“Ah, yes. She knows me. Go ahead, give me hell. When I’ve got duty like this, I eat and drink. On the Northampton I was a rail.”
Nearly everybody was dancing now, except the three young Red Army officers ranged frozen-faced against the wall, and General Fitzgerald, who was flirting with a beautiful ballet girl in a ghastly red satin dress. Such was the noise that Rule had to turn up the music. Pamela all but shouted, “Tell me about the Northampton, Victor.”
“Okay.” As he talked about what had happened at sea after Midway, even about the Tassafaronga disaster, he glowed, or so it seemed to her. He told her of the post under Spruance that he might have had, and how he had taken this job instead at Roosevelt’s request. He talked without bitterness or regret, laying out for her his life as it was. The party bubbled about them, and she sat listening, supremely content to be by his side, warmed by his physical presence, and sweetly disturbed by it, too. This was all she wanted, she kept thinking, just this closeness to this man until she died. She felt wholly alive again because she was sitting with him on a sofa. He was not happy. That was clear. She felt that she could make him happy, and that doing it would justify her own life.
Meantime, in a lull in the phonograph music, Yevlenko and the ballet people were talking excitedly around the piano. A girl sat down and rippled out-of-tune sour chords that brought general laughter. Yevlenko shouted, “Nichevo! Igraitye!” (“It doesn’t matter! Play!”) She drummed out a Russian melody, Yevlenko bawled an order, and all the Russians, even the three junior officers, formed up and performed a whirling group dance: everyone shouting, stamping, crisscrossing, spinning, while the Westerners in a circle clapped time and cheered them on. After that there was no ice left to be broken. Yevlenko stripped off his bemedalled coat, and in his sweat-stained blouse did the dance he had performed in the house at the Moscow front, squatting and bounding to applause; only, he held his lopped limb awkwardly and lifelessly. Next Valentina caused howls by putting on his coat, and improvising a wicked little dance burlesquing a pompous general.
More excited consultation at the piano, and Valentina gestured for silence, and friskily announced that she and her friends would do the ballet created for their tour of the fronts. She would dance Hitler, another girl Goebbels, a third Goring, and a fourth Mussolini, though they didn’t have their masks. Four men would be dancing the Red Army.
Pug and Pamela broke off their talk to watch this satiric pantomime. The four villains strutted in to martial music, miming an invasion; gloated over their victory; argued about a division of the spoils; came to slapstick blows. Enter the Red Army, prancing to the “Internationale.” Extravagant pantomime of cowardice and fear by the villains. Comic circular chase, round and round. Death of the four villains; and as they fell one by one, their four crooked bodies formed a swastika on the floor. Sensation!
Amid the applause the Swan Lake prince stripped off his coat and tie, kicked off his shoes, and signalled to the pianist. In open white shirt, trousers, and stocking feet, he launched into a stunningly brilliant dance with leaps and twirls that brought cheer after cheer. It was a climax impossible to top, or so it seemed. As he stood panting, surrounded by congratulations while refills of vodka were poured all around, the piano struck a harsh chord. Out on the floor stalked the ramrod-straight much-ribboned General Fitzgerald. He did not take off his coat. At his brusque signal the pianist began a fast kozotzki; whereupon the lean Air Corps general squatted and danced, arms folded, blond hair flying, long legs athletically kicking out and in, with appropriate sideward leaps. The surprise was magnificent. The Swan Lake prince dropped beside Fitzgerald and they finished the dance as a duo to a tumult of encouraging shouts, stamping, and clapping.
“I like your general,” said Pamela.
“I like these people,” said Pug. “They’re impossible, but I like them.”
General Yevlenko presented a glass of vodka to Fitzgerald and clinked with him. They drained their glasses to great applause. Fitzgerald walked to a refreshment table beside Pug’s sofa and picked off two open vodka bottles — not very large, but full — saying, “Here goes for Old Glory, Pug.” He strode back and handed Yevlenko a bottle with a challenging flourish.
“Eh? Horoshi tshelovyek!” (“Good fellow!”) bellowed Yevlenko, whose big face and naked pate were now bright salmon color.
