Chapter 6

Roosevelt did nothing to save the Jews. He knew that any such action would annoy Congress and interfere with winning the war. Under his clever facade of a Christian humanitarian liberal, he was one of the coldest, most ruthless calculators in history. He sensed that the Americans liked the Jews no more than we did; and they omply confirmed this all through the war in their immigration policies, and at the Evian and Bermuda conferences, where they simply abandoned the Jews to their fate. This author is no admirer of Roosevelt as a person, but the aim of my work is to set down the facts as military history should view them. On such a valuation, Franklin Roosevelt was the mastermind of the war. Even such a powerful, energetic, and brilliant figure as Adolf Hitler was in the end no more than a foil for him. Adventuristic conquerors often pave the way, in this fashion, for the dominion of their enemies. The adventurer sees the opportunity, and with meager means tries to capture it. He does the destroying and the bulldozing. His iceblooded successor then crushes him and builds on the ruins. Napoleon in the last analysis merely put Wellington's England in the saddle for a century. Charles XII hardly has a place in history, except as a foil for Peter the Great. And the German people under Adolf Hitler accomplished nothing in the long run except to hand the British succession to the United States under Roosevelt. Roosevelt's Difficulty Franklin Roosevelt's problem was that at this great turning point in history he did not lead a warlike nation, whereas Adolf Hitler did. The American people are not cowardly. But, living in prosperous isolation, they have been the spoiled children of modern history. Spoiled children do not bear well the rigors of the field. Once they entered the war, the Americans fought with a logistic train of luxury and self-protection that to the warriors of Germany, the Soviet union, and even England, was laughable. Nevertheless they had the riches and the will for this. The strong can fight any kind of fight, they please. The Americans have a tradition of militia-like fighting. Presented with a threat, they drop their pleasures, take up arms, and fight amateurishly but bravely to get the thing over with. They formed this pattern in their revolution, and confirmed it in their civil war and the First World War. Roosevelt understood this. He had to hold Germany at bay until he could present the chance for world conquest to his people in the guise of a threat to their safety. This, with a masterly exhibition of patient, spiderlike waiting, he did. Meantime, he robbed Germany of two certain victories-over GreatBritain and over the Soviet union-by an inspired instrument of indirect war-making, a genuine new thing in military history, the so-called Lend-Lease Act. A Cunning Trick By the end of 1940, despite her narrow escapes at Dunkirk and in the air battle, Britain was sinking to her knees. She had only one recourse left on the planet to save her: the United States. But the Neutrality Act threatened to cut the English off from the American farms and factories that were keeping them alive. They were running out of dollars to pay even for grain and oil, let alone the ships, planes, guns, and bullets which they could no longer manufacture for themselves in the necessary quantities. For they lacked labor, materials, and plant, and they kept falling further behind under air attack. The Neutrality Act forced belligerents to pay dollars for United States goods, and to come and fetch them. The Act posed more of a dilemma for Roosevelt than for the British. For them, one clear wise course lay open: negotiated peace with Germany. As this writer has often pointed out, had England made such a peace the British Empire would exist today. The Soviet union would have been crushed in a one-front war, and instead of a rampant Bolshevism we would see in Russia at worst some pacific, disarmed form of social democracy. But none of this fitted in with Roosevelt's ideas. He had no intention of allowing Germany to gain ascendancy over the Euro-Asian heartland in a world-dominating partnership with the sea lords of Britannia. And so, to circumvent the Neutrality Act, Franklin Roosevelt devised LendLease, which was nothing more or less than a Policy to give the British free of charge-and later the Russians too-all the war materials they needed to fight us! The audacity of the trick was breathtaking; the disguise was cunning. And while the record shows that Roosevelt's clever advisers did much to push