Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) Read Free Page B

the deadest of them all."
    Ernst laughed again.  "My, you are sharp, Karl.  That's why I wanted to talk to you.  You're very bright.  You're one of the few people in this room who will be able to appreciate my new entertainment."
    "Really?  And what is that?"
    "Inflation."
    Before Karl could ask what he meant, Ernst flagged down a passing waiter. 
    "The usual for me, Freddy, and–?"  He pointed to Karl, who ordered a schnapps.
    "Inflation? Never heard of it.  A new card game?"
    Ernst smiled. "No, no.  It's played with money."
    "Of course.  But how–”
    "It's played with real money in the real world.  It's quite entertaining.  I've been playing it since the New Year."
    Freddy soon delivered Karl's schnapps.  For Ernst he brought an empty stemmed glass, a sweaty carafe of chilled water, and a small bowl of sugar cubes.  Karl watched fascinated as Ernst pulled a silver flask from his breast pocket and unscrewed the top.  He poured three fingers of clear green liquid into the glass, then returned the flask to his coat.  Next he produced a slotted spoon, placed a sugar cube in its bowl, and held it over the glass.  Then he dribbled water from the carafe, letting it flow over the cube and into the glass to mix with the green liquid... which began to turn a pale yellow.
    "Absinthe!" Karl whispered. 
    "Quite.  I developed a taste for it before the War.  Too bad it's illegal now – although it's still easily come by."
    Now Karl knew why Ernst frequently reserved this out -of-the-way table.  Instinctively he glanced around, but no one was watching.
    Ernst sipped and smacked his lips.  "Ever tried any?"
    "No." 
    Karl had never had the opportunity.  And besides, he'd heard that it drove you mad.
    Ernst slid his glass across the table.  "Take a sip."
    Part of Karl urged him to say no, while another pushed his hand forward and wound his fingers around the stem of the glass.  He lifted it to his lips and took a tiny sip. 
    The bitterness rocked his head back and puckered his cheeks.
    "That's the wormwood," Ernst said, retrieving his glass.  "Takes some getting used to."
    Karl shuddered as he swallowed.  "How did that ever become a craze?"
    "For half a century, all across the continent, the cocktail hour was known as l'heure verte after this little concoction."  He sipped again, closed his eyes, savoring.  "At the proper time, in the proper place, it can be... revelatory."
    After a moment, he opened his eyes and motioned Karl closer.
    "Here.  Move over this way and sit by me.  I wish to show you something."
    Karl slid his chair around to where they both sat facing the crowded main room of the Romanisches. 
    Ernst waved his arm.  "Look at them, Karl.  The cream of the city's artists attended by their cachinating claques and coteries of epigones and acolytes, mixing with the city's lowlifes and lunatics.  Morphine addicts and vegetarians cheek by jowl with Bolsheviks and boulevardiers, arrivistes and anarchists, abortionists and anti-vivisectionists, directors and dilettantes, doyennes and demimondaines."
    Karl wondered how much time Ernst spent here sipping his absinthe and observing the scene.  And why.  He sounded like an entomologist studying a particularly interesting anthill.
    "Everyone wants to join the parade.  They operate under the self-induced delusion that they're in control: 'What happens in the Berlin arts today, the rest of the world copies next week.'  True enough, perhaps.  But this is the Masque of the Red Death, Karl.  Huge forces are at play around them, and they are certain to get crushed as the game unfolds.  Germany is falling apart – the impossible war reparations are suffocating us, the French and Belgians have been camped in the Ruhr Valley since January, the communists are trying to take over the north, the right wingers and monarchists practically own Bavaria, and the Reichsbank's answer to the economic problems is to print more money."
    "Is that bad?"
    "Of course.