Unfinished novel 'For All Eternity'

นวนิยายภาษาอังกฤษเรื่องนี้เกี่ยวกับคนไทยที่ใช้ชีวิตในเยอรมันช่วงพรรคนาซีเรืองอำนาจ  เขียนยังไม่จบและยังไม่มีการ proofreading แต่ประการใด 

 

                   Chapter 1 

 

             Opernplatz , Berlin , Germany 

                     10  May 1933

                                   

It was probably 8.34 or 9.02 p.m. , Thitiwat Thanakornchai was not so sure about it , as the atmosphere around him was not totally cavernous, but horrendous. The only light ,before him and his colleagues, was from the gigantic bonfire like they were the primitive tribe, relishing the warmth from it in their cozy cave at night. But at this moment , they could feel their bodies pitifully cringing with terrors ,while the bonfire was like a boa devouring its preys which were the books they had long worshipped as their talismans. 

 

More tragically , the persons ,who were feeding the preys to that ferocious beast, were the university students who used to attend Thitiwat's lectures with humility and politeness. Now aside from throwing those books into the bonfire , they were fanatically chanting slogans , screeching or doing whatever their wild hearts desired, in this orgy of ' terminating decadent books of the Third Reich'. Their abrupt transformations from timidity to the act of demonic possession were presumed to be caused by the fact they had just been the members of Deutsche Studentenschaft (German Student Union) - the lackey of Nazi party.

 

In recent years , those students had been imbibed by Fascism and the idea of sacred Germans-ness as Ubermensch (superman) , the superior race. Those poor books had been plundered from book stores and libraries and brought straight by them and SA * to inferno, as they were accused of defiling that German-ness -in other words- against the ideology of Nazis .Moreover , their authors were merely Jews , Anarchists, leftists , liberals or whoever the Nazis have loathed in their bones.

 

Thitiwat and his colleagues in this minute discerned that the reason they had been invited  (or actually coerced) to witness such an utter frenzy was that the party's anti-intellectual stance. They would rejoice to see the fearful university lecturers banging their heads against a brick wall by piteously recanting the fervent beliefs in liberalism and demorcacy.

 

One SA officers  , who took part in supervising the students, walked towards the humiliated and flustered lecturers . His body was so towering that Thitiwat feel like his own head was slightly taller than his waist. His gesture was extraordinarily calm and friendly ,like the predator who camouflaged himself before striking his preys. He smiled and lit a cigarette before proffering others to them , but no one wanted to smear their lips and lungs with the Nazi's nicotine. 

 

Albeit the darkness , the SA guy noticed Thitiwat and asked.

 

"You are not German. Where are you from ? China or Samoa Islands ? "

 

Thitiwat smiled wryly.

 

"No , I am Thai ,  my homeland is Siam **." He feel relieved that he didn't say 'he was Siamese' for the reason that his muddled German language might make it sound at the end like 'Jewish'.

 

Another SA officer, who was almost as tall as the first, ambled to join his comrade and learnt about this embarrassing ice breaking. He yelled out, 

 

"Ha , I know this country. My nanny sometimes used to read about it before my bedtime. It beautifully resembles a faraway kingdom in a fairy tale -extremely exotic and sweltering .Perhaps we might spend our lifetimes journeying to there . Hey , Professor , the rest of your people live in jungle and raise elephants as their vehicles , right ?"

 

Both of SA officers snickered in a way that made them the perfect Aryan villains. Thitiwat really wanted to punch those sons of a bitch in the faces , but it was certain that his fist would never reach them. Apart from being brutally beaten, he would definitely land on the newly built concentration camp.

 

However , they were suddenly interrupted by Dr.Heinrich , the head of History Department.

 

"For Christ's sake ! Stop harassing my crew. Why the hell do you want us to be here? We are wasting our time for witnessing such vulgar display of your hubris which is wreaking havoc on our civilization."

 

Barely would the bald and chubby professor finish his audacious question , another guy , whom Thtiwat thanked god as he was almost as tall as him, suddenly swaggered towards here. He received the Nazi salutes by the previous two. Then he was treated with the acts that looked like military officers in spite of the fact that they were paramilitary. There had been a brouhaha among Thitiwat's colleagues, followed by the whispers that he was Ernst Roehm, the leader of SA. 

 

The brawny man, with moustache below the visible permanent scar on his face ,evoked the fierce image of gangster leader in Hollywood's films of this decade. Accompanied by a herd of his SA hoodlums , Roehm was notorious for his incredibly assorted use of violence and became one of the most intimidating figures in this fledgling Third Reich.

 

" All of you seem to know nothing ,even our country is on the verge of returning to be the great power again by our great leader and us , the SA as the vanguard of national socialist revolution. You have probably brainwashed our youths for a long time. The unrepentant liberals like you have preached them to be disloyal and insubordinate to our 'Vaterlaend' [fatherland] .You indeed should be sent to concentration camps or into the bonfire like the books of your favorite writers. But we still give you a chance to teach the authentic German values to our children. "

 

Roehm was talking gibberish but trying to conceal it under a veneer of self-aggrandizement. The tough guy, who had collaborated with Hitler in Beer Hall Putsch a decade ago ,pointed his plump finger to the youngsters who began to sing the song that glorified the Nazi party and Hitler.

 

" Watch these ! Now they are the Hitler's youths not yours. They will keep an eye on your lectures and report us whether you conform to the ideology of the Third Reich. If not , you are going to regret for the rest of your lives. By the way , the president of your university was already summoned to the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and Culture. He would certainly pass the order and new curriculum to all of you in no time."

