Natalie said, “I don’t think I should risk that.”
“I wouldn’t mind trying Lufthansa,” said Jastrow in a far-off voice, rolling the cigar in his fingers. “I still don’t believe, I truly don’t, that the Germans would molest me.”
Thurston shook his head. “Dr. Jastrow, she’s the wife of a Gentile naval officer. I think she’d be all right. Don’t you go on Lufthansa!”
“What I have to decide, then,” Natalie said, “is whether I chance Lufthansa alone, or take the train with Aaron.”
“You don’t have to decide anything yet. I’m telling you some of the things to think about.”
Natalie and her uncle killed the next day looking in shopwindows, buying clothes, eating cream cakes, drinking real coffee, riding around in cabs, and luxuriating in the rich freedom of Switzerland, only a few hours by air from brown melancholy Rome. Toward evening she saw Dr. Wundt again. With a sad shrug, he told her that all her tests were negative.
“That’s all right. I may be able to stay, anyway,” she said. “My consul’s looking into it.”
“Ah, so?” the little doctor’s face brightened. “Perfect! Nothing would please me more. Let me book your lying-in right away, Mrs. Henry. The hospitals are crowded.”
“I’ll let you know in a day or two.”
“Excellent.”
In the morning she found a white hotel envelope slipped under the door: Hi. Things are cooking. Meet me at the lake front, both of you, four o’clock, at Zurich Pleasure Boats. Bunky.
When they arrived at the dock, the consul had already hired an open boat with an outboard motor, and was sitting in it, waiting. Without a word he helped them in, started the engine, and went puttering off from the shore. About a mile out he killed the motor, and they could hear a German waltz thumping brassily over the blue water from the band of an approaching excursion steamer.
“I’ve got quite a report for you,” Thurston said, and Natalie’s heart leaped at his happy grin. “I thought we’d better be by ourselves while we talk it out.”
“Is it all arranged?” Jastrow said, with an eagerness that struck his niece as childish.
Thurston smoothed a palm over his moustache. “Well, we’re not in bad shape.” The consul’s eyes twinkled at Natalie. “Say, I’ve been on the telephone and teletype to Rome. Your Byron outdid his Lisbon feat, didn’t he? Talking to President Roosevelt about your uncle’s passport! What sheer nerve! Sight unseen, nobody in Rome likes him.”
“I can imagine.”
“Yes, but your uncle’s file carries a big ‘presidential flag on it now, and that’s just fine. Now, Natalie, you’re set. I’ve put you on the waiting list at Lufthansa. The next two flights are booked, but you’ve got a reservation on the third. Immigration will extend your stay till then.”
“But by then I’ll be in my eighth month—”
Holding up a hand, Thurston said, “Lufthansa is sure you’ll get out sooner. Maybe next week. There are always cancellations, and you’re high on the list, because of your pregnancy.”
“What about Aaron?”
“Well, that’s a different story.”
“She’s the important one,” Jastrow said dramatically, “and what happens to me couldn’t matter less. I’ve lived my life.”
“Hold on, hold on.” Thurston smiled. “Good lord, Dr. Jastrow! Everything’s all right. You just can’t stay on in Switzerland with her. That’s out of the question. But you’re set, too. Rome’s in a big boil about you now. The ambassador is outraged. He says that if he has to, he’ll appoint you to his staff and send you home on a diplomatic priority. You’re returning to Rome, but he’ll assume responsibility for dealing with the Italians. We have a lot of Italian bigwigs in the States, Dr. Jastrow, and I promise you there will be no more trouble with your exit permit.”
“You do think that’s better for me than taking the train to Lisbon?” Jastrow’s question was rhetorical. He sounded pleased and relieved. “I’m quite willing to attempt that.”
“Great heavens, Dr. Jastrow. I wouldn’t do that myself. It’s a gruelling schedule, and I’m not even sure the connections are still available. But the main objection is, you’d be leaving Switzerland illegally. You mustn’t think of that. At all costs, now that you’re legal, stay legal.”
Jastrow turned to his niece. “Well, my dear! This sounds like a parting of the ways.”
