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:
After an absence of almost a week, Röhm came bustling back. He had been in Berlin, he said, then Munich. Hitler was driving him crazy. I asked him if there had been any messages for me at either the Königshof or the Brown House. He admitted that he had forgotten to ask. ‘But I did receive a visit from an old friend of yours at the Brown House.’
‘Putzi? Captain Göring?’
Like a kindly uncle attending a favourite nephew’s birthday party, Röhm grinned at my puzzlement. ‘Oh no. A much older friend than that.’ He was still wearing his light travelling cape. As he flung it off he threw a large buff envelope on to the sofa beside me. ‘She brought me a present. She’d been trying to see Hitler for a week. He’s still in Berlin being an arsehole while his girlfriend’s screwing the chauffeur. Your friend’s going to Vienna, she said, with her husband, so asked me to pass this on to the Führer, who hadn’t had time to see her. Naturally I told her it would be in his hands within twenty-four hours. She went to Vienna a happy woman. I think when she gets back next month, she expects me to present her with a wallet made of your delicious skin, Mashi.’
Sipping his champagne cocktail, he watched me as I sat down heavily on the couch. Because of the heat I was virtually naked and felt suddenly vulnerable. He said nothing. He merely went on watching me, loosening his jerkin as I undid the envelope and drew out that dossier of lies and misunderstandings which the former Baroness von Ruckstühl, Frau Oberhauser, claimed was the true story of my life. I felt sick. Here were all the French reports accusing me of deliberately setting out to ruin honest people. Here were stories of my ‘swindling’ the Turks, stories which claimed I was a member of Stavisky’s gang, a Jew from Odessa. The lies were endless, yet all supported by alleged facts and offered in the most authoritative tones.
I began to stammer that I was a victim of a long-standing campaign, that she had manufactured all this material.
‘I’m getting used to this sort of thing,’ said Röhm comfortably. He came and sat down next to me. ‘Let’s have a look at it together, Mashi, shall we? What a naughty little type you seem to have been . . .’
It must have cost a fortune to assemble that dossier. I was astonished at its detail, a careful and clever selection of material designed to show me in the worst light. The praise, for instance, that I had received for my political speeches in the USA was mentioned nowhere, nor was my extensive work with the knights of the Ku Klux Klan. My acting career was all but ignored. Mucker Hever’s version of events was given where my steam-car was concerned. He was quoted extensively, but with no mention of his jealousy. My misfortunes were presented as if I had planned a series of elaborate swindles. Yet I had always earned my living honestly. My own trusting character, which rarely questioned a contract, or indeed demanded one, was what had let me down, not some venal ambition.
‘We couldn’t have done better ourselves,’ said Röhm. ‘This is OGPU quality.’ He spoke with some humour. To my enormous relief he understood the dossier to be a fake. ‘You’ve obviously offended some powerful Bolshies, Max.’
I thought at once of Brodmann. Obviously the new Frau Oberhauser could not have put the dossier together herself. Brodmann and his Chekists had compiled the file and passed it on to her. They intended to ruin my status with the Nazis.
I saw Brodmann recently in the pub. I needed to have words with him, but he was always too quick for me to confront. Passing the Soviet Embassy in Bayswater, I pointed him out to Mrs Cornelius. She said it could be any old Russian Jew. It could be me, she said. She knows how to upset me.
Generous as ever, she begins to distribute her son’s largesse. ‘Double vodka, Ivan?’ she says, waving a fiver. ‘Same again all round.’ I take the money and go up to the bar. Mo Collier is glancing at a book while he pretends to wash glasses. It is called The Anarchist’s Guide to Applied Terrorism. These untried young men think revolutionary politics is a romantic game. One cudgel landing a few times across his narrow little bottom and he would soon discover what kind of game it is. Personality disappears under punishment. The Communists and the National Socialists did not believe in babying their political opponents. It was the nature of the age. Only the flyers had time for chivalry. On the ground and in the streets it was total war. But what the history books will not admit is that we were often defending ourselves. We were forced to fight fire with fire.
Collier ignores me and my proffered note. Suddenly he picks up a brass handbell and begins to ring it. ‘Time!’ he yells furiously. ‘Time!’
I put the money in my pocket.
‘There’s one thing I am sure of,’ said Röhm after we had looked at the file. ‘You’re not Jewish. I can smell a Jew at a hundred paces, and you don’t smell like a Jew. You smell like an Italian-American. Believe me, it’s absolutely distinctive. But it would be bad news for you if Hitler, or worse Himmler, saw this. They’re like Father Stempfle. Anyone who isn’t pale as a corpse and with a shock of blond hair is potentially a Jew. This, I’ll admit, makes most of us potential Jews. We’re going to have to start offering more precise definitions if we’re going to deal seriously with the problem of separating citizens from non-citizens.’
‘They would believe me Jewish just because a crazy woman has accused me? Just because I have Mediterranean looks?’
‘Some of them will believe you’re a Jew if you can walk and talk and count up to ten.’ Röhm laughed heartily and gave me a friendly punch. ‘And if they thought you’d been inside the Brown House! Oy vey! They’d be looking for a Jerusalem colonel to cashier on the spot.’ He made as if to flick a cigarette lighter. That was SA code for a gun. ‘No, Mashi, I’ve no intention of losing you just yet.’
By this I understood that he was not going to pass the file on. ‘Oh, I’ll do what I’ve done before in situations like this. Usually, when someone’s discovered to their horror that some local SA boss is of the Spartan persuasion, I pass on a page or two of the more innocuous “evidence”. Just looking at that makes it clear the person is exaggerating. They seem to be the lunatics and nit-pickers. That way if she asks Hitler about it, he’ll say he’s seen it and dismissed it. She won’t be able to pursue it, and everything will be fine. There’s nothing to it.’
I told him I would be for ever in his debt.
He smiled that shy little smile of his. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘repayment shouldn’t be too arduous for you.’
My relief was enormous. Our celebration was extensive. The cocaine consumption alone was staggering! That same night, a couple of hours before dawn, a car called for Röhm. He had to go back to Berlin. I was rather pleased. I would need time to recover from his somewhat excessive demands.
‘Time!’ cries Collier. The sound of his bell would cut through even the happiest ambience. Here it sounds as if it tolls for the end of salvation. Grey heads rise up. Bottles are lowered or hastily lifted.
‘Your glasses, gentlemen, please. Look to your glasses!’
This English ‘closing time’ is a nuisance. Mrs Cornelius offers Collier some incoherent insult. ‘An’ they say the Nazis was tyrants!’ She takes my arm. ‘Come on, Ivan. We’ll ‘ave a drink at ‘ome.’