Thomas Greanias - The 34th Degree

They passed between the columns of the Ionic peristyle into the palace. She could hear the faint strains of Wagner’s “Death March” coming from the hidden speakers of Ludwig’s phonograph. He always had it playing when they made love. So conditioned was she to that morbid music that already the terror of what was to come overwhelmed her. Every time she slept with him, it felt like dying, and when it was all over, it was like waking up from a nightmare only to find life worse.

She trembled as they approached the open doorway to the master suite, Hans and Peter posted as guards on either side. She frantically searched their eyes for acknowledgment, some sort of contact, to let her feel she was not alone, but their gaze was fixed on some distant point, their faces stone cold as she and Ludwig walked by. The doors closed behind them, and the music swelled. They were alone.

“Now close your eyes,” Ludwig told her.

She reluctantly obeyed and let him lead her to the foot of the bed.

“Open them.”

She opened her eyes and saw the great portrait of Empress Elizabeth of Austria that hung over the bed. It had always been there. Then she looked down and saw the black nightgown on the bed.

“Paris,” Ludwig explained. “I don’t know why I bought it, because I knew once you wore it, I’d want to tear it off in seconds! But it is a great find, and I thought it should fit you well. Try it on.”

She looked at the fine prewar detail and ran the smooth fabric between her fingers. It reminded her of another nightgown she had seen in New York, one she never got to wear.

“You seem so sad, my love. You don’t find it attractive?”

“It’s lovely, Ludwig. It’s just…”

“You don’t find me attractive?” He said it in a playful tone, but she didn’t laugh.

“Christos bought me something like this in advance of our wedding night.”

Ludwig’s eyes darkened. “You know, I’m beginning to wonder if your Chris Andros is even a real person, or some imaginary figure you’ve dreamed up to distance yourself from me.”

Aphrodite was beginning to wonder, too. She said nothing. She didn’t have to say anything. The mention of Chris always aroused Ludwig’s jealousy. Her fiance’s unseen yet always-felt presence had proved a useful weapon against Ludwig. Unless Ludwig was ready to fly to Boston, he’d never get within a thousand miles of Chris. These were the moments when she appreciated that Chris was an ocean away, outside the reach of the Third Reich. For now. Ludwig often joked about where she’d like to live in New York when the Nazis won the war.

“My little Nausicaa, at least see how it looks in the mirror.”

She walked over to the wardrobe with the full-length mirror inside the door. When she opened it, she held the gown before her in front of the glass. She could see him behind her, sitting on the foot of the bed, admiring her, his eyes shining.

Out of the corner of her eye, however, she saw something in the shadow of the wardrobe. The sleeve of Ludwig’s uniform, she thought, until she saw the hand and looked up to see Karl hanging by his neck with one of Ludwig’s black ties, his bulging white eyes staring at her.

It took several seconds for her to find her voice and scream, scream above the blare of the Death March, scream so loud that Hans and Peter and the whole world could hear her.

But nobody came through the door. Nobody ever came. And after her voice became nothing more than wisps of air pushed out by her tired lungs, she felt an arm wrap around her waist and draw her to the bed.

“There, there, my love,” said Ludwig. “Don’t worry. Nobody else will ever touch you.”

His soothing voice was as tender as his embrace, and when he began to undress her, she didn’t protest. She simply cried in his arms, cried because of him and yet to him, because there was nobody else to comfort her. Not her brother, who was locked up in some dank prison cell, nor her fiance, who was somewhere in America, half a world away.

A ndros guessed they couldn’t be over twenty miles outside Washington, but Prestwick was mum as the black Chevrolet with District of Columbia plates hummed through the Maryland countryside in the middle of the night. The driver, some sort of government agent, stared woodenly ahead.

Andros could see that Prestwick was enjoying himself. “You like keeping people in suspense, don’t you?” Andros asked.

A perverse smile crossed Prestwick’s face. Only when the Chevy rolled up to a locked gate an hour later did he finally announce their arrival. “The Farm. Or, as it is officially known, RTU-11.”

The official sign said something about an army gadget testing center, but Andros could make out the dim outline of a large country manor at the end of the long drive. So this was the OSS school for spies.

“The whole estate is about a hundred acres or so,” Prestwick explained as they started up the drive. “Belongs to a prominent industrialist from Pittsburgh. OSS is leasing it for the time being.”

At the entrance, a rotund woman whom Prestwick introduced as Gertrude greeted them and escorted them upstairs to spacious, comfortable bedrooms.

“A regular Waldorf you have here,” Andros observed, pressing down on the soft bed. “Is this how you toughen up your secret agents, Jason?”

Gertrude had warned them that they should use only their first names. Security precautions. Still, Andros detected an unnaturally chummy atmosphere here that confirmed his perception of spies as dilettantes, men of leisure who had little to offer their country-men like this Prestwick.

“Don’t you worry,” said Prestwick, who was standing by the window looking out. “We’ll get started in the morning with some of the more practical aspects of your survival behind enemy lines.”

Andros nodded and began to unpack his sack. He drew out a cigarette from his pack of Vargas and lit it with the gold lighter Aphrodite had given him.

Prestwick coughed from the smoke and turned away from the window. “A nasty habit for a West Pointer,” he observed. “My reports said nothing about you being a chain-smoker.”

Andros shrugged and propped up his picture of Aphrodite on the nightstand. He placed the gold lighter in front of it. “Maybe you shouldn’t put too much faith in those reports of yours.”

“And maybe you should keep your mind clear of distractions.” Prestwick was frowning at Aphrodite’s picture. “From now on you must focus only on your mission.”

“She is my mission.”

Prestwick ignored the remark. “There’s a bible in the top drawer of your nightstand. I suggest you begin with that tonight.”

Andros opened the drawer and found the OSS training syllabus. He scanned the table of contents: silent killing, firearms, ciphers, undercover operations, escape, explosives.

Prestwick said, “Those areas pertinent to your individual mission are highlighted. Study those sections thoroughly.”

Andros thumbed through the syllabus. “I’ll commit these passages to memory tonight.”

He tossed the syllabus on the bed and moved to the window where Prestwick had been standing. A peek behind the curtain revealed well-manicured lawns rolling on under the night and the shimmer of a swimming pool. Andros paused a moment and looked again. Swimming laps in the pool was a shapely woman. What kind of crazy outfit was this? At the sound of Prestwick’s rapping, Andros let the curtain fall and turned around.

“Your closet.” Prestwick opened the door to reveal clothing. “Your prewar Savile Row suits, custom-made Italian shoes, all the trappings of a playboy. Standard uniform for your cover.”

“Cover?” Andros asked suspiciously. “What cover?”