“Not quite,” Kohler said. “Both Seligsohn and myself are familiar with Abendsen’s book; there is a vague resemblance between the world he describes and the environment studied by us over the past eighteen months. But many details vary. The relationship fails to be precise. By example, in the book Rexford Tugwell is president at the time America enters the war; in Nebenwelt, Roosevelt still — ”
“But Abendsen,” Canaris persisted, “seems to have had at least a diffuse awareness of the Nebenwelt. Even if details differ, the resemblance is basic; to ignore it would be politically unwise.”
“Why unwise?” Goring said.
Canaris gestured. “It means that Sacher has no monopoly as to access to Nebenwelt. If one man, Hawthorne Abendsen, is aware of it, then others can be — have already been, perhaps. We don’t have the undivided control over egress that we need.”
“Need for what?” Goring said. He had never been able to fathom the admiral’s convoluted thinking, typical as it was of intelligence reasoning.
A veiled expression appeared on the admiral’s face. Obviously choosing his words with care, he said, “Any military operation planned by the army would now of necessity be shelved — in view of this.”
“Why?” Goring said, still not following. “What military undertaking is planned?” He thought at once of the space program, the colonization of Venus and Mars. So far, the Wehrmacht had stayed aloof; emigration had been handled solely by the SS. He wondered if at last the army intended to participate. Certainly it would help; so far the SS had signally failed to round up sufficient numbers of genetically adequate human specimens.
Canaris, however, switched to another area of the topic; slippery and deft, he eluded even a direct question. “A point-by-point comparison between Abendsen’s imaginary alternate world and the Nebenwelt should be developed. I would like to know exactly how they compare and differ.” He gestured. “It may be what the Japanese call synchronicity, a meaningless coincidence. Or rather what our own physicist Wolfgang Pauli calls synchronicity; I forget that the acausal connective concept is of German origin.” He scowled. “It is their use of that damn oracle that confuses me, that I Ching they employ in the making of every decision. Fortunately the party has rejected it as degenerate oriental mysticism.”
“The oracle,” Kohler said, “exists in the Nebenwelt; we encountered it several times, although there is — we found — no widespread use. It does not appear at all in Abendsen’s book, in the world he depicts.”
“Another difference,” Canaris said thoughtfully. He seemed for a time to chew on this point. “If we were to believe in the oracle,” he said at last, “then we would suppose it to know of the existence of the Nebenwelt, inasmuch [as] it can be found there. Abendsen, I have read, makes use of the oracle; I understand, in fact, he plotted his book by means of the hexagrams. That might account for the resemblance of his fictional world to the Nebenwelt. But consider the hazard involved — the hazard to Germany. The oracle is attempting to inform those who rely on it that. . .” He broke off, again scowling. “I’m talking about it as if it were alive.”
Goring said, “We did well to ban it in German-occupied territory. I remember how emphatic Dr. Goebbels was on that issue; he foamed at the mouth when that modern composer — what was his name? — declared in print that he used it to develop chord progressions.”
“The Little Doktor foams at the mouth about everything he fails to understand,” Canaris said.
“Who understands the oracle?” Goring asked. “Not even those who rely on it. Except for Pauli’s theory of synchronicity there is no hypothesis for its operation at all. Except the ancient Chinese idea that invisible spirits determine which hexagram turns up.” The subject bored him and he returned to the matter that had brought him here to Albany. “Sacher,” he said briskly, “it is vital to Germany’s internal and external security that the availability of the Nebenwelt be kept confidential. We can’t throttle speculation because Abendsen’s book has already raised the issue publicly; even in Germany most intellectuals are aware of its general outline, without, of course, having read it. Unfortunately it is not necessary to have read it; to know of its existence is enough. You understand what I mean.” For the masses to speculate on another way of life, an existence minus German hegemony — that breached the unconditional identification with the Gemeinschaft, the folk community created back in ’32 by the party and now half a world wide. The writer Hawthorne Abendsen had, by his book, done great harm, and all the machinery of the secret police, the Sicherheitsdienst, had not managed to keep bootlegged copies of The Grasshopper from showing up in such central Gaus as Berlin itself. In Hamburg especially, knowledge of — and possession of — the book defied the state security apparatus, vigilant as it continued to be.
