[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
concentration he needed to follow German at all. After a moment he resumed,
They are swearing at a black-bearded man, asking why he flagged them down.
Page 41
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Why would anyone flag down German sol Nehru began, then stopped in abrupt
dismay.
The fellow who had burst into their hiding-place wore a bushy black beard. We
had better get out of Again Nehru broke off in midsentence, this time
because the oxcart driver was throwing off the coverings that concealed his
two passengers.
Nehru started to get to his feet so he could try to scramble out and run. Too
late a rifle barrel that looked wide as a tunnel was shoved in his face as a
German came dashing up to the. cart.
The big curved magazine said the gun was one of the automatic assault rifles
that had wreaked such havoc among the British infantry. A burst would turn a
man into bloody hash. Nehru sank back in despair.
Gandhi, less spry than his friend, had only sat up in the bottom of the cart.
Good day, gentlemen, he said to the Germans peering down at him. His tone
took no notice of their weapons.
Down. The word was in such gutturally accented Hindi that Gandhi hardly
understood it, but the accompanying gesture with a rifle was unmistakable.
Face a mask of misery, Nehru got out of the cart. A German helped Gandhi
descend.
Danke, he said. The soldier nodded gruffly. He pointed the barrel of his
rifle toward the armored personnel carrier.
My rupees! the black-bearded man shouted.
Nehru turned on him, so quickly he almost got shot for it. Your thirty pieces
of silver, you mean, he cried.
Ah, a British education, Gandhi murmured. No one was listening to him.
My rupees, the man repeated. He did not understand Nehru; so often, Gandhi
thought sadly, that was at the root of everything.
You ll get them, promised the sergeant leading the German squad. Gandhi
wondered if he was telling the truth. Probably so, he decided. The British had
had centuries to build a network of
Indian clients. Here but a matter of months, the Germans would need all they
could find.
In. The soldier with a few words of Hindi nodded to the back of the armored
personnel carrier. Up close, the vehicle took on a war-battered individuality
its kind had lacked when they were just big, intimidating shapes rumbling down
the highway. It was bullet-scarred and patched in a couple of places, with
sheets of steel crudely welded on.
Inside, the jagged lips of the bullet holes had been hammered down so they did
not gouge a man s back. The carrier smelled of leather, sweat, tobacco,
smokeless powder, and exhaust fumes. It was crowded, all the more so with the
two Indians added to its usual contingent. The motor s roar when it started up
challenged even Gandhi s equanimity.
Not, he thought with uncharacteristic bitterness, that that equanimity had
done him much good.
They are here, sir, Lasch told Model, then, at the field marshal s blank
look amplified:
Gandhi and Nehru.
Model s eyebrow came down toward his monocle. I won t bother with Nehru. Now
that we have him, take him out and give him a noodle army slang for a bullet
in the back of the neck but don t waste my time over him. Gandhi, now, is
interesting. Fetch him in.
Yes, sir, the major sighed. Model smiled. Lasch did not find Gandhi
interesting. Lasch would never carry a field marshal s baton, not if he lived
to be ninety.
Model waved away the soldiers who escorted Gandhi into his office. Either of
them could have broken the little Indian like a stick. Have a care, Gandhi
said. If I am the desperate criminal bandit you have styled me, I may
Page 42
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
overpower you and escape.
If you do, you will have earned it, Model retorted. Sit, if you care to.
Thank you. Gandhi sat. They took Jawaharlal away. Why have you summoned me
instead?
To talk for a while, before you join him. Model saw that Gandhi knew what he
meant, and that the old man remained unafraid. Not that that would change
anything, Model thought, although he respected his opponent s courage the more
for his keeping it in the last extremity.
I will talk, in the hope of persuading you to have mercy on my people. For
myself I ask nothing.
Model shrugged. I was as merciful as the circumstances of war allowed, until
you began your campaign against us. Since then, I have done what I needed to
restore order. When it returns, I may be milder again.
You seem a decent man, Gandhi said, puzzlement in his voice. How can you so
callously massacre people who have done you no harm?
I never would have, had you not urged them to folly.
Seeking freedom is not folly.
It is when you cannot gain it and you cannot. Already your people are losing
their stomach for what do you call it? Passive resistance? A silly notion. A
passive resister simply ends up dead, with no chance to hit back at his foe.
That hit a nerve, Model thought. Gandhi s voice was less detached as he
answered, Satyagraha strikes the oppressor s soul, not his body. You must be
without honor or conscience, to fail to feel your victims anguish.
Nettled in turn, the field marshal snapped, I have honor. I follow the oath
of obedience I
swore with the army to the Führer and through him to the Reich. I need
consider nothing past that.
Now Gandhi s calm was gone. But he is a madman! What has he done to the Jews
of
Europe?
Removed them, Model said matter-of-factly; Einsatzgruppe B had followed Army
Group
Central to Moscow and beyond. They were capitalists or Bolsheviks, and either
way enemies of the Reich. When an enemy falls into a man s hands, what else is
there to do but destroy him, lest he revive to turn the tables one day?
Gandhi had buried his face in his hands. Without looking at Model, he said,
Make him a friend.
Even the British knew better than that, or they would not have held India as
long as they did, the field marshal snorted. They must have begun to forget,
though, or your movement would have got what it deserves long ago. You first
made the mistake of confusing us with them long ago, by the way. He touched a
fat dossier on his desk.
When was that? Gandhi asked indifferently. The man was beaten now, Model
thought with a touch of pride: he had succeeded where a generation of
degenerate, decadent Englishmen had failed. Of course, the field marshal told
himself, he had beaten the British too.
He opened the dossier, riffled through it. Here we are, he said, nodding in
satisfaction. It was after Kristallnacht, eh, in 1938, when you urged the
German Jews to play at the same game of passive resistance you were using
here. Had they been fools enough to try it, we would have thanked you, you
know: it would have let us bag the enemies of the Reich all the more easily.
Yes, I made a mistake, Gandhi said. Now he was looking at the field marshal,
looking at him with such fierceness that for a moment Model thought he would
attack him despite advanced age and effete philosophy. But Gandhi only
continued sorrowfully, I made the mistake of thinking I faced a regime ruled
by conscience, one that could at the very least be shamed into doing that
which is right.
Model refused to be baited. We do what is right for our Volk, for our Reich.
Page 43
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]