The Vengeance of Rome (65 page)

Now to Heckie, my Zoyea, I was no longer Herr Peters, but ‘Uncle Mac', and our mutual enthusiasm was for the
Kino
. Only too delighted to discover a young lady with the same relish as myself, I proposed to her father very properly that I take Heckie with me on my next cinema visit. We could go after she had completed her performances in the market. Old Frau was delighted. I was now a brother, he declared, part of the family. His little princess deserved a break. He and the boy could cope. She could go with me at least once a week. When I consulted her, Heckie declared joyfully that she was glad to see whatever films I chose, but her personal taste was for historical epics and adventure films, preferably with cowboys. She shared every German child's fascination for the ‘Wild West'. These films were generally
cheaper and more plentiful than the serious films and musical comedies I personally favoured.

I had not until then realised how the Masked Buckaroo was still a familiar favourite with the movie-starved Munichers. With considerable surprise and some trepidation I found myself and Heckie watching, at a cinema which had not yet gone over to sound, an episode of
Buckaroo's Bride
, with its outstanding train sequences. By chance the film was one of the few where my face was unmasked in most scenes, largely because of the romance between myself and ‘Gloria Cornish' as Mrs Cornelius was known professionally. It was based on the original Warwick Colvin Jr novel,
A Buckaroo's Courtship
.

Thereafter, I became my little Zoyea's absolute hero. Her reserve vanished completely. She became warm, vibrant, full of innocent affection. Who would not have fallen in love with the child! She insisted on our going several times to the same programme until it changed. We had to be sure, she said, to see the remaining two episodes. She spent any spare time looking through old film magazines for pictures of Max Peters, the Masked Buckaroo. Someone gave her a couple of German translations of the Colvin novels, which she read quickly, but said she found disappointing. Zoyea was also a keen fan of Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson, though she assured me kindly that her favourite remained the Masked Buckaroo.

Half an Italian in the house is worse than none, as the Germans say, but those Italians provided my lifeline back to some kind of normality. Much of the time I could forget that terrible night with Hitler, I could forget Brodmann's relentless pursuit of me, I could even forget my relationship with Röhm, as it became increasingly tense.

That Christmas, however, thanks to a chance meeting with Baldur's gracious sister, Rosalind von Schirach, who heard that I had no plans for the holidays, I spent with the Hanfstaengl family. They were determined to forget the cares of Berlin and enjoy the season no matter what. Putzi and his wife had a strong sense of family and valued their private life above politics, a preference which would get them in trouble later when Hitler had absolute power. They took over a hotel in Nuremberg so we could all visit ‘the Capital of Christmas' and experience the wonder of the Christkindlmarkt, its lights glistening in the falling snow, as the bells of the city declared Peace on Earth to All and Good Will to the World, while happy citizens carried their cakes and geese and trees and candles home to their firesides where they prayed that tranquillity would come again to Germany and the blight of war would be banished for ever.

Our hotel faced out on to the great square and the market and a city where huge brands in brackets illuminated the ancient walls of castles and churches. Rich shadows moved like ghostly gods against the big old stones. The stalls were heaped with Christmas toys, with boxes of model soldiers for which Nuremberg was famous, with golden angels and musical caskets, tin drums and trumpets, flags and play swords. Everywhere were piles of pastries and candies, treasures of dazzling colour and harmony. A brass band and a small orchestra played carols and other Christmas music. We were distracted by puppet shows and toy theatres, clowns and St Nicholas and a huge nativity scene. Few were not in good humour in spite of the relative poverty. Nuremberg, without doubt, was at her very best, and I could imagine no finer place to spend Christmas. Something about that ancient walled city found echoes in every European soul. The streets wound around the hill like a chord of music creating a magnificent medieval fantasy, maintained and extended by successive generations. The hotel, with its black beams and dark panelling, festooned with glass decorations and greenery, had erected a tall Christmas tree in the ballroom around which were heaped presents for everyone staying there.

