The eyes of the Germans flickered at each other. Dr. Knopfmann said, “A shift in public opinion doesn’t just happen. It’s manufactured.”
“There’s the live nerve,” Stöller said. “And that’s what I’ve found difficult to convey even to the air marshal, who’s usually so hardheaded. Germans who haven’t been across the water are impossibly provincial about America. I’m sorry to say this goes for the Führer himself. I don’t believe he yet truly grasps the vast power of the American Jews. It’s a vital factor in the war picture.”
“Don’t exaggerate that factor,” Henry said. “You fellows tend to, and it’s a form of kidding yourselves.”
“My dear Victor, I’ve been in the United States nine times and I lived for a year in San Francisco. Who’s your Minister of the Treasury? The Jew Morgenthau. Who sits on your highest court, wielding the most influence? The Jew Frankfurter.”
He proceeded to reel off a list of Jewish officials in Washington, stale and boring to Pug from endless repetition in Nazi propaganda; and he made the usual assertion that the Jews had American finance, communications, justice, and even the Presidency in their pockets. Stöller delivered all this calmly and pleasantly. He kept repeating “der Jude, der Jude” without a sneer. There was no glare in his eye, such as Pug had now and then observed when Rhoda challenged some vocal anti-Semite. The banker presented his statements as though they were the day’s stock market report.
“To begin with,” Pug replied, a bit wearily, “the Treasury post in our country has little power. It’s a minor political reward. Christians hold all the other cabinet posts. Financial power lies with the banks, the insurance companies, the oil, rail, lumber, shipping, steel, and auto industries, and such. They’re wholly in Christian hands. Always have been.”
“Lehman is a banker,” said Dr. Knopfmann.
“Yes, he is. The famous exception.” Pug went on with his stock answers to stock anti-Semitism: the all but solid Christian ownership of newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses, the Christian composition of Congress, the cabinet, and the executive branch, the eight Christian judges out of nine on the Supreme Court, the paramount White House influence of a Christian, Harry Hopkins, and all the rest. On the faces of his hearers appeared the curious universal smirk of Germans when discussing Jews: condescending, facetious, and cold, with superior awareness of a very private inside joke.
Stöller said in a kindly tone, “That’s always the Jewish line, you know, how unimportant they are.”
“Would you recommend that we take away what businesses they do have? Make Objekte of them?”
Stöller looked surprised and laughed, not in the least offended. “You’re better informed than many Americans, Victor. It would be an excellent idea for the health of your economy. You’ll come to it sooner or later.”
“Is it your position,” the actor said earnestly, “that the Jewish question really has no bearing on America’s entry into the war?”
“I didn’t say that. Americans do react sharply to injustice and suffering.”
The smirk reappeared on the three faces, and Knopfmann said, “And your Negroes in the South?”
Pug paused, “It’s bad, but it’s improving, and we don’t put them behind barbed wire.”
The actor said in a lowered voice, “That’s a political penalty. A Jew who behaves himself doesn’t go to a camp.”
Lighting a large cigar, his eyes on the match, Stöller said, “Victor speaks very diplomatically. But his connections are okay. One man who’s really in the picture is Congressman Ike Lacouture of Florida. He fought a great battle against revising the Neutrality Act.” With a sly glance at Pug, he added, “Practically in the family, isn’t he?”
This caught Pug off guard, but he said calmly, “You’re pretty well informed. That’s not exactly public knowledge.”
Stöller laughed. “The air minister knew about it. He told me. He admires Lacouture. What happened to the dance music? Ach, look at the time. How did it get to be half past one? There’s a little supper on, gentlemen, nothing elaborate—” He rose, puffing on the cigar. “The American Jews will make the greatest possible mistake, Victor, to drag in the United States. Lacouture is their friend, if they’ll only listen to him. You know what the Führer said in his January speech—if they start another world war, that will be the end of them. He was in deadly earnest, I assure you.”
Aware that he was butting a stone wall, but unable to let these things pass, Pug said, “Peace or war isn’t up to the Jews. And you grossly misunderstand Lacouture.”
