“I had lunch with him yesterday,” responded the other. “He remembers you well and asked about you. He went to Germany, you know, and came back delighted with what he found.”
“If only we could take the American people for a trip through Germany, there would be an end to the lies of the Jewish press.” In this Lanny was repeating what he had read only that week in the Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter; published in Yorkville, a section of New York.
Lanny said no more on this subject. He talked about his projected trip abroad, and complimented Quadratt by asking his advice as to whether the Führer would wish to meet an American under the painful circumstances existing. “I couldn’t blame him if he never wished to hear of another.” The Nazi agent replied that the Führer was a broad-minded man and would surely not hold an old friend responsible for the malicious intrigues of a Roosevelt. Lanny told how cordial the great leader had been in Paris, and about the genuineness of his longing for reconcilement with the British Empire; then he spoke of Lord Wickthorpe, and the significance of his resignation—Lanny exaggerated it greatly. The movement for an understanding was far more widespread than the American press allowed the public to guess.
“At any rate,” said the ex-poet, “you and I can be sure that we have done everything in our power to end this madness.”
IV
Jim Stotzlmann had said that Harrison Dengue was in New York at this time, so Lanny was not surprised when, on the following afternoon, there was delivered to his hotel a handwritten invitation to dine the following evening at the home of Miss Hortensia van Zandt “to meet Mr. Dengue and Senator Reynolds.” Lanny had guessed that the eager agent would set to work via the telephone, and that the fanatical old lady who was one of Quadratt’s financial backers would be no less prompt. In these times of blockade and censorship not many personal friends of the Führer were available in New York.
Lanny accepted by the same formal method, and at half-past six he left his hotel for a walk down Fifth Avenue. It was a crisp winter evening, and looking up through the steep canyon walls he saw bright stars, seeming very close. The time was between the rush of shopping traffic and theater traffic, but even so the great thoroughfare was crowded, and its bright lights were veiled by a gray-blue haze. Jewelry shops, fur shops, art shops, tall office buildings, and hotels lined what had once been the residential street of the “Four Hundred.” The display of luxury goods was like no other in the world, for Congress had just authorized more billions for military goods. Farther down on this narrow island was the financial center through which the money must pass, and be sure that sooner or later a lot of it would find its way to these shops.
Miss van Zandt was the New York hostess of two generations ago; tall, thin, and white-haired, stubborn, stiff, and proud. Her mansion on the lower Avenue had been entirely engulfed by the clothing trade, but she refused to move; that was her manner of waging war on the Jews and the Reds, who to her mind were one and the same. She wore a long black evening gown of real silk, and a velvet collar studded with diamonds hid the tendons of her thin neck. Nowadays the grandes dames had imitations made of their jewels and wore these, keeping the real ones—which everybody knew they had—locked up in bank vaults. Lanny guessed that this hostess would scorn such modernisms.
The present was an intellectual occasion, and she chose to dine alone with her three important gentlemen. Forrest Quadratt didn’t show up, and Lanny guessed that he himself had suggested this; the occasion would be one of simon-pure Americanism, and no one of the guests would be troubled by the idea that the Germans were responsible for it. First came “Buncombe Bob” Reynolds—by an odd quirk of fate he had been born in Buncombe County, in the state which he called No’th Ca’lina. He had once been a barker, selling patent medicines in a circus, and by lung power and genius he had risen to became Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the United States Senate, a position of the greatest power, which he intended with God’s help to use in keeping God’s country out of foreign wars, especially the wars of a power which had captured and burned the city of Washington only a hundred and twenty-seven years ago.
And then came Harrison Smithfield Dengue, a person concerning whom Lanny Budd had developed a sudden and intense curiosity. One could see at a glance that he was a man accustomed to commanding, and to being obeyed. He was a big fellow, and the swelling was in his chest and not below. He had a red complexion and wore a closely cropped gray mustache. He sat in his chair looking like a statue of capacity and determination. He didn’t say much, but then nobody had to, so long as Buncombe Bob was in the company.
This Senator of the hillbillies was one of the most active and determined advocates of Fascism in the Western World; but Lanny reflected that quite possibly he didn’t know it was Fascism and would have been indignant at the term. What he called it was Americanism, or plain hundred-per-cent patriotism. America was the greatest country in the world, and she was that because of her institutions under which a patent-medicine vender had risen to be a leading statesman and associate of millionaires. The Senator would have declared that any man who had ability and was willing to work hard enough could do the same. He was about to marry the daughter of a leading Washington hostess, author of a volume entitled Father Struck It Rich. Evalyn’s father had struck a gold mine, and now Evalyn owned the Hope diamond, the biggest in the world, and wore it on her bosom at parties to which she invited swarms of people who were Fascists and didn’t know it, and some who did.