All the Hanfstaengls' party thought for themselves, and no unhealthy Führer-worship was found here. Indeed, they often spoke irreverently not only of Hitler but also of colleagues such as Goebbels, Göring, Rosenberg, Himmler and others. Relaxing company indeed! Christmas Eve would be the celebratory feast before, in more contemplative spirit, we recalled the birth of the Saviour on the following day. Hanfstaengl, a Catholic, took us off to the midnight mass, a full service in all its sonorous grandeur, with the organ sending massive vibrations through my legs and groin. The cathedral was a symphony of blazing light, crowded with lifted voices celebrating in one joyous chorus the birth of the Prince of Peace. We prayed that 1932 would bring Germany peace and stability again and shared the sentiments of the presiding priest, who asked that leadership and direction quickly be restored to the nation.

I must admit that most of the spiritual message passed me by because, to my initial astonishment, Katerina von Ruckstühl was one of the Hanfstaengls' other guests. She sought me out. Now she leaned her vibrant little form against me to make it evident that her mind was not entirely engaged with the sublime eternals. I was both pleased and disturbed to see her, though fearing at first that her demon-mother was with her; but Mama, I learned, had decided to visit friends in England. Katerina was quick to tell me that she was on my side in the matter, that her mother could be
‘something of a bitch', and that Alfred, her half-brother, was certainly not my child.

Kitty stayed with me after the service. Slender and quick as a cat, narrow-shouldered, long-legged, with an almost triangular little face framed by her short, dark red hair, she had wide-set blue-green eyes, a broad, sensual mouth and a sleepy, mocking manner which was sexually provocative but which I pretended not to notice. She wore near-transparent pastel silk dresses, preferring green and rust, with flesh-coloured silk stockings and patent-leather high heels that shone as brightly as her lacquered head.

Kitty had been abandoned, she told me later as we toasted one another preparatory to retiring. Her mother was in England because she had a new ‘flame', someone in the diplomatic corps.

‘She still hates you!' Kitty whispered just before we parted. ‘I'd love to know exactly why.'

The next day she insisted we take a tour of the old city, which seemed even more of an insane fantasy than Ludwig's famous palace. Everything was of the same red stone tending to a grotesque heaviness when not adulterated by ordinary shops and the market. The Nurembergers had a way of decorating their city to give it a liveable scale. During the Middle Ages their castle meant security and power, but now it was merely grim. The museums, with their many edged weapons and martial paintings, added to this peculiar mixture of attractive romanticism and brute threat.

When we returned to our party that afternoon Putzi was entertaining his guests. The man who came to be known as ‘Hitler's clown' was a great pianist and singer of comic songs, as he was pleased to demonstrate. He had always cheered the Führer up during those melancholy days of exile and struggle. At the drop of a hat the gentle ‘Smokestack', as Kitty nicknamed him, would sit down at the hotel piano, a cigarette between his smiling lips, and pound out some rather Teutonic Gershwin. He took boyish pride in our pleasure.

Hanfstaengl had also been involved in the Fräulein Raubal business and was very concerned for his Chief. When we were alone later, he confided in me. He was planning a big event for Hitler's birthday, still some months off. While in London, he had fallen in love with Gilbert and Sullivan all over again, and he was seeking volunteers with good operetta-quality voices, planning to surprise Hitler with a performance of
The Mikado
. His other idea was to put on some sort of minstrel show, but he did not think the Führer would be familiar enough with the conventions of the cakewalk and the coon dance.

I agreed he should do something in the European tradition. America's chief contribution to world culture was to cheapen the air with Negro jazz noise and chattering Jews in banal talkies.

Hanfstaengl became defensive. He was proud of his American blood. But in the end his huge head nodded in reluctant agreement, confiding that he had returned to Munich and the family print business because it was impossible to love both art and politics in America. Sales were at last beginning to improve, especially now he had an exclusive contract with the party. I had been to his shop with Röhm. It now sold mostly good-quality posters representing the Nazi hierarchy. Röhm had wanted me to see him larger than life-size, I think! Both Hoffmann, Hitler's exclusive photographer, and Hanfstaengl were making fortunes from their leader's rise to fame. Hitler trusted few Berliners and liked to have Bavarians and Austrians about him whenever possible.

