What Lanny talked about was the folks at Bienvenu, and how they were getting along under the Vichy regime; then about Newcastle and the people there. He hadn’t mentioned Jesse to Robbie, because Robbie hated and feared his near-brother-in-law like the devil, and had no sense of humor concerning him. It was all right to mention Robbie to Jesse, because Jesse did have a sense of humor, and took Robbie’s hatred and fear as a matter of course. “I suppose he is making money by the barrel,” the uncle remarked, and the nephew replied: “By the hogshead.” He didn’t go into details, not wishing to supply material for Jesse’s Red speeches in New York.
VI
The Red deputy told about his adventures, getting out of Nazi-occupied France and into Russia. He and his wife had not dared to travel in company, so she had gone to join some relatives who were peasants in Normandy. Presumably she was still there; he had no way of communicating with her, and could only hope that she was not among those who had been “surrendered on demand” to the Nazis. Millions of families had been broken up and scattered like that all over Europe: Poles and Czechs, Belgians and French, and above all Jews and Leftists, who had no idea if they would ever again see their husbands or wives, parents or children. If it is true that misery loves company, Jesse Blackless could have found plenty of it among the refugees right here on Manhattan Island.
He told about his life in the Soviet Union, the land of his dreams, and all the dreams had come true. Everybody was working, and every day’s work brought them that much nearer to the goal of Socialism. Everybody was poor by American standards, but that was not because the Soviet system couldn’t produce goods; it was because the accursed Nazis made it necessary for everything above a bare subsistence to go into military production. Jesse himself hadn’t been idle; he had been taken in as an adviser to the Foreign Office on French affairs, and he had read proofs for the French language edition of International Literature. Also, he had done some painting, which the Russians had been generous enough to praise and to exhibit. Their love of art was deeply rooted, and they made the most of every talent, whether manifested by a native child or a Franco-American refugee in his seventies.
In short, here was the same old Uncle Jesse whom Lanny had known for the past twenty-seven years and who hadn’t changed a particle, except that he had fewer hairs on his head and many more wrinkles in his lean face and scrawny neck. He was still the incorrigible idealist professing a philosophy of cynical harshness. Human nature was un-evolved, and it had to be disciplined and drilled, especially in wartime. The war in which Jesse was interested was not that between capitalist states, which had been going on for centuries and might go on for a thousand years without bringing any progress to humanity. Uncle Jesse’s war was the class struggle, which was going to end in the victory of the proletariat of all nations and the establishment of a classless society. Workers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a world to win!
Jesse didn’t know whether or not the Nazis were going to attack the Soviet Union. “Such matters are known only to the leaders,” he said, “and you don’t ask questions, especially if you are a foreigner. But from questions they asked me I gathered that they fear it, and are straining every nerve to prepare themselves.”
“I can tell you they had better,” responded the P.A. He didn’t say: “Hitler told me.” He didn’t even say: “I know positively.” If Constantin Oumansky, the personal friend and confidant of Stalin, had been told, there was no need for Lanny to make himself conspicuous wherever he went. He remarked: “I find it generally taken for granted among the people who are on the inside. It’s obvious that Hitler has to have oil, and the Ukraine is the nearest place.”
Said the Red painter: “You can tell the S.O.B. that he won’t get any oil out of the Ukraine—at least not for several years. The Russians won’t leave a peasant’s hut or a blade of grass for the enemy. The oil fields will be completely demolished, and every hole filled solid with concrete. The Nazis will have to start all over again.”
“That is very important, Uncle Jesse, for it will give Britain time to arm, and this country time to help her.”
“It happens that I know about it through friends. The Russians are preparing to move whole factories to the Urals, and even to Siberia, and set them up and have them started again in a few weeks. The procedure has been planned to the smallest detail; everything will be put into trains, not merely machinery but office equipment and records. Hitler will find nothing but empty shells—and these will serve as forts until he blows them to pieces with bombing planes or artillery.”
VII
There was so much to talk about when you had several families in common, and so many friends. Jesse wanted to know all about Paris, for which he was homesick. He wanted the news of everybody Lanny had met there, and what they had said. What were the newspapers like, and who was writing for them? What was playing at the theaters, and on the screen? Goebbels stuff, of course! And what were the people saying and thinking? Lanny couldn’t tell much about that, but he had a fascinating story about Vichy, which Jesse had visited. In fact, the deputy had been all over France, painting pictures, agitating against the bourgeoisie, or just enjoying life on his small income. He had gone to Paris some fifty years ago, when his grandmother had died and left him the income; he had written such exciting letters that his sister Mabel had not rested until she got a chance to join him. When he saw her, at the age of seventeen, he called her “Beauty,” and she had liked that name and kept it; also, she had liked Paris, and had never gone back to a preacher’s home.
Jesse wanted to know about her now; and about Sophie and Emily and the other ladies of the Côte d’Azur. Could they get money from America, and was there food enough, and mail, and telephones? Was Beauty still suffering from embonpoint, and still talking about dieting? And that marriage of hers, to the funniest thing that had ever come down the pike! The very word “spirituality” was a red rag to this Blackless bull, and the idea of his worldly and fashionable sister taking up with such notions moved him to chuckles. It was like going back to the Baptist parsonage in which she had been born and from which she had been so eager to escape. But Lanny said, no, it wasn’t at all like that; Parsifal had no creed and no congregation; he just loved you. The Red deputy said: “I’d as soon be dead as be that bored.”