 

Thitiwat wondered, from then on , if the quirky fate had compelled him to opine via lecture in classroom that Herr Chancellor [Hitler] was actually the Machiavellian who used any ruse to obtain his power ,would he have been thrown into the bonfire like 'Civilization and Its Discontents' of Sigmund Freud or 'Siddartha' of Hermann Hesse ? If so , how was Germany still praised for being a bedrock of world civilization and the birthplace of Goethe or Beethoven , when it was descending into such a naked and unbearable barbarity ?

 

Thitiwat hope that if his blunders happened by any chance , the Siamese embassy would scramble to bail him out.But he did not know either whether it was the possible mission, as since March - the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which consented to Hitler’s dictatorship .Thus even ridiculing Hitler a bit was some kind of blasphemy. This country used to impress him tremendously when it had been the so-called liberal Weimar Republic. But the Nazis increasingly engulfed everything he felt familiar with. Life in this land was getting creepier and creepier. 

 

Thitiwat suddenly think of Siam.

 

 

 

*Sturmabteilung , the paramilitary of Nazi party

 

**Siam was changed to Thailand in 1939 during the era of Field Marshall Plaek Phibulsonggarm

 

 

 

                                       

                       Chapter 2

 

"When you think of Siam , what's on your mind first , Thitiwat ?"

 

Sofia nudged him when she noticed that he began to be absent-minded.

 

  "Ah ............" Thitiwat's thought was wandering around somewhere else , but he still roughly grasped what the person nearby was trying to say.

            

 " I have spent more than half of my life abroad especially here. I am sorry that my memory about anything in my homeland was quite sketchy , " stuttered he.

 

It was so comical that when Thitiwat was among the male colleagues , he would enjoy the lively chatters between them. But when he was among the ladies , he would feel incredibly bashful and often blushed ,as a longtime bachelor like him.

 

This morning was still the remnant of last night's nightmare. The lecturers also had to endure the summons from the university's administration to learn about how to conform to the ideology of the Third Reich , in other words , how to survive from the Nazi's savagery. Cult of personality for Herr Hitler was anticipated for annexation in every course taught in universities nationwide. Unbelievable that such a narrative became compulsory in the do it -or-die style in the education of the country once inhabited by the renowned philosophers like Kant or Hegel.

 

Thus today became their de facto holiday as all the lecturers had to bitterly spend time adjusting their styles of teaching with their tails between their legs .More importantly,  all the fanatic students had intended to skip their classes to join other activities of the Nazis.However, their peers ,who had thought Hitler was just the deranged clown, also skipped class in order not to make themselves too conspicuous.

 

It was 10.15 a.m. Thitiwat found himself being not so ensconced in a tea shop with several of his female colleagues , who last night had stood cringing beside him. Their conversation seemed initially frivolous , but somehow perilous when someone mocked Roehm ,their tormentor, as the pervert or the sadist henchman of Hitler. So, their friends subtly changed it to be the far- from- Gestapo * topic like the gossip about the fifth divorce of their German heartthrob , travels in Switzerland or South Africa ,and then regrettably ,Thitiwat's life.

 

Martha asked him cheerfully.

 

 "Thitiwat , we have been colleagues for a long ... long time, but we hardly know about your life. I used to watch the news reel about your country ; it was not exactly like that SA thug was prattling. So, this is a good time that I would learn it from the native like you. Please reminisce about it."

 

" All right , it is a tiny country with no more than 20 million population. If you really want to know where in the world it is , just think about China and we are somewhere beneath her."

 

Martha chuckled. " I know that , but I just heard that last year [1932] there was  .......... , how would I call, coup d'etat that overthrew the monarchy in your country ? "

 

Thitiwat said,

 

 " Yes , the group of civilians and military officers conspired to change the regime from the absolute monarchy to be the limited Monarchy. Perhaps we might call this the revolution or some sort , but I'd better not to label it ,since it must take time to prove that that group is actually leading our country to equality and prosperity like their propaganda.  By the way , the group's leader ** , the senior soldier, graduated from here. He was in the same class as Hermann Goering [another henchman of Hitler]."  

 

"Wunderbar !  Why on earth are both of our countries running in the opposite ways ?  Yours : towards democracy and ours : towards  oligarchy ruled by the gang of psychopaths," whined Elisabeth.

 

Sofia  quickly hushed her friend up.

           

"Shush ........ watch your mouth , you  idiot ! Remind yourself that Gestapo has just been established last month by Goering. Don't you know how they have interrogated the suspects as the Nazi's dissidents ? Look at you ,  just one big slap at your face , you will pee yourself to death." 

 

The silence of tea shop was broken by the nervous laughter, though there was no one else around them even the waitress.

 

Martha turned to Thitiwat.

 

"What about your parents ?"

 

"Tragically , my mother passed away long time ago. My father was a higher-up in the king's government. When the coup ,or whatever you want to call , was spectacularly staged in the middle of last year , he was immediately suspended from his dignified post. Within a month, he resigned. Whether it was from his own will or not , I don't know."

 

" Ach so! , you must have harbored the resentment against those coup promoters , mustn't you ?" Muttered Elizabeth.

 

"No , not at all. Even though I am not sure about them , if I have been there last year , I would have certainly joined them without a flinch." Thitiwat beamed.

 

Everybody grimaced a little with surprise.

 

"We are talking with the revolutionary mind here , aha. Don't you think of your father or going back to Siam ? You seem not to go back there for the ages. " Sofia was curious.