“Do I? But my dear Captain, what do you call the British guarantee to Poland? Politically and strategically it was frivolous, if not insane. All it did was bring in two big powers against Germany on the trivial issue of Danzig, which was what the Jews wanted. Churchill is a notorious Zionist. All this was clearly stated between the lines in Lacouture’s last speech. I tell you, men like him may still manage to restore the peace and incidentally to save the Jews from a very bad fate they seem determined to bring on themselves. Well—how about an omelette and a glass of champagne?”
On Christmas Eve, Victor Henry left the embassy early to walk home. The weather was threatening, but he wanted air and exercise. Berlin was having a lugubrious Yuletide. The scrawny newspapers had no good war news, and the Russian attack on Finland was bringing little joy to Germans. The shop windows offered colorful cornucopias of appliances, clothing, toys, wines, and food, but people hurried sullenly along the cold windy streets under dark skies, hardly glancing at the mocking displays. None of the stuff was actually for sale. As Pug walked, evening fell and the blackout began. Hearing muffled Christmas songs from behind curtained windows, he could picture the Berliners sitting in dimly lit apartments in their overcoats around tinsel-draped fir trees, trying to make merry on watery beer, potatoes, and salt mackerel. At Abendruh, the Henrys had almost forgotten that there was a war on, if a dormant one, and that serious shortages existed. For Wolf Stöller there were no shortages.
Yielding to Rhoda’s urging, he had accepted an invitation to come back to Abendruh in January, though he had not enjoyed himself there. More and more, especially since his glimpse of the National Socialist leaders at Karinhall, he thought of the Germans as people he would one day have to fight. He felt hypocritical putting on the good fellow with them. But intelligence opportunities did exist at Stöller’s estate. Pug had sent home a five-page account just of his talk with General von Roon. By pretending he agreed at heart with Ike Lacouture—something Stöller already believed, because he wanted to—he could increase those opportunities. It meant being a liar, expressing ideas he thought pernicious, and abusing a man’s hospitality—a hell of a way to serve one’s country! But if Stöller was trying games with the American naval attaché, he had to take the risks. Victor Henry was mulling over all this as he strode along, muffled to his eyes against a sleety rain that was starting to fall, when out of the darkness a stooped figure approached and touched his arm.
“Captain Henry?”
“Who are you?”
“Rosenthal. You are living in my house.”
They were near a corner, and in the glow of the blue streetlight Pug saw that the Jew had lost a lot of weight; the skin of his face hung in folds, and his nose seemed far more prominent. He was stooped over, and his confident bearing had given way to a whipped and sickly look. It was a shocking change. Holding out his hand, Pug said, “Oh, yes. Hello.”
“Forgive me. My wife and I are going to be sent to Poland soon. Or at least we have heard such a rumor and we want to prepare, in case it’s true. We can’t take our things, and we were just wondering whether there are any articles in our home you and Mrs. Henry would care to buy. You could have anything you wished, and I could make you a very reasonable price.”
Pug had also heard vague stories of the “resettlement” of the Berlin Jews, a wholesale shipping-off to newly formed Polish ghettos, where conditions were, according to the reports you chose to believe, either
moderately bad or fantastically horrible. It was disturbing to talk to a man actually menaced with this dark misty fate.
“You have a factory here,” he said. “Can’t your people keep an eye on your property until conditions get better?”
“The fact is I’ve sold my firm, so there’s nobody.” Rosenthal held up the frayed lapels of his coat against the cutting sleet and wind.
“Did you sell out to the Stöller bank?”
The Jew’s face showed astonishment and timorous suspicion. “You know about these matters? Yes, the Stöller bank. I received a very fair price. Very fair.” The Jew permitted himself a single ironic glance into Henry’s eyes. “But the proceeds were tied up to settle other matters. My wife and I will be more comfortable in Poland with a little ready money. It always helps. So—perhaps the carpets—the plate, or some china?”
“Come along and talk it over with my wife. She makes all those decisions. Maybe you can have dinner with us.”
Rosenthal sadly smiled. “I don’t think so, but you’re very kind.”
Pug nodded, remembering his Gestapo-planted servants. “Herr Rosenthal, I have to repeat to you what I said when we rented your place. I don’t want to take advantage of your misfortune.”
“Captain Henry, you can’t possibly do me and my wife a greater kindness. I hope you will buy something.”
