He said, “I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
She nodded her thanks. “I don’t know how bad it is. But they want me at home, and so I’m going.” Her low voice was sweet, yet as firm as her look.
“Are you coming back?”
“I’m not sure. Dr. Jastrow may be returning to the States too, you see.”
“He’d be well advised to do that, fairly fast.”
Pug was looking keenly at her, and she was meeting his glance. When neither found more to say for the moment, it became a sort of staring contest. Soon Natalie smiled a broad, wry, puckish smile, as though to say—“All right, you’re his father and I don’t blame you for trying to see what’s there. How do you like it?”
This disconcerted Victor Henry. He seldom lost such eye-to-eye confrontations, but this time he shifted his glance to Byron, who was watching with lively interest, struck by Natalie’s swift recovery of her poise. “Well, Briny,” he almost growled, “I ought to mosey along, and not keep that foreign ministry type waiting.”
“Right, Dad.”
Natalie said, “Byron told me that you became friendly with the Tudsburys in Berlin, Commander. I know Pamela.”
“You do?” Pug managed a smile. She was actually trying to put him at his ease with small talk, and he liked that.
“Yes, in Paris she and I used to date two fellows who shared the same flat. She’s lovely.”
“I agree, and very devoted to her father. Maniacal driver, though.”
“Oh, did you find that out? I once drove with her from Paris to Chartres, and almost walked back. She scared me senseless.”
“I’d guess it would take more than that to scare you.” Pug held out his hand. “I’m glad I met you, even in this accidental way, Natalie.” Awkwardly, in almost a mumble, he added, “It explains a lot. Happy landings. Flying all the way?”
“I’ve got a seat on the Thursday Clipper out of Lisbon. I hope I don’t get bumped.”
“You shouldn’t. Things are quiet now. But you’re well out of this continent. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Commander Henry.”
Victor Henry abruptly walked off, with Byron hurrying at his elbow. “Briny, what about you, now? You’re staying on in Siena?”
“For the time being.”
“Do you know that Warren’s engaged?”
“Oh, it’s definite now?”
“Yes. They’ve set a date for May twentieth, after he finishes his carrier training. I hope you’ll count on getting back by then. You won’t see any more brothers’ weddings. I’m working on a leave for myself.”
“I’ll certainly try. How’s Mom?”
“Off her feed. Berlin’s getting her down.”
“I thought she liked it.”
“It’s becoming less likable.” They stopped at the terminal’s glass doors. “How long will you be in Rome?”
“If I can see you, Dad, I’ll just stay on till you’re free.”
“Well, fine. Check in at the embassy with Captain Kirkwood. He’s the naval attaché. Could be we’ll dine together tonight.”
“Great.”
“That’s some girl.”
Byron smiled uncertainly. “Could you really tell anything?”
“What you never said is that she’s so pretty.”
“What? I honestly don’t think she is. Not pretty, exactly. I’m nuts about her, as you well know, but—”
“She’s got eyes you could drown in. She’s stunning. However, what I wrote you about her long ago still goes. Even more so, now that I’ve seen her. She’s a grown-up woman.” He put his hand for a moment on Byron’s shoulder. “No offense.”
“I love her.”
“Well, we won’t settle that question here and now. Go back to her, she’s sitting there all alone. And call Kirkwood about tonight.”
“I will.”
Natalie’s face was tense and inquiring when Byron came back. He fell into the chair beside her. “Gad, that was a shock. I still can’t quite believe it. It all went so fast. He looks tired.”
“Do you know why he’s here?”
Byron shook his head slowly.
She said, “I didn’t picture him that way. He doesn’t look severe; on the contrary, almost genial. But then when he talks he’s scary.”
“He fell for you.”
“Byron, don’t talk rot. Look at me. A soot-covered slattern.”
“He said something sappy about your eyes.”
“I don’t believe it. What did he say?”
“I won’t tell you. It’s embarrassing. I never heard him say anything like it before. What luck! He likes you. Say, my brother’s getting married.”
“Oh? When?”
“In May. She’s the daughter of a congressman. She doesn’t seem all that concerned about marrying a naval officer! Let’s make it a double wedding.”