 

No sooner had Thitiwat answered that than a sound from piano lingered at the rear of coffee shop. The girls around his table seemed to be nonchalant. When the (not so) young man excused himself , they went on another hilarious topic and giggled.

 

It was the song he probably heard from somewhere or perhaps his another life. It was melodious with its own style that sounded stately like both Mozart and Brahms' piano sonata combining. But it surpassed them by conveying the melancholy deep inside. Thitiwat felt like it was the enticement that had lured him to walk towards its source. 

 

Along the way , he had indulged in the shop's interior wall painted in the color of apple green which evoked the serenity of nature. It was also decorated by the painting of famous painters like Gustav Klimt and Claude Monet whose colorful  'landscape on the ile saint martin' contrasted with the wall. Their elegances were facing the challenge from a large embroidery which was affixed to the wall near a door with black cherry color. It had an image knitted with Chinese pattern that looked like the ancient palace. The pendulum clock above the backdoor seemed to greet him with solemnity.

 

The piano was almost in the middle of the small garden which was embellished by the white flowers , and especially the violet flowers that Thitiwat assumed was Cornflower. The little red flowering vines beautifully crept along the wall and its window.

 

The piano player was quick to notice his presence.

 

 

* secret police of the Nazi party

 

** Phaya Phahol , the leader of Kanarasadorn , or the People's Party

 

 

 

                                

                                       Chapter 3

 

She stopped playing and looked a bit bewildered.

 

"Sorry , is my playing disturbing you or something?"

 

"No , on the contrary , it is beautiful enough to attract me to take liberties of stepping in your secret tryst ."

 

Thitiwat replied and tried to make his smile look as cordial as he could.

 

The young woman's round eyes opened wider to show her pleasantness. She promptly rose from the stool chair , letting her long and sleek blond hair magnificently unravel. He was impressed  that she was extraordinarily tall, but quite skinny , that one might describe that she was lanky. But it didn't blemish her majesty at all.

 

She smiled and nodded  - one of the most polite German woman Thitiwat had ever met.

 

"I hope you and your friend will enjoy our shop ,even though it has just been open for only a month. Perhaps our employees are not properly trained or not satisfactory. Please feel free to give your opinions."

 

She said with modesty as a shop owner, and he could feel it was authentic.

 

"The vibe of your shop was marvelous and peaceful. The decoration shows that the one designing it has an exceptional taste. Although the waitress might be elusive sometimes ,  it helps the customers enjoy some privacy. I have never found the place like this in Berlin..... By the way, what is the name of the song you just played?" 

 

The young man then was surprised to find that all his timidity before woman had vanished . Perhaps he found her too attractive to humiliate himself by acting clumsily as usual ,or she could likely have a divinity that was soothing him.

 

The young woman nodded again with thankfulness.

 

"Thank you ..... For the song , it doesn't have name yet ,as I just completed it yesterday. And I presume it is unnecessary to name it , because I am willing to play only for myself any way , Professor Thitiwat."

 

The young man was utterly flabbergasted.

 

"How do you know my name?"

 

She waved her hand and rushed to grab a book from the shelf that was not far from the garden. Its title was 'The Brief Asian History in Early 20th Century'.

 

"I believe you are its author , right ? "

 

Thitiwat smiled meekly.

 

"Yes , please acknowledge my gratitude that you are probably 1 in only 100 persons who have bought my books. Their sale has been lamentably dull for a long time. If they were flowers , they perhaps were withering or dead right now after bitterly cursing their author.  "

 

She didn't laugh at his lame joke and flicked through the book.

 

"What a pity ! I read it a few weeks ago, and it was packed with information and thought -provoking. It was unputdownable that sometimes I had spent almost all night reading it. Please sign your autograph here." 

 

"Who would you like me to sign for ? " The young man snatched the fountain pen from his pocket inside the overcoat and felt amused that his right hand was a little shaking.

 

"Marian Borrmann, that's my name." She beamed and fixed her eyes on him for a long time. He could feel that even though those blue eyes were bewitching, some melancholy was lurking inside them , just like her song."

 

"I am so thrilled to meet the author of the book which has been my charming companion for weeks. Please let me pay you back."

 

Marian said and put down the book received from him.She then walked to the piano which also looked imposing like her. Her another song began in vibrancy and then changed its mood to be grave within a minute. Thitiwat felt that its ravishing body was gradually penetrating his ears , his brain and his imagination. There emerged on his mind the picture of a little boy riding bicycle on the vast greenery field  , and a girl of about his age was also riding in tow. The big brown dog was running after them and barking with jollity. 

 

He knew those were him in his childhood and the girl ?  Yes , his older sister. Miraculously ,  through her song , he was beholding the torrent of many other things : the garden with the small wooden pavilion in the vicinity of his old house , the warmish smile of young woman - that was his mother tenderly kissing and holding him . It looked like she was whispering something to him , but sadly it was unintelligible. Behind her was the rays of sunlight that went through the leafy branches in the afternoon. The young man saw several birds on the trees , but he couldn't hear them chirping.

 

Thitiwat now found that his long forgotten memories of childhood in Siam were partly revived by her song , despite its obscurity. Suddenly when he looked at her sweet but solemn face while passionately pressing the piano keyboard , he thought Marian was so mystic  ; perhaps she was an angel or a celestial being, sent from above to rescue him. The young man felt his eyes moist with a few drops of tear. He nodded to her and muttered ."

 

 " Thank you , thank you very much."

