John Wray - The Right Hand of Sleep

“That’s the one.”

“He’ll have need of you to ‘off’ someone or other,” said Lotte, falling back onto the bed. “That’s what murderers say in America. It’s from a picture, not that you’d care. Edward G. Robinson.”

“You and your America,” I said, still looking myself over in the glass.

“You’re being exceptionally peacock-like today, Kurtchen,” said Lotte, twisting her mouth disapprovingly.

I smiled patiently at her reflection. “I’ve waited for this for an eternity, darling. You know I have.”

“You look silly in Papa’s clothes.”

“Mama doesn’t think so.”

“Mama is a senile old cow.”

I looked at her again and saw that she was glaring at me. I turned around. “I’m not going to ‘off’ anybody,” I said. “Honestly, Lottchen.”

“Promise?”

I raised my right hand in solemn oath. Lotte cursed me and slid back under the covers. She always looked much younger than she was, I remember, in spite of the fact that she was near to permanently hungover. She had freckles across her cheeks like a girl of seventeen; in fact she was nearer to forty. “Get out of here, peacock!” she clucked at me, already beginning to smile. I bowed and took my hat up from the floor.

The Schutzstaffel High Command was housed during that time in an unobtrusive gray building down the avenue from the newly built Air Palace. The boys at the gate knew me well by then and waved me through without ceremony. They think I’ve come here to see old Schellenberg, I thought, and the idea filled me with a deep and secret happiness. One of the clerks at the lobby desk, a nephew of Lotte’s who passed the time dropping a bewildering variety of innuendos about my connection to the von Lohns, smiled at me as I passed, and I was sorely tempted to inquire as to the location of the Reichsführer’s new suite of offices, but of course I knew exactly where they were. Passing the desk and turning without hesitation to the left-hand of the two stairwells, I had the satisfaction of feeling everyone’s eyes on me, widening, or so I imagined, with growing astonishment as I stated my business to the sentry at the top of the stairs and was wordlessly allowed to pass. The doors closed on all of them a moment later.

The hallway was immaculate, its concrete and tile floor polished to mirror-brightness, so I was very much surprised, at the end of it, to find the Reichsführer’s front office in even worse disarray than Mittling’s had been. Papers and photographs of all sizes spilled from dog-eared, water-speckled folders and littered the floor between chairs set at strange and irrational angles to the walls. I watched a clerk sift through a massive pile of manila envelopes at the foot of a three-legged table for the space of almost a minute before recovering the presence of mind to clear my throat. The clerk looked up at me blankly, muttered a grudging pleasantry and reached up to the intercom button set into the wall above his desk. A very long time later the black-and-white-checked door of the inner office opened slightly, seemingly of its own accord, and the clerk waved me on. I cautiously pushed the door open.

Himmler’s office, in turn, proved very much like the hallway: a high-ceilinged rectangular room furnished only with three straight-backed farmer’s chairs and a narrow steel-topped desk, from which two high, square windows looked out onto the street. The uniform of a captain of the Waffen-SS hung from a coatrack. The Reichsführer himself was nowhere to be seen. I stood stiffly in front of the desk, in anticipation of his appearance, but after a number of minutes drifted over to the windows and finally to the uniform. I was holding one of the boots to my foot when Himmler entered, so quietly I gave a little cry of surprise when he spoke my name.

“Obersturmführer Kurt E. Bauer,” said Himmler, peering at me nearsightedly. “The last of our unsung freedom fighters. That is how you see yourself, am I correct? The hope of our as-yet-fettered south?” He drew his lips together not unkindly. The expression on his face, one of myopic, schoolteacherly attentiveness, was deeply unnerving. His eyes were so tiny behind their bottle-glass lenses that you could never make out precisely where they were pointed. Innocuous, colorless, well-intentioned eyes. I shook my head.

“Not at all, Reichsführer. I’m sure the south has long forgotten me.”

“Well. Let’s hope so.” Himmler smiled. “Please be seated now, Herr Bauer. Please. That’s better.” He paused. “We hear good things about you, in circles. You’ve made yourself some very devoted friends. Vocal friends.”

“I try to be worthy of them, Reichsführer.”

“Yes,” he said, less benevolently. “I’m sure of that.” He sat a moment lost in thought, his breath whistling through his nose. “You’re a citizen of the Reich now, I understand.”

“Yes, Reichsführer.”

“Please, Herr Bauer. This is a casual visit. Herr Himmler will do between us for the moment.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, biting back my disappointment. “Of course, Herr Himmler.”

Himmler smiled. “You did good work, Bauer, in your brigade. What’s more, you lived to tell about it.”

“I’ve lived to tell no-one about it, Herr Himmler.”

He smiled again, settling back in his chair. “Yes. We know that very well.”

Both of us were silent. Himmler seemed to look down at his desktop, on which lay an assortment of passport-sized photographs, and at the next moment past me toward the uniform.

“It’s a shame to see you in a common suit, Bauer,” he said finally. “What’s more, yours doesn’t fit very well.”

I shifted uneasily in my chair. “I know it doesn’t, Reichsführer.”

“We’d like to see you in a uniform again.”

I said nothing, struggling to hold in my excitement. Himmler was squinting at me patiently, apparently expecting some sort of a response, running a slender upturned finger along his clipped blond mustache. I thought of the state portrait we’d had of him in Vienna, above Glass’s cherished couch. What an inaccurate picture! I thought. He isn’t at all an ugly man.

Himmler was still watching me. After a few moments more, his expression changed; he seemed to have decided something to his satisfaction. “We have a man in protective custody at present,” he said, sitting forward. “A former Party man. Former Schutzstaffel. We’d all of us appreciate it deeply if you would visit with him, in your civilian capacity only”—here Himmler smiled faintly—“and try to talk some sense into him. He’s become violent recently, and given us no end of worry. The two of you, believe it or not, have had certain shared experiences.” He paused a moment. “Lately our man has been plagued by suicidal thoughts. I don’t mind telling you, Bauer, we’re at our wit’s end. Our little fraternity has always had a difficult time smoothing over these crises of confidence among its own, as I’m sure you’re abundantly aware. .”

I nodded.

“I’ve often found,” he continued, “that a no-nonsense conference of some kind, conducted, of course, in absolute and total privacy, is the one hope for betterment in such cases.” He paused a moment, patting down his mustache. “What’s your opinion, Bauer, as a private citizen?”

“I quite agree, Reichsführer. Private solutions are always best.”

“Not always, Bauer. Not always. Sometimes the more public the solution the better.” He frowned very slightly. “But not in this case.”