The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 3

Chapter 3“Do you mind?” Katharina Schreiber asked. With that,

she removed her shoes. “These things are killing my feet.”

Her hand-painted tan satin evening shoes

fell to the floor of the cabin, exposing slender ankles covered in

white silk stockings. One of the shoes came to rest on its side,

revealing the label inside: “By Marshall Field & Co.,

Chicago.”

The sight of the Marshall Field & Co.

name brought images of Mallie drifting back into my mind. Barely a

year before during our vacation in Chicago and our visit to the

1893 Columbian Exposition, I had accompanied her on a shopping trip

to Marshall Field’s. Mallie had purchased a hat, some kid gloves,

and a blouse all festooned with the Marshall Field & Co.

label.

I took another sip of my Scotch and leaned

back from the table, prudently averting my eyes from Katharina’s

stocking feet. I had the strange sensation that Mallie was watching

me. I could almost hear her voice and her unique manipulation of

the English language: “William, I may be out of print, but that’s

no excuse for you to behave like a cad. You best not try to make a

mash of this widow lady!”

That’s exactly what she would say if she

were here, I thought. I felt suitably chastened and suddenly

uncomfortable sitting alone with Katharina in her cabin. I cleared

my throat and watched Katharina pick up her shoes and pad over to

her wardrobe with them. For the first time, I took in Katharina’s

evening dress. As always, she was dressed immaculately.

She was wearing a pale sage-green silk

bodice jacket trimmed with a beige soutache braid. Her gored

taffeta skirt was a combination of pastel beige and green. I smiled

at my inherent knowledge of women’s clothing and still had a grin

on my face when Katharina returned to the table and settled into

the chair opposite me.

“What is so amusing?”

“Oh nothing, really. Well, to be truthful,

my mother has a dressmaking business, and growing up around her, I

learned a lot about ladies’ clothing. I was just admiring your

ensemble. That’s a gored taffeta skirt you’re wearing, isn’t

it?”

“My, you are a man of many talents, Mr.

Battles… More?” She poured another two fingers of scotch into my

glass and did the same for herself. I was amazed that she was

drinking the whiskey as fast as I was.

“That will do it for me for tonight… Any

more of that stuff and I won’t be able to make much sense of what

you want to tell me.”

Katharina swirled what remained of the

scotch in her glass. Then she finished it off.

“I’d better get to it then… Let’s see. Well,

I guess I should begin with why Heinrich and I left Germany for

Chicago… oh, I don’t think I mentioned that, did I?”

“No, you didn’t… Is that where your husband,

uh, passed away… Chicago?”

“You mean did I kill him in Chicago? Yes, I

did.”

I squirmed in my seat. I felt my stomach

churn, and at that moment, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear more

from the widow Schreiber.

“Are you at all familiar with recent German

history and politics and the country’s push to become a colonial

power?” Katharina asked. The tone of her voice indicated she

already knew the answer.

“Not really… though I did learn about Otto

von Bismarck and the creation of the German nation in one of my

university history classes.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t think so… most

Americans are ignorant… or perhaps I should say, not fully apprised

of current affairs in Germany.”

“I would agree,” I said, not wanting to

appear offended.

“Well, since the recent resignation of Georg

Leo Graf von Caprivi as Germany’s chancellor—”

I shot her a confused look. Katharina

stopped in mid-sentence and sighed. She obviously needed to provide

me with a short course of recent German political history.

“Caprivi succeeded Bismarck in 1890 and

reluctantly supported Germany’s existing colonial empire but

refused to engage in any new attempts of colonization,” she

continued. “That resulted in a lot of political infighting between

Germany’s business and financial elite and those who were and are

convinced Germany should never become a colonial power like Great

Britain or France. There were some people in Germany who didn’t

like that policy. However, others, such as the influential Society

for German Colonization and a large number of businessmen,

including my husband, were not happy. Caprivi’s successor and

current chancellor Choldwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst is more

amenable to German colonial expansion.”

It was a lot to take in, and I wasn’t sure

why Katharina was telling me all of this.

“What does all that have to do with your

husband’s death?” I asked impatiently.

Katharina sighed. “It’s a bit complicated.

Heinrich was heavily involved with some very powerful men in

Germany who were and still are behind Germany’s efforts to create

some new overseas colonies. Many in Germany, my husband included,

felt Germany had been too slow to seek colonies in Africa and Asia

and now wanted to make up for it. They wanted and still want to

annex more territory. Heinrich was a member of the powerful

Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation—the Society for German

Colonization.”

Katharina paused and looked at me, wondering

perhaps if I was about to nod off.

“Go ahead… I’m still with you.”

She looked annoyed but continued, explaining

that the German government didn’t want to be officially

involved, so annexations were proceeding by government grants of

charters to private companies.

