Читать книгу Golden Boy - Paula Astridge - Страница 12

CHAPTER FIVE

‘I didn’t get in!’ Albert spluttered as he threw the letter of rejection down on the kitchen table and slumped despondently back in his chair.

Margret put down the teapot and picked up the letter. She didn’t take long to scan it. A ‘no’ was a ‘no’, and had been said in one sentence.

‘Well, never mind. It’s not the end of the world. Something better will come up for you.’

Unlike her husband, whose temperament tended towards self-absorption and dejection, Margret was never one to be defeated and her resilient, matter-of-fact manner was just what he needed.

‘But not to get selected by Professor Polzig means that I’m second rate.’

‘Oh for Heaven’s sake, Albert, there are 40 students in your class. He only takes on three of them for personal tuition. The other 37 of you can’t all be duds. Be sensible now. You admire Rudy’s work, don’t you? Well he didn’t get in either. What are you worried about?’

Nothing, as it turned out, because the very next day both he and Wolters were accepted by a much better man and mentor who was to set the standard for Albert’s life. Polzig and his exclusive three seemed unimportant when the equally eminent Professor Heinrich Tessenow saw fit not to limit himself and his teaching to three, but to take on 20 aspiring young architects, Albert and Rudy among them. He was an exceptional man who had modelled his methods and motives on the teachings of Plato and had a devoted following of clever young men.

Quiet and unassuming, Professor Tessenow never lectured from the podium. Not wanting to distance himself from his students, he chose instead to sit at a small table with them all clustered around him, his gentle voice demanding that they huddle close. Some of them had to stand on chairs and lean over the heads of others to hear his whispered words of wisdom.

‘Simplicity’ was one of these words and Tessenow used it often. He was intent on drumming it into his students’ psyche without mercy. ‘Clean cut pure simplicity.’

Tessenow’s was an architectural concept which had Albert’s threefold approval. Firstly, because it appealed to the rather pretentious, Spartan side of his nature. Secondly, because it was in complete contrast to the flamboyant, fussy lines of his father’s work. And thirdly, because it was easier to draw!

Now that laziness was playing such a prominent part in the equation, Albert had resigned himself to the fact that he would never make a halfway decent draftsman. It was a lucky thing then that he had enough money to pay another student, more adept in the field, to do his basic drafting for him. To some people’s way of thinking that was cheating and would have been quite unacceptable had Tessenow not seen in Albert other more exceptional qualities that made up for it. Enough qualities to have him overlook Albert’s lack of promise with his pencil to offer him the plum posting as his graduate assistant.

‘Well, that’s set you up for life,’ Wolters said as he took a sip of his beer. Neither the beer nor Albert’s success over his own left a bitter taste in his mouth. It never crossed Wolters’ mind to be jealous. Where his friend was concerned, it was just par for the course. Albert was a winner and would always be that one step ahead of him.

Whether Albert agreed or even recognised this magnanimity of Wolters’ remained a mystery. Their talk rarely turned to the subject of Rudy and his wants. It revolved, instead, around Albert’s which always seemed more important. Right now, they were focused on his veneration of Professor Tessenow:

‘I worship the man,’ Albert said.

His sentiment was quite sincere. From the word ‘go’ he’d had nothing but the utmost respect for his tutor and would have done anything to get his approval. Tessenow’s ideas on architecture and his whole philosophy on life were made of the same stuff as Albert’s dreams.

‘Problem is, he always leaves me wanting more,’ Albert continued as he picked up the jug of beer from the tavern table and topped up his glass with a perfect, frothy white head. ‘You have no idea how frustrating it is trying to get through to a man like Tessenow, trying to drag out of him what you want so much to know. It’s as if he’s deliberately holding back just to tease you.’

Wolters’ lips lifted into a tight smile. ‘Oh, I think I can relate to that,’ he replied, not expecting Albert to take time out from his own deliberations to catch his meaning. In fact, sometimes he wondered whether his friend ever really listened to him at all. As it happened, this time he had.

‘Yes, you’re right I suppose. He’s a bit like me,’ Albert conceded, shrugging off this small truth with a laugh. ‘Oh well, that’s probably why Tessenow and I hit it off. But that’s not the whole of it. It’s more, much more. I’ve never been truly inspired by anyone before, but everything Tessenow says and does makes me want to reach higher, to do and be better. I tell you quite honestly Rudy; nothing means more to me than getting his respect. If I could just somehow learn to create architectural works that reflect the essence of what he’s trying to teach us, to harness that intrinsic purity he’s always on about, and somehow have it transmit itself into my life …’ Albert trailed off mid-sentence to dwell on this noble thought.

‘You know, when I work at his side, I can almost taste it,’ he began again.

‘Taste it?’

