Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Happy New Year

With the Naughties now safely behind us (to be replaced by what? The Onties?), festivities concluded and hangovers cured, it is time to look forward to another year of highs and lows, sorrow and joy. Doubtless much will remain unchanged, the global economy will limp on, old women everywhere will coo over the Royal Wedding, the War on Terror will continue to be a score draw and Andy Murray will fail to win Wimbledon.
Amongst all this continuity, it is only fitting that the Holy Lance does its bit for conformity and continues publishing the best novel about an Oxford academic, a missing relic and sinister Nazis this side of the last such novel.

  Chapter 13

Berlin

The dark Mercedes with the blacked out windows drew up underneath the maroon awning of the Adlon Hotel. Hitler’s favourite in the 1930’s, its history was in many ways a parable for Germany. Largely ruined during the War, fate had left it in the Eastern Zone, and in tune with their socialist sensbilities, it had been turned from a Grand Hotel (the model, indeed, for the Greta Garbo film of that name) into a dormitory for apprentices. Taken over by an investment firm after the collapse of the Wall, it had been restored to something approaching its former glory, a monumental slab of beige sandstone topped by a green copper roof.

Sitting on Unter den Linden, Berlin’s main thoroughfare, merely yards from the Brandenburg Gate, the hotel was easily the best in the City, and was the only place Ortwin would stay. Certainly, its location in the middle of town had its inconveniences, his journey delayed by a demonstration protesting Germany’s latest bail-out of its poorer, more indolent Mediterranean cousins. However, it also afforded him the opportunity to take the temperature of the street. There was real anger here, the people were fed up with their money being given to the spongers in the South, particularly at a time when their own jobs were uncertain. It was akin to the wave of popular resentment that another German had ridden to power, and he planned to do exactly the same.

Passing through the marble lobby with its surprisingly low vaulted ceiling, he turned along the corridor, his entourage in his wake. He had brought Klaus with him, his executive secretary, and Maria, his personal secretary. She was 6 feet tall, blonde and statuesque. A former champion skier, she could not type to save her life, but there were certain other compensations he would make use of in his top-floor suite after the meeting.

Carrying a silver briefcase in his hand, he pushed through the double doors into the meeting room. The room had a black and white chequer-board floor, plants around the walls and classical statuary dotted tastefully amongst the ferns. The glass dome in the high ceiling let in little light given the time of day, but in the early morning, the winergarten would have been bathed in the sun’s rays reflecting off its cream walls.

His entry caused the assembled guests to stop their murmured chatter and turn to face their host. Beckoning to the long dinner table in the centre of the room, he deposited his case with Klaus and sat at the head. Arrayed before him were the leaders of German society, some bankers, more industrialists and a smattering of politicians. All men of a certain age, they were united not merely by success, but by ancestry, a fact all were keen to conceal, but from which all had profited.

Casual chatter persisted through dinner. The men had all known each other for years, so the social pleasantries of questions about wives, children and grand-children lasted for a while. As dinner progressed, however, conversation took on a more serious note. Aware of the tensions on the streets, these men shared the frustrations of their employees, there views remarkably similar. Unlike the others though, these men believed they could change things. They could make Germany strong again, strong and feared. No longer the crutch for their lazy Southern neighbours, Germany would once more take its leadership role on the continent.

They could not have tried this earlier. The re-unification had taken too much treasure, more than most of them had expected. But 20 years had passed now. East Germany had been thoroughly digested. In some ways, the pain had been a blessing. Germany’s attention had turned inwards, her thoughts and money turned East. There had been neither the time or the means to join the Anglo-Saxons in their explosion of debt. Unfortunately, Germany’s neighbours had not been so distracted and had gorged themselves at a seemingly never-ending trough. And now they expected Germany to bail them out.

The politicians had acquiesced, too worried about the fall-out on their precious European Union, successfully deluding themselves that they were behaving responsibly. They were not, and the people knew it. Ortwin and his friends knew it and were prepared to use it to their advantage. All the children of senior members of the Reich, they had been groomed to assume power. Patient men, they had waited for years for their chance, and now they had it. They would not let it pass them by. All the people wanted was a strongman, someone tough enough to stand up to their neighbours, cut them off and look after Germany and the Germans.

As the plates were cleared after pudding, and the waiters filtered out, Klaus rose and tapped his glass with a spoon.

‘Mein Herren, Herr Schwartz would like to address you all.’

They all turned towards Ortwin who stood and acknowledged the smattering of applause. raising his hand, he started.

“My friends, my brothers, thank you for joining me here tonight. We have, as always, eaten well and talked well, but tonight is about more than that. Tonight is the last night for talking. For tomorrow will be the time for action, action to reclaim our fatherland, to realise our fathers’ ambitions and to make Germany great again.