With all the guests urging them on — except, Pug noted, the Red Army officer with the scar, who looked as vexed as a disobeyed governess — the two generals tilted the bottles to their mouths, eyeing each other. Finishing first, Fitzgerald crashed his bottle into the brick fireplace. Yevlenko’s bottle came flying after it. They embraced amid cheers, while the girl at the piano thumped out a barely recognizable “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
“Christ, I’d better get him back to the embassy,” Pug said. “He’s been dodging booze ever since he got here.”
But somebody had put “Tiger Rag” on the phonograph, and Fitzgerald was already dancing with the girl in red satin, who had cruelly mimicked the club-footed Goebbels in the ballet. Yevlenko took Pamela on the floor. It was past two in the morning, so this last burst of dancing did not last long. The guests began to leave, the party to dwindle down. Dancing again with the Swan Lake prince, Pamela noticed Pug, Yevlenko, and Fitzgerald huddled in talk, with Rule listening. Her dimming journalist instinct woke, and she went over to sit down beside Pug.
“Okay. Are we talking straight?” Fitzgerald said to Pug. The two generals were on facing settees, glaring at each other.
“Straight!” barked Yevlenko, with an unmistakable gesture.
“Then tell him I’m fed to the teeth, Pug, with this second front stuff. I’ve been getting it here for weeks. What about North Africa and Sicily, the two greatest amphibious attacks in history? What about the thousand-plane air raids on Germany? What about the whole Pacific war, where we’re keeping the Japs from jumping on their backs?”
“Here goes for Old Glory,” Pug muttered, bringing a chill grin to Fitzgerald’s face. He translated, and kept translating as fast as he could during the ensuing exchange.
Yevlenko nodded and nodded at Pug’s words, his face hardening. He thrust a finger at Fitzgerald’s face. “Concentrate forces and strike at the decisive point! Schwerpunktbildung! Do they teach that principle at West Point? The decisive place is Hitlerite Germany. Yes or no? The way for you to strike at Hitlerite Germany is through France. Yes or no?”
“Ask him why Russia didn’t open a second front for a whole year when England stood alone against Hitlerite Germany.”
Yevlenko grated at Fitzgerald, “That war was an imperialist quarrel over world markets. It was of no concern to our peasants and workers.”
Philip Rule, who kept refilling his own glass with vodka as he listened, now said to Fitzgerald rather thickly, “Should you go on with this?”
“He can call it quits. He started it,” Fitzgerald snapped. “Pug, ask him why we should break our necks to help a nation that’s committed to the destruction of our way of life.”
“Oh, gawd,” murmured Rule.
Yevlenko’s glare grew more bellicose. “We believe your way of life will destroy itself through its inner contradictions. We won’t destroy it, but Hitler can. So why don’t you cooperate to beat Hitler? In 1919 Churchill tried to destroy our way of life. Now he is entertained in the Kremlin. History goes in steps, Lenin said. Sometimes forward, sometimes backward. Now is a time to go forward.”
“You don’t trust us for sour apples, so how can we cooperate?”
Pug had trouble with “sour apples,” but Yevlenko got the idea. He sneered, “Yes, yes. An old complaint. Well, sir, your country has never been invaded, but we have been invaded over and over, invaded and occupied. Most of our allies have historically proved treacherous, and sooner or later have turned and attacked Russia. We have learned a little caution.”
“America won’t attack Russia. You have nothing we want.”
“Well, we want nothing from you, once
we beat Hitler, but to be left alone.”
“On that note, can we all have a last drink?” said Rule.
“Our host is getting tired,” said Yevlenko, dropping the harsh debating tone for a sudden amiable aside at Fitzgerald.
Rule began pontificating in Russian, with drunken gestures, and Pug muttered a running translation to Fitzgerald. “Oh, this is all talk in a vacuum. The white race is having another big civil war. Race, General Yevlenko, not economics, rules human affairs. The white race is mechanically brilliant but morally primitive. The German is the purest white man, the superman, Hitler’s dead right about that. The white man like the red man is destined to fade from history, after laying waste half the planet in his civil wars. The white man’s drivel about democracy is finished, too, after democracy elected creatures like Chamberlain, Daladier, and Hitler. Next will come China’s turn. China is the Middle Kingdom, the center of gravity of the human race. The only genuine Marxist of world consequence is now living in a cave in Yenan. His name is Mao Tse-tung.”