this unprecedented proposal through the stunned, balky Congress, it also clearly shows that the revolutionary idea sprang, in the phrase of Sherwood, straight from Roosevelt's "forested mind.Roosevelt sold this scheme to the simpleminded, inattentive American people with a typical bit of Augustan demagoguery, the famous comparison to a garden hose. When a neighbor's house is on fire, he said at a press conference, one does not bargain with him over the sale or renting of the garden hose he needs to put it out. One gladly lends him the hose, so as to keep the fire from one's own house. Once the fire is out, the neighbor returns the hose; or if he has damaged it, there is time enough then to settle the account. This was, of course, shameless and hollow Poppycock. Warships, warPlanes, war materials are not garden hoses. To take Roosevelt's comparison at its face value, if your neighbor's house is on fire, what you really do is rush over there and fight the fire with him. You do not lend him your hose, and then stand idly by watching him try to cope with the flames. That this silly stuff was swallowed whole by the Americans simply shows how uncannily shrewd Roosevelt was in managing them. During his successful 1940 election campaign for an unprecedented third term, he had declared in a famous speech, "I tell you again, and again, and again, you boys are not going to be sent into foreign wars." He Was eagerly awaiting a chance to go back on this clear pledge. Meantime he had to use tricks and guile to oppose Germany,The Real Meaning of Lend-Lease it was impossible for himnci this he knew-to present the case to his People in realistic terms. Otherwise he could have told them in effect, "My friends, this war is for the mastery of the world. Our aim should be to achieve thot mastery ourselves, but with a minimum of blood. Let us encourage others to do our fighting for us. Let us give them all the stuff they need to keep fighting. What do we care? In developing the industries to produce this Lend-Lease stuff, we will be preparing ourselves, industrially and militarily, for world leadership. They will use up all our early models, our discardable stuff, killing Germans for us. Maybe they will do the whole job for us, but that is doubtful. We will have to step in at the end, but mopping up will be easy. We will have gained a world victory with the expenditure of a lot of hardware, which we can turn out faster, and in greater quantities, than all the world put together, without even feeling the pinch. The others will shed the blood, and we will take the rule." That was what Lend-Lease meant and that was how it worked. First the British, and then the Russians, were induced by Lend-Lease to keep on with extremely bloody,. almost hopeless struggles, when the easier, safer, more profitable alternative of negotiated peace always lay open to them. There is reason to think that Stalin's low point late in 1941, when his armies and his air force had virtually ceased to exist as coherent battle formations and we were smashing toward Moscow, that supreme realist would have proposed peace again, if not for the encouragement in words and supplies-not in livesf the United States. As it was, the Russian people made sacrifices in blood never matched in all history, to transfer world hegemony from one Anglo-Saxon power to another. And Franklin Roosevelt so maneuvered matters that the British had to beg for this bloodletting help! They were put in the position of being abjectly grateful for the chance to fight Roosevelt's battles On December 8, 1940, Churchill wrote the American President a very long letter, which deserves a bolder place in history than it now holds. Churchill once said that he had not become Prime Minister to preside over the dissolution of the Empire, but with this letter he dissolved it. Churchill in this document frankly stated that England had come to the end of her rope, in the matter of ships, planes, materials, and dollars; and he asked the President to "f,nrJ w.-jvs and. mpans" to heir) England in the common cause. This was what Roosevelt had been icily waiting for in his wheelchair: this written confession by the British Prime ,Ainister that without American aid the Empire was finished. Within two weeks he had proposed Lend-Lease to his advisers, and within a month he had laid it before Congress. Empire means rule, and sufficient armed power to enforce the rule. In Churchill's letter, he acknowledged that his country and his Empire had become powerless to enforce their rule, and begged for succor.
