Famous Last Words (21 page)

tight for fear its fingers would be crushed and the music in them destroyed. But what my father had wanted was to have her and to hold her all the rest of his life. And after the refusal to be joined—the leap into space and the fallen mind… .So this was all I could see as I stood there watching the King and Wallis take their vows.

In the garden, after, there were pictures taken—some official; most just snapshots. “Do stand over there!” “Do smile!”

And Wallis going away to change and the sound of barking little dogs and the champagne glasses smashing against the wall. Waiting for Wallis—now the Duchess of Windsor—to

return, we all dispersed into private places, no one wanting to be forced into confrontations and comments—everyone feeling emptied, somehow. At which point I went in along some corridor, noting that Bedaux ducked inside a room at my approach, disdainful, perhaps, of having to thank me for making his moment of glory possible. And then I saw another man—way off—towards the end of whatever corridor it was in which I walked—and this other man appeared to be a

retainer, perhaps. A quiet, lingering figure, not quite certain of what might be expected of him next.

He was hovering there at the farthest end of the corridor and all the light was beyond him in the garden. Near him there was a marble stand with a porcelain vase and the vase was filled with peonies and pale blue delphinium. The retainer’s hand went out toward the flowers. It was so tentative.

this gesture—like a child who’s been told not to touch. Then he did. And sighed. I just kept walking on towards him, though he failed to notice I was there. I was making for the garden, pausing to remark how beautiful “his flowers were.”

But they were not his flowers. The “retainer” was the

Duke of Windsor, and all his lights had dimmed so far I could not even see his face till I was near him. He did not see me at all. He was too engrossed in waiting and in not being there.

I went out—shocked.

I had not even felt the impulse, in passing, to bow. And I thought—he has already leapt.

Or jumped.

Promoted and arranged by Charles Eugene Bedaux, the

Windsor Tour of Germany took place in mid-October, 1937.

It was a thunderous success.

They were accompanied everywhere they went by Doctor

Robert Ley who was Head of the Naxi Labour Front (as

boorish and crude a man as any Wallis had ever met. She did not at all enjoy his company).

147

They were shown through vast industrial plants and every kind of factory from steelworks to the Meissen Porcelain Works. They were driven through the streets of the working class districts in every city they visited, showing themselves to the people—and to the international press—riding in an open Mercedes touring car. Thousands saw them in the flesh and the Duke returned the uproar of the crowds with the Fascist salute. The mayors of all the cities bade them welcome.

Little children curtsied to “Her Royal Highness”, gave

her flowers and marvelled at her beauty. After all these triumphs, they were finally introduced to Goring, Hess and Hitler—in that order.

Hess stayed” much in evidence all through the latter meeting, though for an hour the Duke and Hitler were alone. Hess remained with the Duchess during this hour in an antechamber and, later, she remarked that she had found him

“handsome—charming—most persuasive and a courtly

gentleman… .”

The Duke’s reaction to the tour was well summed up in

the words he spoke to a meeting of the National Labour Front in Leipzig. “I have travelled the world,” he told them, speaking in German; “and my whole upbringing has made me

familiar with the great achievements of mankind. But that which I have seen in Germany, 1 had hitherto believed to be impossible. It cannot be grasped and is a miracle. One can only begin to understand it when one realizes that behind it all is one man and one will.”

He meant, of course, Hitler—for the Duke in no way knew of the other forces at work around him.

Sitting on the dais beside him. Wallis looked down at her hands and smiled.

Quinn left the room and closed the door behind him.

Someone had been busy rigging lamplight along the corridor and down the stairs. He noted the picket, seated now

and dozing on a broken chair. Rudecki was nowhere in

sight.

Quinn was not eager to find Captain Frevberg but knew

he must. The German Tour and all it implied had been quite an alarming read. Not that it was news the event had taken place. But the implications in 1937 had only to do with Hitler; only to do with the grave miscalculation of wha^lhe Duke had done in allowing himself to be used. But now it was clear that a force more potent than the fleeting Naxi forces of that moment had been involved in using him—and though it was clear both Bedaux and von Ribbentrop had

pulled the strings for whatever that potent force had been—

and was—someone, too, was pulling Iheir strings. And the reach of the cabal was becoming truly alarming—precisely because its edges could not be seen.

