The Eye of the Abyss by Marshall Browne

congratulatory flourish filled the long-stemmed glasses. Helga had turned thirty-eight.
    He raised his glass. ‘Dearest! My warmest congratulations.You look more beautiful than ever.’
    She flashed him a smile, a look. He wondered if these days his compliments bored her; she never dwelt on them. They were totally sincere. Immediately she was serious. ‘Franz, a letter from mother. She must have an operation. Her gall bladder. I should be with her when she comes out of hospital.’ She spoke dates.
    â€˜Of course.’ He showed his concern; her mother was seventy. He was fond of her, and his sister-in-law As the only man in the family he felt a responsibility. ‘Will you take Trudi?’
    â€˜Yes. It will be the holidays.’
    He said, smiling, ‘You’ll miss the concert.’The bank’s concert had never been a star event even in their limited social calendar. Speaking of stars: his mother had mentioned that Frau Webber had said that Herr Hitler ‘was following his star’. She was an avid horoscopist. He told Helga.
    He found it strange that his pragmatic wife was also a believer. She reminded him that she was a Sagittarian, he
a Pisces.Where would his star take him?
    â€˜The Fuehrer is an Aries, I think, though on the cusp of Taurus,’ she said.
    He shrugged. How did she know this? He regretted raising that name. They ate Essigbratlein, the speciality of the house.
    â€˜Can Wagner survive?’
    He was startled. The question matched his own preoccupation. What was her idea of ‘survive’? He recovered himself. ‘He’s needed more than ever at the bank. A brilliant international man. I’ve warned him to watch his tongue.’ Schmidt spoke quietly. ‘He knows they’ve got watchers everywhere.’
    Tonight his suspicion had strengthened that something more was going on with Wagner than his loose mouth. Hadn’t he almost admitted it? They ate their dinner.
    Helga regarded him thoughtfully. ‘If he’d a wife and family he’d be more reliable.’ Her favourite hazelnut torte had been brought.
    â€˜Do you think so? He has his beer, his cigarettes, his housekeeper, his international trips — and Mozart. No lovelife, these days, that I know of.’
    â€˜Like all of you he has the bank.’
    Schmidt smiled slightly. He wouldn’t worry her with the dangerous turn in Wagner’s affairs. Nor would he confide his even deeper worry at the clearer peril of Fräulein Dressler. He gazed into the glinting, greenish-golden wine.What action could he take there, beyond his minor act of arson? He shook his shoulders.
    â€˜Be careful yourself, Franz.’
    That jolted him out of his momentary introspection. Helga with her sharp mind and her intuition was certainly watching him, worrying about his naive, romantic nature. As she saw it. She would never understand that he was super-alert,
was tuning in rapidly to the hazards of their times. Sharp as a trumpet call a resolution came: Helga, Trudi, his extended family, must never be put at risk.
    Into the silence in which so much was shared, so much not, he said, ‘I’m always careful.’The stooped waiter held Helga’s fur coat. It had been her thirty-sixth birthday present, the year he’d become chief auditor.
    He didn’t count the occasion a success, though she seemed happy enough, was humming to herself as they came upstairs to a side-street. Bitterly cold air and a dearth of light greeted them. Dried leaves skirled across the road, scraping like metal foil. Odours of sausage and sauerkraut wafted past their faces. They huddled into their coats.
    Kraang! Kraang! Their heads whipped around in unison. A column of Brownshirts was bearing down, sparks dancing under their iron-nailed boots. Raucous commands rang out. At the last moment the SA troopers swung out to pass the well-dressed blond couple. The leader saluted. They pounded on, roaring a