Dennis Wheatley - Traitors' Gate

While in the pool he had seen that there were many more women than men bathing and among them quite a number of pretty girls, some of whom had looked at him more than once with the sort of glance which invites conversation. But he had no intention of becoming involved in anything of that kind, even temporarily. It was just such dalliance with young women about whom one knew nothing which could have the most unexpected repercussions and, at times, lead men employed on his sort of work to an extremely sticky end.

In due course he dressed, drank a baratsch at the pool bar, then had himself driven to the Corso. Sitting down at one of the tables in front of the Cafe Mignon, he ordered himself a stein of dark lager, and soon afterwards saw Levianski coming towards him.

With a wave of his hand and a smile he called out as if to an old acquaintance, 'Wei geht es Ihnen Was wollen Sie irinken?'

The broad shouldered little Jew returned his greeting, said that he too would like a dark lager, then, sitting down, added in a lower voice, 'So you do speak German?'

Gregory answered in an equally low tone, 'My pretending not to was only a ruse aimed at getting your assistant to fetch, someone who spoke French or English. I hoped it might be you; and I was lucky. But we will speak German together from now on, so as not to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.'

Nodding agreement, Levianski said, 'Now tell me, please, how you came to see my letters, and what you want with me.'

That he could not be expected to talk freely, unless he was trusted to some extent, was obvious. But Gregory did not mean to reveal his true identity. With disarming candour he replied:

'My name is Etienne Tavenier, and I am a retired Major of the French Army. For some time I have been living in Switzerland. I am not a de Gaullist but my sympathies are with the Allies. Naturally they have an information centre there. I have an English friend who works in it, and he asked me if I would make this visit to Budapest. I agreed, but I do not come as a spy, to pry into military matters. I assure you of that. Although I have been a soldier I am at heart a man of peace; and my one wish is to help in any way I can to stop this terrible war before it destroys all Europe.'

Having paused to light a cigarette, he went on, 'Evidently the letters you wrote to your cousin were passed on by him, as I feel sure you must have intended them to be. Anyhow, copies of them were sent to the Middle Europe Section of the Allies' information centre in Switzerland. That is how your name came to be given to me as a man I could trust, and one who might be able to help me with the answers to certain questions that I have come here to investigate.'

Levianski's dark eyes were quite expressionless as he asked, 'What are those questions?'

'They can really all be embodied in one. What is the attitude of the Hungarian people towards the war?'

'That is not simple to answer. The fact that I am a Jew does not make me any the less a Hungarian; but my attitude is very different from that of the average Catholic priest, big landowner or peasant.'

'Naturally. But what I mean is, do you believe that the bulk of the people are convinced of the Tightness of the cause for which they are fighting?'

'I can only repeat that the views of the main elements which make up our population vary greatly. You see, Hungary is quite different from most other nations. Her classes are not integrated in the same way. By that I do not mean that we are torn by class warfare. In fact, in peace time, we suffer very little from labour troubles, and in all classes there is a high degree of patriotism. But, where international relations are concerned, there is no unity of opinion to bind us together; as, for example, the mutual hatred of the French and the Germans which is common to all classes in both countries.'

'Please go on, and tell me about these conflicting interests.'

'Well, to start with, Hungary has not yet really emerged from feudalism. The greater part of the land is still divided into vast estates which are owned by a hundred or so families. They lost them after the First World War, but the Bolshevik revolution led here by Beia Khun lasted only six months. That was not long enough to destroy the attitude of mind of the peasants, which had been engrained into them through many centuries. When the magnates returned from temporary exile their peasants received them joyfully, restored their lands and went back to work for them.

'By the Treaty of Trianon the size of Hungary was reduced by half. In that way many of these great magnates lost some of their estates; but most of them retained enough land and wealth for their way of life to remain almost unaltered. In their great country houses they keep staffs of up to fifty servants, and as many more outside to run their stables and their shooting parties. Up there, opposite to us, on the hill of Buda the great stone buildings that you can see are their town palaces. All of them hold priceless art treasures and fine libraries, for the Hungarian aristocracy is a highly cultured one; but it has the faults as well as the virtues of all feudal aristocracies.

'The Magyar nobility is brave, open handed and casually kind to those who are dependent upon it, but it is also proud, cynical and immoral. They despised the Austrian aristocracy because in most cases Austrian family trees do not go back, by several hundred years, as far as theirs. They regard Hitler and his Nazi Gauleiters as the scum of the gutters. Yet, for their own ends, they received the Austrians as equals and treat these jumped-up Germans with most considerate politeness. As for their morals, those of cats are better. The tittle-tattle of their servants on that aspect of their lives is so consistent that it cannot be doubted. Within their own small circle husbands, wives and even unmarried girls take and exchange paramours with a freedom which would be considered utterly shameful did they occupy a less exalted station.

'You will appreciate, therefore, that they are concerned only to maintain their privileged position. But naturally they also have a heavy bias towards any policy which, while protecting their present sources of wealth, might lead to their getting back the estates which they lost in 1920 by the creation of Poland, Czechoslovakia and a greatly enlarged Rumania.'

Levianski took a long pull at his lager, then went on. 'You will now expect me to speak of the middle classes. Well, there are none. At least not as there are in other countries. The noble Magyars would not soil their hands with commerce, or allow even their remotest relatives to do so. That is, until 1920, After the revolution some of the younger ones who had become impoverished through it became motor salesmen, travel agents and so on; also the general spread of education qualified a few thousand of the younger peasants to move into the towns and replace the Austrians who had previously acted as our petty officials, but neither group is sufficiently numerous to form a class. It was the void between lord and peasant which attracted my people to Hungary. That was many centuries ago, of course, but the Jews gradually established themselves here and by their industry made themselves indispensable.

'Today in Pest there are three hundred thousand of us nearly a third of the population of the capital. Many of our families have grown rich on the proceeds of doing the things that the aristocracy was too proud or too lazy to do; but we have served Hungary well. We are the doctors, the lawyers, the industrialists, the importers of the things that Hungary must have and the exporters of the things she has to sell. Without us the country would fall into a state of chaos overnight. The Magyar lords have always recognized that; therefore they have not only given us their protection through the centuries, but treated us generously. Whether they would be strong enough to continue to do so with Europe at peace and Hitler its overlord is a very different question.