‘Don’t laugh,’ Albert went on to explain excitedly as he leaned a little further forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table, ‘… but it almost makes me feel like a good person.’

‘That’ll be the day!’ interjected their friend and fellow student, Robert Geis.

He and Willie Schelkes had flung the tavern door wide open just in time to catch Albert’s comment. Slapping Albert on the back, Geis dragged out a chair, screeching its cast iron legs across the timber floor.

It put Wolters’ teeth on edge, but then everything about Geis did. The man was loud and obnoxious. It was typical of him to barge into Albert’s and his private time, swelling the number around the table from a cosy, confidential two to a rowdy, impersonal four.

‘Bloody Jew!’ Wolters found himself thinking. It was something he was getting into the habit of doing now that he had been to a couple of Adolf Hitler’s Rallies. Funny that. He had never given the Jews a second thought until he listened to the man’s electrifying speeches, but now he found that he was thinking of them all the time and blaming them for all that was wrong with the world. In this instance, however, he had to ask himself whether it was this newfound indoctrination speaking or just plain old, green-eyed jealousy.

All Wolters knew was that he resented Geis. But who was he fooling? The man’s religious convictions were not the real problem, but merely the easy outlet for his true grievance. A convenient excuse to explain away his irritation over Albert’s obvious preference for the companionship of Geis.

Oh, it was easy enough for Wolters to see his appeal. Geis had a way of lighting up any room he walked into. Certainly Albert always cheered up when he was around. The man made him laugh, relax and what was more rare for Albert, turn his attention to someone other than himself. It seemed that it was only for Geis that Albert was prepared to do as much, even going so far as to show a genuine interest in his rabbinical studies at university.

It was an interest that was amusing coming from a confirmed old atheist like Albert. Yet, it was not the first time Wolters had noticed his friend’s soft spot for Jews. How often had he heard Albert recount with fondness his childhood memories of Josef Rosenthal from his father’s firm? How often had he then padded these tales with anecdotes of that one and only governess who had been so kind to him when he was young? French by name and nationality, Mademoiselle Blum had nonetheless been of Jewish descent.

Albert seemed unaware of this peculiar leaning of his, which was all the more reason for Wolters to insist that he come along with them tonight to hear Hitler speak. It was high time Albert got his priorities straight. It would do him the world of good.

‘Are you coming with us tonight Albert?’ Willie Schelkes pre-empted Wolters by asking, which was probably just as well because Albert was more likely to say ‘yes’ to him. Schelkes was a sort of protégé of Albert’s and owed his very presence at university to Albert, who had happened to walk into the admissions office the moment after Schelkes’ application to the Architectural Landscaping degree was knocked back.

Right from the start, Albert liked the look of him, even though that look was decidedly down in the mouth. Shelkes projected such dark disappointment that Albert did a double take. He was standing with his shoulders slumped and his hands in his pockets, with a shy, thoughtful expression silently crying out: ‘Help me. I’m lost’. It was a muted plea that won Albert over completely and instantly slotted Schelkes into the role of being the next needy candidate to be taken under his wing.

‘What’s wrong?’ he had asked as he put his armful of architectural plans down on the desk.

‘I’ve just been turned down by Tessenow. He said his course was full,’ Schelkes replied with a heavy sigh and slow shake of his head. ‘I’d have done anything to have studied under him.’

‘Where are you from?’ Albert questioned.

‘Freilburg.’

‘Well, I’m from Heidelberg. My name’s Speer — Albert Speer. I’m Tessenow’s assistant. Look here, we all have to help each other out. You hold on for a moment and I’ll see if I can get you in.’

And he did. Thus securing Willie Schelkes’ devotion for life.

He had done no such favour for Geis, but may as well have judging by the depth of liking and mutual admiration that existed between them.

‘Well, will you come?’ Schelkes now asked again.

‘No, count me out,’ Albert replied, relaxing back with his glass of beer. ‘You know how I feel about that type of nonsense. I hate it. I know nothing about your little Hitler fellow or his politics, nor do I have the slightest desire to find out. As far as I’m concerned, he’s nothing more than a neurotic rabble-rouser who’s just been released from prison, for Heaven’s sake!’

‘Yes,’ Schelkes confirmed. ‘And managed to write a bestselling book while he was there.’

‘Book?’ The word sparked a flicker of interest in Albert. A naïve, newfound interest that had Schelkes roll his eyes.

‘You’d have to be the only person on earth who doesn’t know about his book, Mein Kampf. Everybody, absolutely everybody’s read it. Everybody but you. The book’s just about caused a revolution.’

But here, Schelkes lost him again. Albert waved away his provocative words with contempt. ‘That’s exactly why you can leave me out of it. I refuse to get taken in like the rest of you gullible twerps, by some self-styled, trouble-making fanatic.’