 

 

 

                   Chapter 4

 

"I guess you have been held spellbound by Fraulein * Borrmann's charms , is that utterly correct ?"

 

Elizabeth said and grinned with mischief. Thitiwat flinched at the feistiness of her voice , so he pretended not to hear her. Now they were in the middle of wading through the papers for the conference of their department ,as its employees were being on strike. They then just felt bored and paused amidst the large pile of rubbish documents for the hurly-burly which yielded much less than the time they had wasted.

 

"Don't plead no guilty of your misdemeanor. I know that day I had intended to call you for our departure , but I heard your conversation and that bizarre music , so I backed off. Don't jitter , Thitiwat, as our fellows who have visited that tea shop and met her, would always feel like they are being intoxicated by her beauty." 

 

"Is that so ? We had a little chatter, and she just played the sublime music for me, because she had enjoyed reading my book," Thitiwat contradicted , trying to calm down his tone.

 

Gunter -another colleague who was sitting with catapult pose- broke into their conversation. 

 

"Thitiwat , you are so incredible. My friends had relentlessly pursued Fraulein Borrmann. But they finally found their devotion became the waste of time ,when they received just her cryptic and lukewarm smiles."

 

Elizabeth giggled and stared at Gunter.

 

" That includes you , Gunter ? I hardly believe that you the great womanizer wouldn't use your coquettish smile to flirt with her. Um Himmels willen ! **, don't you guys ever know that Fraulein Borrmann is the daughter of General Gerhold Borrmann , the erstwhile subordinate of Paul von Hindenburg [the current president of Germany] during the Great War ? Now he is widely respected as a living legend , even by Hitler."

 

Thitiwat looked through the window and saw the huge Swastika flag that had just been hung on the façade of the building, belonging to the office of his university's president. 

 

Unreasonably, he flushed when thinking about the smile of Marian. 

 

Gunter frowned and lowered his tone.

 

" That's the new information I have never known , ugh .... I and Oliver had for long taken for granted that her surname accidentally shared with that illustrious general's. She was very self-effacing."

 

Thitiwat closed his eyes briefly and asked Elizabeth.

 

"What is her occupation  ? I mean her job or something, because her family must be so prestigious ,and she can just keep idle for the rest of her perfect life  "

 

"I am not certain. Perhaps she is a kind of writer or the amateur pianist for a symphony orchestra , somewhere in the west. She is actually reserved and taciturn , although some malicious gossip is that she puts on airs."

 

Thitiwat roared and he was startled to find such an outburst from himself.

 

"No !..... She was so humble. I thought she might be too introverted , that's all ."

 

Elizabeth and Gunter looked at each other and snickered.

 

"Now we are stumbling on another victim of broken heart tragedy written by Fraulein Borrmann. Please stop your conjecture that you are in the same league as her , Thitiwat."

 

Elizabeth was warning him to resign himself to the ultimate truth.

 

"Elzibeth , you are assuming too much. I am just impressed with her , that doesn't mean I fall for her."

 

"Really ? " She smirked. 

 

" I am a good lie detector.Why are you blinking rapidly ? Don't try to conceal your desire. I know it.......Hey , both of you , bear in your filthy minds that Fraulein Borrmann has already been engaged to a handsome young lieutenant. He is currently serving in the elite team of German Army. Apart from being the most brilliant mind in the cadet school - top grade in class ,he has a Greek god-like demeanor and about 190 centimeters in height. And his fiancée's height is roughly 180 centimeters."

 

She kept talking with smiling face and raised her hand horizontally in the direction of Thitiwat's head as a gesture of comparison.

 

" Whereas yours , so deplorably, is only 170 centimeters or less. Believe me , I am also a reliable measuring instrument which precisely gauges everything. By the way, My friend told me she had crashed some party for the elites last month. She saw both of them there along with General Borrmann. In their dazzling evening dresses , Fraulein and her fiancé were statuesque like a couple from heaven - the limelight of the party."

 

Martha, who had been working quietly on other corner , interrupted her with agitation. 

 

"Fraulein know-them-all , you are even shorter than Thitiwat ! I know your height is only 167 centimeters. You guys , hasten your job right now, before Professor Heinrich would chew your heads off within 10 minutes. Remind him that the most important issue in this conference is when we will put 'Mein Kempf' *** in our newly revised curriculum. If he resists like the previous time , this means we might get some notice from the administration."

 

It was an irony from Thitiwat's quirky fate .Whilst the young man felt alienated with the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of German politics , he at last found consolation and euphoria from someone in this atmosphere too. However , as a non-Aryan foreigner with dark skin and only 171 centimeters in height (Elizabeth was wrong), he found 'someone' such a far distant from him -someone ,who was Aryan aristocrat with white skin and her grandeur seemingly towered above everything he had.

 

Every now and then , Thitiwat had visited that tea shop , the shop of tranquility , with the feeling of zealotry , just to meet Marian or Fraulein Borrmann again. If he wasn't too intoxicated by her blue eyes , he would muster his courage to ask why her music could help him to regain some lost memories. Dejectedly , the young man could not find her at all ,and her employee told him that she had been scheduled to be out of town for weeks for the performances of her piano concert. So, he just sat on the chair in the garden by himself , watching the grand piano and being preoccupied with her shadow. He caressed the piano as he thought it might help him to literally touch her music which kept resounding on his mind for weeks. And he felt like it became an essential part of his life now.

 

Thitiwat reconciled himself to some fact.Though he would become the 4th or 5th victim of Marian's aloofness , if he tacitly revealed his true feeling for her in the coming days , he didn't care.

