John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

We had no trouble getting past the first brace of guards. There were seven of them in the courtyard, all together in a huddle, smoking cigarettes by an iron rack for bicycles. One of them asked me the time as we came in. Spengler immediately stepped over to him.

“Where’s the cabinet room, brother?”

“What cabinet room?” the guard said, frowning.

“A little joke,” I said, moving between the guard and Spengler.

“What’s this about?” another guard said curiously, coming over.

“You’re all under arrest,” said Spengler, ramming his rifle into the first guard’s ribs. “Urnngh,” groaned the guard, bending over. The rest laid down their rifles immediately and raised their hands. We left ten boys there and went in with the rest, Spengler looking down at his floor plan all the while with a puzzled expression, turning it this way and that like a French postcard. “Give me that thing,” I snapped, snatching it away from him. To my surprise he shot me a grateful look.

“A left here, then,” I said, moving past him at the top of the stairs.

“Maybe we should ask another guard for directions,” said Little Ernst, coming up behind us.

“You shut your mouth, Ernst,” Spengler muttered. “Where to, Bauer?”

“Past those,” I said, pointing down the corridor to a cluster of guards in bright red uniforms with panicked expressions on their faces. Spengler lowered his rifle and fired into them without slowing. The second from the left spun hard into the wall, clutched his stomach and slumped over without making the slightest sound. I had never seen anyone shot before and I remember looking at the back of Spengler’s head with sudden envy. The other nine guards laid down their guns and knelt as one man wordlessly onto the carpet.

“There’s patriotism for you,” Spengler crowed. Ernst and the other boys collected the rifles, moved the guards to one side of the corridor and shoved their faces against the tiles. Spengler was already at the leather-padded doors behind them. He glanced back at us, gave a stiff-necked little nod and kicked them open. Behind the doors was a cluttered anteroom and beyond it three men in uniforms of state at a long oaken table. Dollfuss sat on an elevated chair between the other two. He raised his hands with deliberate, self-conscious dignity and they followed suit. “On your feet,” said Spengler, fiddling with his rifle’s safety catch.

The three of them stood immediately. They were all slight of build, but Dollfuss was a true miniature; with his hands raised in the air he looked like a child of eight wearing a paste-on mustache.

“Where are the rest?” said Spengler, pointing to the empty chairs.

“Gone,” said Dollfuss.

No one spoke for a moment. “Well? Are you going to murder us here, at the cabinet-room table?” Dollfuss said, looking at each of us in turn. A trace of a smile played around his mouth.

“Quiet!” Spengler yelled. He began pacing up and down the long room, staring furiously at the carpet. Twenty or so of the boys had now crowded in behind us. An isolated gunshot carried in from the hall and Spengler drew himself up at the sound of it. “Search them, Bauer,” he said, gesturing peevishly at the ministers.

The Home Guard adjutant, Ley, had a single-shot gentleman’s pistol hidden in the lining of his smoking vest. The security secretary, ironically enough, was completely unarmed. Dollfuss had a pearl-handled jackknife in his waistcoat pocket; he let me take it only after looking me sternly in the eye. “That knife was given me by the Duke of all of Italy, little brother. See that you treat it with respect.”

“You shut your mouth,” Spengler hissed, pushing me aside. “Jew-lover! Dwarf! Save the drama for your abdication, little Napoleon! Save it for your Duce!”

“Spengler,” I whispered, jerking my head toward the anteroom. Three more shots had sounded.

Dollfuss leaned forward now, his dark eyes twinkling. “Spengler? Is that your name?” He smiled indulgently. “You, Spengler, will be hanging in the Rathausplatz by noon tomorrow, like a side of beef.”

Spengler furrowed his brow and came purposefully around the table. I had seen this expression on his face before, many times, and knew what it meant. Dollfuss had turned, statesmanlike, to address the assembled. “I have no sympathy for the Jewish cause. .” he began. I stepped forward before Spengler could reach him and hit him flush across the base of his skull with the butt of Ley’s pistol; he sighed once and fell weightlessly against me. “Right, then,” said Spengler. We carried Dollfuss to a small adjoining room and herded the two ministers in after him, sitting them down on a bench with their faces to the cracked, dust-covered paneling and their hands clasped behind their backs. Dollfuss collapsed silently in one of the corners. I sat on the floor with a few of the boys and waited for him to come to, wondering idly what his knife might bring from a collector. After some minutes, the security secretary raised his hand and asked politely if he might have a glass of water. I stood up, straightened my jacket and told him he could drink after he’d resigned. A few of the boys giggled.

I found Spengler in the anteroom talking to the Brown Shirts on the telephone. “We’ve taken the radio!” he said to me gleefully, his hand covering the receiver. “South Station! The barracks! Everything!” This was a lie, of course, but neither of us knew it then. Right away I felt a tremendous surge of relief. We weren’t alone. There were others, higher authorities, in command. The highest. We were their willing agents, no more than that, but no less, either. Even Spengler, lunatic that he was. I reached out a hand and patted him tentatively on the shoulder. He beamed at me an instant longer, then brought the receiver back to his face and began chattering away at it. Through the propped-open doors I could see the guards still lying facedown on the tiles, whispering to each other. “I’m going for a walk,” I said. “Sieg Heil to those brave hearts.”

“Hold on, Seppl,” said Spengler, laying the receiver against his shoulder. He waved me back toward the conference room. “Go in and turn that radio on, Bauer. They’re going to announce us soon.”

I said nothing.

“Go on!”

“I have to piss.”

Spengler sighed. “Pick any corner then, but be quick about it. Dibbern went over there, I think. On some old entente protocols.”

I stepped over to the heap of files he had pointed at and undid the pants of my uniform. I sniffed. “Dibbern did this? On his own?”

Spengler hung up the receiver. “He had help. Halberstadt and three or four others. Get on with it already, for the love of Christ!”

I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Could you give us some privacy, Heinrich?”

Spengler laughed. “You’re a funny fish, aren’t you, Biddlebauer. Glass did tell me to keep you in my sights. I’m not sure I could leave you here in good conscience.”

“All right, then, Spenglerchen. Watch closely. This is how we do it in the Schutzstaffel.”

Spengler got up from the narrow desk, showing the gaps in his teeth again. “I’m going, Bauer, I’m going. But don’t be too long, little fish.” He went out and shut the door.

I relaxed and let the piss trickle down the side of the filing cabinet, onto the thick-piled carpet that ran from one wall to the other. It mixed with the overall musklike reek of the anteroom and dampened it a little. Through the partition I could hear the buzz of the conference room’s immense radio. Gradually as I listened another sound rose up behind it, a low rumbling vibration that ran up my spine from somewhere under the floor. I pulled up my policeman’s pants and listened.