawn he had learned of the mobilization of the British Fleet. It is impossible to know what are the motives of man and we shall probably never be satisfied as to which of these two sources of inspiration moved him most when he agreed to go to Munich, but we do know that never before had he given in and that then he did. I had been urging the mobilization of the Fleet for many days. I had thought that this was the kind of language which would be easier for Herr Hitler to understand than the guarded language of diplomacy or the conditional clauses of the Civil Service. I had urged that something in that direction might be done at the end of August and before the Prime Minister went to Berchtesgaden. I had suggested that it should accompany the mission of Sir Horace Wilson. I remember the Prime Minister stating it was the one thing that would ruin that mission, and I said it was the one thing that would lead it to success.

That is the deep difference between the Prime Minister and myself throughout these days. The Prime Minister has believed in addressing Herr Hitler through the language of sweet reasonableness. I have believed that he was more open to the language of the mailed fist…

The Prime Minister has confidence in the good will and in the word of Herr Hitler, although when Herr Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles he undertook to keep the Treaty of Locarno, and when he broke the Treaty of Locarno he undertook not to interfere further, or to have further territorial aims, in Europe. When he entered Austria by force he authorized his henchmen to give an authoritative assurance that he would not interfere with Czechoslovakia. That was less than six months ago. Still, the Prime Minister believes that he can rely upon the good faith of Hitler; he believes that Hitler is interested only in Germany, as the Prime Minister was assured…

The Prime Minister may be right. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, with the deepest sincerity, that I hope and pray that he is right, but I cannot believe what he believes. I wish I could… I remember when we were discussing the Godesberg ultimatum that I said that if I were a party to persuading, or even to suggesting to, the Czechoslovak Government that they should accept that ultimatum, I should never be able to hold up my head again… I have ruined, perhaps, my political career. But that is a little matter; I have retained something which is to me of great value—I can still walk about the world with my head erect.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: In my view the strongest force of all, one which grew and took fresh shapes and forms every day was the force not of any one individual, but was that unmistakable sense of unanimity among the peoples of the world that war somehow must be averted. The peoples of the British Empire were at one with those of Germany, of France, and of Italy, and their anxiety, their intense desire for peace, pervaded the whole atmosphere of the conference, and I believe that that, and not threats, made possible the Concessions that were made…

Ever since I assumed my present office my main purpose has been to work for the pacification of Europe, for the removal of those suspicions and those animosities which have so long poisoned the air. The path which leads to appeasement is long and bristles with obstacles. The question of Czechoslovakia is the latest and perhaps the most dangerous. Now that we have got past it, I feel that it may be possible to make further progress along the road to sanity.

My right honorable Friend [Duff Cooper] has alluded in somewhat bitter terms to my conversation last Friday morning with Herr Hitler. I do not know why that conversation should give rise to suspicion, still less to criticism. I entered into no pact. I made no new commitments. There is no secret understanding. Our conversation was hostile to no other nation. The objects of that conversation, for which I asked, was to try to extend a little further the personal Contact which I had established with Herr Hitler and which I believe to be essential in modern diplomacy. We had a friendly and entirely noncommittal conversation, carried on, on my part, largely with a view to seeing whether there could be points in common between the head of a democratic Government and the ruler of a totalitarian State. We see the result in the declaration which has been published, in which my right honorable Friend finds so much ground for suspicion…

I believe there are many who will feel with me that such a declaration, signed by the German Chancellor and myself, is something more than a pious expression of opinion. In our relations with other countries everything depends upon there being sincerity and good will on both sides. I believe that there is sincerity and good will on both sides in this declaration. That is why to me its significance goes far beyond its actual words. If there is one lesson which we should learn from the events of these last weeks it is this, that lasting peace is not to be obtained by sitting still and waiting for it to come. It requires active, positive efforts to achieve it. No doubt I shall have plenty of critics who will say that I am guilty of facile optimism, and that I should disbelieve every word that is uttered by rulers of other great States in Europe. I am too much of a realist to believe that we are going to achieve our paradise in a day. We have only laid the foundations of peace. The superstructure is not even begun…

While we must renew our determination to fill up the deficiencies that yet remain in our armaments and in our defensive precautions, so that we may be ready to defend ourselves and make our diplomacy effective…[interruption]…yes I am a realist—nevertheless I say with an equal sense of reality that I do see fresh opportunities of approaching this subject of disarmament opening up before us, and I believe that they are at least as hopeful today as they have been at any previous time. It is to such tasks—the winning back of confidence, the gradual removal of hostility between nations until they feel that they can safely discard their weapons, one by one, that I would wish to devote what energy and time may be left to me before I hand over my office to younger men.

Clement Attlee: We all feel relief that war has not come this time. Every one of us has been passing through days of anxiety; we cannot, however, feel that peace has been established, but that we have nothing but an armistice in a state of war. We have been unable to go in for carefree rejoicing. We have felt that we are in the midst of a tragedy. We have felt humiliation. This has not been a victory for reason and humanity. It has been a victory for brute force. At every stage of the proceedings there have been time limits laid down by the owner and ruler of armed force. The terms have not been terms negotiated; they have been terms laid down as ultimata. We have seen today a gallant, civilized, and democratic people betrayed and handed over to a ruthless despotism. We have seen something more. We have seen the cause of democracy, which is, in our view, the cause of civilization and humanity, receive a terrible defeat.

I think that in the mind of every thoughtful person in this Country when he heard that this settlement had been arrived at at Munich, there was a conflict. On the one hand there was enormous relief that war had been averted, at all events for the time being; on the other, there was a sense of humiliation and foreboding for the future…

The events of these last few days constitute one of the greatest diplomatic defeats that this country and France have ever sustained. There can be no doubt that it is a tremendous victory for Herr Hitler. Without firing a shot, by the mere display of military force, he has achieved a dominating position in Europe which Germany failed to win after four years of war. He has overturned the balance of power in Europe. He has destroyed the last fortress of democracy in Eastern Europe which stood in the way of his ambition. He has opened his way to the food, the oil and the resources which he requires in order to consolidate his military power, and he has successfully defeated and reduced to impotence the forces that might have stood against the rule of violence.

The Prime Minister has given us an account of his actions. Everybody recognizes the great exertions he has made in the cause of peace. When the captain of a ship by disregarding all rules of navigation has gone right off his course and run the ship into great danger, watchers from the shore, naturally impressed with the captain’s frantic efforts to try to save something from the shipwreck, cheer him when he comes ashore and even want to give him a testimonial, but there follows an inquiry, an inquest, on the victims, and the question will be asked how the vessel got so far off its course, how and why it was so hazarded? All the faults of seamanship and errors of judgment must be brought to light, and no amount of devotion at the eleventh hour will save that captain from the verdict that he has hazarded his ship through bad seamanship. Parliament is the grand inquest of the British nation, and it is our duty to inquire not alone into the actions of the Prime Minister during the last few days or the last few weeks, but into the whole course of policy which has brought this country into such great danger and such great anxiety…

I want to turn now to the cause of the crisis which we have undergone. The cause was not the existence of minorities in Czechoslovakia; it was not that the position of the Sudeten Germans had become intolerable. It was not the wonderful principle of self-determination. It was because Herr Hitler had decided that the time was ripe for another step forward in his design to dominate Europe. I think it is necessary to be clear on this, because the Prime Minister seems to me to be laying a great deal too much stress on the anxiety of Herr Hitler for his fellow Germans in Czechoslovakia. I have no doubt that has been so, but it did not become intense until about two years ago. It was quite a minor matter, and I fear that the Prime Minister is deceived if he thinks that the cause of this trouble has been the woes of the Sudeten Germans. I say that the question of the Sudeten Germans has been used as a counter in the game of politics, and in other conditions Herr Hitler might just as well have used the people of Memel, the people of South Denmark, the people in the Trentino, or the Germans in South Tyrol….

The history of the last seven years is the background of this crisis, and the first point I must make to the Government is this. This crisis did not come unexpectedly. It was obvious to any intelligent student of foreign affairs that this attack would come. The immediate signal was given by the Prime Minister himself on seventh March of this year when he said: "What country in Europe today if threatened by a larger Power can rely upon the League for protection? None." It was at once an invitation to Herr Hitler and a confession of the failure of the Government. The invitation was accepted a few days later by the Anschluss in Austria. Then our Government and the French Government could have faced the consequences. They could have told Czechoslovakia "We cannot any longer defend you. You had better now make the best terms you can with Germany, enter her political orbit, and give her anything to escape before the wrath comes upon you." But they did nothing of the sort. Czechoslovakia continued under the supposed shelter of these treaties. True, it was urged that something should be done for the Sudeten Germans but there was no attempt made to take early steps to prevent this aggression….

I heard a suggestion from the benches opposite. "What about the USSR?" Throughout the whole of these proceedings the USSR has stood by its pledges and its declarations and there has been some pretty hard lying about it, too. There have been lies told, and people knew they were lies, about alleged conversations between M. Litvinov and the French Foreign Minister. At no time has there been any difficulty in knowing where the USSR stood. At no time has there been any consultation. I am aware that the Prime Minister may say that we were not the prime factor in this problem and that we were only concerned after France had been brought into it. But we have had very close collaboration with France, and in the order of commitment the USSR comes before this country, and it has been a very great weakness that throughout there has been this cold-shouldering of the USSR…

When the National Government overthrew the whole policy of collective security and abandoned it and the League, we told this House over and over again that we were entering on a very dangerous course. We realized that we were back in 1914 with all its dangers, and we knew that sooner or later a challenge would come to this country; and that is what has happened. The real pith of it is that, having decided to leave the League system which we practiced and in which we believed, and to embark on a policy of alliances and power politics, instead of strengthening the people whose natural interests were with ours, we have had nothing but constant flirtations with this and that dictator. The Prime Minister has been the dupe of the dictators, and I say that to-day we are in a dangerous position.

Sir Samuel Hoare, Home Secretary:…A week ago we were on the verge of a terrible abyss. The Honorable Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton), who has just sat down, seemed to have forgotten the position in which we were then placed. The speech that he has just made seemed to take little account of the fact that a few days ago we were within a hair's breadth of the greatest catastrophe that the world has ever seen. Did we shrink from it in fear, or did we feel that there was some hope still of finding a path round it to more solid ground? I am fully aware that there are some honorable Members, and some people in the Country, who believe that no peace is possible in Europe as long as the dictatorships exist, who hold, quite sincerely, the view—I think the honorable Gentleman who has just sat down does—that as long as the dictatorships exist, war is inevitable, and that it may be better to have war now, when we have an issue that may be supposed to appeal to the whole world, rather than to put it off to some future date when our position may be more difficult and dangerous…

The conclusion of such a view is to me so appalling that I could not accept it if I thought there was still some glimmer of hope that the catastrophe might yet be averted. What is more important, the Prime Minister had that settled conviction. It was on that account that he made his superhuman efforts at great risk to himself, at great risk to the Government of which he is a member—but these things do not count in moments of this gravity—to take upon himself the responsibility of trying at the last moment to prevent this catastrophe coming upon us.

