“No string quintet violinists,” Reiss said.
Kreuz vom Meere did not answer. “We’ll have him sometime this morning, so be ready. You can tell the Japs that he’s a homosexual or a forger, or something like that. Wanted for a major crime back home. Don’t tell them he’s wanted for political crimes. You know they don’t recognize ninety percent of National Socialist law.”
“I know that,” Reiss said. “I know what to do.” He felt irritable and put upon. Went over my head, he said to himself. As usual. Contacted the Chancery. The bastards.
His hands were shaking. Call from Doctor Goebbels; did that do it? Awed by the mighty? Or is it resentment, feeling of being hemmed in. . . goddam these police, he thought. They get stronger all the time. They’ve got Goebbels working for them already; they’re running the Reich.
But what can I do? What can anybody do?
Resignedly he thought, Better cooperate. No time to be on the wrong side of this man; he can probably get whatever he wants back home, and that might include the dismissal of everybody hostile to him.
“I can see,” he said aloud, “that you did not exaggerate the importance of this matter, Herr Polizeifuhrer. Obviously, the security of Germany herself hangs on your quick detection of this spy or traitor or whatever he is.” Inwardly, he cringed to hear his choice of words.
However, Kreuz vom Meere looked pleased. “Thank you, Consul.”
“You may have saved us all.”
Gloomily Kreuz vom Meere said, “Well, we haven’t picked him up. Let’s wait for that. I wish that call would come.”
I’ll handle the Japanese,” Reiss said. “I’ve had a good deal of experience, as you know. Their complaints—“
“Don’t ramble on,” Kreuz vom Meere interrupted. “I have to think.” Evidently the call from the Chancery had bothered him; he, too, felt under pressure now.
Possibly this fellow will get away, and it will cost you your job. Consul Hugo Reiss thought. My job, your job—we both could find ourselves out on the street any time. No more security for you than for me.
In fact, he thought, it might be worth seeing how a little foot-dragging here and there could possibly stajl your activities, Herr Polizeifuhrer. Something negative that could never be pinned down. For instance, when the Japanese come in here to complain, I might manage to drop a hint as to the Lufthansa flight on which this fellow is to be dragged away . . . or barring that, needle them into a bit more outrage by, say, just the trace of a contemptuous smirk—suggesting that the Reich is amused by them, doesn’t take little yellow men seriously. It’s easy to sting them. And if they get angry enough, they might carry it directly to Goebbels.
All sorts of possibilities. The SD can’t really get this fellow out of the PSA without my active cooperation. If I can only hit on precisely the right twist .
I hate people who go over my head, Freiherr Reiss said to himself. It makes me too damn uncomfortable. It makes me so nervous that I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep I can’t do my job. So lowe it to Germany to correct this problem. I’d be a lot more comfortable at night and in the daytime, too, for that matter, if this low-class Bavarian thug were back home writing up reports in some obscure Gau police station.
The trouble is, there’s not the time. While I’m trying to decide how to—
The phone rang.
This time Kreuz vom Meere reached out to take it and Consul Reiss did not bar the way. “Hello,” Kreuz vom Meere said into the receiver. A moment of silence as he listened.
Already? Reiss thought.
But the SD chief was holding out the phone. “For you.”
Secretly relaxing with relief, Reiss took the phone.
“It’s some schoolteacher,” Kreuz vom Meere said. “Wants to know if you can give them scenic posters of Austria for their class.”
Toward eleven o’clock in the morning, Robert Childan shut up his store and set off, on foot, for Mr. Paul Kasoura’s business office.
Fortunately, Paul was not busy. He greeted Childan politely and offered him tea.
“I will not bother you long,” Childan said after they had both begun sipping. Paul’s office, although small, was mod. em and simply furnished. On the wall one single superb print: Mokkei’s Tiger, a late-thirteenth-century masterpiece.
“I’m always happy to see you, Robert,” Paul said, in a tone that held—Childan thought—perhaps a trace of aloofness.
