An Infinity of Mirrors (23 page)

“Of course, you were a part of a great saga of the Reichsmarschall's life. He shot down twenty-two Allied planes, and he was awarded the Iron Cross, second and first class, the Zaehring Lion with Swords, the Karl Friedrich Order, the Hohenzollern Medal with Swords, and then, on May something, 1918, he was given the
Pour le Mérite
, the absolute highest of the high. Now, of course, he lives only for art. Today he has become so absorbed in art collecting that he often forgets the affairs of the Luftwaffe for weeks on end. Isn't that fabulous? Eh? With a war on? Do you realize that his collection amounts to over fifteen hundred works of art, valued at over one hundred and sixty million dollars? (I use the dollar because it is neutral and stable—although who knows, eh, your Grace?)

“When I first began to serve the Reichsmarschall, I found his taste already formed. However, I have been able to develop and extend it, and the masterpieces we have acquired together have greatly increased in range and number.
Heh-heh-heh-heh
—I should think so. In Paris alone, some thirty-eight thousand houses owned by Jews have been sealed up, and the Einsatzstab Rosenberg has catalogued over twenty thousand works of art. Some of it is remarkably fine stuff, you know. There are over five thousand paintings, almost twenty-five hundred pieces of antique furniture, and a rewarding number of the Gobelin tapestries, which are so beloved by the Reichsmarschall.
Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh
. Which reminds me. You must look in at the basement of the Palais de Chaillot. It is filled to the top with pianos. Bechsteins, Pleyels, Steinways—all taken from Jews. What a musical people they must be.

“But to return to my point. What the Reichsmarschall has done for German art can hardly be calculated, and yet only six days ago General Stuelpnagel, our military governor here, wrote a bitter letter to Field Marshal von Brauchitsch to complain against the Einsatzstab Rosenberg. Luckily, the Reichsmarschall acted quickly and no harm was done. I ask you, why does this General Stuelpnagel do this? What does a soldier know about art? I will modify that statement. The Reichsmarschall is a simple soldier, yes, but he is extraordinary and aesthetic, and he is the only soldier who knows anything about art—and I say that as an expert. I would say the same tiling even if they tortured me.” Dr. Schute blew his nose and simultaneously held his other palm aloft to keep anyone from interrupting him. “It is his fitness of things. A sense. His breeding tables have enormous length. I have seen his genealogical tables, and he is related to Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, and St. Elizabeth of Thüringen. So who can blame him if he takes a slightly spectacular view of history? How should a man act who is next in succession for the leadership of the most powerful nation on earth and who has his own private army of twenty-two infantry divisions? Like some little householder? No! He is a big man. He weighs three hundred and ten pounds as of this week, and that is majestic, my friends. You should hear …”

When word was passed into Colonel Drayst's private meeting with Mme. Selahettin that Frau General von Rhode had arrived, he did not leave at once because he could not tear himself away from this woman who was the first real genius of palmistry and astrology that he had ever encountered. She was a short, slight woman with white bobbed hair and heavy bangs, and if one were to see her walking across a park in her strange high-soled shoes, Drayst thought he might guess that she was, say, an Irish bookseller. But her dossier showed that she was half-Egyptian and half-Bavarian, and her hands were incredibly psychodynamic—as she had pointed out herself. She had bright eyes and a ready smile, and nothing about her was in the usual seer's tradition. She was a part-time gnome from a children's book, she spoke German with a Swabian accent, and she was the most famous fortuneteller in Europe. A year before she had been unknown, yet now there were hundreds of leaders who would not make a move without her. According to Himmler, she had never made a mistake about the past or the future. Like all great and wonderful phenomena, she had one weakness: she could not function anywhere but in Paris. Mme. Selahettin could have lived at the side of the Fuehrer, and she had sobbed bitterly when she had confessed that as much as she would have liked to serve the German cause in the Reich, her powers left her the moment she left Paris.