The Prime Minister acted not alone as the head of the Government of which I am a member. He acted rather as the spokesman of the millions of men and women from one end of the world to the other who were determined that we should still try to keep a controlling hand upon the course of events and avoid an appalling calamity that would undoubtedly have ended in the extinction of civilization as we have known it… I claim that, having undertaken the responsibility of mediation, it would have been courting certain failure if at one and the same time when he was attempting to mediate he engaged himself upon a policy of threats and ultimatums.

That is the answer to the main charge of my right Honorable Friend the Member for St. George's, Westminster (Mr. Cooper). I claim that it would have met certain failure if at the very time when we were attempting to mediate and to obtain a peaceful settlement, we had accepted the advice of those who said you must face Herr Hitler with a public ultimatum. I go further, and I say that if we had made an ultimatum in the days immediately before the Nuremberg speech Europe would to-day have been plunged into a world war….

The honorable Gentleman opposite asked me specifically about Russia. He asked me why there was not closer consultation in these critical weeks with the Government of the Soviet Republic. That Government was under a Treaty obligation similar to that of France, and dependent upon it, to go to the assistance of Czechoslovakia in certain circumstances. The Russian guarantee was only to come into operation when the French guarantee was already operating. M. Litvinov indicated, indeed he made a public declaration at Geneva on twenty-first September, that the Soviet Government was ready to give all possible help if France came to the assistance of Czechoslovakia. As I have explained, that is all that Russia was under Treaty bound to do. Her action would have been consequent upon that of France, and it was therefore natural that there should have been consultation, as in fact there was, between France and the Soviet Republic and His Majesty's Government, in view of their different positions. We were content to let the French Government take the lead in consulting with the Russian Government, whose position was analogous to theirs. To say, as the honorable Gentleman said, that the Soviet Republic was cold-shouldered is a complete exaggeration of the position. The Foreign Secretary had an exchange of views with the Soviet Ambassador before the latter left, and at Geneva the British delegates maintained the contact. The Soviet Ambassador was received again, quite recently, at the Foreign Office, after his return to London. So much for the honorable Member's question about our attitude towards the Soviet Republic.

War has been averted; has the price paid been too high? I frankly admit that Czechoslovakia has received a staggering blow…

I say with all deliberation that, when once Germany rearmed and became powerful, and when once the Anschluss took place, the strategic frontier of the republic was turned. The Sudeten Germans looked to reunion with the Reich.

Honorable Members: Reunion? [incredulous interjections]

S. Hoare: To union with the Reich. It was reunion with a German State. Union with the Reich was the ideal that they were determined to achieve. Further than that, we faced the fact that owing to the geographical position of Czechoslovakia it mattered not who might win or lose the war, Czechoslovakia would almost inevitably be destroyed. Some said it would be a matter of days and others said a matter of weeks, but all were agreed who had studied the strategic position that it could not be a matter of more than a month or two. In the meanwhile, the republic would have been destroyed; immense slaughter would have taken place within its boundaries; devastation would have run riot. Supposing that at the end of the war we emerged the victors—and I have always believed, as every Member in this House believes, that in the final result we should emerge the victors—then we should be confronted with a position in which Czechoslovakia as we know it to-day would have been destroyed, and I do not believe that the negotiators of the peace treaty in any conditions would ever recreate its old frontiers…

The right honorable Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, in a picturesque passage, spoke of the Prime Minister as the captain who had saved the ship which his bad seamanship had driven almost onto the rocks. When the time comes for the verdict to be given upon the Prime Minister's conduct, let me tell the right honorable Gentleman that none of us here fears that verdict. I believe that the criticisms to which we have listened in the House to-day very little represent the great body of feeling. I believe the great body of our fellow citizens not only in this country but in the Dominions and in the whole Empire, are grateful to the Prime Minister for the efforts that he has made. They are grateful to the Prime Minister for having persistently sustained the policy of peace and mediation. They do not take the view that war is inevitable. They believe that under his wise guidance we may succeed in creating a new Europe in which men and women can go about their business in peace and security.

House of Commons, October 5, 1938

Winston Churchill: Having thus fortified myself by the example of others, I will proceed to emulate them. I will, therefore, begin by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and that France has suffered even more than we have.

Viscountess Nancy Astor: Nonsense.

W. Churchill: When the Noble Lady cries "Nonsense," she could not have heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon) admit in his illuminating and comprehensive speech just now that Herr Hitler had gained in this particular leap forward in substance all he set out to gain. The utmost my right honorable Friend the Prime Minister has been able to secure by all his immense exertions, by all the great efforts and mobilization which took place in this country, and by all the anguish and strain through which we have passed in this country, the utmost he has been able to gain…

Honorable Members: Is peace! [interjections]

W. Churchill: I thought I might be allowed to make that point in its due place, and I propose to deal with it. The utmost he has been able to gain for Czechoslovakia and in the matters which were in dispute has been that the German dictator, instead of snatching his victuals from the table, has been content to have them served to him course by course.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was the first time Herr Hitler had been made to retract—I think that was the word—in any degree. We really must not waste time, after all this long Debate, upon the difference between the positions reached at Berchtesgaden, at Godesberg, and at Munich. They can be very simply epitomized, if the House will permit me to vary the metaphor. One pound was demanded at the pistol's point. When it was given, two pounds were demanded at the pistol's point. Finally, the dictator consented to take one pound, seventeen shillings, and six pennies, and the rest in promises of good will for the future.

Now I come to the point, which was mentioned to me just now from some quarters of the House, about the saving of peace. No one has been a more resolute and uncompromising struggler for peace than the Prime Minister. Everyone knows that. Never has there been such intense and undaunted determination to maintain and to secure peace. That is quite true. Nevertheless, I am not quite clear why there was so much danger of Great Britain or France being involved in a war with Germany at this juncture if, in fact, they were ready all along to sacrifice Czechoslovakia. The terms which the Prime Minister brought back with him—I quite agree at the last moment; everything had got off the rails and nothing but his intervention could have saved the peace, but I am talking of the events of the summer—could easily have been agreed, I believe, through the ordinary diplomatic channels at any time during the summer. And I will say this, that I believe the Czechs, left to themselves and told they were going to get no help from the Western Powers, would have been able to make better terms than they have got—they could hardly have worse—after all this tremendous perturbation.

There never can be any absolute certainty that there will be a fight if one side is determined that it will give way completely. When one reads the Munich terms, when one sees what is happening in Czechoslovakia from hour to hour, when one is sure, I will not say of Parliamentary approval but of Parliamentary acquiescence, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a speech which at any rate tries to put in a very powerful and persuasive manner the fact that, after all, it was inevitable and indeed righteous—right—when we saw all this, and everyone on this side of the House, including many Members of the Conservative Party who are supposed to be vigilant and careful guardians of the national interest, it is quite clear that nothing vitally affecting us was at stake, it seems to me that one must ask, What was all the trouble and fuss about?…

We are asked to vote for this Motion which has been put upon the Paper, and it is certainly a Motion couched in very uncontroversial terms, as, indeed, is the Amendment moved from the Opposition side. I cannot myself express my agreement with the steps which have been taken, and as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put his side of the case with so much ability I will attempt, if I may be permitted, to put the case from a different angle. I have always held the view that the maintenance of peace depends upon the accumulation of deterrents against the aggressor, coupled with a sincere effort to redress grievances. Herr Hitler's victory, like so many of the famous struggles that have governed the fate of the world, was won upon the narrowest of margins. After the seizure of Austria in March we faced this problem in our Debates. I ventured to appeal to the Government to go a little further than the Prime Minister went, and to give a pledge that in conjunction with France and other Powers they would guarantee the security of Czechoslovakia while the Sudeten-Deutsch question was being examined either by a League of Nations Commission or some other impartial body, and I still believe that if that Course had been followed events would not have fallen into this disastrous state. I agree very much with my right honorable Friend the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) when he said on that occasion—I cannot remember his actual words—"Do one thing or the other; either say you will disinterest yourself in the matter altogether or take the step of giving a guarantee which will have the greatest chance of securing protection for that country."

France and Great Britain together, especially if they had maintained a close contact with Russia, which certainly was not done, would have been able in those days in the summer, when they had the prestige, to influence many of the smaller States of Europe, and I believe they could have determined the attitude of Poland. Such a combination, prepared at a time when the German dictator was not deeply and irrevocably committed to his new adventure, would, I believe, have given strength to all those forces in Germany which resisted this departure, this new design. They were varying forces, those of a military character which declared that Germany was not ready to undertake a world war, and all that mass of moderate opinion and popular opinion which dreaded war, and some elements of which still have some influence upon the German Government. Such action would have given strength to all that intense desire for peace which the helpless German masses share with their British and French fellow men, and which, as we have been reminded, found a passionate and rarely permitted vent in the joyous manifestations with which the Prime Minister was acclaimed in Munich.

All these forces, added to the other deterrents which combinations of Powers, great and small, ready to stand firm upon the front of law and for the ordered remedy of grievances, would have formed, might well have been effective. Of course you cannot say for certain that they would. [interruption] I try to argue fairly with the House. At the same time I do not think it is fair to charge those who wished to see this course followed, and followed consistently and resolutely, with having wished for an immediate war. Between submission and immediate war there was this third alternative, which gave a hope not only of peace but of justice. It is quite true that such a policy in order to succeed demanded that Britain should declare straight out and a long time beforehand that she would, with others, join to defend Czechoslovakia against an unprovoked aggression. His Majesty's Government refused to give that guarantee when it would have saved the situation, yet in the end they gave it when it was too late, and now, for the future, they renew it when they have not the slightest power to make it good.

All is over. Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness… No one has a right to say that the plebiscite which is to be taken in areas under Saar conditions, and the clean-cut of the fifty percent areas—that those two operations together amount in the slightest degree to a verdict of self-determination. It is a fraud and a farce to invoke that name…

We in this country, as in other Liberal and democratic countries, have a perfect right to exalt the principle of self-determination, but it comes ill out of the mouths of those in totalitarian States who deny even the smallest element of toleration to every section and creed within their bounds. But, however you put it, this particular block of land, this mass of human beings to be handed over, has never expressed the desire to go into the Nazi rule. I do not believe that even now—if their opinion could be asked, they would exercise such an option…

I venture to think that in future the Czechoslovak State cannot be maintained as an independent entity. You will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years, but may be measured only by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi regime. Perhaps they may join it in despair or in revenge. At any rate, that story is over and told. But we cannot consider the abandonment and ruin of Czechoslovakia in the light only of what happened only last month. It is the most grievous consequence which we have yet experienced of what we have done and of what we have left undone in the last five years—five years of futile good intention, five years of eager search for the line of least resistance, five years of uninterrupted retreat of British power, five years of neglect of our air defenses. Those are the features which I stand here to declare and which marked an improvident stewardship for which Great Britain and France have dearly to pay. We have been reduced in those five years from a position of security so overwhelming and so unchallengeable that we never cared to think about it. We have been reduced from a position where the very word "war" was considered one which would be used only by persons qualifying for a lunatic asylum. We have been reduced from a position of safety and power—power to do good, power to be generous to a beaten foe, power to make terms with Germany, power to give her proper redress for her grievances, power to stop her arming if we chose, power to take any step in strength or mercy or justice which we thought right—reduced in five years from a position safe and unchallenged to where we stand now…

We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude which has befallen Great Britain and France. Do not let us blind ourselves to that. It must now be accepted that all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi Power. The system of alliances in Central Europe upon which France has relied for her safety has been swept away, and I can see no means by which it can be reconstituted. The road down the Danube Valley to the Black Sea, the resources of corn and oil, the road which leads as far as Turkey, has been opened. In fact, if not in form, it seems to me that all those countries of Middle Europe, all those Danubian countries, will, one after another, be drawn into this vast system of power politics—not only power military politics but power economic politics—radiating from Berlin, and I believe this can be achieved quite smoothly and swiftly and will not necessarily entail the firing of a single shot. If you wish to survey the havoc of the foreign policy of Britain and France, look at what is happening and is recorded each day in the columns of The Times…

We are talking about countries which are a long way off and of which, as the Prime Minister might say, we know nothing. [interruption] The noble Lady says that that very harmless allusion is…

Vis. Astor: Rude.