Roosevelt leaped to comply. Even if England was finished as an imperial power, she remained a country of forty millions with a good navy and air force, at war with Roosevelt's archrival; a splendid island base just off the coast of Europe, moreover, from which to attack Germany in the future. The first order of business was to keep her fighting. Bargain War-Making Despite all the quack language in the act about lending and leasing, the transfer of American weapons and materials throughout the war was a gift. No formal accounting was even kept. The President asked, and the Congress granted him, power to send arms and war goods wherever he pleased, in whatever quantities he pleased. Certainly the Congress when they passed the low would have balked at including Bolshevist countries. But at that time the Soviet union supposedly Hitler's friend. Later, when broke out on the eastern front, Rooseveltp(was) ouredafloodofsuppliestotheBolsheviksw(war) ithout consulting Congress. The Americans complain that the Russians have never shown proper gratitude. The attitude of the Russians is more realistic. Having spilled the blood of perhaps eleven million of their sons to help the United States to its present world position, they tend to feel that the tanks and planes were paid for. The Yankees love a bargain. Lend-Lease was bargain war-making. For the big corporations, and for millions of workers, it merely meant a tremendous increase of prosperity. The price was painlessly postponed to the future by means of defense bonds. Others did the actual fighting and dying. Roosevelt and his advisers did discuss the risk that Germany would take Lend-Lease as an act of war-which it certainly was-and would formally declare war on the United States. Since this was just what he wanted, he was prepared to run the risk. America would have responded with a militia-like surge. Little as Adolf Hitler understood the United States, he did understand that. He had no intention of taking on the United States until he had finished with the Soviet union, an operation which was already in an advanced planning stage. So Germany swallowed Lend-Lease with some harsh words, and the "arsenal of democracy" tooled up to help British plutocracy and Russian Bolshevism destroy the Reich, the last bastion in Europe against the Red Slav tide. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Most broad statistics of the war are approximations, and the Pigures on total deaths vary widely from one source to another. The low rate of eventual American losses is a fact. We planned and fought that kind of war, expending money and machines instead of human lives where possible. Roon seems to think this indicates a deficiency in American valor.
We had enough valor to beat the Germans wherever we took them on. That was all the valor we needed.-V.H. Traveling to his new post in mid-january, Leslie Slote found himTself staged in Lisbon by a shortage of Lufthansa accommodations to Berlin. He checked into the Palace Hotel in Estoril, Lisbon's palm-lined seaside resort, where diplomats, wealthy refugees, Gestapo, and other foreign agents congregated. He thought he might pick up some information there while he waited for an air reservation to open up. Actually, he found Estoril in January an exceedingly chilly and boring place. The Germans abounded, but they kept in aloof clusters, regarding other people with supercilious eyes. He sat in the crowded lobby of the hotel one afternoon gnawing at his pipe, and reading in a Swiss newspaper about British successes against the Italians in Abyssinia and North Africa, faint rays in the gloom. The neutral newspaper had been hard to come by. Fascist and Nazi journals now blanketed Portuguese newsstands, with a few scrawny, disgustingly servile periodicals from Vichy France. British and American publications had vanished. It was a fair barometric reading of the way the war was going, at least in the judgment of Portugal's rulers. A year ago, on Lisbon newsstands, papers of both sides had been equally available. "Meestair Slotel Meestair Leslie Slotel' He jumped up and followed the small pink-cheeked page to a telephone near the reception desk. "Leslie? Hello, it's Bunky. How goes it by the old seaside?" Bunker Wendel! Thurston, Jr had attended the Foreign Service school with Slote, and now held the post of second secretary in the American legation in Lisbon. "Mighty dull, Bunky. What's up?" 'Oh, nothing much." Thurston sounded amused. 'It's just that you've spoken to me now and then, I believe, about a girl named Natalie Jastrow." Slote said sharply, "Yes, I have. What about her?" "A girl by that name is sitting across the desk from me." "Who is? Natalie?" "Like to talk to her? When I told her you were here she jumped a ip foot. "Christ, yes." Natalie came on the phone laughing, and Slote's heart throbbed at the familiar lovely sound. "Hello, old Slote," she said. "Natalie! This is so staggering, and wonderful. What are you doing here?" "Well, how about you?" Natalie said. "I'm as surprised as you are.