V
Don’t let yourself be fooled by this statesman’s bland round smiling face and black hair cut long like a poet’s or a pianist’s. He is one of the most determined and aggressive men in the land, and if the Reds chink they are going to be allowed to spread their ideas and if the Jews think they are going to be allowed to continue making all the money, the Senator is going to teach them better. He has just been to Germany and discovered that everybody there is working hard, and happy, in spite of the war which was forced upon them. He tells once more the story of what he found there, and the other three persons at the dinner table do not interrupt. The Senator has learned how the National-Socialist miracle was brought about, and he is publishing a weekly paper, the American Vindicator, to tell all patriotic citizens about it. Also he has founded an organization, the Vindicators, which provides its members with red, white, and blue feathers and red, white, and blue badges. There is a section for youth, called the Border Patrol, and they also wear feathers and badges, and carry banners and sing songs—in short everything the Hitlerjugend has, excepting only the “daggers of honor.” The Senator doesn’t say that the whole of the McLean fortune is behind this effort to “save America,” and Lanny guesses that this is because the great man hopes to get a sizable check from his hostess when the evening is over.
When Buncombe Bob’s tale is told, the hostess turns to Lanny and remarks: “I understand, Mr. Budd, that you were in Paris last summer and met the Führer and others.”
So it is Lanny’s turn, and he relates what he saw and heard. Mr. Dengue is interested, and asks how he managed to gain the confidence of these exalted persons. Lanny tells, for perhaps the thousandth time, how it came about, and how the Führer commissioned him to tell the French people how he, the Führer, loves the French, and to tell the British people how he loves the British, and to tell the American people how he loves the Americans. In short, Adi Schicklgruber is a man made wholly of love, and hatred has no part in his being. He goes to war because other people force him in, and never ceases to plead for the end of hostilities. Lanny can say all this with a perfectly straight face and be certain that none of his three hearers will suspect any irony.
A most unusual story, how an American art expert was commissioned to travel back and forth with secret messages from the mistress of the Premier of France to the husband of his own former wife. “It sounds melodramatic,” he remarked. “It happens that we are living in melodramatic times, and the novelists and playwrights of a thousand years hence wi
ll be finding their material in the things that have been going on in Europe during the past ten.” There were no novelists or playwrights at this dinner table, only the most serious-minded reformers. Mr. Dengue wanted to know how sincere the Führer was in his hatred of Red Russia, and what were the prospects of his taking that country on, if by chance the statesmen of Britain could be persuaded to agree to a settlement.
It was the red-faced gentleman’s turn, and the hostess said: “Tell us what you think about the prospects for peace.”
So the man of power sang for his supper. He remarked that ordinarily any nation would be well satisfied to see its leading rivals fight each other, and he would have no objection to letting the British Empire and the German Reich go to it as long as they pleased. But there was the Red Terror of the Kremlin in the background, gloating over the spectacle and ready to inarch into the vacuum which the war would create in Central and perhaps in Western Europe. That was something in which no sane man could take pleasure, and for that reason Mr. Dengue wanted a truce patched up as quickly as possible.
“That,” remarked Lanny, “is exactly what is in the Führer’s mind, as he has explained it to me scores of times.” No offense was intended and none was taken, for Lanny’s auditors would have no objection to agreeing with the Führer—or rather, as they would have phrased it, to having the Führer agree with them.
“The danger,” continued Dengue, “is increased by the fact that our own Commander-in-Chief is so determined to bring us into the conflict. If that happens, we may no longer find ourselves with the power to deal with Russia, as some time we shall surely have to do.”
Said the hostess: “Many times I find myself thinking that the destiny of our country in this crisis is in the hands of a man who is actually and literally insane.”
“That would be a matter of definition,” the other replied. “He is a man who is determined to have his own way, and his judgment is far from sound.”
“How much does he know about the world he lives in?” broke in the Senator. “He is a millionaire, but he has never earned a dollar in his life—unless you count what he gets for his Christmas trees.”
“A Christmas-tree grower for President, and an apple grower for Secretary of the Treasury!” remarked Dengue, and added: “Jew apples!”
“Perhaps these are some of them,” chuckled Lanny, nodding toward the dish of fruit in the center of the table. So they all had a laugh, and felt more and more friendly as the wines were passed. When in the course of the evening Lanny revealed that he was returning to Vichy France on his father’s business, and that he might go into Germany and meet Hess and perhaps Hitler, Dengue remarked: “I wish that when you come back, Mr. Budd, you would let me know what you have learned.”
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” replied the P.A.—and there was more truth in this than in other things he had said that evening.
VI
The newspapers recorded the culmination of the struggle between Laval and Pétain. The aged Marshal had deposed his faithless subordinate and placed him under arrest, and Otto Abetz, Nazi Governor of Paris, had flown to Vichy to Laval’s rescue. It is at times of crisis such as this that men become excited and reveal secrets, and Lanny ought to have been there to avail himself of the opportunity. He was like a race horse champing behind a barrier, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to get Baker on the telephone, but Baker wasn’t there, and Lanny couldn’t find out where he was without giving his name. The President had come back from his brief cruise and was at Warm Springs, Georgia; Lanny would gladly have gone there, but he couldn’t find Baker there, and he would surely not be able to get near the President without giving his name to somebody.