W. Churchill: She must very recently have been receiving her finishing course in manners. What will be the position, I want to know, of France and England this year and the year afterwards? What will be the position of that Western front of which we are in full authority the guarantors? The German army at the present time is more numerous than that of France, though not nearly so matured or perfected. Next year it will grow much larger, and its maturity will be more complete. Relieved from all anxiety in the East, and having secured resources which will greatly diminish, if not entirely remove, the deterrent of a naval blockade, the rulers of Nazi Germany will have a free choice open to them in what direction they will turn their eyes. If the Nazi dictator should choose to look westward, as he may, bitterly will France and England regret the loss of that fine army of ancient Bohemia which was estimated last week to require not fewer than 30 German divisions for its destruction.

Can we blind ourselves to the great change which has taken place in the military situation, and to the dangers we have to meet?

This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

House of Commons, October 5, 1938

N. Chamberlain: As regards future policy, it seems to me that there are really only two possible alternatives. One of them is to base yourself upon the view that any sort of friendly relation, or possible relations, shall I say, with totalitarian States are impossible, that the assurances which have been given to me personally are worthless, that they have sinister designs and that they are bent upon the domination of Europe and the gradual destruction of democracies. Of course, on that hypothesis, war has got to come, and that is the view—a perfectly intelligible view—of a certain number of honorable and right honorable Gentlemen in this House…

If that is honorable Members’ conviction, there is no future hope for civilization or for any of the things that make life worth living. Does the experience of the Great War and of the years that followed it give us reasonable hope that if some new war started that would end war any more than the last one did? No. I do not believe that war is inevitable. Someone put into my hand a remark made by the great Pitt about 1787, when he said:

“To suppose that any nation can be unalterably the enemy of another is weak and childish and has its foundations neither in the experience of nations nor in the history of man.”

It seems to me that the strongest argument against the inevitability of war is to be found in something that everyone has recognized in every part of the House. That is the universal aversion from war of the people, their hatred of the notion of starting to kill one another again…

What is the alternative to this bleak and barren policy of the inevitability of war? In my view it is that we should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will. I cannot believe that such a program would be rejected by the people of this country, even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with dictators, and of talks man to man on the basis that each, while maintaining his own ideas of the internal government of his country, is willing to allow that other systems may suit better other peoples. The party opposite surely have the same idea in mind even if they put it in a different way. They want a world conference. Well, I have had some experiences of conferences, and one thing I do feel certain of is that it is better to have no conference at all than a conference which is a failure. The corollary to that is that before you enter a conference you must have laid out very clearly the lines on which you are going to proceed, if you are at least to have in front of you a reasonable prospect that you may obtain success. I am not saying that a conference would not have its place in due course. But I say it is no use to call a conference of the world, including these totalitarian Powers, until you are sure they are going to attend, and not only that they are going to attend, but that they are going to attend with the intention of aiding you in the policy on which you have set your heart.

I am told that the policy which I have tried to describe is inconsistent with the continuance, and much more inconsistent with the acceleration of our present program of arms. I am asked how I can reconcile an appeal to the country to support the continuance of this program with the words which I used when I came back from Munich the other day and spoke of my belief that we might have peace in our time. I hope honorable Members will not be disposed to read into words used in a moment of some emotion, after a long and exhausting day, after I had driven through miles of excited, enthusiastic, cheering people—I hope they will not read into those words more than they were intended to convey.

I do indeed believe that we may yet secure peace for our time, but I never meant to suggest that we should do that by disarmament, until we can induce others to disarm too. Our past experience has shown us only too clearly that weakness in armed strength means weakness in diplomacy, and if we want to secure a lasting peace, I realize that diplomacy cannot be effective unless the Consciousness exists, not here alone, but elsewhere, that behind the diplomacy is the strength to give effect…

I cannot help feeling that if, after all, war had come upon us, the people of this Country would have lost their spiritual faith altogether. As it turned out the other way, I think we have all seen something like a new spiritual revival, and I know that everywhere there is a strong desire among the people to record their readiness to serve their Country, wherever or however their services could be most useful. I would like to take advantage of that strong feeling if it is possible, and although I must frankly say that at this moment I do not myself clearly see my way to any particular scheme, yet I want also want to say that I am ready to consider any suggestion that may be made to me, in a very sympathetic spirit.

Finally, I would like to repeat what my right honorable Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said yesterday in his great speech. Our policy of appeasement does not mean that we are going to seek new friends at the expense of old ones, or, indeed, at the expense of any other nations at all. I do not think that at any time there has been a more complete identity of views between the French Government and ourselves than there is at the present time. Their objective is the same as ours—to obtain the collaboration of all nations, not excluding the totalitarian States, in building up a lasting peace for Europe. That seems to me to be a policy which would answer my honorable Friends’ appeal, a policy which should command the support of all who believe in the power of human will to control human destiny. If we cannot here this afternoon emulate the patriotic unanimity of the French Chamber, this House can by a decisive majority show its approval of the Government's determination to pursue it.

The vote which followed supported the government 369 to 150.

Chapter 98

Tom fell off the world after Munich. He hated his country. He felt a visceral loathing for the men who had betrayed England and Czechoslovakia in such a manner. He felt the sinewy soul of Reginald twisting around somewhere in the dank swamp of this treachery. He sat in his room, watching the crowds celebrating Chamberlain’s ringing declaration that he had achieved ‘peace for our time,’ and felt nothing but contempt for his fellow men. He sipped at some scotch, because he had no reason to guard his health any longer. When he closed his eyes, he saw Jacqueline, and breathed a prayer of thanks that he had not married her, that there were no children, only himself to mourn for.

Death is at the helm of the ship of state, he thought, and wondered where the strength of the British race had gone to. These are not the men who built the first moral empire the world has ever known… These are cautious merchants, petty fools. Those who know nothing of evil should never be given power. They cannot be blind to what is so openly spoken, so openly acted upon. The Nazi lust for power. They see it, but they do not care. There is a weariness and vanity about their existence. They do not want to live, these appeasers, but they are too vain to die by their own hands.

He thought about Reginald, about all the years that lay between them. What was it like to be him? To have no comfort at home. To be unloved by your offspring. To always have to be right. To bow and scrape and ingratiate yourself to those in power—or those perceived as being in power—and threaten and scorn those who depend on you…

Tom frowned.

What would the years ahead look like, from that arid, tense, terrified existence, stretching forward? There was no escape from such a cage. It closed in, year by year…

Tom touched his own chest. It was—it was inconceivable.

No pleasure in life, except to ingratiate and dominate… But what does such falsehood do to a soul? What does my brother live for? What gets him out of bed every morning? Why does he shave, put on a suit, go to work, pick up the telephone? What does he want?

Tom shook his head slightly, as if to dislodge or evade something.

Power is the opposite of pleasure.

A soul content with its own existence, simmering in the pleasures of love, family, an ethical life, close friends—does not need power, for it is complete in itself.

When the soul dies, though, the need for power is what takes its place. Power-lust is the substance which flows into the vacuum of an amoral existence.

But what power does my brother possess? He has helped, in his way, to bring down Czechoslovakia, but…but what does that mean? What has he accomplished?

Nothing positive. Reginald has created nothing. But he has destroyed something.

The only existence is an absence…

Tom’s frown shifted into a scowl.

Because Reginald does not exist, nothing around Reginald can exist. He is a predatory virus of nothing. He finds what is, and kills it, so he does not feel his own death. His own early, early death…

Tom’s thoughts were poised over the question of: what killed my brother? when a knock came at the door.

He felt fixed to his chair, and glanced at his little desk. Reginald had sent a letter, but Tom did not want to open it. He had already received a letter from Quentin which read, in part:

“…though the extent of your injuries to Wendy cannot be ascertained—and may be far less than she claims, since she is rather highly strung—it is nonetheless the responsibility of every man who aspires to the title of ‘gentleman’ to avoid even the possibility of situations of this sort, where word wars with word, and the truth can never come clean. To receive a sister-in-law at your flat, without a chaperone, when Reginald was doing his duty overseas—even with her children, which can be disposed of at any time—was the height of impropriety and foolishness. Were it not for your extensive history with ladies, I would be tempted to forgive you on grounds of naïveté. Yet you are, in your own small way, a man of the world, and cannot fail to notice that Reginald and Wendy are going through a particularly rocky patch, and that entertaining her in your flat was just the sort of thing that would lead to a disaster of this sort.

“The only saving grace from this unholy mess comes, as usual, from Reginald himself, who acquitted himself with great honor and composure in Czechoslovakia, providing great assistance to HMG during this difficult time. He has received great acclaim in helping to fend off a clumsy German maneuver designed to discredit us in the international arena—and has achieved this singular honor despite being called by his wife with news of your—shall we say indiscretion?—the very day that his advice was being sought. All I can do is offer his self-restraint as an example to you…”

Tom twisted in his chair and glanced at the door. The knocking came again. Could it be Reginald or Quentin? He almost laughed at the idea—the idea that either man would be courageous enough to come and thrash things out! They preferred the distance and safety of their poison-pen letters. Reginald had sent one, mailed from Prague, which Tom had very much enjoyed burning unopened. The thought had struck him that he should go and tell Reginald the truth—this his wife had tried to seduce him—but shied away from the idea. It was hard to explain exactly why. Tom was not a coward. But—Reginald and Wendy’s marriage seemed like an acidic quicksand that one could not just dip one’s toe into. Recriminations, rage, all the back-and-forth of endless drama addicts—what would the point of that be? In the year or so they all had left to live—if they were lucky—Reginald and Wendy would be unlikely to learn anything of real value. And, of course, by betraying Czechoslovakia at Munich, Reginald had crossed over a line that admitted no return. Even if he realized what he had done, he would be unlikely to go and try pulling the Nazis back from the plunder of the new land…

Tom put down his drink and tore himself from the chair as he heard the faint sounds of footsteps walking away from his door. A woman!

Dear God—let it not be Jacqueline! I wouldn’t have the strength…

He tore open the door and saw his mother standing on the landing, at the top of the stairs, her hand resting on the banister. She wore a gray cap, and strands of her white hair lay against her cheek.