“Why not? You’ll be manager of a bank by then, no doubt.”
They were both smiling, but the unsettled questions between them put an edge in their tones. It was a relief when the droning loudspeaker announced her flight. Byron carried her hand luggage and some fragile gifts for her family into the mill of jabbering, weeping passengers and relatives at the gate. Natalie was clutching her ticket, and trying to understand the shouts of the uniformed attendants. He attempted to kiss her, but it wasn’t much of a kiss.
“I love you, Natalie,” he said.
She embraced him with one arm amid the jostling passengers, and spoke over the tumult. “It’s as well that I’m going home just now, I think. Meantime I met your father! That was something. He did like me? Really?”
“You bowled him over, I tell you. And why not?”
The crowd was starting to push through the gate.
“How will I ever carry all this stuff? Load me up, sweetheart.”
“Promise me you’ll cable if you decide not to come back,” Byron said, poking bundles into her arms and under them. “Because I’ll take the next plane home.”
“Yes, I’ll cable.”
“And promise that you’ll make no other decisions, do nothing drastic, before you see me again.”
“Oh, Byron, how young you are. All these damned words. Don’t you know how I love you?”
“Promise!”
Her dark eyes wet and huge, her hands and arms piled, the green and yellow ticket sticking out of her fingers, she shrugged, laughed, and said, “Oh, hell. It’s a promise, but you know what Lenin said. Promises like piecrusts are made to be broken. Good-bye, my darling, my sweet. Good-bye, Byron.” Her voice rose as the press of passengers dragged her away.
After a couple of hours of troubled sleep at the hotel, Commander Henry put on a freshly pressed uniform, with shoes gleaming like black mirrors, and walked to the embassy. Under a low gray sky, in the rows of tables and chairs along the Via Veneto, only a few people were braving the December chill. The gasoline shortage had almost emptied the broad boulevard of traffic. Like Berlin, this capital city exuded penury and gloom.
Captain Kirkwood had left for the day. His yeoman handed Pug a long lumpy envelope. Two small objects clattered to the desk when he ripped it open: silver eagles on pins, the collar insignia of a captain.
Captain William Kirkwood presents his compliments to Captain Victor Henry, and trusts he is free to dine at nine, at the Osteria dell’ Orso.
P.S. You’re out of uniform. Four stripes, please.
Clipped to the note was a strip of gold braid, and the Alnav letter listing newly selected captains, on which Victor (none) Henry was ringed in heavy red lines.
The yeoman’s refreshing, freckled American face wore a wide grin. “Congratulations, Cap’n.”
“Thank you. Did my son call?”
“Yes, suh. He’s coming to dinner. That’s all arranged. Ah’ve got fresh coffee going, suh, if you’d like a cup in the cap’n’s office.”
“That’ll be fine.”
Sitting in the attaché’s swivel chair, Pug drank one cup after another o
f the rich Navy brew, delightful after months of the German ersatz stuff. He ranged on the desk before him the eagles, the Alnav, the strip of gold braid. His seamed pale face looked calm, almost bored, as he swung the chair idly, contemplating the tokens of his new rank; but he was stirred, exalted, and above all relieved.
He had long been dreading that the selection board, on this first round, might pass him over. Execs of battleships and cruisers, squadron commanders of submarines and destroyers, insiders in BuShips and BuOrd, could well crowd out an attaché. The big hurdle of the race for flag rank was early promotion to captain. The few officers who became admirals had to make captain on the wing. This early promotion, this small dry irrevocable statistic in the record, was his guerdon for a quarter of a century of getting things done. It was his first promotion in ten years, and it was the crucial one.
He wished he could share this cheering news at once with his restless wife. Perhaps when he got back to Berlin they could throw a wingding, he thought, for embassy people, correspondents, and friendly foreign attachés, and lighten the gloom lying heavy in the Jew’s mansion in Grunewald.