 

Nonetheless , there was a puzzle on his befuddled mind by now : how she knew who he was because there was not even a single shot of his picture in that history book. There were perhaps a million answers for this puzzle on his mind ,while he was deep in a slumber, besides the sweet dreams of her face.   

 

 

* Miss

 

** For heaven's sake

 

*** The notorious autobiography book of Hitler

 

 

 

                               Chapter 5

 

" Hey , Look at you ! "  blurted Thitiwat out with delight.

 

An Asian man, who was almost in the same age as him, had just barged in his private office. Even though that man was quite whiter than him , Thitiwat presumed ,in the eyes of Aryan tribe , they probably were the same - Untermensch or subhuman  , like the Jews.

 

"Take a seat ,  Narongrit  !  A week ago , I heard you just moved from the embassy in Paris to here. Sorry that I had been laden with tons of work , so I could not join the welcome party for you." 

 

Thtitwat said with smiling face and put down the fountain pen on papers. Narongrit threw himself on the chair with exhaustion.The short and rotund man had frequently been using handkerchief to wipe off the sweats from his cheek and arms in this sweltering day in Berlin.

 

"That's all right. I am also busy arranging the transportations of all my possession to here. This also includes 1 nagging wife and 3 wailing headstrong children. What a burden ! I often curse myself for choosing the career of diplomat. I presumed It was an honorable career and a gateway to see the world. But it was sometimes like all hell breaking loose,"  Narongrit fumed.

 

" C' mon , let me buy you a coffee or tea. Not far from here , there is one lovely tea shop." Thitiwat then thought about Marian again.

 

" Not yet. I prefer to drink a thousand bottles of fancy whiskey with you and our other friends and get drunk all year , only If I am completely unfettered."

 

Narongrit said and sneezed before using the same handkerchief to wipe his nose.

 

"Look at us , old pal. You and me are both alike, the wandering spirit who never set his foot on his own homeland for almost decades."

 

Thitiwat murmured with lamentation  , leaning on his revolving chair's backrest with catapult pose.

 

" C'est la vie [that's life] , Monsieur." Narongrit beamed. "If you feel depressed about living in a foreign soil, welcome to Siam , and you will straight away return to the country you had just fled."

 

" How come ? " Thitiwat raised his eyebrows.

 

"This is the reason why I come here , Thitiwat. Have you learnt the news of Khana Ratsadon's recent coup yet ? "

 

"No , I have not kept abreast of the news from Siam at all. I have been immersing myself in readjusting my teaching to the history course that the university's administration ,or the flunky of the Nazi's party, will approve of." Thtitwat used his finger to tab on the desk.

 

" Aha , Germany might be an exception. It is becoming more perilous now with the rise of the far-right. I wonder whether in the future Siam would be reaching the same destiny as her. " 

 

Narongrit paused for a while and went on.

 

 "Don't you know, Phraya Manopakorn Nititada , the first prime minister of Siam Khana Ratsadon had relied on , just turned out to be the tyrant who had longed for the return of absolute Monarchy. He used a decree to suspend some sections of constitution and halt the parliament's activities."

 

" Really ? I met him once in England. I can't believe a savvy aristocrat like him would be so dictatorial." Thitiwat was puzzled a bit.

 

"Look can be deceiving , my friend. Politics is such an odd creature. Even if you are the saint , when you blend in the politics , you will finally be evil while still thinking you are preserving your saintly pureness." 

 

" Genius remark  ,and what happened then ? " drawled Thitiwat to tease his friend.

 

" Phraya Phahon , the leader of Khana Ratsadon became aware that their revolution would turn to be at last futile , hence another coup.Phraya Mano was banished to Penang , probably would die there eventually,"  droned Narongrit , although the situation he was explaining was very tense.

 

"Now Khana Ratsadon is increasingly paranoid ; they believe there are still the networks of royalist which are lurking somewhere , hell -bent on dismantling the legacies of their revolution. Many senior government officers' names have been put on the list , and , in all likelihood, purged like your father , " The young fat man said and took liberties with the candies from Thitiwat's desk.

 

" I have a foreboding that more ferocious storms are advancing on their ways , correct ? "Thitiwat stood up and leaned on the edge of window.

 

"That's correct , Thitiwat. There might be more coup d'etats that could escalate into civil war. And Siam would turn to be a failed state. Or at least , some members of Khana Ratsadon could become dictatorial like Phraya Mano , or even more, on the pretext of protecting the government's stability."

 

Narongrit finished his apocalypse and then revealed the his ulterior aim.

 

"The problem is the officers in every Siamese embassy worldwide , including me , have been ordered to keep an eye on the Thai expatriates in any countries. Anyone can be suspicious of harboring the counter-revolution attitudes or regularly in contact with the so-called royalists. Fate doesn't smile at you, Thitiwat. Your name is the first on the list in Europe , thanks to your family background." 

 

Thitiwat roared with laughter.

 

"Thank you for being straightforward with me. I am bored to death with the intimidations from that darn Nazis ,and then I find the same thing from the government of my homeland. "

 

" I know you always support Khana Ratsadon , but they still distrust you anyway. You used to tell me that you always wanted to return to Siam , didn't you ? If you do that , you will be far more in trouble than staying here." Narongrit then looked at the view outside ; he whistled when seeing the Nazi flags along the street

 

"It is none of my concern , perhaps I just want to leave for visiting my family briefly before moving on to the other country like Canada or Australia. But this will happen only Germany finally becomes the full-blown authoritarian state,"

 

Thitiwat said but then thought he himself was bullshitting .