We should have Abendsen picked up, Goring pondered. Seized by an SD Einsatz Gruppe and brought in for expert interrogation. I will call Heydrich about that, he decided, as soon as I’m out of here. Surprising that the Reichsfuhrer SS has done nothing in that direction already.
Kohler said, “Shall I continue my description of the Nebenwelt, as well as explaining these artifactual documents?” He indicated the heap of items on his and Seligsohn’s table.
“Do so,” Goring said, and bent an ear to listen to the elaborate circumstantial report of another world, a mystifying universe in which the Axis had lost — unbelievably — the Second World War.
TWO
In the mirror-polished Daimler phaeton sedan the SS men who had met Captain Rudolf Wegener at Tempelhof Airfield chatted amiably as the car neared SS GHQ on Prinz-Albrechstrasse, where the crack Black Shirt division, Sepp Dietrich’s Leibstandarte, had bivouacked itself with the expectation of successfully waiting out the great current crisis in domestic German affairs. Now Wegener could perceive the huge Tiger tanks of the division deployed strategically here and there, their 88mm cannons covering each intersection and building.
The show of military strength did not impress him. One tactical hydrogen bomb, lobbed by a Wehrmacht mortar, would erase the division of SS men and Heydrich himself. The Hangman, however, probably felt psychologically secure: The SS mentality thrived on the ostentatious display of finely executed, parade-style maneuvers such as these cordons of gleaming tanks.
When he had been escorted into Heydrich’s big office he found the Reichsfuhrer SS on the telephone.
“We already sent someone to do that,” Heydrich was saying in his harsh, monotonous voice as he stared blankly through Wegener. “He wound up killed in a hotel room in Denver. His throat. Yes, someone slashed it. Yes, he was very close to reaching the Jew Abendsen.” A pause. “No, he wasn’t going to bring him here; why do that? What’s he got to say besides what he said in his book?” Another pause, longer this time. “If you want him brought here,” Heydrich said finally, “you’ll have to tell me why. We’re not an adjunct to the Luftwaffe. Okay, send someone yourself. Bomb him. Good-bye.” Heydrich hung up, jotted a note on a pad of paper, then inclined his head to indicate a leather-covered chair placed before his desk. “The Reichsmarshal,” he explained to Wegener, “all four hundred kilos of him. Sit down. You’re the Abwehr man who’s been in the Pacific States of America.” He spread out fanwise a collection of folios, rummaged, and at last selected one, which he opened. “I’ve been reading about you. Did you enjoy the way the Japs run things? Slipshod, wouldn’t you say? Of course, things aren’t much better here, what with that nasty little crippled gutter rat Goebbels sneaking in as chancellor — temporarily. He’d kill us all in our beds while we slept. That’s why I had you met at the airport.”
“I appreciated it,” Wegener said woodenly.
“In our opinion,” Heydrich rattled away, “Bormann was murdered. So in no regard is Goebbels legal chancellor. Several SS lawyers have drawn up briefs for me to that effect. An election will have to be held, with all party members voting. The new leader of Germany must come from the party ranks, as Hitler originally intended. Goebbels, even if legally appointed, is too old — as are all the Altparteigenosse. I, of course, do not fit in that category.”
“Not in the slightest,” Wegener agreed.
“Did you make much headway as to informing the Japs about Operation Dandelion? Was General Tedeki interested?”
“I — know nothing about it,” Wegener said.
“But you went there to inform the Japanese that we are on the verge of attacking them.” Irritably, Heydrich said in a sharp voice, as if speaking to a foreigner, “Operation Dandelion — the attack on Japan. Your mission; you posed as a Swedish businessman.” He leafed through the dossier. “You left Tempelhofer Field in one of those new Lufthanse 9-E rockets, under the name of Baynes. An SD agent talked with you en route; he gave the name Alex Lotze and pretended to be a painter; you pretended to be in plastics and polyesters. At the San Francisco airport you were met by a delegate from the ranking Jap Trade Mission, a Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi. A day later at his office in the Nippon Times Building the retired Chief of Staff of the Japanese Imperial Army, General Tedeki, met with the two of you and you informed him of the imminent attack on the home islands by the Wehrmacht — a surprise attack that the Japanese secret police, the Tokkoka, had no knowledge of.”