There was one good thing, however, over which Lieutenant Quinn could relax. Mauberley’s only role had been to

play the messenger. And for that Quinn was grateful.

If Freyberg could be kept from his damned speculations, and made to read the walls as they were, all might still be well.

Or would it?

There. You see? Quinn thought. For every hope I raise.

another crashes down to the floor. Still. It was his job to assess what was there and to pass that assessment on to Freyberg. And nothing in the rule book said his assessment could not be his own.

He kicked through the snow drifts covering the carpet. A light was burning in the room where Mauberley’s corpse

still lay in its corner and Freyberg was sitting there on a windowsill.

Quinn went up to the threshold only.

“Maybe you’d better come and have a look at what I’ve

read so far,” he said.

“Oh?” said Freyberg. “Any more cats on roofs?”

“No sir.”

“You seem depressed,” said Freyberg. smiling. “Isn’t your hero turning out to be the whiled saint you thought he was?”

Quinn was trying not to see the body and therefore not

149

to enter the room. But he wondered what it was that Freyberg was doing in there all alone, unless he was simply gloating.

“I never said Hugh Selwyn Mauberley was a saint, Captain Freyberg. and he never pretended he was a saint. No one ever said he was a saint except you. The thing is. sir, I think you’re missing the point of this entirely.”

“Which is?”

“Well, sir, from what I’ve read so far, he hasn’t lied.”

“So?”

“Well it seems to me that your whole premise has been

that what I would find would be a pack of lies. But when you read it, sir, I think you might just change your mind.”

“The point of this exercise, Quinn, is to change your

mind—not mine. Yes: I will read what you’ve just read. But I won’t be fooled by it. Not the way it appears you have been fooled.”

Quinn stood back to let Freyberg pass into the hall and Freyberg said; “no. Before I go, I want you to come in here.”

“I’d reallv rather not, sir.”

“Come in, Quinn; that’s an order.”

Quinn went in. Freyberg stood behind him and turned

him, holding him by the arm, so that he could not look away from Mauberley’s body lying in its corner. “Now listen,”

said Freyberg; “look at him and listen.”

Quinn looked down at the twisted arm and tried not to

see the face. And Freyberg said; “he walked with Mussolini.

He sat down with von Ribbentrop. He befriended a gang of murderers. He wrote Fascist garbage: anti-Semitic, pro-Aryan; anti-human, pro-Superman garbage. He even won prizes

for it. Prizes, Quinn. Peace prizes… .”

Quinn was looking at Mauberley’s hand.

Freyberg said; “so you see, it’s you I’m concerned about.

You—and the millions like you, Quinn—who cannot wait

to forgive. And forget.”

Freyberg let go of Quinn’s arm and stepped away from

him.

Finally, Quinn turned around and went again to the door.

He felt ill. Freyberg was watching him.

“He’s beginning to smell, isn’t he,” the Captain said.

150

Quinn looked down at the floor.

“Well,” said Freyberg; “there’s something you can do

while I’m busy reading. I want some men up here to cover him with snow. Exactly as he is, not a muscle moved.”

“In snow, sir?”

“Yes.” Freyberg pointed out the windows. “There’s a lot of snow out there—in case you’ve been so busy reading

you’ve forgotten we’re in the mountains here. They can bring it up in buckets or in bags. Just see he’s buried.”

Quinn said; “but—that’s grotesque.”

Freyberg said; “yes. It is. isn’t it.” And he went into the hall. “Nonetheless, that’s what I want. Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Freyberg went off down the corridor beneath the bags of chandeliers alone. Quinn had assumed he was meant to go with him.

“Captain?” he called.

Freyberg already had his hand on the doorknob to the first room.

“Yes?”

“You remember what he wrote about mythology, sir, at

Dubrovnik.”

“Yes?”

“It’s just…Mythology can have two meanings, that’s all.

I mean…1 mean—The Jlidd, The Odyssey…1 mean…there was a Trojan War. The Trojan War did happen.”