 

"Good for you. But if you want to settle down in Siam , I have some brilliant solutions to help you.By the way, I have to leave now as millions of travails at embassy are eagerly awaiting me. Keep in touch and so long! " 

 

Narongrit smiled and shook hands with his longtime friend.

 

After escorting his friend out of the building , Thitiwat finally started walking on the way to teach some course at another building. The weather might be unusually hot , but at least he could relish a gentle breeze that had shaken the branches of pine trees along his paths. Although it was a day with strong sunlight, there were still the scattering thick clouds. They reminded him of his childhood that he dreamt with his sister that there was a mystic kingdom amidst those fluffy cottons and it would be their eternal sanctuary. Funny that the 34 - year -old man like him at present secretly had longed for that place as the world was seemingly descending into the colossal bedlam.

 

 

                       Chapter 6

 

Later , Thitiwat came across the reason why his university had been installing the Nazi flags along the streets, and he thought it was the unashamed act of sycophancy. A bulletin board in the building he entered was covered by some colorful posters ,informing about the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , as everyone called in awe , Dr. Joseph Goebbels. He was scheduled to deliver the speech in the main hall of university next Tuesday. 

 

Dr. Goebbels , the most cultured man in the Nazi' party, was unarguably the most important and devoted underling of Hitler who was the dropout of secondary school. Goebbels had played a crucial role in propelling the party to the power by his talent of literature in a form of propaganda that had brainwashed the German people to hate Jews and love Hitler to smithereens. Thitiwat was amused that both he and Goebbels were almost the same age , but the latter was upstart and now in the highest echelon of power in this country. 

 

However , Herr Reichminister's appearance was far from the ideal type of Aryan. He was quite ugly with sunken cheeks and comical form of skull. Apart from a diminutive figure , Goebbels also had a deformity of the right foot. That was why he was the notorious womanizer ,even though he had already got married , just to compensate for this.

 

Thitiwat learnt that he and his colleagues missed the chance of meeting Goebbels in that night of book burning. As they had been allowed to leave the orgy site before Goebbels arrived and made the speech that had boosted morale and delusion simultaneously for the SA and the hard-line students. But it was ironic that the cringing lecturers would cross paths with Goebbels at last , as the university administration had urged them to listen to his incitement of fanatic patriotism and antisemitism. It might be under a veneer of an invitation , but no one could ensure that the malingerer would be safe afterwards.

 

Today in his class , the students were unusually enthusiastic as a topic was about the country they had seldom or never heard in their entire lives : Siam during the formation of absolute monarchism, that was the era of King Chulalongkorn.  The students ,as the Hitler youth, were boisterous as they probably reminisced about the night the SA bullied the lecturers. And they also thought they had the upper hand in the class. But when Thitiwat urged them to be silent, they followed this ; perhaps they were fond of him and eager to learn more about 'this extremely exotic and sweltering country'. The lecture room with dozens of students thus turned to be quiet as usual. 

 

By the time their lecturer talked about the threat of England and France to Siam in the manner of colonialism , some chauvinistic student promptly raised his hand. He expressed his opinion that Siam fell prey to the colonialism  ,similar to Germany which had been oppressed by the Treaty of Versailles after the Great War. Only the gallant knight like Herr Hitler would salvage this country and return it to the zenith of power like the glorious past.He also poignantly attacked that the voracious Jewish capitalists had secretly masterminded the governments of both France and England, including the United States of America. Thus all the Jews should be eliminated from this earth.Thitiwat thought this idea was from the speech of Goebbels that night (as he read from newspaper) .Herr Reichminister had already arrived here ,even without his actual presence.

 

However another female student who he thought was Jew ,or at least had the Jewish ancestors, loudly protested by saying that this was the conspiracy theory that had not been proved yet. The dark-haired girl was about to say something more , but she painfully kept her mouth shut. She flushed and clenched her fist as she was barely able to control her anger. Still , Thitiwat guessed that she wanted to passionately say something like ' That is the blatant lie of the Nazis who have exploited the antisemitism' or ' Hitler and Goebbels are just the dunderheads who can not think of other creative policies else to draw supports from the German people.' and so forth. But she was wise enough to know If she had dared to utter so  , it meant she would have been able to live for only another 1 or 2  peaceful days , before several Gestapo agents would have visited her house, and the rest was history. 

 

The bickering became more tense when many other students turned to support both of disputants. Some stood up and yelled , and some jabbered and pretended not to hear anyone. Thitiwat decided to immediately end it by using the cliche like ' This is a matter of opinion ' (which sounded deceitful for them, because they thought only their opinions were true anyway). 

 

The young man finally managed to move to another chapter seamlessly. Although a few students , who believed they were the sons of Hitler, had from time to time furtively attempted to attack Jews and Zionism *, the majority of them turned to keep mum.Thitiwat presumed that many non -Jewish students were sympathetic toward the Jews but wanted to stay out of the trouble with the repressive authority as well. 

 

Thitiwat also thought a load of students in this room might have been disappointed at him, considering that he didn't favor either of their sides ,especially the presumably Jewish girl who became bored to death with the redundant virulent rantings of the the Nazi leadership. Or the cantankerous Hitler Youth might report his reactions to the subordinate of Ernst Roehm - he didn't care.

 

The class was dismissed .Thitiwat sat at his desk , sulking  and using hands to massage both of his temples while closing his eyes. He hoped the utter silence in this room would also help heal his headache from the political maelstroms surrounding him.