But five minutes later he was telling about the little bootblack whom he had picked up in Union Square, and who came three times a week to have his portrait painted. The smartest little gamin, with such shiny black eyes as you never saw, even in a Dago face. The first time he had come the face had been newly scrubbed, and Jesse had had to send him away for a week to get it normal again. He told some of the charming remarks this model had made, and Lanny said: “You see, Uncle Jesse, you love your little Dago exactly the way Parsifal Dingle loves everybody at Bienvenu. The only difference is that you ‘class angle’ your loves. They have to be proletarians with smudged faces.”
The Red deputy’s answer was: “Oh, fudge!” He was willing to be sentimental, but not to admit it. And least of all would he have anything to do with religion, the opium of the people. If you really wanted to get a rise out of him, just tell him that Communism was the newest crusading faith of mankind! Compare his dogmatism with that of Paul, the apostle to the gentiles, and his speeches in the Chamber with those of James, the brother of Jesus!
Not even the members of Jesse’s own family could escape this evangelical zeal. “All joking aside, Lanny, you really ought to visit the Soviet Union. The things you would see there would be a revelation to you. One of the newer collective farms has all the co-operative services. They even have soda fountains and ice-cream parlors!”
“I’m told they’re not welcoming tourists just now, Uncle Jesse.”
“Naturally, they have to be careful whom they let in. But you don’t have to worry, I can fix it for you any time.”
“All right,” smiled Lanny. “Maybe I’ll take you up on it. But first I’ll wait and
see how your friend Uncle Joe behaves when his friend Adi Schicklgruber jumps on his neck.”
VIII
Lanny went off and wrote a report on the items of importance he had picked up in this conference; and then he called the home of his friend Forrest Quadratt. He was told that the Nazi agent was out at the place in New Jersey where he had set up a publishing business. Lanny phoned there, and drove out on a rainy afternoon. When he arrived he was surprised to have the door opened by Forrest himself; and instead of inviting him in, the suave and soft-voiced agent asked: “Will you take me driving?” Of course Lanny assented, and when they were in the car the other explained: “Some government snoopers have been devoting time to me lately, and I thought it might be better for both if we talked where we couldn’t possibly be overheard.”
“That is very wise of you, Forrest. I have a lot to tell, and I should hate to have the F.B.I, on my trail.”
“They are trying their damndest to get something on me, but I don’t think they’re getting very far. Believe me, I keep my tracks covered!”
“I hope you don’t talk about me, Forrest. It might play the devil with my ability to get passports.”
“Trust me; I am an old hand. It seems marvelous, how you have been able to visit Europe, and I’ll surely never do anything to imperil it.”
Right there Lanny decided that he wouldn’t tell this Nazi propagandist about having gone into Germany. If Quadratt had heard of it, all right; but otherwise Lanny would talk about Vichy France, where his mother lived, and London, where his daughter lived. He would talk freely—just enough to inspire a German-American propagandist to reciprocate.
At this time the Nazis and their friends were carrying on a desperate campaign to keep America from giving any more aid to Britain. Their broadcasts were beamed to this country day and night, boasting of the havoc their submarines were wreaking and of the gains their armies were making in the Near East; they had Crete and Libya; they were ready to take Syria and Suez; the British no longer dared use the Canal, but were obliged to route their ships all the way around Africa, a fearful tax. “Beware, beware!” intoned Dr. Goebbels; and of course Quadratt had to write like all the others.
But he was a shrewd fellow, and privately he made it plain that he was not fooling himself. Perhaps being distant from the scene enabled him to see things in better perspective. Anyhow, he admitted: “I am worried, Lanny; this war is dragging on far too long. Almost a year has passed since we entered Paris, and we have made no vital gains since then.”
“We have taken the Balkans, and that’s a huge territory.”
“I know, but it isn’t territory that counts.”
“It’s wheat from Hungary and oil from Rumania—”
“Yes, but not enough.”
“It’s lumber and minerals, a tremendous mass of resources.”
“But England continues to hold out, and to keep the blockade that Strangled us last time. And meantime, this country is getting ready for war. We mustn’t fool ourselves, Lanny; that is what’s happening. We must do something about it!”
“What can we do, Forrest?”
It turned out that what the ex-poet wanted was for the son of a great airplane manufacturer to come out publicly against the militarists. Lanny, and Lanny alone, a sort of Superman, was to reverse the trend of American thinking! His friend became eloquent on the subject of the wonders he could achieve by coming out on public platforms, in the style of Congressman Fish and Senator Reynolds and Charles A. Lindbergh. Announce a crusade, and make a tour of the country! “Incidentally you could make a lot of money, Lanny—much more than by dealing in paintings.”