Natalie did not reply. Flying in a German airliner, now that it was upon her, loomed as an ugly prospect. Also, she was nauseous from the rocking of the boat in the wash of the excursion steamer, which was passing close by with passengers idly looking down at them, and the band blasting out “The Blue Danube.”
With a keen glance at her, Thurston said, “I know you’re set against returning to Rome, Natalie. But if you’ll reconsider that, the ambassador will make the identical arrangements for you that he’s working on for your uncle. That’s what I’d recommend to you, myself.”
“Well, it all takes some mulling over, doesn’t it?” Natalie said. “Can we go back? I’m tired.”
“Of course.” Thurston at once yanked the cord on the flywheel, and the motor started up in a cloud of blue fumes.
“We’re so grateful to you,” Jastrow exclaimed over the noise. “You’ve done wonders.”
“That ‘presidential tag is a help,” Thurston said, steering across the spreading wake of the steamer, in jolts and bumps that were almost in time with “The Blue Danube.”
When Natalie came down to breakfast, her uncle was sitting at a window table of the restaurant in strong sunlight, sipping coffee.
“Hello there, lazybones,” he said. “I’ve been up for hours. I hope you’re hungry. They have the most exquisite Polish ham this morning. How would they get Polish ham? I suppose the Germans stole it, and they bought it for gold. It’s the best in the world.”
Natalie ordered coffee and a roll.
Jastrow bubbled on. “You’re not hungry? I was famished. Strange, isn’t it, how far one can come in a lifetime! When I lived in Medzice as a boy, I literally would have let myself be burned alive or shot rather than swallow a piece of ham. Those old taboos deprived us of such simple available pleasures.” He looked at his niece, who sat pallid, tense, and glum, with hands folded on her bulky stomach. “You know, one of the prettiest sights on earth is a bowl full of fresh butter in morning sunshine. Look at that butter! Fragile and sweet as flowers. Be sure to try it. And this coffee is so very good! Natalie, my dear, I’ve slept on it, and I’ve quite made up my mind about what happens next.”
“Have you? That’s good. So have I.”
He said, “I’m going back to Rome. I would try Lufthansa, dear, I’m not afraid of the bogeymen. But I know I might clog your escape. That comes first. You absolutely must go your own way now. That’s my decision, and I’m afraid I’m going to be adamant about it. My dear, what are you staring at? Do I have egg on my chin?”
“No, but that’s precisely what I intended to tell you I would do.”
“Is it?” His face lit up in a gentle smile. “Thank heaven. I thought you’d put up a heroic argument for returning with me. No, it’s absurd for you to drag yourself back. As for me, I trust the ambassador, and anyway there’s no sense thrashing against one’s fate. Often fate knows best. I have a place on the afternoon plane to Rome. Going back seems to be as easy as sliding down a greased slope. Only the other direction is hard.”
Natalie sipped her coffee. Was this a game to cajole from her an offer to go back to Rome? She was, after long experience, wary of her uncle’s selfishness, sometimes blatant, sometimes subtle.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose it makes sense, if you want to leave via Rome, to get there and line it up, the sooner the better. Are you sure you can manage?”
“If the ambassador himself is intervening, how can I muck it up? I have only one request. Will you take the manuscript? Even if I beat you home, I’d rather you guarded the book. I’ll have all the draft notes, you see. There’s
two chances of preserving The Arch of Constantine instead of one.”
Now, for the first time, Natalie began to believe her uncle, and to allow herself some warmth toward him. “Well, Aaron, all right. This parting is going to feel very, very strange.”
“Natalie, I’ll be more relieved than you. I bear a burden of guilt about you at least as large as that baby you’ve got there. Someday you’ll know the measure of my gratitude.” He put his weak, bony little hand on hers. “You’ve earned yourself—as our fathers quaintly put it—a large share in the world to come. If only it existed!”
So Aaron Jastrow went back docilely to Rome. His niece heard nothing for ten days, ten dreary days in which the comforts and rich food of the Swiss rapidly palled. Even an albatross around one’s neck, Natalie began to think, was company of a sort. She was terribly lonely. Bunky Thurston, carrying on a romance with the daughter of a refugee French novelist, had little time for her. The Swiss treated her, as they did all foreigners, with cool paid courtesy, as though the whole country were the grounds of a huge Class A hotel. The sad-eyed Jews in the shops, the streets, the excursion trains and boats, depressed her. A letter came at last, sprinkled with special-delivery stamps and censors’ markings.