Rosenthal put a card in his hand and melted into the blackout. When Pug got home Rhoda was dressing for the chargé’s dinner, so there was no chance to talk about the offer.
The embassy’s Christmas party had none of the opulence of an Abendruh banquet, but it was good enough. Nearly all the Americans left in Berlin were there, chatting over eggnogs and then assembling at three long tables for a meal of roast goose, pumpkin pie, fruit, cheese, and cakes, all from Denmark. Diplomatic import privileges made this possible, and the guests grew merry over the unaccustomed abundance. Victor Henry loved being back among American faces, American talk, offhand open manners, laughter from the diaphragm and not from the face muscles; not a bow or a clicked pair of heels, not a woman’s European smile, gleaming on and off like an electric sign.
But trouble broke out with Rhoda. He heard her raising her voice at Fred Fearing, who was sucking his corncob pipe and glaring at her far down the table. Pug called, “Hey, what’s it about, Fred?”
“The Wolf Stöllers, Pug, the loveliest people your wife has ever met.”
“I said the nicest Germans,” Rhoda shrilled, “and it’s quite true. You’re blindly prejudiced.”
“It’s time you went home, Rhoda,” Fearing said.
“And just what does that mean?” she snapped back, still much too loud. At Abendruh Rhoda had loosened up on her count of drinks, and tonight she appeared to be further along than usual. Her gestures were getting broad, she was holding her eyes half-closed, and her voice tones were going up into her nose.
“Well, kid, if you think people like Wolf Stöller and his wife are nice, you’ll believe next that Hitler just wants to reunite the German folk peacefully. About that time you need to go back for a while on American chow and the New York Times.”
“I just know that Germans are not monsters with horns and tails,” said Rhoda, “but ordinary people, however misguided. Or did one of your fräuleins show up in bed with cloven hoofs, dear?”
The crude jibe caused a silence. Fearing was an ugly fellow, tall, long-faced, curly-headed, with a narrow foxy nose; upright, idealistic, full of rigid liberal ideas, and severe on injustice and political hypocrisy. But he had his human side. He had seduced the wife of his collaborator on a best seller about the Spanish Civil War. This lady he had recently parked in England with an infant daughter, and he was now—so the talk ran—making passes at every available German woman, and even some American wives. Rhoda had once half-seriously told Pug that she had had trouble with Freddy on the dance floor. All the same, Fred Fearing was a famous, able reporter. Because he detested the Nazis, he tried hard to be fair to them, and the propaganda ministry understood this. Most Americans got their picture of Nazi Germany at war from Fearing’s broadcasts.
Victor Henry said, as amiably as he could, to break the silence, “It might be easier to navigate in this country, Rhoda, if the bad ones would sprout horns or grow hair in their palms or something.”
“What Wolf Stöller has in his palms is blood, lots of it,” Fearing said, with a swift whiskeyed-up pugnacity. “He acts unaware of it. You and Rhoda encourage this slight color blindness, Pug, by acting the same way.”
“It’s Pug’s job to socialize with people like Stöller,” said the chargé mildly, from the head of the table. “I propose a moratorium tonight on discussing the Germans.”
Colonel Forrest was rubbing his broken nose, a mannerism that signalled an itch to argue, though his moon face remained placid. He put in, nasally, “Say, Freddy, I happen to think Hitler just wants to reorganize central Europe as a German sphere, peacefully if he can, and that he’ll call off the war if the Allies will agree. Think I should go home, too?”
Fearing emitted a column of blue smoke and red sparks from his pipe. “What about Mein Kampf, Bill?”
“Campaign document of a thirty-year-old hothead,” snapped the military attaché, “written eighteen years ago in jail. Now he’s the head of state. He’s never moved beyond his strength. Mein Kampf’s all about tearing off the southern half of Russia and making a German breadbasket of it. That’s an old Vienna coffeehouse fantasy. It went out of the window once and for all with the pact. The Jewish business is bad, but the man’s doing his job with the crude tools at hand. That unfortunately includes anti-Semitism. He didn’t invent it. It was big on the German scene before he was born.”
“Yes, time for you to go home,” said Fearing, gulping Moselle.
“Well, what’s your version?” Now plainly irritated, the military attaché put on an imitation of the broadcaster’s voice. “That Adolf Hitler the mad house painter is out to conquer the world?”