Rule delivered himself of this pronouncement with insufferable alcoholic positiveness, glancing often at Pamela as Pug translated.
Fitzgerald yawned and sat up, straightening his blouse and tie. “General, will I be able to fly my planes through Vladivostok, or won’t I?”
“Keep your end of the bargain. We’ll keep ours.”
“Another thing. Are you going to make another deal with the Nazis, as you did in 1939?”
Pug was nervous about translating that, but Yevlenko retorted in a level tone, “If we get wind that you’re negotiating another Munich, we’ll turn the tables again and it’ll serve you right. But if you fight, we’ll fight. If you don’t, we’ll crush the Hitlerites ourselves.”
“Okay, Pug. Now tell him I argued myself black in the face, as a war planner, against the North African campaign. Tell him I fought six long months for a second front in France this year. Go ahead. Tell him that.”
Pug obeyed. Yevlenko listened, narrowed his eyes at Fitzgerald, and tightened his mouth.
“Tell him he’d better believe America is different from all other countries in history.”
An enigmatic smile was Yevlenko’s only reaction.
“And I hope his tyrannical regime will let his people realize that. Because it’s the one chance for peace in the long run.”
The smile faded, leaving a face of stone.
“And you, General,” said Fitzgerald, standing and offering his hand, “are one hell of a guy. I am dead drunk. Any words of offense I spoke don’t count. Pug, lead me back to Spaso House. I’ve got to pack up fast.”
Yevlenko got to his feet, stretched out his left hand, and said, “I will take you back to Spaso House.”
“Really? Most handsome of you. In the name of Allied amity, I accept. Now I’ll say good-bye to the birthday beauty.”
By now only the Red Army officers and Valentina had not yet left the suite. Yevlenko growled some words at the junior officers, whereupon they stiffened. One of them spoke to Fitzgerald — in fair English, Pug noted, using the language for the first time that evening — and the Air Corps general went out with him. Valentina pulled Rule from a slump in an armchair, and led him stumbling out. Pug, Pamela, and General Yevlenko remained alone amid the desolation of the ended party.
Yevlenko took Pamela’s hand in his left, saying, “So you will marry Air Vice Marshal Duncan Burne-Wilke, who stole forty Airacobras from us.”
Getting the grammar wrong, Pam replied, “General, we are fighting the same enemy with those Airacobras.”
“I yevo?” (“And him?”) Yevlenko directed his lifeless hand at Pug Henry.
She opened wide eyes and mimicked his gesture. “Sprasitye yevo!” (“Ask him!”)
Pug spoke rapidly to Yevlenko. Pamela interrupted, “Now, now, what’s all that?”
“I’m saying he misunderstands. That we’re dear old friends.”
Yevlenko spoke in slow clear Russian to Pamela, thrusting an index finger into Pug’s shoulder. “You are in Moscow, dear lady, because he got you your visa. Genry,” he went on, buttoning the top of his tunic, “ne bood durakom!”
Abruptly he walked out, closing the door.
“Ne bood durakom— don’t be — what?” asked Pamela. “What’s durakom?”
“Goddamned fool. Instrumental case.”
“I see.” Pamela burst out with a throaty peal of female joy. She put her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth. “So you brought me to Moscow because we’re dear old friends.” He crushed her to him, kissed her hard, and let her go. Walking to the windows, he pulled back the curtains. It was day, the early Russian day of midsummer. The cool light made the after-party scene sadder and drearier. Pamela came beside him, looking out at clouds faintly flushed with sunrise. “You love me.”
“I don’t change much.”
“I don’t love Duncan. That’s what I wrote you in the letter to the Northampton. He knows I don’t. He knows about you. In that letter I asked you to speak, or forever hold your peace. But you never got it.”
“Why are you marrying a man you don’t love?”
“I wrote you that, too. I was sick of floating, I wanted to land. That’s doubly true now. I had Talky then, now I have nobody.”
It was a while before he spoke. “Pamela, when I got home, Rhoda acted like a Turkish harem girl. She was my slave. She’s guilty, and sorry, and sad, and bereft. I’m sure she has nothing to do with that other fellow any more. I’m not God. I’m her husband. I can’t chuck her out.”
