Mother Night

'Oh?' I said.

'The man you called Franklin Delano Rosenfeld,' said Wirtanen. 'He used to listen to you gleefully every night'

33: Communism Rears Its Head ...

The third time I met my Blue Fairy Godmother, and the last time, from all indications, was, as I have said, in a vacant shop across the street from the house of Jones, across the street from where Resi, George Kraft and I were hiding.

I took my time about going into that dark place, expecting, with reason, to find anything from an American Legion color guard to a platoon of Israeli paratroopers waiting to capture me inside.

I had a pistol with me, one of the Iron Guard's Lugers, chambered for twenty-two's. I had it not in my pocket but in the open, loaded and cocked, ready to go. I scouted the front of the shop without showing myself. The front was dark. And then I approached the back in short rushes, from cluster to cluster of garbage cans.

Anybody trying to jump me, to jump Howard W. Campbell, Jr., would have been filled with little holes, as though by a sewing machine. And I must say that I came to love the infantry, anybody's infantry, in that series of rushes and taking cover.

Man, I think, is an infantry animal.

There was a light in the back of the shop. I looked through a window and saw a scene of great serenity. Colonel Frank Wirtanen, my Blue Fairy Godmother, was sitting on a table again, waiting for me again.

He was an old, old man now, as sleek and hairless as Buddha.

I went in.

'I thought surely you would have retired by now,' I said.

'I did — ' he said, 'eight years ago. Built a house on a lake in Maine with an axe and my own two hands. I was called out of retirement as a specialist'

'In what?' I said.

'In you,' he said.

'Why the sudden interest in me?' I said.

'That's what I'm supposed to find out,' he said.

'No mystery why the Israelis would want me,' I said.

'1 agree,' he said. 'But there's a lot of mystery about why the Russians should think you were such a fat prize.'

'Russians?' I said. 'What Russians?'

'The girl, Resi Noth — and the old man, the painter, the one called George Kraft,' said Wirtanen. 'They're both communist agents. We've been watching the one who calls himself Kraft now since 1941. We made it easy for the girl to get into the country just to find out what she hoped to do.'

34: Alles Kaput ...

I sat wretchedly on a packing case. 'With a few well-chosen words,' I said, 'you've wiped me out. How much poorer I am in this minute than I was in the minute before'

'Friend, dream, and mistress — ' I said, 'alles kaput.'

'You've still got a friend,' said Wirtanen.

'What do you mean by that?' I said.

'He's like you,' said Wirtanen. 'He can be many things at once — all sincerely.' He smiled. 'It's a gift.'

'What was he pla

'He wanted to uproot you from this country, get you to another one, where you could be kidnaped with fewer international complications. He tipped off Jones as to where and who you were, got O'Hare and other patriots all stirred up about you again — all as part of a scheme to pull up your roots.'

'Mexico — that was the dream he gave me,' I said.

'I know,' said Wirtanen. 'There's a plane waiting for you in Mexico City right now. If you were to fly down there, you wouldn't spend more than two minutes on the ground. Off you'd go again, bound for Moscow in the latest jet, all expenses paid.'

'Dr. Jones is in on this, too?' I said.

'No,' said Wirtanen. 'He's got your best interests at heart. He's one of the few men you can trust'

'Why should they want me in Moscow?' I said. 'What do the Russians want with me — with such a moldy old piece of surplus from World War Two?'

'They want to exhibit you to the world as a prime example of the sort of Fascist war criminal this country shelters,' said Wirtanen. 'They also hope that you will confess to all sorts of collusion between Americans and Nazis at the start of the Nazi regime.'

'Why would I confess such a thing?' I said. 'What did they plan to threaten me with?'

'That's simple,' said Wirtanen. 'That's obvious.'

'Torture?' I said.

'Probably not,' said Wirtanen. 'Just death.'

'I don't fear it,' I said.

'Oh, it wouldn't be for you,' said Wirtanen.

'For whom, then?' I said.

'For the girl you love, for the girl who loves you — ' said Wirtanen. 'The death, in case you were uncooperative, would be for little Resi Noth.'

35: Forty Rubles Extra ...

'Her mission was to make me love her?' I said.

'Yes,' said Wirtanen.

'She did it very well — ' I said sadly, 'not that it was hard to do.'

'Sorry to have such news for you,' said Wirtanen.

'It clears up some mysteries — not that I wanted them cleared up,' I said. 'Do you know what she had in her suitcase?'

'Your collected works?' he said.

'You knew about that, too? To think they would go to such pains — to give her props like those! How did they know where to look for those manuscripts?'

'They weren't in Berlin. They were neatly stored in Moscow,' said Wirtanen.

'How did they get there?' I said.

'They were the main evidence in the trial of Stepan Bodovskov,' he said.

'Who?' I said.

'Stepan Bodovskov was a corporal, an interpreter, with the first Russian troops to enter Berlin,' said Wirtanen. 'He found the trunk containing your writings in a theater loft. He took the trunk for booty.'

'Some booty,' I said.

It turned out to be remarkably fine booty,' said Wirtanen. 'Bodovskov was fluent in German. He went through the contents of the trunk, and he decided that he had a trunkful of instant career.

'He started modestly, translating a few of your poems into Russian, and sending them off to a literary magazine. They were published and praised.

'Bodovskov next tried a play,' said Wirtanen.

'Which one?' I said.

'"The Goblet",' said Wirtanen. 'Bodovskov translated that into Russian, and he had himself a villa on the Black Sea practically before they'd taken the sandbags down from the windows of the Kremlin.'

'It was produced?' I said.

'Not only was it produced,' said Wirtanen, 'it continues to be produced all over Russia by both amateurs and professionals. "The Goblet" is the "Charley's Aunt" of contemporary Russian theater. You're more alive than you thought, Campbell.'

'My truth goes marching on,' I murmured.

'What?' said Wirtanen.

'I can't even tell you what the plot of "The Goblet" is,' I said.

So Wirtanen told it to me. 'A blindingly pure young maiden,' he said, 'guards the Holy Grail. She will surrender it only to a knight who is as pure as herself. Such a knight comes along, and is pure enough to win the Grail

'By wi

'It — it's as though Bodovskov really did write it — ' I said, 'as though I'm hearing it for the first time.'

'The knight and the girl — ' said Wirtanen, continuing the tale, 'they begin to have impure thoughts about each other, tending, involuntarily, to disqualify themselves from any association with the Grail. The heroine urges the hero to flee with the Grail, before he becomes unworthy of it. The hero vows to flee without the Grail, leaving the heroine worthy of continuing to guard it.

The hero makes their decision for them,' said Wirtanen, 'since they have both become impure in thought The Holy Grail disappears. And, stu