She smiled. Tom frowned involuntarily. When she smiled, his mother’s face grew entirely unexpected wrinkles.

“Were you sleeping?” she asked.

“No. Just thinking.”

“Well, you don’t want to pull your thinking cap so low that it covers your ears.”

He laughed silently. “No.”

She waited for a moment, with great patience.

“Sorry,” he said, returning to himself. “Come in, come in.”

“Thank you.”

Tom opened the door and let his mother in. She moved with a new grace. A delicacy. A—femininity.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Yes. Yes, but let me bring it to you. Where do you keep everything? You drink scotch now?”

“Just—just for today.”

“You must tell me why you are sad.”

Tom nodded, then gestured at the low blue cupboards. “I have only condensed cream. No sugar. I wasn’t expecting guests.”

“No, of course not. Matches?”

Tom pointed at a drawer, and watched his mother light the little stove and fill the kettle. The tea was in a little tin; she found it without asking.

He loved watching her make his tea. He wished he had something important to do, so that she could bring it to him and kiss his head, right where he parted his hair, and then go back to doing other motherly things.

“I am making you sadder,” she said, without turning around.

Tom nodded. “A little.”

“I’m sorry. I owe you about nineteen thousand cups of tea.”

“You took my advice.”

Ruth did not turn around. She poured the water into an old porcelain teapot with a cracked surface of red-cheeked children dancing with dogs.

“Good Lord, we have better things in storage! Why not take them?”

“I never knew where they were,” said Tom.

“Well, and I wouldn’t have been much use. You were a very patient child.” Her voice caught. “I…don’t know where I would have been, without such a patient child. With two of—your brother.”

“Gunther is back in the country. Churchill told me.”

She smiled, handing him his tea. “Well, and we thought that Reginald was moving in elevated circles! I know.”

“You should go and see him.”

“What, all wrinkled?”

“I don’t think he loved you just for your skin, Mother.”

“Well, that’s advice from the young and unmarried, so I don’t have to listen to it.”

Tom smiled, blowing on his tea. She had put too much condensed cream into it, but he was too happy with maternal milk of any kind to complain.

“So,” she said, sitting on the end of his squeaky bed. “Why so unhappy?”

Tom turned his chair around to face her. “I have a question first.”

“That’s not quite answering a question with a question, but it’s close.”

“I am occasionally unhappy, so that can wait. Why are you so content?”

“I…” She paused. “Why, I don’t even know how to say it properly. I have exposed your father.”

“How? Is that why he changed sides?”

“He changed sides, my dear, because you told me to tell him to.”

“I wanted him to see the light. Not be bullied.”

“He was partly responsible for the death of my brother Wesley in 1915,” said Ruth, taking a sip of tea, her eyes never leaving her son’s.

“H-h—how?”

“He did not send them the weapons they needed for an assault. He forged documents to pretend that he never received them.”

“And now Reginald is not giving Czechoslovakia the arms they need,” said Tom instantly, unconsciously, before he even had time to assimilate his mother’s words.

Ruth’s face betrayed no emotion. “I have done what I could with that.”

“He—Quentin did not change sides very convincingly.”

“I know. I saw it. And you, nine rows down. With—Hart?”

“Why didn’t you say something then?”

“We weren’t speaking then.”

“And now?”

“Ohh, now,” she said, dropping her eyes and stirring her tea rhythmically. “Well, now, I have made amends. I have won you back.”

“I don’t think that making him change sides did a lot of good.”

“No. I was quite angry with him. I wrestled and wrestled, because my wrestling muscles are very strong, and then I decided this morning. I do not love him. I did—I mean, I thought over it, it has been thirty-odd years—and I remember that I did love him once. We were sitting by a fire, shortly after he first got elected. I was responding to some correspondence. And he seemed tired, like an old bear, and sweet somehow. And I loved him then. But he has a cruel streak. It makes my heart like ice. I can’t thaw anymore, it seems. I can’t forgive him. So I have destroyed him.”

“Oh, I think he’ll survive…”

Ruth smiled humorlessly. “Tom, please don’t think I’m senile. I’m not talking about that.”

“Then…”

“I sent his documents to The Times this morning.”

Tom leapt up from his chair. It went skidding back over the cheap linoleum. His mother’s eyes followed him placidly.

“That wife,” she said, “is dead. Long funeral. Time to go.”

“My God, Mother,” he cried. He turned to the door, then turned back to her. “This will not help!”

“What? Why not?”

“Because… Because someone who’s changed sides will be revealed as a fraud and a moral bankrupt!” Tom groaned from the pit of his being. “Christ! Everyone will know the reason why he switched! Blackmail! Evident to all! Because an MP would only join the anti-appeasers if he were blackmailed, of course! Come to me first! Why didn’t you come to me first?”

“Tom,” she said softly. She rose, took his hands, and kissed them. “Tom, do you really think it makes a difference now? I mean, we’re all just—squaring accounts now, aren’t we? In the time we have left?”

Tom’s back was rigid for a moment longer, and then he sagged into his mother’s arms.

“Yes,” he said dully. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter. I’m glad. I’m glad.”

“Oof, you’re heavy!” she said, sitting him on the bed.

“But this doesn’t settle accounts, Mother. Our family’s involvement in war goes back further than Reginald and Quentin.”

Ruth looked down, and interlocked her fingertips. “What do you mean?” she whispered finally.

“You’re trying to solve something politically. You’ve been terrified of war since you were young. Now, it’s coming again. Everything we do just seems to bring it closer. Fighting against war brings it closer. If you go almost to war—to the very edge of war—there is no war. It’s like a fear. Face terror, and it vanishes. Accept war, and it scurries off. But you were our family’s first involvement with war.”

“Me?”

“With Gunther. Before the Great War. Your betrayal.”

“My betrayal… Of Gunther.”

“No, Mother. Of yourself.”

“Of myself.”

“Go back to Gunther, Mother. Give him what’s left of your heart. If it can thaw at all, it will be with him. Let us take what pleasure we may in the time that remains.”

Ruth’s hands closed over Tom’s. Her head lowered, but he could not tell if she were nodding slowly, or just sagging, falling away, into the past.

Chapter 99

Gunther stepped off the train, and sniffed deeply. He clapped his hands together, rubbed them vigorously, then walked up the platform.

He felt like a wizard, a conjurer. The tests were working well, and soon all would be in place.

No, not quite a conjurer. Today, he would be more than a conjurer. Today, he was a necromancer. Today, he would raise the dead.

He had wanted to be very, very certain. He knew what it was to have his hopes dashed.

He almost ran up the stairs. He knocked on the door. Tom opened it almost right away.

“Gunther!” he cried.

He had been weeping. Gunther did not pause. This was not unusual. He came through the door. He stood in the middle of the room, looking around.

“Tom, it’s time. Stop drinking. You’re no good at dissolution. This is the wrong environment. People who are really dissolute don’t have calendars on the wall.”

“How are you?” asked Tom cautiously.

“Good. More than good. Wonderful. Today, the world is saved. I’m going to put that on your calendar.” He whipped out a pen from his breast pocket. “World—is—saved. When did you last fly?”

“Coming back from Prague. A few weeks ago. Why?”

“Tell me—are you planning on flying again?”

“I—don’t think so. Perhaps recreationally.”

Gunther turned and wagged a finger at him. “But you do not ask me why I want to know. That is bad. I have come not a moment too soon. Because I bring you hope. You must keep it a deep, dark secret, but I bring you hope. Hm,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “You have had a woman here. I don’t want to tell you here. Not here. Have you eaten?”

“Some toast. For lunch.”

“Hah! We’ll get you on rations soon enough. Come on—let’s go and really strap the feed bag on, before everything becomes scarce!”

They went to a well-lit, highly fashionable restaurant, with formal waiters, white linen tablecloths, and a soft jazz band.

“I toast our environment,” grinned Gunther, raising a glass. “It shall go, for a time, but it shall return as well.”

“Stop hinting,” said Tom. “I don’t have the energy.”

“Oh, allow an old man a little play,” said Gunther, draining half his glass of wine. “I have been waiting almost four years!”

Tom did not reply, but looked at him expectantly, dark circles hanging under his eyes like the hammocks of tiny devils.

“Tell me—do you expect to fly in the war?”

“To die in the sky, or on the ground?” replied Tom. “I know. I want to die with my nieces.”

“No! Nothing like that!” said Gunther, leaning forward. “You have to keep a secret.”

“You have the head of Hitler in your briefcase.”

“Alas, no. But I have something almost as good. The flying time from France?”

“Paris, or the coast?”

“The coast. Maybe a few miles inland.”

“To London?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe—half an hour.”

“Time to rise from English soil to meet oncoming bombers.”

“Unknowable.”

“Why?”

“They’re seen from the coast, from spotters I suppose, and you can only guess at their location. They would change course. Be impossible to find.”

“Assume you can find them.”

“Assume… Is this your secret?”

“Just assume.”

“I think—fifteen minutes? Assuming they’re bombers, and not up at twenty thousand feet.”

“And they’re only seen ten minutes away, yes?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“Waiter! More wine!” Gunther leaned even closer. “So that is the problem. We can’t see them coming, we can’t find them in the sky. And even if we do, they’re already on their way back. But you can shoot down bombers if you find them.”

Tom shrugged. “Be like hitting the side of a barn from twenty paces.”

“So!” Gunther had almost crawled halfway across the table. His eyes gleamed behind his horn-rimmed glasses. His broad forehead was bright with sweat.

“We can see them!” he hissed.

Tom’s glass froze in midair. It hung motionless. The surface of the pale wine shivered.

“What?” he whispered.

“We can see them coming! We can see them in the air!”

Gunther sank back into his chair.

“Cheers,” he said, draining his glass.

Tom’s eyes narrowed. He felt himself starting to sweat.

“If you’ve broken the codes,” he said, “the Jerries will just change them. It won’t take long.”

“We don’t care about the codes,” said Gunther merrily. He tore off a small chunk of bread, and threw it at Tom’s wine glass. The bread knocked over the glass, bouncing off. “We do it with radio waves. The bombers will not always get through! We can see them coming, Tom!”

“You can’t!”

“Hush. I have told you. Now I must kill you. We can defend our island.”

Tom stood, then sat down again.

“I want you to stop hinting,” he said. “It’s very cruel. You didn’t hint when you told me that war was coming.”

“We set up radio stations along the coast. They’re small, underground, almost impossible to bomb. They send out radio waves, pointed at the sky. Whatever is flying will reflect these waves, back to us. With no more than three, we can pinpoint bombers coming in from over France. We’ll know where they are heading. We can send the Royal Air Force up to claw down the bombers, before they reach their targets. We can target air to air through something called the onboard Airborne Interception Radar set. We put them in the Bristol Blenheim airplanes. We can even find German ships from the planes, Tom!”

Tom’s hands twitched. “Some will get through, but with a twenty-minute warning, we can get most of them. There will be fighters, Messerschmitt, but we can send the Spitfires after those, while the Hurricanes go for the bombers. Easy meat. There will be damage, of course, but… But…”

“But we have a fucking good chance now, don’t we?” demanded Gunther.

The waiter frowned at the obscenity as he wiped up the mess and poured more wine.

