Mila 18 - Leon Uris [193]
It was Funk who had put on the real show, reflecting Berlin’s panic over some obscure Jewish archives. Funk had backed down from Sauer, something he had never done before.
Funk bundled himself into a large towel robe and padded, still dripping, into the living room.
“You look tired, Alfred,” Horst said. “I have just the relaxation the doctor ordered.”
Funk’s orderly was all over him, trying to dry his master’s hair. He dismissed the man curtly and lit a cigarette and flopped into a big chair, stretched his legs and arms, opening the top of his robe enough to reveal the double streaks of lightning tattooed under his left armpit, the mark of an SS Elite.
“I’ve got a pair of Czech sisters just in from Prague. They come highly recommended. They’re not much to look at, but I understand they do fantastic contractions.”
“Good. I need a little sport.”
Funk left the room with a drink, leaving the bedroom door ajar so that they could speak.
In the beginning of their relationship, Funk had detested Horst von Epp. His cynical attitude, his snide mockery and obvious lack of sincere devotion to Nazi ideals and his constant barbs at the conferences irritated Funk no end. Then Horst began to grow on him.
Horst von Epp ran his office with enviable German efficiency. Moreover, he was the best officers’ pimp in Europe, and once one got used to his sense of humor it lost much of its offensiveness. Funk came to understand that Von Epp was actually berating himself most of the time through his jokes.
He liked Von Epp for another reason too. He was reluctant to admit it, but he liked to talk to Horst. Since he had joined the party in 1930 he was in a league of tight-lipped, humorless men who considered it dangerous to speak one’s inner thoughts or even admit to having them.
He had taken vows as harsh as those of a monk in one of those silent ecclesiastical orders.
After the first shocks of Von Epp’s curt observations of the Nazis subsided he found himself looking forward to coming to Warsaw. With Von Epp he could share thoughts, speak, fence verbally, confide frustrations. He could indulge himself in a way he dared not, even with his own wife and children.
Horst leaned against the doorframe while Funk primped himself to his blond Aryan best before the mirror.
“How is our defeat at Stalingrad being taken in Berlin? Graciously, I hope.”
Funk dropped the hairbrush and spun around angrily, then contained himself. “We will break through at Stalingrad.”
“That is what I was afraid of. You spoilsports will be too bullheaded to see the handwriting on the wall. And the crushing of our Afrika Korps in Tunis?”
Funk quickly spouted the line of Nazi logistics. The Russians would collapse soon. America was too weak-spined to fight a sustained war, give up her sons and her luxuries and make the sacrifices necessary for victory. England? Washed up.
“Oh, for Christ sake, Alfred,” Horst said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I wrote most of that nonsense after Dunkirk. Know what I’ve been doing lately? Soul-searching. Do you ever soul-search?”
“That is a dangerous avocation reserved exclusively for those whose advanced age makes them otherwise useless. I gave it up twelve years ago when I joined the party.”
Funk pulled up his suspender straps and assured his servant he was capable of buttoning his own tunic. Horst followed Funk back to the living room, where they settled down to await the arrival of the sisters from Prague.
“Why is Hitler suddenly concerned over a few Jewish writings? Is it guilt? Is there a realization that Germany will lose the war unless they break through to Stalingrad? Does Hitler liken these writings to the other book the Jews wrote which has tormented the conscience of man for two thousand years? Does he fear two millennia of a Jewish curse gnawing at the souls of unborn German generations, thwarting their growth? Is it a fear of divine retribution?”
“Nonsense,” Funk snapped. He was about to recite the Nazi line about the war