“Heinrich traveled to America to convince

German American businesses and commercial organizations to work

with a few select German companies to invest in and essentially

take over places like Samoa, the Caroline and Mariana Islands, and

even the Philippines,” Katharina said. “Their base to do this is

Kaiser-Wilhelmsland in the northeastern part of New Guinea—or what

the Germans call Deutsch-Neuguinea. The German New Guinea Company

has established several large plantations there, and under a secret

arrangement with the German government, the company is tasked with

seeing what new territories the nation can add to its collection of

colonies.”

“You mentioned the Philippines,” I said.

“Isn’t that a Spanish colony?”

“It is, but there is considerable unrest

there against the Spanish. Moreover, Dr. José Rizal, the greatly

admired Filipino nationalist, journalist, and novelist, apparently

supports German intervention to oust the Spanish and turn the

Philippines into a German protectorate. Dr. Rizal spent several

years in Germany studying ophthalmology and has many friends

there.”

“I still don’t see—”

“I am coming to that,” Katharina said,

anticipating my impatience. “My husband and my brother Manfred

often argued about Germany’s colonial ambitions. Manfred was

opposed to any kind of colonialism—German, American, or otherwise.

He has spent a lot of time in Asia in places like French Indochina

and the Philippines—places, Mr. Battles, where you are apparently

going.”

“Please, call me William or Billy, but not

Mr. Battles,” I insisted.

“I could never refer to you as Billy,

so William it will be. Well, William, as I said, my brother and

Heinrich argued heatedly about the topic of colonialization. My

husband insisted that European nations like England, France, and

Germany were bringing civilization to underdeveloped lands in Asia

and Africa. My brother replied that bringing civilization

was just another phrase for economic and political

exploitation.”

I took a sip of what remained of my scotch

and leaned back in my chair.

“Your brother may have something there…

reminds me of what we did with the Southern Cheyenne, Kiowa, and

Comanche Indians in Kansas. Except, instead of exploiting them, we

took their lands and pushed them onto reservations.”

Katharine nodded. “Well, this arguing went

on for weeks. My brother would often interfere with Heinrich’s

attempts to get support from American companies and other business

groups for Germany’s ambitions in Asia.

“Once, during a meeting at the

Deutsch-Amerikanischer Bürgerbund (the German American Civic

Association), when Heinrich learned of Manfred’s interference, he

slapped my brother and actually challenged him to a duel. If what

happened next hadn’t been so tragic, it would have been ludicrous.

Instead, the day after this incident, while Heinrich and I were

visiting my parents, Manfred referred to Heinrich as a

Saupreuße.”

“A what?”

“Saupreuße… it means Prussian swine,”

Katharina explained. In Germany, it is a terrible insult. Heinrich

became enraged. He grabbed a fireplace poker and struck Manfred on

the head with it. The blow knocked Manfred to the floor. I was

horrified. Though I knew firsthand that Heinrich had a terrible

temper, I never thought he would behave that way. I thought the

altercation was finished and walked to my brother, who was writhing

on the floor and bleeding from a terrible gash in his scalp. But

Heinrich was not finished. First, he shoved me to the floor and

struck Manfred at least three more times, hitting him in the chest

and arms. Manfred was barely conscious. By now, my father and

mother had intervened, but Heinrich pushed my mother onto the couch

and shoved my father to the floor next to me, knocking the wind out

of him.

“My father was struggling for breath. ‘Gun…

gun… ,’ he gasped at me while pointing to a small table near the

fireplace. ‘Get… the… gun, Katchen.’

“I ran to the table, opened the drawer, and

found a .38 caliber revolver. I took it and pointed it at Heinrich.

I ordered him to stop hitting Manfred, but he kept on thrashing him

with the poker. Finally, I screamed and pulled the trigger… not

once, not twice, but three times. Each shot struck Heinrich, and he

fell to the floor. I dropped the revolver and ran over to him.

Heinrich was trying to speak, but he couldn’t. Instead, he looked

at me in shock. Then he was gone.”

Katharina stopped talking and turned away, a

pained expression on her face. Then she sighed heavily, closed her

eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose. Before I could comfort

her, however, she dabbed at her eyes with a lace hanky, poured

herself another two fingers of scotch, and gulped it down.

“Now I must confess something to you,” she

said in a flat, monotone voice. “Even though I killed my husband, I

didn’t feel much remorse about it.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded

and slowly stroked the mustache I had recently sprouted.

Katharina went on to explain that she and

her husband had not been happy together for several years, and on

this trip back to Chicago, she told her mother and father that she

wanted to get a divorce. Neither of them was in favor of that

solution, but they agreed to support a separation of some kind.

Katharina then returned to the matter at

hand—the killing of her husband and the vicious beating of her

brother. She explained that after Manfred regained his senses, her

father called his close friend, a district police captain. The

captain “took care” of everything, which meant that the baron’s

body was removed from the house and placed on a street several

blocks away where the death was recorded as a robbery/murder.

