“You don’t understand,” she interrupted. “I’m talking about the religion.”
“Oh, Hilda, is that all? You and your group have stumbled upon some threatening comments from the Thule Society, I take it?”
Now it was her turn to be surprised. She sat upon the bed. “Yes,” she answered. “But then you know…?”
“The specifics? Not at all. They change their game every few months. Who has the time to keep up? Let me tell you something. The leaders of the SS have always had ties to an occult group called the Thule Society, but there is nothing surprising about that. It is a purely academic exercise in playing with the occult, the same as the British equivalent—The Golden Dawn. I’m sure you’re aware that many prominent Englishmen belonged to that club!
“These people are always harmless eccentrics. Our movement made use of the type without stepping on pet beliefs. It’s the same as dealing with any religious person whom you want to be on your side. If you receive cooperation, it won’t be through insulting his spiritual beliefs.”
“What about the messages we intercepted?” she went on. “The threatening tone, the almost deranged—”
“It’s how they entertain themselves!” I insisted. “Listen, you’re familiar with Horbiger, aren’t you?” She nodded. “Burgundians believe that stuff. Even after the launching of Von Braun’s satellite, which in no way disturbed the eternal ice, as that old fool predicted! His followers don’t care about facts. Hell, they still believe the moon in our sky is the fourth moon this planet has had, that it is made of ice like the other three, that all of the cosmos is an eternal struggle of fire and ice. Even our Führer toyed with those ideas in the old days. The Burgundians no more want to give up their sacred ideas merely because modern science has exploded them than fundamentalist Baptists in America want to listen to Darwin.”
“I know,” she said. “You are acting as though they aren’t dangerous.”
“They’re not.”
“Soon Helmuth will be accepted into the inner circle.”
“Why not? He’s been working for that ever since he was a teenager.”
“But the inner circle,” she repeated with added emphasis.
“So he’ll be a Hitler Youth for the rest of his life. He’ll never grow up.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I’m tired of this conversation,” I told her bluntly. “Do you remember several years ago when your brother went on that pilgrimage to Lower Saxony to one of Himmler’s shrines? You were terribly upset but you didn’t have a shred of reason why he shouldn’t have gone. You had nightmares. Your mother and I wondered if it was because as a little girl you were frightened by Wagner.”
“Now I have reasons.”
“Mysterious threatening messages! The Thule Society! It should be taken with a grain of salt. I saw Adolf Hitler once listen to a harangue from an especially unrealistic believer in the Nordic cult, bow solemnly when the man was finished, enter his private office—where I accompanied him—and break out in laughter that would wake the dead. He didn’t want to offend the fellow. The man was a good Nazi, at least.”
My daughter was fishing around in her purse as I told her these things. She passed me a piece of paper when I was finished. I unfolded it and read:
“What is this?” I asked her. I was becoming angry.
“A member of the Freedom League intercepted a message from Burgundy to someone in New Berlin. It was coded, but we were able to break it.”
“To whom was the message addressed?”
“To Heinrich Himmler.”
Suddenly I felt very, very cold. I had never trusted der treue Heinrich. Admittedly I didn’t trust anything that came from the German Freedom League, with a contradiction built into its very title. Nevertheless something in me was clawing at the pit of my stomach. Something told me that maybe, just maybe, there was danger after all. Crazy as Himmler had been during the war years, he had become much worse in peacetime. At least he was competent regarding his own industrial empire.
“How do I know that this note is genuine?” I asked.
“You don’t,” she answered. “I had to take a great risk in bringing it to you, if that helps you to believe.”
“The Burgundians would have stopped you?”
“If they knew about it. I was referring to the German Freedom League. They hate you as much as the rest of them.”
My face flushed with anger and I jumped to my feet so abruptly that it put an insupportable strain on my clubfoot. I had to grab for a nearby lamp to keep from stumbling. “Why,” I virtually hissed, “do you belong to that despicable bunch of bums and poseurs?”
She stood also, picking up her purse as she did so. “Father, I am going. You may do with this information as you wish. I will offer one last suggestion. Why don’t you take another comfortable passenger train back to New Berlin, and call Tarnhelm to say that you will be one day late? See what their reaction is? You didn’t manage to attend my college graduation and I’m none the worse for it. Would it matter so much to my brother were you to help him celebrate after the ceremony?”
She turned to go. “Wait,” I said. “I’m sorry I spoke so harshly. You mean well.”
“We’ve been through this before,” she answered, her back still to me.
“I don’t see any harm in doing what you suggest. If it will make you happy, I’ll delay the trip.”
“Thank you,” she said, and walked out. I watched the closed door for several minutes, not moving, not really thinking.
A half-hour later I was back at the railroad station, boarding an even slower passenger train back to New Berlin. I love this sort of travel. The rocket engines were held down to their minimum output. The straining hum they made only accentuated the fact of their great power held in check. Trains are the most human form of mass transportation.
With my state of mind in such turmoil I could not do any serious work. I decided to relax and resumed reading the English mystery novel. I had narrowed it down to three suspects, all members of the aristocracy, naturally—all highly offensive people. The servant I had ruled out as much too obvious. As is typical of the form, a few key sentences give up the solution if you know what they are. I had just passed over what I took to be such a phrase, and returned to it. Looking up from my book to contemplate the puzzle, I noticed that the woman sitting across from me was also reading a book, a French title that seemed vaguely familiar: Le Théosophisme, histoire d’une pseudo-religion, by René Guenon.
I looked back to my book when I suddenly noticed that the train was slowing down. There was no reason for it, as we were far from our next stop. Looking out the window, I saw nothing but wooded landscape under a starry night sky. A tall man up the aisle was addressing the porter. His rather lengthy monologue boiled down to a simple question: Why was there the delay? The poor official was shaking his head with bewilderment and indicated that he would move forward to inquire. That’s when I noticed the gas.
It was yellow. It was seeping in from the air-conditioning system. Like everyone else I started to get up in hopes of finding a means of egress. Already I was coughing. As I turned to the window, with the idea of releasing the emergency lock, I slipped back down into the cushions as consciousness fled. The last thing I remember was seriously regret-ting that I had not found the time to sample a glass of wine from that hamlet.
I must have dreamed. I was standing alone in the middle of a great lake, frozen over in the dead of winter. I was not dressed for the weather but had on only my Party uniform. I looked down at the icy expanse at my feet and noticed that my boots were freshly shined, the luster already becoming covered by flakes of snow. I heard the sound of hoofbeats echoing hollowly on the ice, and looked up to see a small army on horseback approaching. I recognized them immediately. They were the Teutonic Knights. The dark armor, the stern faces, the great, black horses, the bright lances and swords and shields. They could be nothing else.