The Vengeance of Rome
- Автор: Муркок Майкл
- Серия: Between The Wars #4
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Vengeance of Rome». Краткое содержание книги:
I was growing nervous. I tried Röhm at all his numbers without success. I left messages, but it was dangerous to say too much. I heard nothing from him. He was rushing about all over the country disciplining his SA units. There was some fuss with the Reichswehr, pledges made. Threats and rising tempers, spluttered statements, cold demands. Fundamentally an apolitical person, I was not, of course, able to follow much of this. I scarcely glanced at the news pages. Until now my attention had been entirely on the show-business reports. The public would not forget me. Still another of my films was yet to appear. I reassured myself. It would be at least five months before my substitute was seen for the fraud he was. I had more than enough money to wait them out and would use my time profitably by following my conscience and my dream.
Es gibt eitien Weg zur Freiheit, as they say. By remaining true to myself, I would survive any setback. This was the hour in which I would be tested.
Putzi Hanfstaengl remained a good friend. When he heard of my plight he laughed rather bitterly. ‘We are useful, and then we are no longer useful.’ He sometimes wondered if he should take his family to America. He had painted himself into a corner. If only Hitler would come to his senses.
I thought the man seemed buried underneath his followers, no longer able to act for himself. Hanfstaengl agreed sadly. ‘He flourishes in the public arena but needs his quiet times, his relaxing times, and is not getting them. He has too much to do. When he’s irritable and erratic he turns on his friends, accusing them of every infamy. I am a fool to stay here and not defend myself. Himmler and Goebbels are the only people he listens to. Even Göring is no longer taken seriously.’
Hitler must be listening to Röhm. Hanfstaengl was not sure. He sighed. ‘When Hitler changes his mind it means history changes, you know. He claims any new idea is what he always thought. How he always planned it to happen. You know the type. One day you’re his right-hand man, the next you’re a traitor to the whole cause. I can’t take it as easily as I once could. I know they believe I’m too soft. They make all the tough decisions, and all I have to do is talk about them. It’s true in a way. But I didn’t expect . . .’ He had not expected power. He had based his life theories on disappointment, as had so many people at that time. When things went his way, he became uneasy, even suspicious, a peculiar syndrome I had witnessed many times in my life. I knew the symptoms well having seen them exhibited in a suddenly successful anarchist or a Bolshevik. It was interesting to see Hanfstaengl, a man so solidly opposed to such people, displaying the same psychology. He apologised, lifting his huge hands as if they were weights, then letting them slump to his sides.
Baldur von Schirach also seemed tired, as if the responsibilities of power were proving too much for him. His sister and mother were hardly speaking to him, he told me. He was being asked on all sides to intercede for friends and could not possibly help them all. He saw me for coffee at a hotel. I had hoped he would have a word with Göring, but after hearing the poor boy’s woes, I could not bring myself to add to his burdens.
The day after I saw von Schirach I had an appointment with Prince Freddy and Kitty. I drove to the Mongol’s apartment in my little tourer. I was almost relieved not to be working. I rang the bell and ascended into the strange atmosphere. As I stepped into the lobby, I congratulated myself that I could now enjoy my bohemian friend’s distractions entirely at my own leisure and not have to worry about my looks the next morning!
Wearing a flimsy affair in salmon pink, as always with matching shoes, Kitty greeted me. Her strange, flirtatious manner, as if she was trying to seduce me for the first time, made me uncomfortable, but when Freddy Badehoff-Krasnya came into the room, he beamed, embraced me and put me at my ease. He was smoking one of his marijuana cigarettes, which I refused. Instead, I accepted a phial of cocaine. Kitty poured cocktails. The strangely jagged door with its metallic glitter shone in even sharper definition than before. From somewhere Prince Freddy’s Japanese servant appeared. He drew down a brilliant-white screen, revealing, behind a curtain, a 16mm film projector of superb quality. I admired its ‘streamlined’ casing and smiled, having some inkling that I was about to watch myself as the Masked Buckaroo.
‘Oh, this is going to take you back a bit!’ he promised with a wide smile.
Chairs were drawn up, and we settled into them. Prince Freddy said very little but sat close to me and put his tiny hand on my arm. ‘This will be a particular pleasure for me,’ he said.
I realised at that moment my luck had completely deserted me. All my optimism faded as I watched the images on the screen. Neither the Masked Buckaroo nor the White Ace appeared half focused out of the grey darkness of the past. I had never seen the film before and had no idea where it had been shot. I remember thinking the photography rather poor. Then I recognised the ramshackle scenery. The setting was Egypt.
I rose to go. Prince Freddy’s pressure on my arm refused my desire. His gesture had an authority which made my heart sink. And sure enough, the scenes with Esmé flickered to life. I was originally masked, you will recall, with the animal-heads they had made me wear. But in the rape scene I was no longer masked. I watched my poor, tired, reluctant body. All the physical and emotional pain flooded back. Esmé’s wide, gasping mouth, the penis endlessly thrusting into her treacherous little orifices. She had drawn me into that trap. She had brought me first to infamy, and now she would ruin me! I was shaking with outrage when the film was eventually turned off. As the lights went on I stared directly into Kitty’s crazed and perverted eyes.
Prince Freddy was pealing with cold laughter. ‘My dear, dear chap. We aren’t prudes here, you should know that by now. We simply hadn’t realised you were so talented . . .’
The film was an abomination, I told him. Evidence of the horrible surgery which the Moslems had performed upon me.
‘Of course it is!’ Prince Freddy turned away as Kitty pressed her little, thin body against me and kissed my cheek. I moved to distance myself from her. She followed. I moved again, sure she had been framing this situation for some time, getting a perverse pleasure from it. The morphine had removed everything human from her. She was entirely Prince Mongol’s creature. She let her hand fall and stood there grinning into space like a mechanical doll which had suddenly wound down. Prince Freddy murmured something to her, and she left the room. He relished his complete control of the situation, my knowledge that he could, if he wished, ruin me, even have me put in prison under the new, strict morality laws being issued by the party.
‘What are you going to do with the film?’ I was furious. Had I been armed I would have killed him.
‘Nothing.’ He knew exactly what I was thinking. It enhanced his power. ‘We are friends, dear Max. Friends do not expose one another to needless publicity. I would not betray you to the authorities any more than you would betray me. You know my discretion already.’