absurd, has it not?'
'The humorous aspects are a little wasted on some of those camp inmates, ' I said. In prison I had met journalists, doctors, lawyers, scientists, musicians, most of whom had been brutalized in some way. 'All we can see are degenerate brutes pulling down a culture because they cannot understand it. Bigotry elevated to the status of law and politics. A decline into a barbarism worse than we knew in the Middle Ages, with the ideas of that time turned into 'truth.' They are told obvious lies-that some six hundred and forty thousand Jewish citizens somehow control the majority of the population. Yet every German knows at least one 'good' Jew, which means that there are sixty million 'good' Jews in the country. Which means that the 'bad' Jews are heavily outnumbered by the 'good.' A problem Goebbels has yet to solve.'
'Oh, I'm sure he will in time.' Gaynor had removed his cap and was unbuttoning his uniform jacket. 'The best lies are those which carry the familiarity of truth with them. And the familiar lie often sounds like the truth, even to the most refined of us. A resonant story, you know, will do the trick with the right delivery ...'
I must admit the spring air was refreshing and I thoroughly enjoyed the long drive to Bek. I scarcely wanted it to end, since I had anxieties about what I might find at my home. After asking me how I had liked the camp, Gaynor said very little to me as we drove along. He was less full of himself than when I'd last seen him. I wondered if he had made promises to his masters which he'd been unable to keep.
It was dusk before we passed through Bek's gates and came to a stop in the drive outside the main door. The house was unusually dark. I asked what had happened to the servants. They had resigned, I was told, once they realized they had been working for a traitor. One had even died of shame. I asked his name. 'Reiter, I believe.'
I knew that feeling had returned. My spirits sank. My oldest, most faithful retainer. Had they killed him asking him questions about me?
'The coroner reported that Reiter died of shame, eh?' 'Officially, of course, it was the heart attack.' Gaynor stepped out into the darkness and opened my door for me. 'But I'm sure two resourceful fellows like us will be able to make ourselves at home.'
'You're staying?'
'Naturally, ' he said. 'You are in my custody, after all.' Together we ascended the steps. There was a crude padlock on the door. Gaynor called the driver to come forward and open it. Then we stepped into a house that smelled strongly of damp and neglect and worse. There was no gas or electricity, but the driver discovered some candles and oil lamps and with the help of these I surveyed the wreckage of my home. It had been ransacked.
Most things of value were gone. Pictures had vanished from walls. Vases. Ornaments. The library had disappeared. Everything else was scattered and broken where Gaynor's thugs had clearly left it. Not a room in the house was undamaged. In some cases where there was nothing at all of value, men had urinated and defecated in the rooms. Only fire, I thought, could possibly cleanse the place now.
'The police seem to have been a little untidy in their searches, ' Gaynor said lightly. His face was thrown into sharp, demonic contrast by the oil lamp's light. His dark eyes glittered with unwholesome pleasure.
I knew too much self-discipline and was far too weak physically to throw myself on him, but the impulse was there. As anger came back, so, in a strange way, did life.
'Did you supervise this disgusting business?' I asked him.
'I'm afraid I was in Berlin during most of the search. By the time I arrived, Klosterheim and his people had created this. Naturally, I berated them.'
He didn't expect to be believed. His tone of mockery remained. 'You were looking for a sword, no doubt.'
'Exactly, cousin. Your famous sword.'
'Famous, apparently, amongst Nazis, ' I retorted, 'but not amongst civilized human beings. Presumably you found nothing.'
'It's well hidden.'
'Or perhaps it does not exist.'
'Our orders are to tear the place down, stone by stone and beam by beam, until it is nothing but debris, if we have to. You could save all this, dear cousin. You could save yourself. You could be sure of spending your life in contentment, an honored citizen of the Third Reich. Do you not yearn for these things, cousin?'
'Not at all, cousin. I'm more comfortable than I was in the trenches. I have better company. What I yearn for is altogether more general. And perhaps unattainable. I yearn for a just world in which educated men like yourself understand their responsibilities to the people, in which issues are decided by informed public debate, not by bigotry and filthy rhetoric.'
'What? Sachsenburg hasn't shown you the folly of your childish idealism? Perhaps it's time for you to visit Dachau or some camp where you'll be far less comfortable than you were in those damned trenches. Ulric, don't you think those trenches meant something to me, too! ' He had suddenly lost his mockery. 'When I had to watch men of both sides dying for nothing, being lied to for nothing, being threatened for nothing. Everything for nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And seeing all that nothing, are you surprised someone like myself might not grow cynical and realize that nothing is all we have in our future.'
'Some come to the same realization but decide we still have it in us to make a life on earth. Through tolerance and good will, cousin.'
He laughed openly at that. He waved a gauntleted hand around the ruins of my study.
'Well, well, cousin. Are you pleased with everything your good will has brought you?'
'It has left me with my dignity and self-respect.' Sanctimonious as that sounded, I knew I might never have another chance to say it.
'Oh, dear Ulric. You have seen how we end, have you not? Writhing in filthy ditches trying to push our own guts back into our bodies? Shrieking like terrified rats? Climbing over the corpses of friends to get a crust of dirty bread? And worse. We all saw worse, did we not?'
'And better, perhaps. Some of us saw visions. Miracles. The Angel of Mons.'
'Delusions. Criminal delusions. We cannot escape the truth. We must make what we can of our hideous world. In truth, cousin, it's safe to say that Satan rules in Germany today. Satan rules everywhere. Haven't you noticed? America, where they hang black men on a whim and where the Ku Klux Klan now puts state governors into office? England, which kills, imprisons and exiles thousands of Indians who naively seek the same rights as other citizens of the Empire? France? Italy? All those civilized nations of the world, who brought us our great music, our literature, our philosophy and our sophisticated politics. What was the result of all this refinement? Gas warfare? Tanks? Battle airplanes? If I seem contemptuous of you, cousin, it is because you insist on seeking the delusion. I have respect only for people like myself, who see the truth for what it is and make sure their own lives are not made wretched by allegiance to some worthless principle, some noble ideal, which could well be the very ideal which sends us into the next war, and the next. The Nazis are right. Life is a matter of brute struggle. Nothing else is real. Nothing.'
Again, I was amused. I found his ideas worthless and foolish, entirely selfpitying. The logic of a weak man who arrogantly assumed himself stronger than he was. I had seen others like him. Their own failures became the failures of whole classes, governments, races or nations. The most picturesque were inclined to blame the entire universe for their own inability to be the heroes they imagined themselves to be. Self-pity translated into aggression is an unpredictable and unworthy force.
'Your self-esteem seems to rise in direct proportion to the decline of your self-respect, ' I said.
As if from habit, he swung on me, raising his gloved fist. Then my eyes locked with his and he dropped his arm, turning away. 'Oh, cousin, you understand so little of mankind's capacity for cruelty, ' he hissed. 'I trust you'll have no further experience of it. Just tell me where the sword and cup are hidden.'
'I know nothing of a cup and sword, ' I said. 'Or its companion blade.' That was the closest I came to lying. I wanted to go no further than that. My own sense of honor demanded I stop.
Gaynor sighed, tapping his foot on the old boards. 'Where could you have hidden it? We found its case. No doubt where you left it for us. In that cellar. The first place we searched. I guessed you'd be naive enough to bury your treasures as deep as you could. A few taps on the wall and we found the cavity. But we had underestimated you. What did you do with that sword, cousin?'
I almost laughed aloud. Had someone else stolen Ravenbrand? Someone who held it in no particular value? No wonder the house was in such a condition.