“Didn’t you tell him what had happened? I

mean it was a matter of self-defense, after all.”

“We told him exactly what had happened. But

the captain was a politically shrewd man. He explained that because

my husband was a member of German aristocracy, it could get awkward

if people learned he was killed in the home of one of Chicago’s

most prominent families. And it would be especially scandalous

because I was not only that family’s daughter but also the wife of

the deceased.”

“Yes, I can see how that might complicate

things.”

“In Chicago, it pays to know the right

people and the captains who run the precincts and districts are the

people to know,” she continued. “Of course there is a pecuniary

cost for such friendships, but I won’t bore you with those

details.”

We were both silent for several moments

while all that she had told me sunk in. Finally, I asked the

pregnant question of the evening.

“How is it that you need my help? It seems

as if you and your family have resolved the matter quite… uh…

skillfully.”

“Ha! That’s what you think. You don’t think

the baron’s family and their political friends in the German

government were going to let this episode just evaporate in the

wind do you?”

Katharina explained that after she, her

family, and the captain conceived and committed to memory a

plausible story about the baron’s death, she played the role of the

distraught widow. She accompanied her husband’s body back to

Germany, where a lavish funeral was held at the family estate in

Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

“It was the most difficult thing I have ever

done,” Katharina said. “I had such conflicting feelings. You have

to understand, I once loved this man, or at least I thought I did.

On the one hand, I felt unbearably guilty about shooting him. On

the other, I felt unfettered and free. Going through the mourning

process in Germany with such contradictory emotions was

grueling.”

A few weeks after the funeral, as Katharina

was preparing to return to Chicago, the State Police of

Mecklenburg-Schwerin began questioning her about the baron’s death.

It was no secret in Germany that Katharina’s union with the baron

was a troubled one. The couple often argued, servants in the estate

told German police. In addition, on at least two occasions, the

baron, who had a violent temper, had struck Katharina, leaving

embarrassing bruises on her face.

“It was if the German police knew what had

happened in Chicago, though there is no way they could have—at

least I don’t think they could have,” Katharina said.

I wondered if someone from the Chicago

Police Department might have spilled the beans.

“It is not likely… Of course, in Chicago, if

enough money is brandished about secrets can become a highly prized

commodity.”

She went on to explain that the German

police interviewed her for almost a week, often asking the same

questions again and again, obviously trying to see if her story

wavered. Finally, one day, she simply refused to respond to any

more inquiries and threatened to call on the American ambassador in

Berlin. The threat worked, the police backed off, and Katharina

took the next ship home from Bremerhaven.

However, she didn’t return alone.

“I knew I was being watched and followed,

but I just wasn’t sure which passenger was doing it,” she said.

“When the ship docked in New York, I sent a telegram to my father,

and he hired a New York police detective to accompany me back to

Chicago on the train. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, the detective

determined that I was being followed, not by one person, but by

two—both German.

“When we had to change trains in Pittsburgh,

he asked the police there to detain the two men on some pretext or

other until the train pulled out of the station. When I got to

Chicago, I spent one night with my parents, and the next day, I

took the train to San Francisco. I found out later that the two men

arrived a day after I left. They spent the next two weeks talking

with our neighbors, members of the Deutsch-Amerikanischer

Bürgerbund, and the police, including the district police captain

who had helped us.”

The two Germans waved a lot of money at

police, and anybody who might know the truth about the night

Katharina’s husband was killed. There were no takers. Meanwhile,

Katharina’s brother, by now mostly healed from the beating he had

absorbed, returned to the Philippines and his lumber export

business.

“I spent several months in San Francisco

living with my mother’s sister and her family,” Katharina said.

“After a while, I began to feel safe, and I actually began to

forget what had happened in Chicago. My husband’s family contacted

my father and told him that I had an inheritance but that I would

have to return to Germany to claim it. I told my father to decline

it. How could I possibly take money from the family of the man I

had killed?”

At that point, I stood up from the table and

looked at my pocket watch. It was after eleven, and we had been

talking almost continuously for two hours.

“I can understand that.” I managed to hold

back a yawn.

“Can you? Really?”

“I imagine it was a sense of guilt or shame

or—”

“No, it was not that. I want to get as far

away from that family as I can. They are powerful in Germany, and I

am convinced they will follow me to the ends of the earth to find

out what actually happened to Heinrich.”

“Do you really believe—” Katharina

interrupted me before I could finish.

“Yes, I do. And when my brother wrote and

suggested I join him in the Philippines, I didn’t think more than

two minutes about it. I wanted to get as far away from Germany and

Chicago as I could, so I booked passage on the SS China and

prepared to feel free again… except…”

“Except what?”

“Except I know someone is following me

again… I just don’t know who.”