Freyberg opened the door.

“I know that, Quinn. It’s not the Trojan War I don’t believe in…it’s the Trojan Horse-shit.”

Quinn looked into the room.

There was a smell. It was true.

He went downstairs to arrange for the snow.

Quinn had put Sergeant Rudecki in charge of covering Mauberiey’s body with snow and once the job was done, the

Sergeant went into Annie Oakley’s bar to get drunk.

“Tell me the honest truth, Sarge. eh?” said Annie Oakley.

151

“You ever hear of him? Before, I mean….”

“You kidding?” said Rudecki. “An’ you call yourself a

movie nut? You never seen Bette Davis in Stone Dogs?”

“You mean where she plays the piano in the looney bin?”

“Yeah. Her son locks her up in the god damn asylum when all she ever wanted was to play Rachmaninov’s Second

Piano Concerto… .”

“And Claude Rains acts her husband and she pushes him

off the Brooklyn Bridge…”

“No. The George Washington Bridge…”

“That’s right.”

“And he deserved it, too. Son of a bitch. Everyone’s always so mean to her.” Rudecki got out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

“What did I do,” Annie suddenly sang, “to make you treat me this way?”

“Poor Bette Davis. Oh…” Sergeant Rudecki had to dab at his eyes.

“So what’s the guy with the stick in his eye got to do with it?” Annie asked.

“He wrote it, dumbass. Don’t you pay attention? He wrote the god damn thing.”

“The movie?”

“The book. The book. God—and that poor woman. All she

ever wanted was to play Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto.

…”

So it went. And Annie sang, “…what did I do, that I should be so blue…?” ^

When Quinn finally came back upstairs, he had been fed.

The Hotel Elysium still had no heat but it was warmer than it had been, just from the human activity humming all around him. Freyberg’s section of clerks was uncrating files

and tables and even a safe. Everything you could think of, Quinn thought, except a sign for Freyberg’s desk reading PRESIDENT.

The detail of men working under Sergeant Rudecki had

brought up forty cartons of snow and dumped them over

Mauberley’s corpse—whose elbow could still be seen: but that was all. And the smell had lessened.

Walking along the corridor, Quinn heard the faintest whisper of music. Freyberg must be playing the gramophone.

Damn. It would have been nice just to go to bed and not to have to face another confrontation with the Captain until the morning.

Standing outside the door, adjusting his scarf and the

collar of his greatcoat, Quinn realized his hands were shaking.

Quinn had never seen a person reach so far for vengeance as Freyberg was reaching here in this hotel. It was almost as if he wanted Mauberley to pay for everything the Nazis had done and it made Quinn shiver when he remembered

the look in Freyberg’s eyes as he’d said he wanted Mauberley covered with snow. Surely that had to be crazy.

He opened the door.

Captain Freyberg was staring out the window and the music on the gramophone was Schubert. Obviously, Freyberg did not hear the Lieutenant enter, so Quinn was able

to watch him for a moment. He had never seen the captain look so relaxed and for the briefest moment he thought it must be someone else who was standing there.

“Sir?”

But Freyberg did not hear him.

Finally, Quinn went over and lifted the needle off the

record.

Freyberg turned—white as a man who has just been shot

at.

“Why did you take it off?” he said.

“I couldn’t make you hear me,” said Quinn. “And I was

afraid I might…” He did not know how to finish.

“Startle me?” said Freyberg.

“Yes sir.”

Freyberg moved away from the windows and sat on the

cot. Quinn did not like this. He reallv did want to be alone.

He decided to put the record back in its blue paper jacket and maybe then the captain would take the hint.

“I don’t even know what music that was,” said Frevberg.

“Schubert.”

153

“Schubert, yes; but what?”

“A piano sonata, sir,” said Quinn, putting the record back very carefully on the surface of the desk. “In B-flat major.

Opus posthumous.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” Freyberg said, “to have a mind like yours? To know and remember things like that. Then when you want that music you know where to find it.”

“Yes sir.”

“I suppose you know a lot about music?”

“Not really, sir. This particular sonata is rather well known.”