Schelkes, however, was not about to give up:

‘You promised,’ he said. ‘When you wriggled out of going to the rally last time, Albert, you promised me that you’d come to the next. I didn’t think you were the sort of man to go back on your word.’

‘Oh Willie, spare me. What do you want me to do, hold your hand?’

‘No, I want you to come and hear the greatest orator of our time.’

Albert gave a short, patronising laugh. His quiet, shy friend Willie was all eagerness and excitement, suddenly bold with the prospect of adventure.

‘Oh what the hell …’Albert thought.

If it meant so much to Willie, he supposed he should tag along to the dreary old rally. He had nothing better to do anyway, now that Margret had joined that local drama society of hers and was off to one of their interminable Friday night meetings.

So he turned to Wolters and asked: ‘Is this man Hitler worth the effort?’

And Wolters nodded: ‘Willie’s right. You should come. I can guarantee you won’t be bored.’

It always flattered Wolters when Albert deferred to him like this, implying that his opinion was the best and final authority. Having taken that opinion on board, Albert slapped his hands on his knees, stood up and said: ‘All right, come on then. But I’m warning you, I’m only staying for a few minutes.’ As an afterthought, he turned to Geis: ‘Rob, are you coming?’

It was one of those rare moments when Robert Geis had little to say. All that was loud and colourful about him changed to grim grey as he looked up at Albert and shook his head.

‘It’s not for me, I’m afraid. I don’t much like what the man has to say or the fact that there are so many people willing to listen to it.’

Albert was disappointed. He didn’t like leaving his friend behind to sit and drink alone. Nor did he particularly fancy the prospect of sitting through the boring political bash without Geis’ sarcastic input. Well there went his entertainment for the evening. He had been counting on his friend’s pithy little remarks to get him through. Well someone had to share the joke at his other friends’ expense, for taking this Adolf Hitler’s radical carry-on so seriously. He could not believe that a group of supposedly educated men could be so easily hoodwinked. But then, Albert was a cynic by nature. Nothing surprised him anymore … except the man himself when he walked on stage.

Hitler was not rigged out in uniform, as Albert expected, but moved unassumingly to the centre of the platform, dressed in a conservative, navy blue suit. When he opened his mouth to speak, his words were quiet and dignified. Not aimed at addressing a hysterical rabble, but rather an exceptionally composed audience, among whom were some of the most highly educated and celebrated professors in the city. Many of them had chosen to show their support by joining him on stage. Sitting in a semi-circle of chairs behind him, this selection of the scholastic elite made for a formidable backdrop.

There was no maniacal hype, no threats, no sedition or slander, nothing contentious whatsoever in what Hitler had to say. Quite the contrary. He was all positiveness, all enthusiasm and pride in his country’s future, providing that much needed infusion of hope that his audience was craving.

‘So what do you think now?’ Schelkes asked, nudging Albert.

‘Shhh’ he responded rudely, — for the first time in his life forgetting his manners.

He didn’t care. Not when he was straining to hear every last word Hitler was saying. Not when he was being held transfixed by the man who was to change his life forever. And if Hitler’s speech was not enough to sway him completely, then the brutal actions of the police that followed it were. As far as Albert was concerned, there was no excuse for what happened next.

The morning newspapers read:

‘20 CRUSHED TO DEATH 150 CRITICALLY INJURED!

… the mounted police had no choice but to subdue the rioting mob at the Rally, using force to bring it under control.’

Rioting mob? What rubbish! It was nothing more than a dangerous beat up by the press to explain why so many innocent people had been slaughtered by so-called upstanding officers of the law.

Whistles had blown and sirens had sounded, giving the unsuspecting audience only a split second’s warning before they were set upon by that band of uniformed thugs. Rampaging their way on horseback through the milling crowds, they had lashed out indiscriminately with their weapons and bludgeoned their victims to death. In the stark terror and confusion, Albert had quickly lost sight of his companions. He was jostled, pushed and pulled by the panic-stricken crowd as they ran helter-skelter to escape the carnage. There had been no way out with a 50-strong contingent of mounted police thundering their way through the confused, confined space, their startled horses wheeling, bucking and shying in the hot, savage chaos.

Twice, Albert was knocked to the ground — the second time finding himself on hands and knees coming perilously close to being trampled to death. Had he not grabbed hold of a passer-by’s leg he would not have been able to haul himself back up onto his feet. Dazed and disorientated, Albert was then not physically or emotionally prepared to stand and watch as a woman fell screaming to her death. Right before his eyes, she was thrown, pinned and trampled into the ground under the weight of a huge black stallion. She never had a chance to get out from underneath it. The frenzied beast, with its wide, wild eyes and flaring nostrils reared and screeched as it landed its flailing hooves on her unprotected head and chest, pummelling her face to an unrecognisable, bloody pulp within seconds.