Natalie Jastrow popped back into his mind, displacing even the promotion. Since the chance encounter, he kept thinking of her. In those few minutes he had sensed the powerful, perhaps unbreakable, bond between his son and the girl. Yet how could that be? Young women like Natalie Jastrow, if they went outside their natural age bracket, tended to marry a man almost his own age rather than to reach down and cradle-snatch a stripling like Byron. Natalie was more mature and accomplished than Janice, who was marrying Byron’s older brother. It was mismatch enough for these reasons, and made him wonder about her sense and stability, but the Jewish problem loomed above all.
Victor Henry was no bigot, in his own best judgment. His narrowly bounded life had brought him into very little contact with Jews. He was an arid realist and the whole thing spelled trouble. If he were to have half-Jewish grandchildren, well, with such a mother they would probably be handsome and bright. But he thought his son was not man enough to handle the complications and might never be. The coolness and courage he had displayed in Warsaw were fine traits for an athletic or military career, but in daily life they meant little, compared to ambition, industry, and common sense.
“Mr. Gianelli is here, sir.” The yeoman’s voice spoke through the squawk box.
“Very well.” Victor Henry swept up the tokens and put them in a trouser pocket, not nearly as happy as he had once thought promotion to captain would make him.
The San Francisco banker had changed to an elegant double-breasted gray suit with bold chalk stripes and outsize British lapels. The interior of his green Rolls Royce smelled of a strong cologne. “I trust you enjoyed your nap as much as I did mine,” he said, lighting a very long cigar. All his gestures had the repose, and all the details of his person—manicure, rings, shirt, tie—the sleekness, of secure wealth. Withal, he appeared stimulated and slightly nervous. “Now I’ve already spoken to the foreign minister. You’ve met Count Ciano?” Pug shook his head. “I’ve known him well for many years. He’s definitely coming to the reception, and from there will take me to the Palazzo Venezia. Now, what about you? What are your instructions?”
“To consider myself your aide as long as you’re in Italy and Germany, sir, and to make myself useful in any way you desire.”
“Do you understand Italian?”
“Poorly, to say the least. I can grope through a newspaper if I have to.”
“That’s a pity.” The banker smoked his cigar with calm relish, his drooping eyes sizing up Victor Henry. “Still, the President said there might be value in having you along at both interviews, if these heads of state will stand for it. Just another pair of eyes and ears. At Karinhall, of course, I can ask that you interpret for me. My German’s a bit weak. I think we’ll have to feel our way as we go. This whole errand is unusual and there’s no protocol for it. Ordinarily I’d be accompanied by our ambassador.”
“Suppose I just come along, then, as though it’s the natural thing, unless they stop me?”
The banker’s eyes closed for several seconds, then he nodded and opened them. “Ah, here’s the Forum. You’ve been in Rome before? We’re passing the Arch of Constantine. A lot of old history here! I suppose envoys came to Rome in those days on errands just as strange.”
Pug said, “This reception now, is it at your apartment?”
“Oh no, I keep just a very small flat off the Via Veneto. My uncle and two cousins are bankers here. It is at their town house, and the reception is for me. Let us just see how this goes. If, when we’re with Ciano, I touch my lapel so, you’ll excuse yourself. Otherwise come along, in the way you suggest.”
These arrangements proved needless because Mussolini himself dropped in on the party. About half an hour after the arrival of the Americans, a commotion started up at the doorway of the enormous marble-columned room, and Il Duce came walking bouncily in. He was not expected, judging by the excitement and confusion among the guests. Even Ciano, resplendent in green, white, and gold uniform, seemed taken aback. Mussolini was a surprisingly small man, shorter than Pug, dressed in a wrinkled tweed jacket, dark trousers, a sweater, and brown-and-white saddle shoes. It struck Pug at once that with this casual apparel Mussolini was underlining—perhaps for its eventual effect on the Germans—his contempt for Roosevelt’s informal messenger. Mussolini went to the buffet table, ate fruit, drank tea, and chatted jauntily with guests who crowded around. He moved through the room with a teacup, talking to one person and another. He glanced once at Luigi Gianelli as he passed close by, but otherwise he ignored the two Americans. In this setting Mussolini hardly resembled the chin-jutting imperial bully with the demonic glare. His prominent eyes had an Italian softness, his smile was wide, ironical, very worldly, and it seemed to Victor Henry that here was a smart little fellow who had gotten himself into the saddle and loved it, but whose bellicosity was a comedy. There was no comparing him with the ferocious Hitler.