Though the Führer got a royalty, Hanfstaengl was doing so well from his posters that he felt he owed Hitler something. He was having the costumes specially made in London and sent over. They were identical to those worn by the D'Oyly Carte Theatre Company. Like many Americans, Hanfstaengl was more appreciative of the Savoy Balladeers than the English, who tend to dismiss their greatest creative artists and keep them, as a matter of course, from any sort of real advancement.

Hanfstaengl tried to drag me into the scheme as a fellow American. I reminded him I had not been raised in the English tradition. He apologised. He was desperate for volunteers and most of his friends were dashing hither and yon trying to get the Nazis elected to majority power in the Reichstag. These were to be the crucial years, dependent as much upon luck as strategy, like all politics. Hitler never acknowledged his good luck and so aroused the ire of the gods who had first blessed him. The Greeks would have written a play about him! Indeed, Hanfstaengl confided in me that Hitler often saw Pericles as his model. He had read some potted popular history which he was always fond of quoting.

Kitty had not come down from Berlin as I thought. She had old friends in Munich and had arrived at about the time she first visited me. By and large she had not mixed much with the Nazi people. They were altogether too grim and serious for her taste.

Kitty told everyone I had a birthday approaching. The Hanfstaengls loved celebrations and insisted on a party specifically for that occasion. So I celebrated my thirty-second year, quite unexpectedly, in warm company and pleasant surroundings. They held my party all through the day on 1
January, forever finding excuses to toast me and bump me and clap me on the back. The Germans can never resist a chance to enjoy an anniversary. It felt wonderful to be so accepted.

Next morning, the first moment we were alone at breakfast, Kitty asked me urgently if I had any ‘coca-een', which was what the drug was called locally. She had a very good source in Munich but had run out. Did I have any spare?

I had not brought enough for two but reasoned to myself that since her contact would be useful to me, I could afford to let her have some now and avail myself of her suppliers later.

‘I have a little,' I admitted. ‘But I'm short of money to buy more.'

It sent a shock through my yearning system when she stared into my eyes as boldly as any seasoned whore. They called it ‘the Berlin look' in Munich. ‘You can fuck me for a gram,' she said.

We settled for half a gram.

I began 1932 in a spirit of considerable optimism.

Once the
sneg
had relaxed her, Kitty expanded on her reasons for being in Bavaria. She had followed ‘the Mongol' here when he found it convenient to leave Berlin. She told me with a quick, self-conscious grin, that she was part of his ‘entourage'. ‘I stay there. At his flat.' She had been with him in London but found that not only were prices extravagantly high there (£3 10s for an ounce of raw cocaine), the general climate was puritanical and critical as well. The English were stones. They had no sense of fun. All their most amusing people were already in Berlin. The Mongol had soon shaken the English dust off his perfect pumps.

I had heard of the Mongol. He was notorious. His picture occasionally appeared in a society paper. His name was actually Prince Friedrich (‘Freddy') Badehoff-Krasnya, late Protector of Mirenburg, exiled by the Austrian invasion, returned for three weeks by the short-lived nationalist coalition, then deposed by the province's Red Soviet. I knew of him from Röhm, too. The Stabschef had rather admired him. Prince Freddy was a subtle mixture of white and yellow, what some considered the worst possible blend of Prussian and Hungarian blood.

A small, delicate man with immense charm, Badehoff-Krasnya's Mongol ancestry was very evident in his rather devilish features. Röhm found him personable and always willing to help in discreet matters if he could. He had bailed Röhm out once or twice in the old days. I knew also from Major Nye that Prince Freddy was not welcome in many European drawing rooms and received few invitations to receptions. A notorious
debauchee, he supported his deplorable habits by putting himself at the service of other rich sensualists. He was the chief means of support of many a degenerate and
demi-mondaine
in the Berlin underworld.

Kitty was enormously attracted to him. ‘He can make a slave of me, as he does of so many women.' She told me something of his demands, which she could, she said, only accept under certain conditions and circumstances. He was, however, an easy source of amusement and, of course, of her beloved ‘coca', but it was her mother's need for morphine that had first brought her together with Prince Freddy. I was reassured to know Frau Oberhauser had a vice.