Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

In his annoyance, the Socialist in disguise began thinking about those comrades whom he had met at the school receptions. Rahel had given him addresses, and in his spare hours he had dropped in at place after place, always taking the precaution to park his car some distance away and to make sure that he was not followed. In no single case had he been able to find the persons, or to find anyone who would admit knowing their whereabouts. In most cases people wouldn’t even admit having heard of them. They had vanished off the face of the Fatherland. Was he to assume that they were all in prisons or concentration camps? Or had some of them "gone underground"? Once more he debated how he might find his way to that nether region—always being able to get back to the Hotel Adlon in time to receive a message from the second in command of the Nazi government!

Irma went to à_ _thé dansant at the American Embassy, and Lanny went to look at some paintings in a near-by palace. But he didn’t find anything he cared to recommend to his clients, and the prices seemed high; he didn’t feel like dancing, and could be sure that his wife had other partners. His thoughts turned to a serious-minded young "commercial artist" who wore large horn-rimmed spectacles and hated his work—the making of drawings of abnormally slender Aryan ladies wearing lingerie, hosiery, and eccentric millinery. Also Lanny thought about the young man’s wife, a consecrated soul, and an art student with a genuine talent. Ludwig and Gertrude Schultz —there was nothing striking about these names, but Ludi and Trudi sounded like a vaudeville team or a comic strip.

Lanny had phoned to the advertising concern and been informed that the young man was no longer employed there. He had called the art school and learned that the former student was no longer studying. In neither place did he hear any tone of cordiality or have any information volunteered. He guessed that if the young people had fled abroad they would surely have sent a message to Bienvenu. If they were "sleeping out" in Germany, what would they be doing? Would they go about only at night, or would they be wearing some sort of disguise? He could be fairly sure they would be living among the workers; for they had never had much money, and without jobs would probably be dependent upon worker comrades.

How to get underground! Lanny could park his car, but he couldn’t park his accent and manners and fashionable little brown mustache. And above all, his clothes! He had no old ones; and if he bought some in a secondhand place, how would he look going into a de luxe hotel? For him to become a slum-dweller would be almost as hard as for a slum-dweller to become a millionaire playboy.

He drove past the building where the workers' school had been. There was now a big swastika banner hanging from a pole over the door; the Nazis had taken it for a district headquarters. No information to be got there! So Lanny drove on to the neighborhood where the Schultzes had lived. Six-story tenements, the least "slummy" workingclass quarter he had seen in Europe. The people still stayed indoors as much as they could. Frost had come, and the window-boxes with the flowers had been taken inside.

He drove past the house in which he had visited the Schultzes. Nothing to distinguish it from any other house, except the number. He drove round the block and came again, and on a sudden impulse stopped his car and got out and rang the Pfortner’s bell. He had already made one attempt to get something here, but perhaps he hadn’t tried hard enough.

This time he begged permission to come in and talk to the janitor’s wife, and it was grudgingly granted. Seated on a wooden stool in a kitchen very clean, but with a strong smell of pork and cabbage, he laid himself out to make friends with a suspicious woman of the people. He explained that he was an American art dealer who had met an artist of talent and had taken some of her work and sold it, and now he owed her money and was troubled because he was unable to find her. He knew that Trudi Schultz had been an active Socialist, and perhaps for that reason did not wish to be known; but he was an entirely non-political person, and neither Trudi nor her friends had anything to fear from him. He applied what psychology he possessed in an effort to win the woman’s confidence, but it was in vain. She didn’t know where the Schultzes had gone; she didn’t know anybody who might know. The apartment was now occupied by a laborer with a family of several children. "Nein," and then again "Nein, mein Herr."

Lanny gave up, and heard the door of the Pfortnerin close behind him. Then he saw coming down the stairway of the tenement a girl of eight or ten, in a much patched dress and a black woolen shawl about her head and shoulders. On an impulse he said, quickly: "Bitte, wo wohnt Frau Trudi Schultz?"

The child halted and stared. She had large dark eyes and a pale undernourished face; he thought she was Jewish, and perhaps that accounted for her startled look. Or perhaps it was because she had never seen his kind of person in or near her home. "I am an old friend of Frau Schultz," he continued, following up his attack.

"I don’t know where she lives," murmured the child.

"Can you think of anybody who would know? I owe her some money and she would be glad to have it." He added, on an inspiration: "I am a comrade."

"I know where she goes," replied the little one. "It is the tailor-shop of Aronson, down that way, in the next block."

"Danke schön" said Lanny, and put a small coin into the frail hand of the hungry-looking little one.

He left his car where it stood and found the tailorshop, which had a sign in Yiddish as well as German. He walked by on the other side of the street, and again regretted his clothes, so conspicuous in this neighborhood. "Aronson" would probably be a Socialist; but maybe he wasn’t, and for Lanny to stroll in and ask for Trudi might set going some train of events which he could not imagine. On the other hand, he couldn’t walk up and down in front of the place without being noticed—and those inside the shop no doubt had reasons for keeping watch.

What he did was to walk down to the corner and buy a Bonbon-Tüte and come back and sit on a step across the street from the shop but farther on so that he was partly hidden by a railing. Sitting down made him less tall, and holding a bag of candy and nibbling it certainly made him less fashionable. Also it made him interesting to three children of the tenement; when he shared his treasure, which they called Bom-bom, they were glad to have him there, and when he asked their names, where they went to school, what games they played, they made shy answers. Meanwhile he kept his eyes on the door of Aronson’s tailorshop.

Presently he ventured to ask his three proletarian friends if they knew Trudi Schultz. They had never heard of her, and he wondered if he was on a wild-goose chase. Perhaps it would be more sensible to go away and write a note; not giving his name, just a hint: "The friend who sold your drawings in Paris." He would add: "Take a walk in front of the enormous white marble Karl der Dicke (the Stout), in the Siegesallee at twenty-two o’clock Sunday." With one-third of his mind he debated this program, with another he distributed Leckereien to a growing throng, and with the remaining third he watched the door of "Aronson: Schneiderei, Reparatur."

The door opened suddenly, and there stepped forth a young woman carrying a large paper bundle. Lanny’s heart gave a jump, and he handed the almost empty Tute to one of his little friends, and started in the same direction as the woman. She was slender, not so tall as Lanny, and dressed in a poor-looking, badly-faded brown coat, with a shawl over her head and shoulders. He couldn’t see her hair, and being somewhat behind her he couldn’t see her face, but he thought he knew her walk. He followed for a block or so, then crossed over and came up behind her and to her side. Her face was paler and thinner than when he had last seen her; she appeared an older woman; but there was no mistaking the finely chiseled, sensitive features, which had so impressed him as revealing intelligence and character. "Wie geht’s, Trudi?" he said.