 

All of a sudden he felt someone was standing before him.

 

 

* Zionism is a religious and political effort that brought thousands of Jews from around the world back to their ancient homeland in the Middle East and reestablished Israel as the central location for Jewish identity. (history.com)

 

 

 

                                       Chapter 7

 

The person who was mysteriously appearing before his blurry eyes was Fraulein Borrmann. Thitiwat looked at her in a daze. Just the faint and mystic smile glinting across her face seemingly helped all headache he was enduring to vanish into thin air.

 

"Fancy meeting here, Fraulein Borrmann." Thitiwat was dumbfounded  , but he could still carve out the words. The young man immediately rose up to his feet.

 

"Please call me Marian, Professor. Aren't you inquisitive how I knew who you were on the very first day we personally met ?

 

Beamed Marian. Her long blond hair was neatly collected behind her neck. She hid her shapely body inside the magnificent grey blazer suit and skirt. He noticed the large brooch of some kind of bird affixed to one of her collars.

 

"This is the most challenging mystery I have ever met in my entire life. It would lead to my overwhelming gratitude , if you just help me solve it.

 

Thitiwat smiled coyly and briskly packed all his things in the bags. Both of them began to walk together out of the forlorn lecture room. They were slowly stepping down the stairs without asking about the destination of each other. Thitiwat thought it would be marvelous to walk with her towards the rim of the world. However, he felt it was peculiar to accompany the woman who was taller than him.

 

" I had attended your class several times before you visited my shop - so sorry for not asking for permission. Please also don't blame yourself for oversight , because I have a gift of being invisible or at least blending well with your students," she said, perhaps in the smoothest voice he'd ever heard. 

 

" I really want to praise you for this  ,as I always check over all my students in this classroom. And I am astounded to have ignored you who must have been the most notable and beautiful woman among the audience. Fraulein Borrmann .... Marian ,are you from heaven or somewhere otherworldly ?" He said quietly and it sounded like a murmur.

 

Marian blushed and chuckled." No , You are flattering me. I am just a silly and clumsy girl that you could find in the next door. By the way, Just now I felt sorry for you that there were the uncontrollable dissensions among your irascible students. But I think you were impartial and extremely heedful of not escalating it."

 

Thitiwat nodded and said,

 

"How could I do anything as I am just a dark-skinned foreigner, and maybe I am a little better than that Jewish girl ? The current political tensions in this country are quickly exacerbated that almost no person would be able to stay neutral. All the lecturers here feel increasingly awkward to teach the class replete with the hard-liners of ...."

 

Thitiwat then refrained himself from criticizing the Nazis, because her father might be Hitler's acquaintance.

 

Marian said gently ," But you still made it. I thought most of your lectures ,especially Siam and China, are breathtaking. I actually want to travel there , if I have a chance. My late maternal grandfather once was a missionary working in Beijing. He miraculously survived the massacre by the Boxer Rebellion*."

 

Thitiwat was reminded of the embroidery at her shop and realized it was the shadow of her wanderlust. Suddenly the preposterous idea of luring her to elope with him to Siam descended on and made him blush. The young woman stopped to read the poster about Goebbels on the bulletin board. Thitiwat had anticipated some of her reactions or utterances , but she was still impassive and calm. She turned to stare at at him , and he felt like swooning because of the penetration of her intriguing eyes.

 

"Are you looking forward to listening to his speech?" asked Marian.

 

"I am afraid I have no choice, and you ?" Thitiwat looked clearly awkward.

 

Marian smiled instead of replying. Although he didn't know what she meant ,  he thought he'd better stop the inquiry. They then found a couple of Hitler's loving sons bullying and pushing around the lone girl, whom Thitiwat presumed to be Jewish, on the corridor to the exit of building. No sooner had Thitiwat begun to move than Marian darted to confront those savages and said something he could barely hear. The boys (whom Marian looked older than probably only a few years) had acted like they were being hypnotized. They  relented and walked away. The Jewish girl nodded to Marian with gratitude before running to the opposite direction of those boys.

 

"Marian, I think you don't have a gift , but you have the supernatural power to manipulate people's minds! This is the puzzle for me why your music has revived my lost memories in childhood." Thitiwat looked at her in amazement.

 

Marian frowned. "That's not true, Professor. It is just the tactic how we convince the people to do what we want. I learnt it from reading the books of a renowned psychologist. Minutes ago I just told those boys that the real essence to be male chauvinist was to protect the weaker ,no matter who she was. In your part , my thesis for graduation was the method of therapy with music. I am really glad that it could help you this way."

 

"Ahh, I see." Thitiwat pretended to believe her. He didn't buy into the excuse that it was just the plain psychology ,as he could feel something more compelling than that.

 

"I know you are incredulous , but I think it wouldn't wreck our friendship , would it ? You are the first person I have talked to in such the long sentences in weeks. Moreover , you had attempted so much to visit me at my tea shop, and I failed you," She said in the calm voice, but he could find something in it. The young man was euphoric.

 

To be continued

 

................................

 

* Between 1899- 1901, the Chinese who were supremely skillful at martial arts assembled to attack and massacre the foreign missionaries and thousands of Chinese Christians. They were later conquered by the alliance of foreign legions.

 

 

 

                     Chapter 8

 

Marian seemed to remember something.

 

"I was about to go for rehearsal for the next concert in the auditorium of your university. How about going there with me ? Are you free in this hour ?