“Frown all you want, my good man,” said Gunther, raising his glass. “But we shall save your hide nonetheless!”

Their glasses clinked together.

“Now,” said Gunther. “I want you to stop mooning about like a lost little lamb. I want you to start exercising. I want you to stop drinking. I want you to give my good friend Colonel Donaldson a call and tell him that you want to join the Royal Air Force.”

“This radio thing…”

“Radar. Radar, it’s called. But you can’t breathe a syllable.”

“It’s not just theoretical? It’s not just on paper.”

“I just came from the tests today. It works.”

“Can it be—what, I don’t know… Jammed?”

“Not as far as we can tell. And the Germans know nothing of this.”

“The French?”

Gunther shook his head.

Tom took a deep breath. “My God, what a day. First, my mother comes back to life. Then me.”

There was a pause.

“How is Ruth?”

“I’ll let her tell you that. But Gunther—one thing.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to train anymore.”

“You’ve been flying for five years. You don’t have to…”

“I mean, train others. I’ve trained hundreds of pilots since 1934. I’ve done my part. I will not be stuck in a classroom. I want to fight.”

“That’s for the RAF to decide.”

“No. No. I won’t go if I can’t fight.”

Gunther drummed his fingertips on the table. His gaze seemed to bore into Tom. Into his son. And Tom could see that it was a father deciding now, not a scientist.

“All right, Tom,” he said finally. “Your mother and I would be far happier with you in the skies.”

It was a heady day for Gunther. He had a long lunch with his son. Then, he drove out to Chartwell to tell Churchill of the good news about the radar tests. Then, he went back home after a late supper. Climbing the stairs to his own flat, he saw a figure leaning against his door. A slim figure in a gray cap. Gunther took off his own hat automatically.

As he approached, the figure raised her head.

“Gunther,” croaked Ruth. “I can’t! I can’t!”

And, not fifteen streets away, a woman also came home to her empty flat. A man was lying across her doorway. She paused in the hallway, wondering whether to call the landlord, or the police.

The man raised his head.

“Hullo, Jacqueline,” smiled Tom.

Chapter 100

The siren jolted Tom from sleep. His body twisted on his little cot. His brain was scalded with exhaustion. He flew ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day. He closed his eyes at night, and saw his trembling windshield, felt the shaking of his seat as he opened fire, jerked his head involuntarily as his bullets chewed bits of metal off Nazi airplanes. When he slept, he dreamt of flying. It felt as if he had closed his eyes for only a few minutes when the siren started up again. Sometimes, he dreamt of the siren, and even in his sleep, he was afraid that the siren was really going off, and he was losing precious minutes of altitude and interception.

Tom was one of three thousand fighter pilots. Modern warfare had come down to such tiny numbers. Three thousand knights of the air who threw themselves into the sky as a shield against the oncoming German air force, the Luftwaffe.

For the first time in his life, Tom knew complete rage. He had been afraid for so many years that it was a blessed relief to have something tangible and evil to shoot at. He had joined the Royal Air Force in November, 1938, the day after his conversation with Gunther about radar. He met a few of his former students, who wondered what had taken him so long. He contacted a secret tribe he had always dreamed of; men his own age who knew that there was going to be war, and ignored or found amusing the endless antics of the appeasers. Tom was utterly humbled by their courage. They had all read reports about the hopelessness and doom of modern aerial combat. They knew nothing of the existence of radar, but they were unafraid. Tom met two young men who had been present at his great debate at Oxford in 1933, who had voted for the resolution to refrain from fighting for King and Country. One of them was abashed and shamefaced. The other just laughed and said: “Oh, but I’m still not fighting for King and Country. At the time, King and Country were appeasers. Still are. And I still refuse to fight for them. Now, I fight for myself. I am just sad that I shall be saving them as well.”

They were mostly children of the lower middle classes—very few came from England’s elite schools.

There were some refugees from the Continent. By far the most skilled pilots were the Poles. They had a careless sort of courage which allowed them to perform maneuvers which took Tom’s breath away. They did ‘victory rolls’ when returning from combat—one roll for each German plane shot down, which none of the British pilots had the stomach for. To do a victory roll when you didn’t know what sort of structural damage your airplane had sustained in combat…? Ugh!

But they were the highest-scoring pilots. Some of the British were good—Lock, Bader, Lacey, Lane—but more than eighty percent of the pilots had never even shot at an enemy plane. This was partly luck—finding enemy planes in the endless blue was very, very hard. And even if you found them, they were so easy to lose again. It happened all the time. One moment, the sky was full of planes; the next, it was empty, and you had to go home alone.

The battle was hard. Very hard. You flew far more than you fought. But the RAF had some significant tactical advantages. They had more fuel for fighting—the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters could only spend half an hour over England before having to turn back to France. The Spitfires had a tighter turning radius than the 109s, and so could get into a kind of ‘spiral’ turning war with the German fighters, inching closer to a good firing position with every loop.

The 109s, though, had a fuel-injection system which gave them significant advantage in a dive. When the British fighters dove, the engine cut out immediately, and had to be restarted. (In the pilot community, Tom was rather famous for finding a solution to this problem, which was to loop as you dove, to keep the petrol flowing to the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.) The German 109s, though, had the distinct disadvantage of a weaker wing structure, which meant that they could indeed dive faster to evade the British guns, but at the risk of tearing their own wings off. Their fuel reserves were also stored in an L-shaped tank around the pilot which, although shielded, tended to go up like a bomb when hit.

Tom joined one of the five RAF squadrons which had Hurricane fighters, and quickly grew to love the airplane. The Hurricane was an incredibly stable gun platform; the recoil never jarred the pilot. It could take an incredible amount of punishment and still fly well. More than once, Tom had returned from a sortie and walked around his bullet-ridden Hurricane, wondering not only how it was still able to fly, but how it was able to stay in one piece.

After Munich, war had come quickly. In March of 1939, Hitler invaded and absorbed the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain had panicked, and given British guarantees to preserve the integrity of Poland and Rumania. This was considered by Churchill to be a disaster, since it was now much harder to invade Germany in the West than in 1938. Also, Poland was a semi-totalitarian state which had joined with Hitler to feast on Czechoslovakia the previous year, and was not an edifying land to protect.

In April, Chamberlain introduced conscription. The same month, Stalin offered to create a mutual front against German aggression with England and France. Chamberlain’s government did not respond to these offers. Litvinov, the Russian Foreign Secretary who made these offers was fired, and Molotov replaced him. Churchill went on the open attack, saying:

“I beg HMG to get some of these brutal truths into their heads. Without an effective eastern front, there can be no satisfactory defense of our interests in the West, and without Russia there can be no effective eastern front. If HMG, having neglected our defenses for a long time, having thrown away Czechoslovakia, and all that Czechoslovakia meant in terms of military power, having committed us, without examination of the technical aspects, to the defense of Poland and Rumania, now reject and cast away the indispensable aid of Russia, and so lead us in the worst of all ways into the worst of all wars, they will have ill-deserved the confidence and, I will add, the generosity with which they have been treated by their fellow countrymen.”

Things were very dark when Churchill went to visit the French front in the summer of 1939. Along the Rhine, all temporary bridges were withdrawn. Soldiers glared at each other across the river. There were forty-two German divisions along the Western border. At the time of Munich, there had been thirteen.

Anthony Eden offered to go to Russia to negotiate the Tripartite Pact with Russia. Chamberlain refused. Instead, he sent Mr. Strang, a political nobody, to negotiate with the Russians. He refused to even send the inconsequential Mr. Strang by airplane, instead sending him by a slow boat, which took several weeks.

Stalin was not slow to understand the British signals. In August, Hitler offered to sign a nonaggression pact with Russia. He offered to send Ribbentrop immediately, with full powers of negotiation, and to accede to whatever Stalin wanted. Ribbentrop arrived in Moscow on August 23, 1939. By that evening, the German-Soviet nonaggression pact was signed.

At this point, Churchill said, war was inevitable. No longer afraid of Russian intervention, Hitler was able to attack Poland, which he did on September 1, 1939. This triggered declarations of war from both England and France within three days.

The war did not turn westward for over six months. Churchill ascended to become prime minister on May 10, 1940. At the same time, Hitler attacked France in a surprise push through the Ardennes. It was not lost on either the French or the British that Hitler used Czechoslovakian tanks in his attack.

France fell in six weeks. The Germans attacked through the Ardennes forest, where the French defensive Maginot line was weakest. They pushed into France with great speed. On May 15, 1940, Churchill was awoken at seven thirty in the morning by Reynaud, the french premier, who told him that the battle was lost, that the Germans have gained too much ground. Churchill told him not to worry, because all such advances must halt after five or six days, to get supplies, at which time a counterattack was possible.

But the French had nothing to counterattack with. Although they had more tanks than the Germans, they had spread their strength along the length of the entire front. But, as Churchill said, one cannot be strong everywhere, and it was standard to keep a large number of mobile troops in reserve, so that when the main thrust of the enemy became clear, one could counterattack. But the French had no reserves to throw at the German advance. Communication lines were cut. Chaos reigned.

Reynaud received a postcard discovered on the body of an officer who had committed suicide in Le Mans. It read: “I am killing myself, Mr. President, to let you know that all my men were brave, but one cannot send men to fight tanks with rifles.”

England was rapidly using up her strength, especially in the air. The RAF stationed almost five hundred airplanes on French soil, but in one day of ground attacks—the fourteenth—lost sixty-seven aircraft, while only shooting down fifty-three German planes. That night, the British had only 206 serviceable aircraft. The French wanted the RAF to stop the German tanks, which Churchill disagreed with; it was the business of artillery to stop the tanks, he said. The RAF was only to be used to cleanse the skies over the battle. He sent another four squadrons, leaving only twenty-five squadrons in England, which was considered the bare minimum needed to defend the island.

The British troops—almost two hundred thousand—were being forced to the sea, towards Dunkirk, by the advancing German tanks. In despair, Churchill decided to send a flotilla of whatever ships could be thrown across the Channel in a desperate attempt to rescue as many troops as possible. France was a lost cause; the RAF withdrew, leaving a large number of planes in flames, because they could not be flown due to mechanical failure or lack of fuel. Endless streams of ships sailed from England to Dunkirk.

For some unfathomable reason, Hitler stopped his tanks two days from Dunkirk. It was possible that he was saving them for his assault on the south of France, or was afraid of losing them to the swamps ahead—or was seduced by Göring, who wanted to display the strength of his Luftwaffe by bombing the British and French armies, huddled on the beaches, without weapons, into oblivion.

But the bombs of the Luftwaffe were largely ineffective. They buried themselves in the sand of Dunkirk before exploding, doing little more than throw sand around. Churchill hoped against hope to rescue fifty thousand troops from Dunkirk.

The British recovered more than two hundred thousand.

The beach was pure chaos. Soldiers, maddened by terror, had to be held back from the rescue ships at gunpoint. Those who got away in small vessels were strafed by German aircraft.

But over the beach, the battle was, for Tom, a pure, grim pleasure.