Or perhaps it was his imagination. Childan glanced cautiously over his teacup. The man certainly looked friendly. And yet—Childan sensed a change.
“Your wife,” Childan said, “was disappointed by my crude gift. I possibly insulted. However, with something new and untried, as I explained to you when I grafted it to you, no proper or final evaluation can be made—at least not by someone in the purely business end. Certainly, you and Betty are in a better position to judge than I.”
Paul said, “She was not disappointed, Robert. I did not give the piece of jewelry to her.” Reaching into his desk, he brought out the small white box. “It has not left this office.”
He knows, Childan thought. Smart man. Never even told her. So that’s that. Now, Childan realized; let’s hope he’s not going to rave at me. Some kind of accusation about my trying to seduce his wife.
He could ruin me, Childan said to himself. Carefully he continued sipping his tea, his face impassive.
“Oh?” he said mildly. “Interesting.”
Paul opened the box, brought out the pin and began inspecting it. He held it to the light, turned it over and around.
“I took the liberty of showing this to a number of business acquaintances,” Paul said, “individuals who share my taste for American historic objects or for artifacts of general artistic, esthetic merit.” He eyed Robert Childan. “None of course had ever seen such as this before. As you explained, no such contemporary work hithertofore has been known. I think, too, you informed that you are sole representative.”
“Yes, that is so,” Childan said.
“You wish to hear their reaction?”
Childan bowed.
“These persons,” Paul said, “laughed.”
Childan was silent.
“Yet I, too, laughed behind my hand, invisible to you,” Paul said, “the other day when you appeared and showed me this thing. Naturally to protect your sangfroid, I concealed that amusement; as you no doubt recall, I remained more or less noncommittal in my apparent reaction.”
Childan nodded.
Studying the pin, Paul went on. “One can easily understand this reaction. Here is a piece of metal which has been melted until it has become shapeless. It represents nothing. Nor does it have design, of any intentional sort. It is merely amorphous. One might say, it is mere content, deprived of form.”
Childan nodded.
“Yet,” Paul said, “I have for several days now inspected it, and for no logical reason Ifeel a certain emotional fondness. Why is that? I may ask. I do not even now project into this blob, as in psychological German tests, my own psyche. I still see no shapes or forms. But it somehow partakes of Tao. You see?” He motioned Childan over. “It is balanced. The forces within this piece are stabilized. At rest. So to speak, this object has made its peace with the universe. It has separated from it and hence has managed to come to homeostasis.”
Childan nodded, studied the piece. But Paul had lost him.
“It does not have wabi,” Paul said, “nor could it ever. But—“ He touched the pin with his nail. “Robert, this object has wu.”
“I believe you are right,” Childan said, trying to recall what wu was; it was not a Japanese word—it was Chinese. Wisdom, he decided. Or comprehension. Anyhow, it was highly good.
“The hands of the artificer,” Paul said, “had wu, and allowed that wu to flow into this piece. Possibly he himself knows only that this piece satisfies. It is complete, Robert. By contemplating it, we gain more wu ourselves. We experience the tranquility associated not with art but with holy things. I recall a shrine in Hiroshima wherein a shinbone of some medieval saint could be examined. However, this is an artifact and that was a relic. This is alive in the now, whereas that merely remained. By this meditation, conducted by myself at great length since you were last here, I have come to identify the value which this has in opposition to historicity. I am deeply moved, as you may see.”
“Yes,” Childan said.
“To have no historicity, and also no artistic, esthetic worth, and yet to partake of some ethereal value—that is a marvel. Just precisely because this a miserable, small, worthless-looking blob; that, Robert, contributes to its possessing wu. For it is a fact that wu is customarily found in least imposing places, as in the Christian aphorism, ‘stones rejected by the builder.’ One experiences awareness of wu in such trash as an old stick, or a rusty beer can by the side of the road. However, in those cases, the wu is within the viewer. It is a religious experience. Here, an artificer has put wu into the object, rather than merely witnessed the wu inherent in it.” He glanced up. “Am I making myself clear?”