“Freiherr,” Pferdehuf’s voice came. “Sorry to interrupt you. Just one word.”
Reiss jumped, shut his book. “Certainly.”
How that man can write, he thought. Completely carried me away. Real. Fall of Berlin to the British, as vivid as if it had actually taken place. Brrr. He shivered.
Amazing, the power of fiction, even cheap popular fiction, to evoke. No wonder it’s banned within Reich territory; I’d ban it myself. Sorry I started it. But too late; must finish, now.
His secretary said, “Some seamen from a German ship. They’re required to report to you.”
“Yes,” Reiss said. He hopped to the door and out to the front office. There the three seamen wearing heavy gray sweaters, all with thick blond hair, strong faces, a trifle nervous. Reiss raised his right hand. “Heil Hitler.” He gave them a brief friendly smile.
“Heil Hitler,” they mumbled. They began showing him their papers.
As soon as he had certified their visit to the consulate, he hurried back into his private office.
Once more, alone, he reopened The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.
His eyes fell on a scene involving Hitler. Now he found himself unable to stop; he began to read the scene out of sequence, the back of his neck burning.
The trial, he realized, of Hitler. After the close of the war. Hitler in the hands of the Allies, good God. Also Goebbels, Göring, all the rest of them. At Munich. Evidently Hitler was answering the American prosecutor.
…black, flaming, the spirit of old seemed for an instant once again to blaze up. The quivering, shambling body jerked taut; the head lifted. Out of the lips that ceaselessly drooled, a croaking half-bark, half-whisper. “Deutsche, hier steh’ Ich.” Shudders among those who watched and listened, the earphones pressed tightly, strained faces of Russian, American, British and German alike. Yes, Karl thought. Here he stands once more… they have beaten us—and more. They have stripped this superman, shown him for what he is. Only a…
“Freiherr.”
Reiss realized that his secretary had entered the office. “I”m busy,” he said angrily. He slammed the book shut. “I’m trying to read this book, for God’s sake!”
It was hopeless. He knew it.
“Another coded radiogram is coming in from Berlin.” Pferdehuf said. “I caught a glimpse of it as they started decoding it. It deals with the political situation.”
“What did it say?” Reiss murmured, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and fingers.
“Doctor Goebbels has gone on the radio unexpectedly. A major speech.” The secretary was quite excited. “We’re supposed to take the text—they’re transmitting it out of code—and make sure it’s printed by the press, here.”
“Yes, yes,” Reiss said.
The moment his secretary had left once more. Reiss reopened the book. One more peek, despite my resolution. He thumbed the previous portion.
…in silence Karl contemplated the flag-draped casket. Here he lay, and now he was gone, really gone. Not even the demon-inspired powers could bring him back. The man—or was it after all Uebermensch?—whom Karl had blindly followed, worshiped… even to the brink of the grave. Adolf Hitler had passed beyond, but Karl clung to life. I will not follow him, Karl’s mind whispered. I will go on, alive. And rebuild. And we will all rebuild. We must.
How far, how terribly far, the Leader’s magic had carried him. And what was it, now that the last dot had been put on that incredible record, that journey from the isolated rustic town in Austria, up from rotting poverty in Vienna, from the nightmare ordeal of the trenches, through political intrigue, the founding of the Party, to the Chancellorship, to what for an instant had seemed near world domination?
Karl knew. Bluff. Adolf Hitler had lied to them. He had led them with empty words.
It is not too late. We see your bluff, Adolf Hitler. And we know you for what you are, at last. And the Nazi Party, the dreadful era of murder and megalomaniacal fantasy, for what it is. What it was.
Turning, Karl walked away from the silent casket…
Reiss shut the book and sat for a time. In spite of himself he was upset. More pressure should have been put on the Japs, he said to himself, to suppress this damn book. In fact, it’s obviously deliberate on their part. They could have arrested this—whatever his name is. Abendsen. They have plenty of power in the Middle West.
What upset him was this. The death of Adolf Hitler, the defeat and destruction of Hitler, the Partei, and Germany itself, as depicted in Abendsen’s book… it all was somehow grander, more in the old spirit than the actual world. The world of German hegemony.
How could that be? Reiss asked himself. Is it just this man’s writing ability?
They know a million tricks, those novelists. Take Doctor Goebbels; that’s how he started out, writing fiction. Appeals to the base lusts that hide in everyone no matter how respectable on the surface. Yes, the novelist knows humanity, how worthless they are, ruled by their testicles, swayed by cowardice, selling out every cause because of their greed—all he’s got to do is thump on the drum, and there’s his response. And he laughing, of course, behind his hand at the effect he gets.
Look how he played on my sentiments, Herr Reiss reflected, not on my intellect; and naturally he’s going to get paid for it—the money’s there. Obviously somebody put the Hundsfott up to it, instructed him what to write. They’ll write anything if they know they’ll get paid. Tell any bunch of lies, and then the public actually takes the smelly brew seriously when its dished out. Where was this published? Herr Reiss inspected the copy of the book. Omaha, Nebraska. Last outpost of the former plutocratic U.S. publishing industry, once located in downtown New York and supported by Jewish and Communist gold.
Maybe this Abendsen is a Jew.
They’re still at it, trying to poison us. This jüdisches Buch–He slammed the covers of the Grasshopper violently together. Actual name probably Abendstein. No doubt the SD has looked into it by now.
Beyond doubt, we ought to send somebody across into the RMS to pay Herr Abendstein a visit. I wonder if Kreuz vom Meere has gotten instructions to that effect. Probably hasn’t, with all the confusion in Berlin. Everybody too busy with domestic matters.
But this book, Reiss thought, is dangerous.
If Abendstein should be found dangling from the ceiling some fine morning, it would be a sobering notice to anyone who might be influenced by this book. We would have had the last word. Written the postscript.
It would take a white man, of course. I wonder what Skorzeny is doing these days.
Reiss pondered, reread the dust jacket of the book. The kike keeps himself barricaded. Up in this High Castle. Nobody’s fool. Whoever gets in and gets him won’t get back out.
Maybe it’s foolish. The book after all is in print. Too late now. And that’s Japanese-dominated territory… the little yellow men would raise a terrific fuss.
Nevertheless, if it was done adroitly… if it could be properly handled.
Freiherr Hugo Reiss made a notation on his pad. Broach subject with SS General Otto Skorzeny, or better yet Otto Ohlendorf at Amt III of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Didn’t Ohlendorf head Einsatzgruppe D.?
And then, all at once, without warning of any kind, he felt sick with rage. I thought this was over, he said to himself. Does it have to go on forever? The war ended years ago. And we thought it was finished then. But that Africa Fiasco, that crazy Seyss-Inquart carrying out Rosenberg’s schemes.
That Herr Hope is right, he thought. With his joke about our contact on Mars. Mars populated by Jews. We would see them there, too. Even with their two heads apiece, standing one foot high.