Before Albert could think or move, it was too late. She was dead. Thus, it was surely only masculine impulse that had him run to stand over her shattered body to protect it from further harm. Thrusting the full weight of his body hard up against the stallion’s flank in a futile attempt to push the animal away, he could feel the heat of sweating horseflesh against his chest and the stench of its frantic, foul breath in his face.

‘Move your damned horse!’ he yelled up at its rider, having to step back to avoid the spur on the heel of that helmeted policeman’s black leather boot. Three times he kicked out at Albert, twice finding his mark. The left side of Albert’s face was black, blue and bleeding in evidence. Through the mad cacophony of noise around him, his voice was lost, its angry, frantic cadence rebounding only to drum in his own ears. The sound of which was the last thing he heard before that truncheon came down with a hard crack on his skull.

Stumbling, he reeled but did not fall. In a state of glassy-eyed, body-numbing shock he lurched forward with his arms outstretched for balance as if he were a blind man feeling his way through the dark, his ears deafened but ringing in the piercing, penetrating silence. He could see, but not hear the crowd as it flew feverishly around him like a macabre expressionist painting. A living, breathing, nightmarish montage of frantic faces zooming in and out of frame – their mouths gaping wide open in voiceless screams. In their unrestrained terror some of them reached out desperately to him for help.

But he did not — could not stop to save them, when he had to save himself. He had to escape his own very close and present danger. It was a matter of survival, his primitive instinct having him brush all else aside to secure his own. A desperate single-minded selfishness that somehow helped him grope his way, at last, to safety. There he collapsed down on a filthy street gutter, like the town drunk, throwing up before burying his spinning head in his hands.

It was only then that he saw the blood trickling down between his fingers. He hadn’t realised that the blow to his brow had actually broken the skin! This alarming thought had him tentatively reach up to touch the deep gash at his temple. It was warm, wet, pulsating, and frightening.

‘Hell!’ he said out loud.

So now he had blood in his eye, a thin red river of it running down to colour his world a murky pink and then drip onto his cheek. Quickly, he rifled through his right jacket pocket and then his left, in search of the handkerchief Margret had insisted he take. For the first time glad that she had won the argument he’d put up, on a daily basis, to leave it behind. Pressing its white, cotton fabric to his forehead gave him a measure of reassurance. A few, deep restorative breaths and slowly he came to his senses. Not only, thank God, hearing and seeing quite clearly again, but focusing back on the here and now. Understanding that by accident and assault he had stumbled on the truth and the direction his life was to take.

Yes, it was a pretty devastating way for it to happen, but for Albert that was the way it had to be, something big and shocking enough to shake him out of his snug, smug existence. To bring reality crashing down around him like the policeman’s brutal blow to his head.

This was life, real and raw. A savage departure from his safe little world in which he had been reserved a privileged corner. For the first time in his now seemingly cosseted, meaningless life, he had been stripped of individuality. He’d had no say, no power, and no magic deflective shield that his father’s money and entrepreneurial clout afforded him. In the blink of an eye he had been demoted to an insignificant face in the crowd, one of a herd of mindless sheep being mustered to the slaughter.

No one cared who he was. No one cared that he was rich, clever and earmarked for success. When push came to shove, no one gave a damn whether he lived or died. Out of the blue, his very existence on this earth became an arbitrary decision made by the powers-that-be, which meant that they had to go.

To that end, he could no longer afford the luxury of apathy, of sitting back with a cynical lack of personal involvement, claiming elitist exemption from the rest of the world’s upheavals and horrors. Whether he liked it or not this night had involved him, quite literally up to his eyeballs. Fate had plucked him from his seat on the sanctimonious sidelines and forced him to deal with this physically terrifying, hands-on confrontation.

It was hard to come to grips with it; to believe that civilised men were actually capable of such random, wholesale violence. Contrary to newspaper reports the following day, the crowd had been completely couth and under control. There was no disturbance of the peace, no flouting of the rules. That was until the implementers of those rules descended upon them, intent on their murder and destruction.

That was that, as far as Albert was concerned. No government that condoned such indiscriminate inhumanity had the right to rule a country that considered itself a democracy. In its name Hitler had merely been practising what had proved to be the country’s selective freedom of speech, one that was up for abuse when adherents to a new political faction threatened to uproot the establishment.

‘Well, uproot away,’ Albert thought with conviction as he got to his feet. ‘For all the man’s faults, and much as I hate to admit it, this Adolf Hitler has got it right and promised better.’

Yes, it was a case of choosing the lesser of two evils, but from this night forward, for better or worse, Albert’s choice was made. Hitler had his unerring support.