Coming over the Channel, the beach was easy to find; some nearby oil refineries were on fire, and sent an uneven black pillar of smoke into the heavens. Flying over the beach for the first time, Tom saw a Bf 109 pilot flying low, strafing the waves where the men huddled, scattered, and fell apart under his shells.

Tom knew what it was like to have ground targets; he had been part of the campaign to bomb bridges. A pilot’s concentration was never focussed behind him. If an enemy came in from the ‘six,’ he never saw what hit him.

Tom had felt a savage blast of anger as he settled in behind the German airplane. Soldiers cheered, waving their empty rifles from the surf. Tom adjusted his scope to two-hundred-yards distance. The 109 was not weaving. The German pilot was intent on his defenseless targets. Tom felt a black patience seize him. It was almost dreamy. The 109’s wings filled his gunsight. Tom squeezed his trigger. His Hurricane shook dimly beneath him. The smell of cordite filled his tiny cockpit. Silver flecks of metal spun off the 109, bouncing off Tom’s windshield. The German pilot took no evasive action. Tom dipped down slightly, into the slipstream. He didn’t want to miss the German plane and accidentally hit the soldiers on the beach. He squeezed again. More flecks of metal. Then, a terrific explosion. Tom imagined that he could hear the cheering from the soldiers. He pulled back on his joystick with all his might, both for fear of flying into the explosion, and because he had not looked behind him for almost a minute.

It was not a moment too soon. As he pulled up, the flicker of tracers passed by his window. Tom was amazed. He imagined that, as he had been sighting on the first 109, a second had dropped in behind him. The cool of a pilot who had let Tom destroy another German rather than fire too soon!

Tom craned his head as he felt his cheeks, his blood—almost his teeth—groaning downward from the force of his lifting turn. He stood on his wing and caught a flashing glimpse of the second 109 turning behind him.

There was nothing to do but keep turning. He could turn more tightly, so hoped to get the German airplane in his sights.

Then, the Messerschmitt flashed by his windscreen. He caught a glimpse of a distinctive yellow pattern on the fuselage, and a scratch of blonde from the cockpit. Tom cried out—it was very close. He wrenched his joystick from right to left, feeling like a whirling bag of blood as all his body fluids changed direction. The beach rolled madly before him. He opened his throttle to maximum and craned his head, his eyes scouring the sky. Nothing. He leveled out cautiously, then cried out again as more tracers flew past him and he felt the impact of bullets hitting his airplane somewhere.

Tom groaned, and threw himself into another turn. He wondered if he had enough height to loop downwards. Probably not. His altimeter read nine hundred feet. Even if the engine cut out… His arms ached with the strain of his turn. He glanced down, desperate to check his flesh for unseemly openings. He wanted to check with his fingers, but needed all of them.

Tracers flashed by once more, and Tom cursed violently. Is this fucking Kraut some kind of mind reader? He threw himself into a shallow roll, and came out at a hundred feet, heading inland. He sank down to treetop level, glancing at his fuel gauge. Can’t spend more than another five minutes on this, or it’s the Channel for me… Not good. The German E-Boats are strafing bailed pilots now…

The ground dipped, and Tom’s Hurricane fell into the depression, its wings waggling as he wiggled left and right. I don’t have the fuel to open it up and climb! he thought. I could put on the brakes, and hope he overshoots me, but that’s very risky, and this Kraut is damn good! If he is ready for me to put on the brakes, I am a sitting duck!

Rising over a low hill, Tom saw a little town. More tracers flashed by, and he saw some punctures open up on his right wing. He jerked the controls, terrified that he might have lost some hydraulics, but the Hurricane responded immediately.

Tom flew low into the town, just over the roof tops. The streets weren’t reliably wide enough to accept his forty-foot wingspan. Tom smiled suddenly, then laughed incredulously, remembering his pretend aerial feat of thirty years before, in the famous Battle of the Gardens. Next time I fly, I’m stuffing my pockets with sycamore leaves, for luck!

He saw a church spire ahead of him. The thought hit him immediately, and he acted without considering it. Keep something between him and me…

He threw his plane into a tight right turn, then wrenched the joystick from right to left, so low that he prayed for two gifts: that his plane could take the strain, and that his right wing would not strike a roof.

Tom circled the spire of the church. It afforded little protection from bullets, but it allowed him to turn with something between him and the German plane.

In a moment, the mottled roofs of the town had flashed by under the sloping nose of his Hurricane. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up. His buttocks had gone numb from sitting near an engine on full throttle for many minutes.

Tom passed by the burning oil derrick. He thought of using the smoke as cover, but knew it was not thick or deep enough. Then, he spied a naval destroyer churning through the sea ahead, and his mouth went suddenly dry. Again, childhood images flashed through him—Not a bad sign I hope!—of Gunther battling Reginald over a destroyer, back in days of relative peace…

All Allied ships were instructed to fire on all approaching planes, because friendly aircraft could not be identified in time. It was a terrible risk, but it seemed impossible to shake off the 109 growling behind him.

Tom dropped the belly of his Hurricane almost to wave-level and willed his airplane to go faster. He held his joystick tight against him, every muscle rigid, hunching forward, as if that would help. If he set himself up as bait, then the 109 would have to fly straight, and would be a better target for the ship’s gunners… And Tom was low, so hopefully the gunners would see the RAF insignia on the wings of his Hurricane—and they would also see that he was in no position to strafe the ship, and so not a German.

Tom screamed as the gray hull of the destroyer flew closer. Through the turning haze of his propeller, he saw flashes as the ship’s antiaircraft guns opened up, but couldn’t tell what they were firing at. He imagined being torn apart by German or British guns at any moment. Nothing but the roar of his engine. He allowed himself half a second too long before hauling his stick back with all his fading might. His Hurricane—God bless its indestructibility!—rose immediately, and Tom winced as he winged over the deck of the ship.

Immediately, he cut his engine to a quarter power. If the 109 was still behind him, he would just have to bail out and take his chances in the water. But the Kraut wouldn’t strafe the waves—not after our dogfight! His eyes scoured the sky. Nothing.

Either the destroyer got the German, or he had turned away when Tom approached it.

No matter. Tom flew low, on minimal power—and landed, he was later told, on petrol fumes alone.

Churchill had taken power in May 1940, after Chamberlain had waged a disastrous war in Norway, when he had told the RAF pilots not to use bombs, for fear of escalating the conflict. Due to his indecision, the Germans had occupied Norway almost without firing a shot. Parliament had revolted. Chamberlain had been cast down. Halifax and Churchill were the leading contenders for the new prime minster. Halifax declined. Churchill took over, and the character of the war changed almost immediately.

Churchill did not throw out the appeasers. He believed that victors must be magnanimous—and that trying to run a wartime government without the experience of able men would be a disaster. As he said: “If the present tries to sit in judgement on the past it will lose the future.”

Reginald was not fired when Churchill took power. He was fired in early August 1940, during the height of the Battle of Britain, because he was heard talking about the need to come to terms with Hitler. Churchill fired him personally, and gave his position to Hart, who was performing most admirably.

Reginald had enough money, he hoped, to last the rest of the war without working. He and Wendy stayed in London, because Reginald believed that the story of why he had been fired had branded him a coward, so he stayed under the path of German bombers in order to fight the impression.

They did send their daughters out of London, for fear of the nightly bombings which had begun sporadically. They were invited to stay at a house just outside London, to live with Catherine at her late parents’ house. Reginald and Wendy opposed that, ostensibly on the grounds that it would be too close to combat, but it was really because of Tom. Quentin overrode their decision by promising money, in the hope of effecting some distant future family reconciliation.

Tom was not allowed to see the girls. It was the last weapon that Reginald could wield. Reginald had been discredited; he was scorned in all the circles that mattered to him. Wherever Tom went, people bought him drinks and praised his courage and fortitude. Reginald, who had based so much of his self-worth on his superiority to his younger brother, had almost nothing left with which to hurt Tom.

Except Jocelyn and Lillian. Catherine’s house was within ten minutes of Tom’s airfield, by air. When he flew over the village, he saw the distinctive red roof of Catherine’s house, and would try to spot the girls. A few times they were outside, playing, and shielded their eyes to see his airplane. He waggled his wings, and they waved and danced and cheered. Tom wasn’t allowed to see them, but he had told Catherine which airplane was his, and the girls knew him by sight. He tried to measure their growing height relative to an ancient rusted swing set…

By now, it had been almost two years since Tom had seen his nieces. He missed them terribly, but it only struck him sometimes. He would awake in tears, or dream about them, or remember sheltering them in his arms as they whispered secrets in the dark. He could recall their scents, the exact color and texture of their hair, and their belly buttons (one ‘innie,’ one ‘outie’). He remembered their insatiable hunger for the details of his and Reginald’s childhoods. He felt terror at the thought that he was missing everything, that the years were falling away from them, never to return. He might never see them again, until they were adults, and perhaps then he could explain everything. But in the meantime, he thought, through all their years of becoming adults, they are being fed nothing but propaganda…

But there was nothing to do. He had no legal rights. Ruth had suggested that she invite the girls out, and that he join them. But they would take such thrilling news right back to their parents.

And so? That was a tough question. What did he have to lose? He wasn’t seeing the girls anyway. So what if he stole one day with them? Even if he didn’t tell the truth about what had happened with Wendy, that fateful day—even if he didn’t tell the truth about Reginald’s prewar record of cowardice and appeasement at the Foreign Office… It would only be one day. And he was a war hero now—surely that would count for something with the girls. Something that might overcome the propaganda they were doubtless getting from their parents.

But they were kept away from him. He wrote to them every week—and made copies, so they could read the letters when they got older, if they didn’t get them now. His letters were never returned, but Tom didn’t know if that was because they were never delivered, or because the girls didn’t want to reply. Generally, for the sake of his heart, he went for the former. It was hard to imagine that their former love had been so completely supplanted by lies. Oh Tom, he imagined Reginald saying, we keep inviting him, but he never comes. He never writes. Never calls. But he’s famous now, so he’s probably forgotten all about you…

Poison. Pure poison. His mind kept returning to the hope that the girls somehow knew that their parents were lying about everything. Children have such keen eyes for falsehood! They might not know now, not right now, but in time, when I tell them the truth, it might all make sense, in hindsight…

It sometimes made Tom angrier than the war. The fucking cowardice of withholding children from a man they love! What degeneration could be at the root of using such weapons? It is inconceivable—and monstrous—that to save my nieces I must also save my goddamned brother and his lying bitch of a wife!

And it was this that kept Tom going. The image of throwing himself over the island to shield Jocelyn and Lillian.

And Jacqueline. His wife. And their son.

Tom had been terrified that she would strike out at him, or be married, or be cold to make him pay for his own former coldness. But that night on the landing, when she had come home to see him, he had risen and stood before her, flinching with every muscle of his new soul, a kite in a hurricane, terrified, because she held all his future purpose in her lips. He had been weeping, his eyes wide. She had a sparkling ring on her finger. She had frowned on seeing him, but it wasn’t a frown of anger, of confusion, or rejection. It was a frown which said: ‘You almost took too long, Tom.’ She had taken off her ring and pushed it into the pocket of her brown coat, throwing her head back, beautiful under the light of a single bulb, her skin bright and flawless against the backdrop of flaking paint.