Guilty and sorry! Sad and bereft! How little that resembled the woman Pamela had seen in Washington! Pug was the sad and bereft one, it was written in every line of his face. And if she’s unfaithful to you again? The question was on the tip of Pamela’s tongue. Looking into Pug Henry’s seamed decent face and somber eyes, she couldn’t utter it. “Well, here I am. You got me here. What do you want of me?”
“Look, Slote wrote that you were having trouble with your visa.” She was facing him, staring into his eyes. “All right, do I have to say it? I wanted you here because to see you is happiness.”
“Even when I’m dancing with Phil Rule?”
“Well, that just happened.”
“Phil means nothing to me.”
“I know.”
“Pug, we have the rottenest luck, don’t we?” Her eyes filled with tears that did not fall. “I can’t hang around Moscow just to be near you. You don’t want lovemaking, do you?”
With an ardent and bitter look he said, “I’m not free for lovemaking. Neither are you.”
“Then I’ll go on to New Delhi. Ill marry Duncan.”
“You’re so young. Why do that? There’ll be a man you’ll love.”
“God almighty, there’s no room. Don’t you understand me? How explicit do I have to be? Duncan’s sexual taste runs to pretty young popsies, and they swarm and swoon around him, so that more or less solves a difficulty for me. He wants a lady in his life, and he’s very affectionate and romantic about me. He thinks I’m a dashing creature, decorative as hell.” She put both hands on Pug’s shoulders. “You are my love. I’d help it if I could. I can’t.”
He took her in his arms. The sun came through low clouds and made a yellow patch on the wall.
“Ye gods, sunup,” he said.
“Victor, just keep your arms around me.”
After a long, long silence he said, “This may not come out right in words. You said we’ve had rotten luck. Well, I’m grateful as things are, Pam. It’s a miraculous gift from God, what I feel for you. Stay here awhile.”
“A week,” Pamela said, choking. “I’ll try to stay a week.”
“You will? A week? That’s a lifetime. Now I’ve got to go and pour General Fitzgerald on an airplane.”
She caressed his hair and eyebrows and kissed him. He strode out without looking back. At her window she watched until the erect small figure in white came in view, and vigorously walked out of sight on the quiet sunlit bo
ulevard. The melody of “Lili Marlene” was running over and over in her head, and she was wondering when he would find out what was happening to his wife.
68
IN a wild ravine high in the Carpathian Mountains, wan light diffused through yellowing leaves shows a meandering forest path which might be a hunters’ trail or an animal track, or no path at all but a trick of the light falling among the trees. As the sun sets and clouds redden overhead a bulkily clad figure comes, striding down this trail carrying a heavy pack, with a rifle slung on a shoulder. It is a woman of slight build, her face close-wrapped by a thick gray shawl, her breath smoking. Passing a lightning-blasted oak trunk, she vanishes like a forest spirit sinking into the earth.
She is no forest spirit, but a so-called forest wife, a partisan commander’s woman; and she has jumped down into a dugout, through a hole so masked by brush that if not for the ruined oak she herself might have missed it in the gloom. Partisan discipline forbids such creature comforts to lesser men, but a woman sharing his bed is a prestige symbol of the leader, like a new Nagant pistol, a separate dugout, and a leather windbreaker. Major Sidor Nikonov has grown quite fond of Bronka Ginsberg, whom at first he more or less raped; besides using her body he talks a lot to her, and listens to her opinions. He has been waiting for her, in fact, to help him decide whether or not to shoot the suspected infiltrator lying tied up in the cook dugout.
This fellow swears he is no infiltrator, but a Red Army soldier who escaped from a prison camp outside Ternopol, and joined a partisan band which the Germans wiped out. He got away, so he says, and has been wandering westward in the mountains, living on roots and berries or handouts from peasants. His story is plausible, and he is certainly emaciated and ragged enough; but his Russian accent is odd, he looks over sixty, and he has no identification at all.
Bronka Ginsberg goes to size up the man. Hunched in the dirt in a corner of the cook dugout, more tortured by the food smells than by the ropes cutting his ankles and wrists, Berel Jastrow takes one look at her face and decides to gamble.