Mussolini left the room while Pug was clumsily making talk with the banker’s aunt, a bejewelled, painted crone with a haughty manner, a peppermint breath and almost no hearing. Seeing the banker beckon to him and walk off after Ciano, Pug excused himself and followed. The three men went through tall carved wooden doors into a princely high-ceilinged library, lined with volumes bound in gold-stamped brown, scarlet, or blue leather. Tall windows looked out over the city, which appeared so different from blacked-out Berlin, with electric lights twinkling and blazing in long crisscrossing lines and scattered clusters. Mussolini with a regal gesture invited them to sit. The banker came to the sofa beside him, while Ciano and Victor Henry faced them in armchairs. Mussolini coldly stared at Henry and turned the stare to Gianelli.
The look at once changed Pug’s impression of the Italian leader, and gave him a forcible sense that he was out of his depth and under suspicion. He felt junior and shaky, an ensign who had blundered into flag country. Ciano had given him no such feeling, and still didn’t, sitting there gorgeous and wary, the son-in-law waiting for the powerful old man to talk. At this close range Pug could see how white Mussolini’s fringe of hair was, how deep the creases of decision were folded in his face, how vivid were the large eyes, which now had an opaque glitter. This man could readily order a hundred murders, Pug decided, if he had to. He was an Italian ruler.
Pug could half follow the banker’s clear, measured Italian as he rapidly explained that Franklin Roosevelt, his treasured friend, had appointed the Berlin naval attaché as an aide for his few days in Europe; also that Henry would be acting as interpreter with Hitler. He said Henry could now remain or withdraw at Il Duce’s pleasure. Mussolini gave the attaché another glance, this time obviously weighing him as a Roosevelt appointee. His expression warmed.
“Do you speak Italian?” he said in good English, catching Henry unawares almost as though a statue had broken into speech.
“Excellency, I can follow it in a fashion. I can’t
speak it. But then, I have nothing to say.”
Mussolini smiled, as Pug had seen him smile at people in the other room. “If we come to naval matters maybe we will talk English.”
He looked expectantly at the banker.
“Bene, Luigi?”
The banker talked for about a quarter of an hour. Since Pug already knew the substance, the banker did not altogether lose him. After some compliments, Gianelli said he was no diplomat and had neither the credentials nor the skill to discuss matters of state. He had come to put one question informally to Il Duce, on behalf of the President. Mr. Roosevelt had sent a private citizen who knew Il Duce, so that a negative reply would not affect formal relations between the United States and Italy. The President was alarmed by the drift toward catastrophe in Europe. If full-scale war broke out in the spring, horrors that nobody could foresee might engulf the whole world. Was it possible to do something, even at this late hour? Mr. Roosevelt had in mind a formal, urgent mission by a high United States diplomat, somebody on the order of Sumner Welles (Ciano, drumming the tips of his fingers together, looked up at the mention of the name), to visit all the chiefs of the warring states, perhaps late in January, to explore the possible terms of a general European settlement. Il Duce himself had made a last-minute call for a similar exploration on August 31, in vain. But if he would join the President now in bringing about such a settlement, he would hold a place in history as a savior of mankind.
Mussolini deliberated for a minute or so, his face heavy, his shoulders bowed, his look withdrawn, one hand fiddling with his tweed lapels. Then he said—as nearly as Pug could follow him—that the foreign policy of Italy rested on the Pact of Steel, the unshakable tie with Germany. Any attempt, any maneuver, any trick designed to split off Italy from this alliance would fail. A settlement in Europe was always possible. No one would welcome it more than he. As Mr. Roosevelt acknowledged, he himself had tried to the last to preserve the peace. But Hitler had offered a very reasonable settlement in October, and the Allies had spurned it. The American government in recent years had been openly hostile to Germany and Italy. Italy too had serious demands that had to be part of any settlement. These were not matters in Luigi’s province, Mussolini said, but he was stating them to clarify his very pessimistic feeling about a mission by Sumner Welles.