Tom had fallen to his knees before her. He apologized, professed his love, begged her forgiveness, admitted his fear of war, of death, of children raised only to be burned. Someone brushed past him, on the landing, but he kept on, blind to everything but her. And she had stood over him, still and silent, her mouth open and eyes wide.

After half an hour or so, Jacqueline let him into her flat, sat him on the sofa, made him some tea, then went to break off her engagement. She returned after an hour and a half, in tears herself, and Tom never left after that. He had slept on the sofa for five weeks, while they arranged a hasty wedding, then had moved to her bed. Jacqueline became pregnant, they later figured out, the very day that German troops began pouring into Poland.

Tom had fallen back asleep, when he was woken up with a rough shake. Victor Beamish, his CO, stood over him.

“What time is it?” asked Tom.

“Four o’clock,” replied Victor. “In the afternoon. Look, I know you’re knackered. Can you do another one? It’s a real son of a bitch.”

Tom sat up, trying to blink the exhaustion from his eyes.

“Bombed an orphanage. They’re still trying to find all the parts.”

“What, on purpose?”

“Who knows anymore? I’d take it, but I have to report upstairs. Everyone else is out. And I don’t trust anyone else on this base to go up alone.”

Tom nodded. “Is my bird ready?”

Victor nodded. “I got the call in the dispersal hut five minutes ago. He’s trying to escape up the coast towards Cromer. It’s a Dornier 17, with one escort, a 109. It’s shitty out there Tom. Low cloud, six hundred feet. You’ll be out of radio contact almost as soon as you leave the strip. Just go to the coast, then turn left and fly as far as Cromer. You don’t see them, just come back. All right?”

Tom threw on his flight suit, gulped scalding burnt bitter coffee, then ran across the airfield—pocked with hastily filled craters—to his Hurricane. He jumped into his cockpit, closed the canopy, then started the motor. A mechanic removed the chocks from under his wheels. He taxied forward, then opened his throttle wide and roared into the sky.

The cloud cover was at about seven hundred feet. Tom kept shaking his head, trying to loosen the spiderwebs of sleep from his brain, staring at the running streams of light rain on his cockpit. What the hell is a German doing flying around in this weather? he thought. As he approached the coast, just below the drizzly cloud cover, he banked left.

As soon as he did, he saw the Dornier 17, cruising along, about four hundred yards away. They were called ‘flying pencils,’ because of their long, thin shape and bulbous nose. Tom wondered if the pilot had seen him—perhaps he could fly into the clouds, accelerate, then drop down closer…

There was a flicker from the back of the German plane. The rear gunner had seen him, and was doubtless screaming for the pilot to begin evasive maneuvers. Surely enough, the Dornier began banking.

Tom looked around for the 109, but saw nothing. He closed in behind the Dornier. At about two hundred and fifty yards, he adjusted his gunsight to two hundred feet. Taking down a bomber was relatively easy. The rules of fighter-to-fighter combat—come out of the sun, always be above, hold your fire until the enemy fills your gunsight—meant little against bombers. You found and memorized their weak spots, kept your eyes peeled for fighter escorts—and, other than that, you just closed and kept shooting.

The rear gunner of the Dornier kept firing. Tom lowered his Hurricane onto the trail of the turning bomber. He thought: I am protected by a twelve-cylinder engine and bulletproof glass, and I have eight guns. He is trying to maneuver his gun in a two-hundred-an-hour slipstream, while his pilot throws the bomber around, trying to dodge. Tom felt quite comfortable—except that he couldn’t see the reported 109. He had only seen one pilot succumb to a rear gunner, and it had haunted him. A friend of his had been following a Dornier down, gunning the whole way, just in case the German pilot was faking. A few seconds before hitting the water, the rear gunner had found his mark. The British pilot had followed the Dornier into the Channel…

The Dornier’s evasive movements were awfully predictable. They were like a pendulum. Tom banked slightly, into the bomber’s next turn. The slim airplane filled his gunsight. Tom fired, feeling a deep satisfaction as his Hurricane thrummed beneath him. He expected his Browning guns to chew the Dornier apart. But they seemed to have no effect, except that the German plane banked sharply to the left, then rose quickly—too quickly, it seemed—into the clouds.

Tom swore and pulled back on his joystick. He flew into the low clouds, losing visibility instantly. It looked like the kind of cover which went up for two, three thousand feet, but what if it wasn’t? Tom pictured finding the Dornier limping along, above the cloud cover, under the fading blue, and opened up his throttle.

Within a few minutes, Tom did break through the roof of the clouds. It was always like coming up from exceptionally dirty water. The sun was settling over the bloodred boiling lava of the clouds. Tom cut his throttle by half, and banked slowly, his eyes boring into the cloud-tops, straining to see even the smallest dot…

He did. He saw it. He was above the plane. The sun was low, but enough to use as a blinding shield for his approach. Tom cut his power a little more. His greatest weakness as a pilot was to overshoot his target, especially in a dive. It didn’t do much good to open fire for a second or two before having to pull up or dive away.

As Tom descended towards the speeding airplane—the water running into tiny drops on his windscreen, then disappearing—he felt a shock as he realized that it was a 109. The 109 that had been doing such a piss-poor job of guarding the Dornier.

Ah well. Tom adjusted his gunsight to take into account the narrower wingspan of the Messerschmitt. The pilot had not seen him. He was going east; Tom was coming in from the sun, setting in the west.

Tom felt another shock as he saw the yellow insignia on the 109’s wings. Some deep and associative part of his brain made the connection. It was the same insignia that he had seen that terrible day at Dunkirk, when he had been chased for over ten minutes by an ace…

Tom’s lips curled as the 109 filled his gunsights. His fist tightened on the trigger. Dancing sunlight played along the left wing of the 109 as bits of metal erupted from its surface.

The pilot had lost none of his skills. Tom was already pushing the nose of his Hurricane forward, anticipating that the German plane would start an immediate dive—the standard evasive tactic of the fuel-injected 109.

But the 109 went into a straight, looping climb. Tom’s eyes widened. He had never seen that happen, not even once. The son of a bitch wants to loop me! This was dangerous. The 109s were better in a loop. And I don’t want that fucker on my tail again. No destroyers around to save me this time!

For a moment, Tom considered throwing in the towel. A strong, unknown instinct was insisting that he do so. It would be easy. Dive into the clouds, change direction, fly below the cover a mile or two away, and all would be well.

Tom shook his head slightly. Go hooome, said a strange voice in his head. Go home, get some sleep, this fight has no happy ending!

He almost, almost succumbed. But then he thought: No! I have the home-team advantage this time! In May, I was over his territory, low on fuel, and he saw me first. Now I know where he is, we’re over England, and he’s returning from an escort duty and can’t have more than a few minutes of fuel left for dogfighting!

With a profound mental shrug, Tom made a feint to the right, and then stood on his left wing, hauling his plane sharply around. When he saw it, the 109 was just coming out of its loop, and they were careening towards each other. Tom never liked games of chicken. He had seen too many collisions—what if both pilots decided to pull up to avoid each other? It was also very difficult to shoot an oncoming plane—the target was just too small.

So Tom pushed his stick forward and cut his power to one quarter. His engine cut out. Groaning, his teeth gritted and eyes bulging, Tom did a forward loop. His propeller restarted as he came up, upside down. Let’s see if he’s seen another British pilot do that! He saw a flash of metal against the clouds, and hauled his stick to follow.

The German pilot was obviously being cautious about fuel. He was going at half throttle, possibly less. He relied on his dodging skills, which were superlative. Try as he could, Tom could detect no pattern. He only fired twice, as they dodged and darted over the clouds, as the sun sank. The first time was when the 109 skidded to the left, through his gunsight, but by the time Tom fired, the airplane had flashed past. The second time was slightly more sustained, as the 109 rolled ahead, but the burst seemed to do nothing. Tom had to stop firing before he wanted to—he had only nine yards of bullets, and nothing was worse than getting the perfect shot, and feeling the dead click of empty guns.

Tom and the German pilot had gotten into a tight circling pattern, which the German must know would end in disaster for him, since the 109 couldn’t outturn the Hurricane. He seemed to realize that, and suddenly turned the opposite way. Tom lost track of him—all his blood was on the left side of his brain—when suddenly he heard a distinct change in the roar of his own motor. He glanced to the right, and then saw that the 109 was right beside him, not forty feet away.

Tom had never seen a 109 that close. He couldn’t help but admire the clean square lines of the plane. There was no danger—all the fighters were forward firing. He was also curious about the German pilot, who was gesturing something… Tom saw a blonde man giving him the thumbs up, his goggles pushed back on his head.

Tom’s heart contracted into a tiny knot. Involuntarily, he jerked his stick to the right, closing about ten feet, just to be sure.

There was no doubt. Slightly heavier, but the beautiful lines were inescapable…

It was Klaus.

Klaus seemed to make the connection a few moments after Tom, but Tom could see the knowledge hit him.

They held each other’s eyes for a long, long time. It seemed, as they stared at each other through the roaring sky, that the sun chose that moment to vanish towards the morning of another land.

Tom saw Klaus wipe his eye, cover his mouth, and turn his 109 away. His eyes hung on Tom’s for a moment, as his cockpit turned, and Tom felt his heart almost fail him. Klaus’s eyes, which had always been lively, seemed like holes of dead space, speared through by the darkening evening blue of the sky.

Tom felt his own tears starting, which was bad, because they obscured vision. He turned towards the 109, which was falling like a stone toward the clouds. Memories of his time at Oxford—the brutal riot in London—Klaus’s shining face, overjoyed at the roar of the crowd—his mother’s hips, at breakfast, radiating fertility—and their time in Berlin. A mad play. Beethoven backwards…

Tom frowned, squeezing his eyes for a moment, trying to dry his tears. Brother against brother. Friend against friend. It was not what war became. It was what caused war to become. When we were children, we fought for the garden. Now we are men, we fight for the world…

Tom plunged into the narrowing hole of cloud that Klaus had passed through. He wished that Klaus’s passage had made a kind of tunnel which he could follow.

Here, the cloud was thinner. Tom passed into the dark, undersea world of an early English evening beneath the clouds. He was over a road, leading to a town. A black car wended its way along, disappearing under his right wing. Tom looked up.

The 109 was flying evenly ahead, over the rolling hills. There was something familiar…

Klaus must be very low on fuel, thought Tom. Just enough to get over the Channel, then to glide in…

Glide… Tom remembered the first time that Klaus had taken him into the sky. The sun on the bubble over their heads…

He doesn’t want to be captured, thought Tom suddenly, as he closed in, with a quarter of a tank of petrol left—which seemed low, but was all right—and friendly ground below. He could land in a field, turn himself in. They’re well treated. I would go and visit him.