Two weeks after the vacation had begun, Lanny read that the Big Boss was back in the White House, and at once it was possible to get Baker. Matters would have been simplified if Lanny had been able to say: “Tell the Chief my passports have been delayed.” But Baker wasn’t supposed to know that Zaharoff 103 was getting any passports. All Lanny could say was: “Tell the Chief I have to see him for a minute or two about an important matter.” The order came back: “Fly on the six o’clock plane and meet me at nine-forty-five tonight.”
So Lanny found himself in the familiar bedroom in which many early-morning and late-evening conferences were being held during these crowded and perilous days. F.D. looked bronzed and refreshed—it was truly amazing what a few days of rest and recreation could do for this overburdened man. He had been poking about in coves and inlets which had once been the haunt of pirates and were soon going to be sites of great naval and air installations, designed to keep enemy U-boats forever away from the southern approaches to the United States and the Panama Canal.
Lanny knew what a mass of duties must be pressing upon the President now, and he wanted to come to the point and then go. “Governor, I was ready to leave for France a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t been able to get passports. ‘State’ has the matter under advisement, as they tell me.”
“Damn!” exclaimed the “Governor” and slapped the blue-silk coverlet of his bed. “Isn’t that the limit? It shows you what I am up against in trying to get things done!”
“What it seems to show,” ventured the caller, “is what I’ve been trying to tell you for three years, that you need a housecleaning in ‘State.’”
“I can’t do it, Lanny. All these people are established, and all have influence. In times like these my first thought has to be to keep support in Congress. If I order the firing of a single filing clerk I earn the enmity of some congressman who got him the job.”
“Well, Governor, here I sit waiting, while the filing clerk makes up his mind whether my phony excuses for wanting to get into Switzerland are good enough.”
“I’ll see that the passports are delivered to your father at once.”
“Don’t be too vehement about it,” cautioned Lanny. “It might cause gossip about me.”
The other broke into one of his hearty laughs. “There you have it! You don’t want any publicity; multiply your problem by about a million, and you have some idea of mine!”
“I know you’re crowded,” said the dutiful agent, and got up to leave.
But the crowded one wouldn’t ever have it that way. “Tell me,” he said, “did you meet Jim?”
Lanny thought: This man never forgets anything! Inside his large head was a living encyclopedia of names, places, dates, and things having to do with his job which he so loved and enjoyed, difficult and dangerous though it was. Lanny sat down again, and told about his conference with the scion of the Windy City.
“Grand fellow!” said F.D. “Nobody who knows him can fail to love him.”
“His story took my breath away,” replied the other. “I still can’t convince myself that it’s real.”
This was a hint, and the President replied: “I don’t think Jim overestimates the evil purposes of that bunch; but he underestimates my other sources of information, and the precautions I have taken—which naturally I can’t talk about freely.”
“Of course not. I think you may be interested to know that I met Harrison Dengue.” Lanny told the story of the affair at Miss van Zandt’s, and added: “I was careful not to hint at the conspiracy, but I got an invitation to come back to him, and when I have cultivated him a little more he may let me in on the inside. Shall I bring the facts to you or to Jim?”
“To both,” was the reply. “I trust Jim’s devotion completely, but of course I can’t trust any man’s judgment completely. If it’s an important matter I have to make my own decision.”
The President went on to discuss these “headstrong men,” as he called them. “I didn’t make the national machinery,” he said; “and I have to take it as I find it. Many of its officials are conservative—they come from the conservative classes, and don’t shed their ideas when they take a public job. Some of the most efficient men are the most reactionary, but I’m not asking for their ideas, only for their services, and I
can’t take action against them for what they say, only for what they do.”
Lanny’s reply was: “Léon Blum once said nearly the same words to me, referring to the Cagoulards, and his attitude has come near to costing him his life.”
VII
Once more the P.A. thought that his duty was done, and he started to get up from his chair. But once more the Boss wanted to talk. “I don’t see you very often,” he remarked; “and I see a lot of people who know less. Tell me what you make of this blow-up in Vichy.”
So Lanny had to deliver one of his discourses, explaining the difference between the two men who had been in control of the puppet government of Unoccupied France. One was a man of no principles whatever, willing to hire himself to the Nazis as he had previously hired himself to the Comité des Forges, the organization of the French steel and munitions masters. The other was a man of the most rigid principles, a devout Catholic, doing everything in his power to save France, but meaning the ancient Catholic France, governed by a benevolent paternalism. The Marshal enjoyed the confidence of many Frenchmen, while Laval was despised even by his own gang. The Marshal was old and feeble, and had never been a man of vigor; in the old days his superior, Marshal Foch, had said of him: “When there is nothing to do, the job is Pétain’s.” Lanny added: “Perhaps that is the job he has now. The Nazis demand action, and this stubborn old martinet promises, and then finds excuses and delays, and nothing happens.”
“What do you think the Germans will do to him?”
“I wouldn’t like to guess, but it’s a safe bet that they won’t let him do anything to Laval; the Nazis need both of them too badly. They don’t want to have to occupy the rest of France in the present state of their affairs.”