“Oh, hell, Hitler’s revolution doesn’t know where it’s going, Bill, any more than the French or Russian revolutions did,” exclaimed Fearing, with an exasperated wave of his corncob. “It’s just raging along the way those did and it’ll keep going and spreading till it’s stopped. Sure he moves peacefully where he can. Why not? Everywhere he’s pushed in there have been welcoming groups of leading citizens, or traitors, you might say. In Poland they swarmed. Why, you know that France and England have parties ready right this second to cooperate with him. He just has to strike hard enough in the west to knock out the ins and bring in the outs. He’s already got Stalin cravenly feeding him all the Russian oil and wheat he needs, in return for the few bones he threw him in the Baltic.”
With swinging theatrical gestures of the smoking pipe, Fearing went on, “By 1942, the way things are going, you may see a world in which Germany will control the industries of Europe, the raw materials of the Soviet Union, and the navies of England and France. Why, the French fleet would go over to him tomorrow if the right admiral sneezed. He’ll have a working deal with the Japs for exploiting Asia and the East Indies and ruling the Pacific and Indian oceans. Then what? Not to mention the network of dictatorships in South America, already in the Nazis’ pocket. You know, of course, Bill, that the United States Army is now two hundred thousand strong, and that Congress intends to cut it.”
“Well, I’m against that, of course,” said Colonel Forrest.
“I daresay! A new bloody dark age is threatening to engulf the whole world and Congress wants to cut down the Army!”
“An interesting vision,” smiled the chargé. “Slightly melodramatic.”
Rhoda Henry raised her wineglass, giggling noisily. “Lawks a mercy me! I never heard such wild-eyed poppycock. Freddy, you’re the one who should go home. Merry Christmas.”
Fred Fearing’s face reddened. He looked up and down the table. “Pug Henry, I like you. I guess I’ll go for a walk.”
As the broadcaster strode away from th
e table, the chargé rose and hurried after him, but did not bring him back. The Henrys went home early. Pug had to hold up Rhoda as they left, because she was half-asleep, and unsteady at the knees.
The next pouch of Navy mail contained an Alnav listing changes of duty for most of the new captains. They were becoming execs of battleships, commanding officers of cruisers, chiefs of staff to admirals at sea. For Victor Henry there were no orders. He stared out of the window at Hitler’s chancellery, at the black-clad SS men letting snow pile on their helmets and shoulders like statues. Suddenly, he had had enough. He told his yeoman not to disturb him, and wrote three letters. The first expressed regret to the Stöllers that, due to unforeseen official problems, he and Rhoda would not be coming back to Abendruh. The second, two formal paragraphs to the Bureau of Personnel, requested transfer to sea duty. In the third, a long handwritten letter to Vice-Admiral Preble, Pug poured out his disgust with his assignment and his desire to go back to sea. He ended up:
I’ve trained twenty-five years for combat at sea. I’m miserable, Admiral, and maybe for that reason my wife is miserable. She’s falling apart here in Berlin. It’s a nightmarish place. This isn’t the Navy’s concern, but it’s mine. If I have been of any service to the Navy in my entire career, the only recompense I now ask, and beg, is a transfer to sea duty.
A few days later another White House envelope came with a scrawl in black, thick, slanting pencil. The postmark showed that it had crossed his letter.
Pug—
Your report is really grand, and gives me a helpful picture. Hitler is a strange one, isn’t he? Everybody’s reaction is a little different. I’m delighted that you are where you are, and I have told CNO that. He says you want to return briefly in May for a wedding. That will be arranged. Be sure to drop in on me when you can spare a moment.
FDR
Victor Henry bought two of Rosenthal’s Oriental carpets, and a set of English china that Rhoda particularly loved, at the prices the man named. His main motive was to cheer her up, and it worked; she gloated over the bargains for weeks, and never tired of saying, truly enough, that the poor Jewish man’s thankfulness to her had been overwhelming. Pug also wrote the Stöllers about this time that, if the invitation held, he and Rhoda would come back to Abendruh after all. If his job was intelligence, he decided, he had better get on with it; moreover, the moral gap between him and Stöller seemed to have narrowed. Notwithstanding Rosenthal’s pathetic gratitude for the deal, his possessions were Objekte.