Tom’s hand grabbed at his radio, but he realized that Klaus would never be able to hear him. He desperately wanted to talk to him. Talk him down. Perhaps even—to get him to join the British side. He would be so useful, with his knowledge and skills…

Tom shook his head and adjusted his gunsight. He would wait until Klaus was over the Channel. Radio his location. Get him picked up and locked away. It would be more likely that Reginald would join us, thought Tom. Klaus has killed men fighting for the cause of freedom. Murder of the good is not something that can be recovered from. He is over there, with the devils, and cannot come back to the light…

Klaus’s 109 sailed over the town, Tom only a hundred and fifty yards behind. Tom’s engine coughed, and suddenly all his senses rose to full alert. It was a terrible sound. He had only heard it once before. When he had coasted in on fumes after his last encounter with Klaus. He looked at his fuel gauge, then tapped it violently. Almost—empty?

I must have been hit—but when?

Could be one of two times—either the rear gunner of the Dornier, or when he and Klaus were flying towards each other. Maybe they had both gotten off a burst…

As the dark houses flashed by under his wings, Tom sobbed openly. I have about thirty seconds to make a decision. I am in a perfect position to fire. If I shoot him down, he will crash into the town. If I let him go, he will return and kill more of us, and we all might fall…

Tom saw a splash of dying color ahead of him, beyond Klaus’s 109. His engine coughed and caught again. Tom felt that things were awfully familiar. He touched his gunsight with trembling fingers, then transferred them to his trigger.

Then, he remembered Churchill, remembered something about an argument to do with children, and terrorists, and he dipped his joystick a little, to come up under Klaus’s 109 and shoot through it, into the sky, away from harm. His thumb pressed the worn trigger, and his Hurricane shook as his eight guns tore into Klaus’s airplane.

Klaus’s right wing tore free, and twisted and fell down. Tom could not tell if the German was bailing out, but doubted it, both because he was too low, and because of what Tom had seen in his eyes above the clouds. He kept on firing, hoping to ignite the remainder of Klaus’s fuel, or ammunition, and blow his plane up in midair. The 109 began falling apart, but did not explode.

Tom’s engine stopped. In the sudden silence, he could hear the dim click of his empty guns. Klaus’s airplane was burning, falling, coming apart, and Tom glided past it, afraid to turn, because he would lose altitude. He had a good view, but it was almost dark, and there were no lights, because of the blackout. All he could see was the flash of a red roof in the path of the burning German airplane.

There were no cars on the road—also because of the blackout—and Tom made an instant decision. There was nothing to do but land on the street.

He pumped up his hydraulic system by hand, and lowered his wheels. Keeping the Hurricane aloft was using up all his strength. He wished he could scream down to everyone to keep back from the road, but knew no one could hear him, even if he threw his windshield off and shouted himself hoarse. And if they’re not looking up, they won’t even see me… If I had even another five hundred feet, I’d ditch in the drink and take my chances, rather than risk hurting civilians…

Tom saw a wide dark clearing at the end of the street. He checked that his harness was tight, and nosed his plane down. When his rubber wheels hit the ground, he could tell he was on the road. The blackness ahead seemed to rush at him suddenly, and he heard screams and saw darting shapes. Tom felt the undercarriage strike something and give way, and the nose pitched forward, and he felt a terrible scraping along the bottom of his plane—it felt like his own body being destroyed—and saw sparks flying from under the fuselage…

There was a terrible crunch to his right, and his plane spun violently. Pressed back against his seat, Tom felt the impact, but it did him little damage. He continued to careen through the darkness, striking objects, until, with a sudden, shocking silence, everything came to a halt.

Tom lay in his seat, his head pounding. His hands jerked convulsively. He tasted blood in his mouth, felt a scrap of tongue hanging down…

He felt footsteps on his plane, and remembered to open the cockpit.

“Are you all right, mate?” asked a cockney voice.

Tom said: “Yes. Yes. Where did the German plane come down?”

“Dunno, mate. All we see is the glow,” said the man.

“Which—which one?”

“You got to get patched up first, mate. You landed this crate like a brick.” There was a harsh laugh. “We all thought ‘The Few’ were going to be one bloody fewer.”

“Get him out of there,” said another voice, more dry and professional. “Don’t stand about nattering. He could be in shock.”

“All right, guv,” said the first voice, slightly resentfully. “All right. All on the same side.”

Tom was helped out. In the swinging beams of a few flashlights, he saw the wounded carcass of his Hurricane. An ancient swing set was draped over the nose of his plane.

He blinked, staring around. “We’re in a park.”

“That’s right,” said the cockney man, leaning against a bicycle. “You are one jammy sod, mate.”

“Lend me your bicycle,” said Tom.

“What?”

“I need to see where the German came down.”

“Don’t worry. That Kraut is gone.”

“Please!”

“Look,” said a tall man, the owner of the professional voice, “you’ve got to go and get yourself looked at. Don’t be a hero now. We’ve got everything under control.”

But Tom could not shake a peculiar, almost supernatural dread.

“I’m fine,” he said to the tall man, before turning to the cockney man. “I will bring your bicycle right back here.”

“Well…”

“Go on, man,” scolded the tall man angrily. “He’s from the RAF, see if you can oblige him!”

“All right,” said the cockney man, handing it over reluctantly, the beam from his flashlight waving towards the sky.

“And turn off that goddamned flashlight, you fool!”

The cockney man planted his feet and squared his shoulders. “Look, mate. We got half a street on fire not half a mile from here. Are you really worried about my bitty little light?”

Tom jumped on the bike. The tall man turned to him anxiously. “Shouldn’t we inform someone?” he asked, gesturing at the enormous, smoking Hurricane.

Without answering, Tom turned and pedaled through the darkness, towards the flickering light.

“Can’t we go a little faster?” demanded Quentin, rapping on the window of the taxicab with his cane.

“Blackout, sir,” said the cab driver, without particular emphasis.

“I can see that, you fool!” snapped Quentin, turning back to the darkness of the cab and realizing the absurdity of his sentence. Reginald, Ruth, and Wendy were black shapes against faint windows. As they drove past, someone on the lane lit a cigarette, and the fire seemed to pass behind the black hole of Wendy’s head.

“A world war shouldn’t mean the end of all civility,” said Quentin, to no one in particular.

Ruth put her hand on his. It was like feeling the fall of a little tree.

“Damn stupid time to come,” said Reginald, glaring out into the blackness. “We can all walk faster than this!”

“They’re afraid at night, Reginald!” snapped Wendy, without turning to look at him. “You never comfort them, but I do. I know!”

“Yes, you are quite the wartime saint. Can’t quite join the WACS, but willing to make taxi trips at night.”

Wendy’s ire rose instantly. “Oh, and your war effort was so stellar? Who brought this all upon us, eh Reggie, my warrior, my hero?”

“All of it!” cried Reginald. “Yes! I brought all of this. ‘Behold—I am become death, the destroyer of worlds…’”

“Children…” whispered Ruth, her voice almost lost in the sudden flood of endless acid.

They subsided for a moment, weighed down by the despair in her voice. Reginald and Wendy both wracked their brittle brains for comebacks sufficiently harsh and truthful to end the endless fucking debate, once and for all.

“Is that a fire?” asked Quentin, craning his head as they trundled around a bend. He rapped on the glass again. “I say, my man—if that’s a fire, surely you can turn your lights on for just a moment, eh? Just to get us past it. It could save quite some time.”

“Rules, sir,” said the driver.

“I’ll pay the fine. Don’t worry. I’ll…”

“Quentin!” sighed Ruth. “We don’t have the money.”

There was a pause.

“Well,” snarled Wendy, “perhaps if Reginald hadn’t been so cozy with Herr Hitler, he could get a job!”

“You have no idea what you’re saying,” replied Reginald. “You open and close your mouth, but you have no idea what comes out!”

“This from a man who, after Munich, after war, still wanted to make terms with the Nazis!”

“Shut up!” cried Reginald.

“You’re lucky not to be in jail.” Wendy smiled bitterly. “I’m not so lucky.”

Ruth held up a hand. Normally, Reginald hated any melodramatic gestures from his mother. But, outlined against the flames of a burning, melting house, they all saw her fingers rise and spread slowly over the grimy glass.

“Oh my god,” said Ruth hoarsely. Her body suddenly seemed to erupt. She tore at the door.

“Let me get it!” said Quentin impatiently, reaching past her.

“Fuck off, Quentin,” said Ruth distinctly, throwing his arm aside.

Reginald was shocked. Wendy barked with laughter.

Ruth opened the door, and almost leapt out of the cab.

“What is wrong with Mater now?” groaned Reginald, casting a look at Quentin. He was sweating slightly, and his face reflected the yellow ribbons of the rising flames.

“Get out and see!” said Wendy, pushing violently at him.

“Oh, I swear to God,” said Reginald, raising his hand.

“Come on,” said Wendy, thrusting her chin forward. “We have a witness. Belt me. Then you’ll be in jail, where you can make some bum-buddies—just like in boarding school!”

“I’m getting out,” said Quentin suddenly, levering his portly frame out of the cab.

“Me, too!” cried Wendy, loudly, jerking out after him.

Reginald sat in the car for a moment. He wanted to bury his face in his hands, but he saw the driver’s eyes staring at him, reflected in the rearview mirror, and composed his face. He glanced outside, and saw the tail of a German airplane collapse into the red roof of the flaming house. The fires were so bright—and the surrounding blackout so dark—that he still had no idea where they were.

He heard a terrible, drawn out, unearthly cry. The hair on the back of his head stood up, and he tasted metal, and suddenly felt like vomiting.

“Mother?” he whispered.

“Better get out there,” said the driver.

Reginald got out of the cab, and stood in the crowd facing the blazing house. He saw his mother on her knees, wailing, and sighed. Fucking melodrama! he thought, casting his eyes about, wondering if he actually had to go and help. Let Dad do it, damn it! It’s his fault she’s like this to begin with!

Some firemen staggered out of the burning house, with several items wrapped in dark glistening sheets.

“Where are they?” shrieked Ruth.

“Who? Who?” said Wendy, dazed.

Another cry rose, and an old, stocky woman pushed her way through the silent crowd—some of whom were crossing themselves—holding a brown paper grocery bag.

“Oh God!” cried Catherine, dropping her bag. “Where are the dears?”

Quentin turned to her, his eyes wide, his face dark. “Is this where the girls… Where were you?” he demanded.

“I went to get some…” Catherine’s face was agonized; her knuckle was in her mouth. “Where are they?”

Quentin turned to a fireman.

“Is anyone alive in there?”

The expression on the man’s soot-streaked face did not change.

“Not alive, sir. Not in there. Not alive.”

“Have you—found anything?”

The fireman shook his head. “We can’t go in. An airplane crashed… All we can do is stop it spreading.”

Tom came careening into the street, half jumping off his bicycle as it clattered to the ground. He pushed his way through the shocked, silent throng.

“Mummy!” he cried, lunging forward. “Mummy!”

“Oh God!” she screamed, raising dark, wet hands to the black sky, her face a contorted mask of bottomless loss.

Tom fell to his knees beside her. The rest of the family closed in.

“Mummy?” said Tom, more softly, terrified. “What is it?”

Her eyes wide with horror, Ruth lifted her skirts, and beneath them, between her legs, two tiny white hands lay on the concrete, clasped together tightly.

Catherine screamed, grabbing Tom’s head and pulling it to her.

The family closed in together, leaning forward, staring at the little bloodless hands.

Clasped tightly together.

Attached to nothing.