Prussia, was dithering and capitulating. Von Schiissler was keenly aware of the distinguished name he had to live up to.
Unfortunately, there were always those who would assume that he had gotten as far as he had by virtue of his name alone. Indeed, von Schussler often found himself gnashing his teeth over the way his talents went unrecognized. He wrote brilliant and beautifully composed memoranda, garlanded with allusions to Goethe, yet they only seemed to molder.
Still, one did not become Second Secretary in the German embassy in an important posting like Moscow without intelligence, skill, and talent. True, he owed his position to an old family friend, Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenberg, the German ambassador here, who was the doyen of the Moscow diplomatic corps. But for heaven's sake, the German Foreign Ministry was full of aristocrats look at the Foreign Minister himself, Joachim von Ribbentrop, or von Ribbentrop's second in-command, Ernst von Weiszacker, or Hans-Bernd von Haeften, or the last Foreign Minister, Freiherr Konstatin von Neurath ... and the list went on. Who else had as deep an appreciation of the greatness inherent in the German Volk the civilization that had given the world Beethoven and Wagner, Goethe and Schiller? The civilization that had given the world civilization itself?
Adolf Hitler hadn't had the privilege of a bloodline as great, but at least he had vision. There was something to be said for fresh blood. As tiresome and vainglorious as der Fuhrer could be, at least he had an appreciation of the greatness of the German people. And after all, for all its rhetoric about the masses, the Third Reich craved the legitimacy that could only be conferred upon it by such aristocrats as the von Schiisslers.
It was for that reason that von Schiissler spent every weekend in Kuntsevo writing his memoirs. His illustrious ancestor Ludwig von Schiissler had taken pains to write his memoirs, thus ensuring his place in history. Rudolph had read it five or six times, and he was sure that his memoirs would be far more important than those of his forebear. After all, the times he was living in were far more important, far more interesting.
Well, Moscow was tedious, truth be told, but there was glory in his posting to Moscow, he'd simply have to keep reminding himself. Soon enough, Germany would win the war this was inevitable: the only country remotely powerful enough to vanquish Germany was Russia, and Stalin was being meek and compliant and then von Schiissler could retire to his schloss with the glory of having served his government and ride his beloved Lippizaners in the beautiful German countryside.... He would finish, and polish, his memoirs, and they would be published to great acclaim.
And he would take with him his jewel, his Red Poppy, the one thing that brightened the gloom of Moscow. For that he would ever be grateful to another old friend, Dr. Hermann Behrends. Behrends he now went by the title SS Untersturmfuhrer der Reserve {Waffen-SS) and he had gone to school together, at the
University of Marburg. Both had received their doctorate of law degrees there, and both had practiced fencing together. Behrends, who was a far more avid fencer than von Schiissler, proudly bore his scars: deep slashes in his cheeks from the fencing swords. The two had taken different paths after university; while von Schiis-sler went on in the Foreign Service, Behrends had joined the SS. But they stayed in touch, and Behrends had taken him into his confidence just before von Schiissler had left Berlin. He had divulged, as one friend to another, a secret of which he had become aware. A secret he thought his old school chum might find useful.
Behrends had told him the secret of Mikhail Baranov, the Hero of the Russian Revolution.
And when von Schiissler had met the old man's daughter, shortly after arriving in Moscow, at a party at the German embassy ... Well, as the old German proverb had it, Den Gerechten hilft Gott. Good things happen to good people. Ancestry had proven decisive once again, and this time it wasn't just von Schiissler's bloodline that had proven decisive. It was the stunning ballerina's ancestry as well. The secret of her father. "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." How true, how true.
He hadn't blackmailed her no, no, that was the wrong way of looking at it. It was merely a way of establishing a connection, of ensuring her attention. He