The reischführer stood and Rahn followed.
Himmler was tall, with long legs and arms and a short body marked by a potbelly. Everything about him seemed immaturely made and awkward, as if the bones had grown faster than the muscles that supported them. Rahn imagined Himmler as a boy, being made fun of by his peers for running into desks and for tripping over carpets because he couldn’t see where he was going.
‘What is your next book?’ he said, breaking into Rahn’s thoughts.
‘I am writing about the siege of the Cathar castle at Montsegur, comparing that massacre with the crucifixion at Golgotha,’ he said.
Himmler went to the window. ‘Well, you must forget that. The Führer would like you to write two books, which you will produce over the space of two years. He is interested in the lineage of the Grail and how it is linked to the Aryan peoples. He is also impressed by your ideas on the Cathars and your knowledge of mythology.’ He turned around again to face Rahn with an impassive expression. Rahn sensed that the niceties were over. ‘You will receive a handsome advance and ample freedom to do what research you need. We might even send you back to France, or to the north, to Scandinavia. In a few days you will be given an office at headquarters and you will meet your superiors. Until then I would suggest you sort out your affairs and prepare yourself for the tasks ahead. In time you will be accepted into the SS, but for now you can consider yourself a provisional member. No need to thank me – I know what an honour it is.’ He looked about him, his eyes quite far away. ‘I sense you will accomplish great things, Otto Rahn. I trust you will not disappoint me.’ He looked at Rahn penetratingly for a moment before saying, ‘Heil Hitler!’
He walked out then, snapping his heels on the polished wood floor.
3
Calm Before the Storm
‘Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you.’ Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
It goes without saying that Rahn was agitated after that meeting with Himmler. To refuse the man’s offer had not been an option, so he decided to make the best of it, burying into the deep recesses of his mind the nagging doubt that he was walking into a trap. After all, there was something to be said for his move from the flea-ridden guesthouse to the Grand Hotel on Wilhelmstrasse, and he was able to use part of that large sum, left by Himmler with the desk clerk, to purchase a good black coat and a new pair of boots – he could now walk without undue concern for rocks and puddles. In fact, he didn’t know how much he had missed having doors opened for him, beds made for him, and dinners cooked for him! And to not have to wash out his shirt and socks one day, so that he could wear them the next day, was an exquisite luxury.
In the following days he threw himself into the multitude of tasks that began to crowd his new life. His boss was Brigadeführer Karl Maria Willigut, or Weisthor, as he liked to be called. Weisthor was a corpulent man who claimed to be descended from ancient German sages, a peculiarity that apparently afforded him a powerful ancestral clairvoyance. But right away Rahn could see that Weisthor was simply mad. Rahn was not surprised, therefore, to hear later that his superior had only recently come out of a mental asylum, something Himmler had not been told when he first met Weisthor at the Nordic Society in Detmold. At the time, Himmler had been so impressed by Weisthor’s outrageous claims, that he had immediately installed him at the SS headquarters in Berlin with the task of running the archives of the Principal Race and Population Bureau.
On his first day, Rahn was ushered into Weisthor’s cramped office to find the man behind a desk buried under papers, curios and statuettes. Every spare surface in his office was taken up with files and strange artefacts, and every available wall was either covered in shelves that sagged under the weight of so many dusty books, or wallpapered with an assortment of exotic maps.
When Weisthor’s pale eyes looked up, his face broke into a jovial smile. ‘Welcome! So this is Otto Rahn? Sit down, sit down, Otto! Well, well, you are a handsome fellow!’ he said. ‘Look at you! A German through and through!’
For his part, the man’s face was fat, his nose bulbous, and his greying hair, despite the short haircut, was not of the mind to be tamed, poking out of his head at odd angles like little radio antennas. His eyes, strangely askew and weighed down by bags of skin, stared with great intensity at Rahn who, on the other hand, tried not to stare at the crumbs that littered his superior’s uniform and short moustache.
‘Just having lunch, do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Good . . . good . . . I have a ravenous animal inside me that I must feed at regular intervals, or it becomes quite violent! So – you’re from Michelstadt?’ Those bushy brows were arched and waiting.