 

"Of course. I would, I am really glad to ..... it is my pleasure," spluttered Thitiwat. He thought even if she invited him to swim in the ocean full of sharks, he still wouldn't refuse.

 

Both of them were ambling along the pavement of the bustling street of university. Marian kept quiet all the time, and Thitiwat thought it was like she was in the meditation or drifting in the world that no one'd ever set foot in. All he could do was to just walk and often cast glance at her. Their silence was contrary to their enlivened atmosphere : the students were in commotion for starting other courses at the different buildings , leading to the traffic congestion.

 

The crowded tram was running slowly past them ; Thitiwat could see some of students staring at them in astonishment. Just the appearance of a woman and a man of Aryan and non-Aryan blood together might rouse the suspicion that the couple was breaking the taboo about race and sex. It became increasingly distinct since the Nazis had risen to prominence. Marian looked nonchalant , but Thitiwat dreamily wanted to sneak away with her to somewhere like the mystic kingdom amidst the clouds in the sky.

 

The auditorium of his university was incredibly gigantic.Its imposing exteriority with modern style was particularly designed to be harmonious with the environment which was the green sparse forest. It was believed to be one of the favorite places for rehearsal and performance of Wilhelm Furtwängler  , Germany's greatest conductor and the famous orchestra like the Berlin Philharmonic he had led. Upon arrival in the building , Marian greeted and smiled to the employees with cordiality. Everyone seemed obviously delighted and humble before her presence like she was a princess who was visiting her subjects . However they couldn't conceal their surprises to see the dark-skinned and short foreigner like Thitiwat accompanying her like a friend - not a modest valet.

 

Inside a large hall , the handsome man ,who had the hawklike eyes , was reading the music notebook in front of the orchestra which its members were preoccupied with testing their own musical instruments. When noticing Marian , he vociferated with glee.

 

" Marian , good to see you as our orchestra will begin the rehearsal in 15 minutes."

 

Marian smiled timidly and apologized .She introduced Thitiwat to that guy with upright hair style. He was elegant in the thick sweater and looked much younger than Thitiwat - perhaps 9 or 10 years.

 

"Professor , this is Herbert Von Karajan , the future greatest conductor in the world.And Herbert , this is Professor Thitiwat from the Department of History."

 

Karajan smirked and shook hands with Thitiwat.

 

"Nice to meet you , Professor. Sorry to interrupt your precious time with Marian briefly. Please wait at the row of the audience. Or you can join us by citing the biography of Mozart along our rehearsal." He laughed cheekily.

 

Marian burst into laughter for the first time and said  , " Herbert was born in Salzburg , the hometown of Mozart ,so we are going to rehearse the piano concerto of Mozart today. Can you guess which one ?"

 

Thitiwat paused for a while. " Normally the orchestra's most favorite one is his Concerto No 21 , but I really love No 23. It is so warmish , mellifluous and quite nostalgic with Mozart's childhood. So I dare to choose this one."

 

Marian and Karajan looked at each other. The young woman said in amazement.

 

" Are you a clairvoyant  ?  This is what we are going to rehearse now and play next Wednesday. I am so glad that it is your favorite." 

 

Thitiwat nodded and asked Marian gently, while Karajan was rushing to warn his crews.

 

"Will it help cure my amnesia again ? "

 

"No , because it is the music of that 'Wunderkind' [Mozart] , not mine." 

 

Marian said bluntly and sat on the stool chair. Thitiwat was a bit startled to see her caressing the piano exactly like he had done to her piano the other day , while she was fixing her eyes on him as if she had been teasing him. Later , the young woman had tested her piano by playing 'Clair de lune' of Claude Debussy roughly , but he thought she was still playing it beautifully.

 

Karajan had led the rehearsal of orchestra by spreading both of his arms with a baton in his right hand and adroitly move it around. Thitiwat , who sat alone at the audience's seat, flinched from time to time, as he saw Karajan roaring with anger when the musicians seemed no able to play like he had expected. He scowled and numerous times yelled like he was possessed by the demon who longed for the flawlessness of music. 

 

On the contrary , when Karajan turned to Marian , he became unbelievably amiable and talked to her tenderly. Thitiwat felt it was reasonable because ,according to his rusty and scant knowledge of music, Marian could play piano superbly. But he believed that even if she made some mistakes , Karajan would still treat her the same. This was because the young woman had some mystic grandeur to make even the most enraged person think twice before letting off steam. Thitiwat also noticed the young man's eyes were full of affection towards her. Sometimes he thought that man stealthily touched her shoulders.Whether it was the lewdness or just the gesture of friend , he didn't know.But he knew that Marian often looked at karajan in awe and admiration in spite of his harshness with the musicians. 

 

Thitiwat always reveled in the Piano Concerto No.23  , but this time he felt crestfallen instead, as he had witnessed the intimacy between the ambitious conductor and the gorgeous pianist . Now his rival was not only her 190 centimeter fiancé who was the fiercest solider in the German army , but also the world's future greatest conductor with the Bipolar Disorder and the narcissism. (Thitiwat later learnt that this year Karajan had successfully applied for the membership of the Nazi Party. It became the record that had kept tarnishing his image after the war and until the end of his life.)

 

The young man looked at Marian again and thought it was the best for him not to wait until the rehearsal took a break or ended , as his hope for Marian's love had pitifully faced the big hurdle. And he couldn't stand the heartache like he used to believe that he could many weeks ago. The young man noticed that several people were gradually entering the hall to observe the lively rehearsal and taking the seats not far from his .

 

Thitiwat nodded slightly and left.