The other had quite a time explaining that he couldn’t possibly do it; he was no speaker and would be scared to death on a platform; he would forget every idea he ever had. This attitude of excessive modesty he persisted in maintaining, in spite of all his friend could say. He was not a public man; what talent he had lay in his ability to meet key persons and put key ideas into their minds. The Führer himself had recognized this, and had definitely commissioned Lanny to say certain specific things. Lanny had met Kurt Meissner in Paris and received fresh requests, and he was at this moment on the point of setting out on a trip to comply with them. The marketing of pictures, while profitable, was really a blind for the advancement of National Socialism.
IX
Forrest Quadratt had no authority to compete with that, so he gave up his scheme. He asked about the Hess matter, a subject on which he was completely in the dark. Evidently the pipeline between New York and Berlin worked only in an easterly and not in a reverse direction. Lanny said he was quite sure that Rudi would never have done anything without the Führer’s approval; he believed the flight to Scotland was a last effort to make friends with Britain. There must be some big summer campaign about to start; Lanny didn’t know, but he thought it might be through Spain.
Quadratt suggested Russia, very warily, and Lanny guessed that he knew more than he was telling. They discussed the prospects, and the ex-poet revealed once more how greatly he was worried; Russia was so vast and so formless, it would be like hitting into a feather pillow. The real reason, as Lanny made sure, was that Quadratt hated Britain so intensely he was reluctant to see any part of Germany’s force expended elsewhere. “Britain is the enemy, and until we have conquered her we have done nothing.”
Lanny said: “Yes, but you must see that if we conquer Russia this summer, we can turn all our forces westward—something we dare not do at present.” So much pleasure it gave him to be a German, and to dispose of the Wehrmacht’s vast resources while motoring through a New Jersey rainstorm!
Quadratt talked freely about his own activities: his book-publishing business, his magazine articles, the speeches he wrote for senators and congressmen, the mothers’ crusades he was helping to keep alive. The ladies came to Washington and besieged the offices on Capitol Hill; they screamed and had hysterics in the rotunda—some of them were “nuts,” the agent cheerfully admitted, but all were useful. He had done everything he could think of, but he had to admit that he was losing out, alas. The warmongers were on top, with Roosevelt at their head; and how Quadratt hated him, and what language he used!
Lanny went to see Heinsch, and told how Kurt Meissner had been tremendously interested in the idea of getting That Man out of the way, and had promised to pass on the word to the Führer. Perhaps Heinsch had received some message about it. Heinsch said it was difficult to send messages on that subject; they would have to be brought personally by some trusted friend. He said that his own reports were vague; the men who were working on it had their lips tightly buttoned. Lanny couldn’t drop any more hints without risk, so he turned the conversation to the Lord of San Simeon, who had recently started a personal column in his chain of papers. Lanny said: “I count that a feather in my cap, for I suggested the idea to him. But doubtless others have done the same.”
“I have been disappointed in the column,” declared the other. “The old man rambles, and talks about nothing a good part of the time.”
“I can’t say I agree with you,” was Lanny’s response. “I have been reading the column whenever I could get hold of it, and I clipped some of those that I liked, because I knew it would please Mr. Hearst to hear what I thought of them. You are a psychologist, and will get the idea.”
This was in the steamship office, and Lanny carried a portfolio—he had brought it along for the sake of its effect on Heinsch. He extracted a folder, and from the folder a bunch of marked clippings. “This is the way to coddle the rich,” he said, with a grin which his companion shared. “Imagine that we are in San Simeon. This, Mr. Hearst, is my idea of statesmanship.” Lanny read:
“Winston Churchill, premier of England, has repeatedly declared that he will agree to no peace except a peace of victory.
“What victory?
“Whose victory?
“England was unable to achieve victory when it had Poland and Norway and Holland and Belgium and France o
n its side.…
“England has been offered a peace which would respect and insure the integrity of the British Empire. Would that not be the equivalent of a peace of victory? Does he mean that there will be no peace until England has conquered the continent of Europe and the Axis powers have bent the knee and bowed the neck to another Versailles treaty?
“Yes, Mr. Hearst, that is my idea of farsightedness, as well as of vigorous writing. It is absolutely correct and according to fact, as I know because it is what the Führer himself told me to say, and what I have been saying to all his friends in France and Britain and the United States for more than a year. And then this about the Japanese:
“We in America brought about the alliance of Japan with Russia, just as England brought about the alliance of Germany with Russia. We limited more and more our trade with Japan. We made it impossible for Japan to get from us the products and materials that were absolutely necessary for her survival.… We have only to treat Japan in fair and friendly fashion to establish firm peace between Japan and the United States. We have only to stop sticking our intrusive nose into her affairs to prevent our nose from being tweaked. We have only to mind our own business and keep out of other people’s business to be at peace with all the world.
“That, too, I know to be correct, Mr. Hearst, for it is what the Japanese representatives in Lisbon said to me just a few days after your column appeared; only, of course, they used more polite language—they are a people who will never fail in courtesy. I am sure that in future years you will be proud of those utterances. You might put them at the masthead of your papers, for the world to read for the rest of time. Or perhaps you might have them engraved on your mausoleum, like the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Memorial.”