The Reichsfuehrer SS was able to explain this phenomenon: it was due to an intersection of magnetic fields peculiar to that part of the world. He had asked Dr. L. Roth of the Institute of Science and Education to make measurements of spatial conduits and the lines of magnetic power supply as they came directly into Paris from the various transfixing and transversing points in outer space, and Dr. Roth had confirmed the Reichsfuehrer's suspicions. Thereafter Mme. Selahettin charted the Fuehrer's zodiacal anticipations through Luftwaffe couriers, advising him on moves and warning him of upcoming dangers. The Reichsfuehrer SS had twice journeyed specially to Paris for consultations with her, and he had personally pronounced her the most remarkably gifted seer who had ever come to his attention. By her advice he had become extremely careful about his teeth. Selahettin had been thoroughly investigated by multiple SD and Gestapo teams, and there was no doubt that she was absolutely genuine.

“I cannot see you before next week?” Colonel Drayst asked with chagrin.

“To cast your horoscope I need to work day and night, dear Colonel Drayst, doing nothing else. You are a leader and must be served.”

“A leader? Greatness?”

“Yes, greatness. It is in your palm, and it will be confirmed by your stars.” She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “Your right and left hands hold the total physical reincarnations of the lines, stars, and triangles in the hands of Napoleon I, Emperor of France.”

“Ach!”

“Your tasseled lines, grilles, trident and spearhead, and the islands on your hands proclaim as loudly as the voice of heaven that you are singled out to gain great riches and power. You will rule with compassion and justice, for that is your nature—your right hand, in these points, matches the right hand of the philosopher, Socrates, and the left hand that of St. Paul, he who was Saul of Tarsus.”

What a marvelous woman, Drayst thought dizzily. She held up the two black prints she had made of his hands. “When we meet on Saturday I will bring you reproductions of the hands of Napoleon and Socrates and St. Paul, and you will begin to understand your greatness—which of course must be guided and channeled at first.”

“At my office on the Avenue Foch?”

“At two o'clock.”

Drayst thanked her warmly. “I have a question, Mme. Selahettin,” he said. “There is a woman in the room out there. Will I ever possess her?”

“Not at first. There will be, or there has been, a struggle.”

“Yes!”

“You must not press her yet. The decision has not yet been frozen into the sea of time.”

Suddenly Drayst lusted to see that beautiful Jewish face. He left the room abruptly, eager to see the panic and fear in her eyes when she saw him moving toward her, after she thought she had killed him.

Five

Miral had at last managed to halt Dr. Schute's torrent of conversation and was speaking to him in the far corner of the room. Paule was standing alone, and she did not see Drayst until he was almost upon her. She almost screamed. The color left her face, and her great, purple eyes showed all the terror he had prayed to see there. “How extremely wonderful to see you again, Frau von Rhode,” he said softly. As he took her elbow and pulled her easily down upon a sofa, Paule imagined she could see Herr Waegel, the block warden, smiling as he shut the door to cover them with darkness.

“You did not know I was in France? No? But I am the BdS. Yes, I arrived with the first troops. I have known you were here, of course, and I have been waiting for a graceful opportunity to talk to you.” He made a boyish pout. “But you have become so deathly pale. Do you think you see a ghost? Did you think you had killed me with your little pistol?” He laughed generously, showing his pointed white teeth. “At that, you nearly killed me with your little knee.” She moved away from him along the sofa, until she was out of reach of his hand. He held it up; the palm was deeply puckered at the center, as dimpled as if he had been crucified. “The stigmata bestowed by your little bullet,” he said jovially in carefully accented French. “So you did not miss me completely.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Her eyes glittered, never leaving his face, and there were beads of sweat on her forehead.

“You know, perhaps, that Dr. Globke has decreed that to obtain a marriage license Czech brides of German soldiers may now furnish photographs of themselves in bathing suits and no longer have to be photographed entirely nude. But I don't agree with that, Frau von Rhode. With you, everything you do excites me. I read about you at night from your file that I have had built up here. I have a wonderful Paris file on you. I have photographs of you in bed with many men.” She drew back, but he held her forearm, then withdrew his hand. “Yes. Yes, I do. They show you doing wonderful things. We have very good photographers, you know. So many men, Frau von Rhode! You ran wild for a year after you left your husband, eh? I am not judging you. It was good for me. I like it—it was a natural thing. I want you that way. That is how I see you every night. Yes. There are so many things I want you to do with me when you are ready.” His blue eyes seemed polished. “What I would give to rip that dress off you and take you here and now.”