For too long now, we have sat by and watched as our leaders” he spat out the word.” have led us down the path of weakness and corruption. No longer. The German is an Aryan. He is tough, he is strong. He does not need to be held back by these begging ingrates. Germany must stand up for herself.

But Germany cannot stand up for herself if she is impure. Our fathers knew that only purity would save us. And they got so close, but now their work is being thrown away. Look outside these windows, look at all the Turks, look at all the Slavs who have flooded this country, looking for jobs, German jobs, taking away our national pride. We must be rid of them” He banged his fist on the table, surprising those who knew him to be a mild-mannered man usually.

“I have seen the people outside, I have seen how they hate this life, shackled by their European neighbours, their pride stolen by these foreign interlopers. They are ready my brothers, ready to rise up, and ready to cast off those chains. All they need is leadership, a vision, someone to take them where they want to go. My brothers, we will give them what they want. We will fulfil our fathers’ wishes. We will take back Germany and we will make her strong again.” He was almost shouting now, reaching the end of his speech. “Eine Reich, Eine Volk, Eine Deutscheland.” And his hand raised in the salute, copied from the Romans, which had been so feared 80 years before.

Banging the table in rapturous applause, most of his colleagues stood and roared their delight, but their was one exception. Near the end of the table, a dark-haired, slight man stayed resolutely seated, an expression of distaste painted on his features. An accountant by trade, he had no truck with the grandiose visions of the others, he preferred the mundane, particularly if he could count it.

Relaxing after the adrenaline rush of his speech, Ortwin turned his attention on the outlier, fixing him with a harsh stare. “You do not agree Walter?”, contempt dripping from his tongue.

“Ortwin, friends, I do agree with you. I do not like, any more than the rest of you the present situation in our country. But we are a democracy. This is what has been chosen, and we must make the best of it. By all means, work to change things, but this, this attempt to go back to the past, to our fathers’ time, this is foolishness. Those days are gone. The world is different now, we are different now, let the world be.”

“You have gone soft.” Ortwin barked. “What would your father say? The man who cleared the Warsaw ghetto?”

“He cannot say anything. He was hanged by the Poles 60 years ago. He is in the past, where all of this should remain. I have helped you, as we all have, because we want what is best for our country, but that cannot be a return to those old days. Now, if you will excuse me.” he dabbed his mouth with a napkin pushed back his chair and headed for the door as the others started clapping again. Ortwin nodded at Klaus and he followed Walter out of the room. Catching up with him, he apologised for his boss’s outburst and accompanied him to the main entrance leaving him in the care of the doorman. Crossing the lobby once more, he winked at a dark-haired man casually reading a magazine and headed back inside the winergarten.

They were still applauding as he re-entered, but seeing him, Ortwin raised his hand to calm them. “Does anyone else wish to leave?” They all sat down, just as he knew they would. Walter had always been the weak link. A great businessman, but not resolute enough for politics. His loss was no loss.

“In one way, our friend was right. Times are different, people are different. These are sceptical times, my friends, we need to win their trust.” A murmur of approval. Germany was no different to any other democracy in the West, people were no longer divided into left and right, they were just anti-politicians in general.

“But we will do that, we will give them something they can rally round, something they can believe in, something they will follow.

You may remember, my father was in charge of the Fuhrer’s secret projects at the end of the war. Most of them were mad, flying saucers and the like, suggested by that fool Goering. But one of them, one of them, the Fuhrer’s passion, had potential. Had they just had more time, they would have unlocked its secrets and it would have hurled the allies back to the sea and the Urals. It was a source of the most unbelievable power, capable of levelling mountains and anmihilating armies. Used properly, it would have guaranteed the Thousand Year Reich.

It was lost at the end of the War, its guardian never made the flight they took, the flight to safety, and the Americans recaptured it. But we all know the Americans, so clever and yet so stupid” wry smiles amongst the audience. “They never knew what they had, and never tried to use it.”

“Well their loss is our gain. And gain we will. In a few weeks, I will reveal to the German people the true wunderwaffe of Adolf Hitler. And I will re-found the Thousand Year Reich.”

Another round of applause but more hesitant this time. They were confused.

One of them plucked up the courage to ask the question coursing through every head. “What is this thing? What have you found Ortwin?”

Ortwin nodded at Klaus who reached under the table and withdrew his briefcase. Clearing space among the plates, he placed it facing down the table. Flipping open the locks, he opened the silver case. Inside, resting on a layer of foam, lay the Lance, its black tip swathed in gold reflecting malevolently in the candlelight.

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