I assume this will be read, but it makes no difference. You and I are in the clear with the Italian authorities! I now have in my possession, Natalie, two air tickets, and properly dated exit permits, and Portuguese transit visas, and Pan Am connections, and highest diplomatic priority stickers. The works! They’re lying on the desk before me, and I’ve never seen a more glorious sight.
Thurston sparked an explosion in this embassy, my dear. A fine chap. It was high time! The ambassador used all his available channels, including the Vatican—where, as you know, I have many friends. I should have tried long ago myself to throw my weight around, but it seemed so infra dig to plead my literary distinction, such as it is!
Now to cases.
The date of the tickets is December fifteenth. It’s awfully far off, I know, but Pan Am’s the bottleneck. No sense going to Lisbon and sitting there for months! And this transportation is sure. Of course it does mean having your baby here, after all. That decision is up to you.
I enclose a note from the ambassador’s charming and quite bright wife. If you don’t want to languish in Zurich, waiting for a chance to ride out with the gallant Huns, her invitation may be welcome.
I await your orders. I feel twenty years younger. Are you well? I worry about you day and night.
Love
Aaron.
The ambassador’s wife had written in an ornate finishing-school hand in green ink, with little circles over the i’s:
Dear Natalie:
I sent my daughter home three months ago to have her baby. Her room is empty, her husband works in the embassy, and all of us miss her so much!
If you can get home from Switzerland, nothing could be better. Otherwise, please consider coming here, where at least you would eat well, and the baby would be born on American “soil,” so to speak, among your friends. We would love to have you.
On this same morning, Bunky Thurston telephoned. Lufthansa had come across with an early reservation, as a special courtesy to him: one seat to Lisbon, September 17, four days off. No opening existed on Pan Am, he said, but they had put her high on the long Lisbon waiting list, and she would get any early vacancy.
“I’d suggest you go straight to the Lufthansa office on the Bahnhof-strasse, just two blocks down from the hotel, and grab yourself this ticket,” Thurston said. “There are various forms to fill out, which I can’t do for you, otherwise—”
“Wait, Bunky, wait.” Natalie was having trouble following him. She had awakened with a sore throat and a fever of over a hundred; she was groggy from the aspirins and depressed by her uncle’s letter, which had thrown her into a vortex of indecision. “I have a letter from Aaron. Can you spare a moment?”
“Shoot.”
She read him the letter.
“Well! They really got hot, didn’t they? Natalie, I can’t presume to make your decision. I know what Leslie Slote would say. Byron too.”
“I know. Play it safe, go straight back to Rome.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re wrong about Byron. Byron would tell me to get on Lufthansa.”
“Really? You know him better than I do. Whatever you decide, let me know if there’s any way I can help you,” Thurston said. “I hear Françoise honking. We’re spending a day in the country.”
Of all things, Natalie did not want to go back to Rome. It was the fixed idea she clung to. Heavily, dizzily, she dressed herself and set out to walk to Lufthansa. She kept swallowing, her throat rasping like sandpaper despite the aspirins. All the airline offices were in the same block. Air France, Pan American, and BOAC were closed and shuttered, the paint of their signs fading. The gilt of Lufthansa’s eagle, perched on a wreathed swastika, shone bright in the sun. The swastika made Natalie hesitate outside. Through the window she saw behind a bare counter in a hospital-clean office a tanned blonde girl in an azure and gold uniform, perfectly groomed, laughing with very white teeth. A tanned man in a checked sports jacket was laughing with her. Wall posters showed castles on river bluffs, and girls in Bavarian costume, and fat men drinking beer, and busts of Beethoven and Wagner hovering over a baroque opera house.
They saw her looking in at them, stopped laughing, and stared. Shivering a little from the fever, Natalie entered the Lufthansa office.
“Grüss Gott,” said the girl.