Paule stood up and swayed unsteadily. Miral saw her and crossed the room.

“Are you all right, Paule?”

“Yes. May we go now?”

At once.

Grimaux rushed to them at the door, motioning frantically to his wife, and Miral bade them good night as he helped Paule into her wrap.

The Luftwaffe car was waiting. “To my flat, please, Pepe. I must see Paul-Alain. I am so frightened. I haven't felt this way since Berlin.”

“I understand. I will let you get a full night's sleep.”

“No, Pepe. I want you near me tonight. You must help me to drive this fear away.”

Six

Charles Piocher had left the Grimaux reception forty minutes before Selahettin departed, and he was waiting for her in the concealed room behind her fireplace. She had been driven to her door by General Koltrastt, who wished to ask about the future prospects of his grandson.

“A good night for you, love?” Piocher spoke in English with the sound lower-class accent of a British Army barracks.

“Rather, yes. Drayst asked me to bring his horoscope to his office next Saturday at two o'clock. Is that enough time for you?”

“Plenty of time.”

“Did you have a good night?” Her accent was very North Foreland School and Girton College.

“Four trains full of plane parts will move through Strasbourg toward Nancy Thursday night, Dr. Egger Haus happened to say. Up they go. I also picked up a vague clue about Drayst. Very saucy, really.”

“If you could see that man's palm—and I don't mean the one with the hole in it. It has every vicious mark a hand could have—including a broken lifeline turning sharply toward the thumb, which means violent death according to all the books they made me read before they sent me here.”

“Did he buy your package?”

“Indeed, yes—though I did have a feeling I had gone too far when I told him his hands were replicas of Napoleon's.”

“What did he say?”

“He merely sat up straighter and swallowed hard.” Selahettin began to arrange books in stacks on the table in front of her. “You know, Drayst's horoscopes may be the slimiest I'll ever do. The man has a closed Trigon between Neptune, the Moon, and Uranus, and Venus is in his twelfth house in conjunction with Mars. That means very little libido but lots of mortido.”

“So long as he's healthy.”

“Oh, he's blooming. He's a devout pervert, Charles—I'm not sure what sort, but I suspect the criminal, hack-'em-up type. Pluto is very, very closely in conjunction with his Saturn. Pitilessness. He certainly would not stop at murder.”

“Murder? He's a full colonel in the bloody SS. Some scoop.”

“Oh, Charles, I mean for sexual expression.”

“Lamb, for all we know they may recruit chaps like Drayst by their horror scopes. You'll want his file, I expect?”

“The entire file, please. And will you ask them to make me two handprints similar to these, but to print them as halftones as though they were photographs taken from some old book? The prints should be of a hand of Socrates and a hand of Saul of Tarsus, with Drayst's markings on them. Also, they should check his fingerprints to see if he has a criminal record.”

“Where would they get handprints like those?”

“I'm sure I don't know, Charles. They're the experts.” She fitted a cigarette into a long holder. “Have them use De Gaulle's.

“Anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

“If the weather holds I'll have it all back here Thursday night. Time enough for you?”

“Splendid.”

“What do you know about a woman called Frau General von Rhode?”

“Not a thing.”

“Can you run it down tomorrow?”

“Definitely. I have Claire Grimaux tomorrow. She'd tell anybody anything.”

He shook his head in amazement. “If you could have seen what Drayst was saying to Frau General von Rhode …”

“Seen?”

“I read his lips. Bloody little libido, as you said, and an awful lot of bloody mortido.”

“You see? There actually may be something to astrology,” Selahettin said.

“I've got to find out more about him and her.”

“I could use the flutter light on Saturday.”

“You think he'll hold still?”

“Hah!”

“But surely he'll know you're using it to hypnotize him?”