The Vengeance of Rome (75 page)

I trusted her instinct better than I trusted the voice of my own soul. I remembered how she had tried to warn me of the danger I was in when
we got to Egypt, how I had ignored her, how she had stayed as long as she could, but eventually had been forced to get away quickly. Happily, Major Nye had made himself of use to her then. In Cairo I had been deceived into a life of total nightmare, the slave of a sadistic trickster who was on the point of killing me when I was miraculously delivered by fate. I still wondered if my friend Kolya had by now charmed his way into the leadership of some hard-riding tribe. Sometimes I regretted our enforced parting and imagined how we might have lived, heroes of a Karl May novel, princes of a vast Saharan nation, away from all the ills and dirty realities of European and American life. At these times my mind wandered romantically back to those wonderful desert nights.

I occupied my time with writing letters to Doctor Goebbels and Ministerpräsident Göring, outlining my plans for a new Germany in which clean white towers would spring up and curving motorways with graceful lines would merge into a gently undulating horizon below a sky in which my gigantic ships plied their peaceful trade. My great flying cities would rise into the sky, free at last from all earthly follies, free to explore the solar system and beyond. My city is called
The New Dawn
; she cries out like a woman in pleasure. She ascends into a golden sky. She expands in my womb. A star begins to pulse and grow. It is my city. I am free of pain. I am free of despair. I am free of sorrow. Out of Chaos springs Law. My ship is called
The Mother
, and she will bring joy and curiosity to the universe.

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 einen 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.'

I relaxed a little. True, he had little to gain and might well lose his own reputation if he handed the film over to the police. I began to explain how I had been blackmailed into making the film, how I had been a prisoner in Egypt, close to death. But for a fluke I would never have escaped. There were others in Munich, I said, who could vouch for all of this.

He seemed sympathetic, as usual. ‘We are all forced to compromise ourselves at some stage in our lives. We learn humility from such experiences.'

Kitty came back into the room. She was carrying a large, leather-bound scrapbook of the kind used for press cuttings. ‘My inheritance,' she said. She handed it to Prince Freddy. She made no attempt to explain the book, nor did Prince Freddy. We all understood what it contained. ‘Humility.' Prince Freddy carried the book behind another curtain, leaving me with Kitty. She shrugged. She seemed almost as out of focus as the film we had been watching. I did not need to relearn that particular humiliation, but it appeared I was to have no choice.

At that moment I remember feeling an odd, inner chill, a profound suspicion that Kitty and Prince Freddy had conspired to kill her mother! It is simply not possible for a man of my kind to imagine the levels of infamy such people will go to and what delight they take in trapping others in their webs! For all my experience of the world I remain an innocent. Mrs Cornelius says as much.

I was to pay a price, however, for Prince Freddy's discretion. The new government was blocking many of his old ways of making a living, therefore he must find new ways. He had had some experience with film-making in the past. He had regular customers, many in the party hierarchy here in Munich. He would let me wear a mask—a good one—and Kitty would be
my only female partner. It was not much to pay, he said wide-eyed, for his silence. Another man might have asked far more.

I was in an appalling position. If I refused, he would release the film to the press who would be only too glad of the story. It would be big news across the Continent. If I accepted his offer, I compounded my situation and would be drawn in deeper and deeper. Yet I had no choice. How I wished Ernst Röhm were with me. I knew exactly how he would have responded. Prince Freddy would by now be on the carpet with a broken neck. But as it was, he had me in his power.

We filmed the thing at Prince Freddy's place in a day and a night. The camera was locked away, the actors paid and Prince Freddy congratulated me on my performance. He was honoured to work with a pro, he said. With deep dread I knew this would not be the only time he would call on me to perform. My hubris had led me to this, just as it had led to my captivity and torment in Egypt. I could not bear to go through all that again. I considered suicide.

Early in the morning after the filming I returned to my apartment. This time it was immediately obvious my rooms had been searched. The intrusion was less expert than before. Was more than one agency taking an interest in me? At least I had trusted my instincts and kept most of my valuable things in Corneliusstrasse. As soon as possible I would make sure they were safe. Who was following me? Had my association with Prince Freddy been noted by the powers that be? Was he also a spy? My stomach turned over at the thought. I went instantly to my store of cocaine and found it untampered with. I took a massive dose, and slowly my confidence returned. My most sensible plan was to register this break-in with the authorities. That way it would be clear I had no fear of them. Then I must get in touch with Göring and solicit his help. Surely Mrs Cornelius could be prevailed upon to help, considering my potential danger? Putzi still to some degree had the Air Marshal's ear. He would certainly help me. I made myself some coffee, showered and dressed in my best, most conservative clothes, ready to report what I suspected.

Just as I was knotting my tie, I heard a knock at the front door. I hoped it was Mrs Cornelius or even Putzi Hanfstaengl. I had decided to tell them everything, even about Prince Freddy's blackmail. In my circumstances it was just as well to throw oneself wholly on the mercy of one's friends.

I opened the door, a word of greeting on my lips. But instead of a friend I found two uniformed policemen saluting me politely. They seemed a little surprised to see me smiling. One had a typical round Bavarian face, nurtured on good beer. The other was taller, an amiable wolf.

‘Thank goodness,' I said. ‘Just the chaps I want to see.'

A little baffled by my reaction, they asked if I had noticed any intruders in the building. I was immediately relieved. Obviously I had not been singled out. Other residents had reported the same problems.

Yes, I said, I was pretty sure I had been burgled but had no idea what might be missing. Murmuring politely, the policemen came into the apartment, glanced around, and then asked me if I would mind returning with them to make a short statement at the Ettstrasse police headquarters. They were deference itself. They had already taken this liberty with some of my neighbours. It would only be a matter of minutes. They could talk to me here, but the stenographer at the station could take down the details.

I told them there was little more I could offer. I had not noticed anything missing. Was their suspect some sort of pervert who merely enjoyed entering other people's apartments? They were a trifle insistent. They said how extremely sorry they were. These things had to be reported at the station. Those were the rules. The gesture on my part would simplify their overloaded work schedule. They promised I would be back in time for lunch. Perhaps I could also bring my identification papers, which would be formally needed?