“Good afternoon,” Natalie said hoarsely. “The American consul, Bunker Thurston, has made a reservation for me to fly to Lisbon on the seventeenth.”
“Oh? Are you Mrs. Byron Henry?” The girl switched smoothly to clear English.
“Yes.”
“Fine. Your passport?”
“Do you have the reservation?”
“Yes. Let me have your passport, please.”
The girl held out a manicured, scrubbed hand. Natalie gave her the passport, and the girl handed her a long form printed on coarse green paper. “Fill this out, please.”
Natalie scanned the form. “My goodness. What a lot of questions for an airplane ride.”
“Wartime security regulations, Mrs. Henry. Both sides, please.”
The first page asked for a detailed accounting of the passenger’s travels in the past year. Natalie turned over the form. The first question at the top of the page was
GLAUBUNG (Foi) (Religion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VATER (Père) (Father) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MUTTER (Mère) (Mother) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A nerve spasm swept her. She wondered why Thurston had not warned her of this risky snag. Here was a quick decision to make! It was simple enough to write in “Methodist”; they had her mother’s maiden name in the passport, but “Greengold” wasn’t necessarily Jewish. How could they check? Yet, after Aaron’s troubles, what lists might she not be on? How could she be sure that the Kônigsberg incident had not been recorded? And what had happened to those Jewish neutrals at Kônigsberg whom the Germans had marched off? As these thoughts raced in her fevered mind, the baby gave a little jolt inside her.
The street outside seemed far away and inviting. Natalie’s head swam and her throat seemed to be choking shut with bits of gravel. She dropped the green form on the counter. The Lufthansa girl was starting to write a ticket, copying data from the passport. Natalie saw her glance in puzzlement at the form, then at the man in the sports jacket, who reached into a pocket and said to Natalie in German, “Do you need a pen?”
“Give me my passport, please,” she said.
The girl’s eyebrows arched. “Is something wrong?”
Too rattled to think of a deft answer, Natalie blurted, “Americans don’t ask people’s religion for travel purposes, and don’t give their own.”
The m
an and the girl exchanged a knowing look. The man said, “If you want to leave that blank, it is up to you. It is quite all right, Mrs. Henry.”
They both smiled slow queer smiles, the smile of the SS officer in Kônigsberg.
“I’ll take my passport, please.”
“I have started to write your ticket,” said the girl. “It is very hard to get passage to Lisbon, Mrs. Henry.”
“My passport.”
The girl tosssed the maroon booklet on the counter, and turned her back.
Natalie left. Three doors down, the Swissair office was open. She went in, and booked a flight to Rome the following morning. It was as Aaron Jastrow had said. Going back was as easy as descending a greased slope.
The March on Moscow
(from WORLD EMPIRE LOST)
The Geography of Barbarossa
In war the event is all, and Germany lost the war. This has obscured her victories in the field. Her enemies never won such victories; they overwhelmed her in the end with numbers, and a cataract of machines.
Defeat also, quite naturally, casts doubt on the conduct of the war by the loser. Thus we have wide agreement among military historians, regrettably including noted German generals like Guderian, Manstein, and Warlimont, that our plan for the invasion of Russia was “vague” or “patched-up” or “without a strategic objective.” What is accomplished by this historical fouling of our own nest, except self-exculpation which should be beneath a soldier’s dignity? It is bad enough that we lost the war, and world empire, by a heartbreakingly slender margin. There is no reason to describe ourselves, in our greatest national effort, as unprofessional dolts into the bargain. Such lickspittle writing, catering to the prejudices of the victors, does honor to nobody and violates history.
I myself was detailed to temporary service on the planning staff of General Marcks, which in the fall and winter of 1940 worked out the original war games of the invasion of the Soviet Union and then drafted an operational proposal. I was therefore in the picture from the start. It was a bold conception, for the factors of space and time, for the numbers of men and quantities of supplies, and for the grandeur of the political stakes. In detail Barbarossa was almost too complicated to be grasped by any one human intelligence. Yet in overall vision, it was a simple plan. In this lay its merit and its strength. It was firmly rooted in geographic, economic, and military realities. Within the limits of risk inherent in all war, it was sound.