Why aren't you in Moscow?" "I got hung up, in Washington and then here. Is Aaron with you?" "I wish he were. He's in Siena." "What! Aren't you on your way back to the States?" Natalie took a moment to answer. 'Yes and no. Leslie, as long as you're here, can I see you for a while?" "Naturally! Wonderful! Immediately! I'll come in to the legation." "Wait, wait. You're at the Palace Hotel, aren't you? I'll come out and meet you. I'd rather do that." Bunky Thurston came on the line. "Look, Leslie, I'll put her on the bus. She'll arrive in half an hour or so. If I may, I'll join you two in the Palace lobby at five." She still had a fondness for big dark hats. He could see her through the dusty bus window, moving down the aisle in a jam of descending Passengers. She ran to him, threw her arms around him, and kissed his cheek. 'Hi! I'm freezing. I could have worn my ratty beaver coat, but who'd think it would be this cold and gray in Lisbon? Brrr! It's even colder out here by the sea, isn't it?" She clapped her hand to her hat as the wind flapped it. "Let's look at you. Well! No change. If anything, you look rested." She said all this very fast, her eyes wide and shiny, her manner peculiarly excited. The old spell worked at once. In the months since he had last seen Natalie, Slote had started up a romance with a girl from Kansas named Nora Jamison. Nora was tall, brunette, and dark-eyed like this one, but otherwise as different as a doe from a bobcat: eventempered, affectionate, bright enough to be in her third year as a senator's secretary, and pretty enough to play leads with a semiprofessional Washington theatre group. Her father was a rich farmer; she drove a Buick convertible. She was altogether a find, and Slote was thinking seriously of marrying her on his return from Moscow. Nora worshipped and she was better looking than Natalie Jastrow and much easier to manage. But this Jewish girl in the big hat put her arm around him and brushed his face with her lips; he experienced a stabbing remembrance of what her love was like, and the snare closed on him again. He said, "Well, you know how I admire you, but you do look slightly beat up." "Do I ever! I've had hell's own time getting here. Let's get out of this wind. Where's the Palace Hotel? I've been to Estoril twice, but I forget." He said, taking her arm and starting to walk, "It isn't far. What's the story? Why didn't Aaron come? What are you doing here?" "Byron's arriving tomorrow on a submarine." He halted in astonishment. She looked up athim, hugged his arm, and laughed, her face alive with joy. "That's it. That's why I'm here." "He made it through that school?" "You sound surprised." "I thought he might find it too much work." "He squeaked by. This is his first long cruise. The sub's stopping here, just for a few days. I suppose you think I'm rattlebrained, but he wrote me to come and meet him, and here I am." "Nothing you do really surprises me, sweetie. I'm the man you came to visit in Warsaw in August '39-" Again she squeezed his arm, laughing. "So I did. Quite an excursion that turned out to be, Hey! My God, it's cold here! It's a wonder all these palm trees don't Turn brown and die. You know, I've been through Lisbon twice before, Slote, and each time I've b(Nn utterly miserable. It feels very strange to be happy here." He asked her about Aaron Jastrow's situation. Natalie said the impact of the note from the Secretary of State's office had somehow been frittered away. The discovery that Jastrow's lapsed passport showed a questionable naturalization had fogged his case. Van Wmaker, the young consul in Florence, had dawdled for almost a month, promising action and never getting around to it; then he had fallen ill and gone for a cure in France, and several more weeks had slipped by. Now Van Wmaker was corresponding with the Department on how to deal with the matter. She had his firm promise that, one way or another, he would work it out. The worst of it was, she declared, that Aaron himself really was in no hurry to leave his villa, now that it seemed just a matter of unravelling a little more red tape. He half welcomed every new delay, though he went through the motions of being vexed. This was what was defeating her. He would not fight, would not put any pressure on the consul to settle the thing. He was writing serenely away at his Constantine book, keeping to all his little routines and rituals, drinking coffee in the lemon house, taking his walks at sunset, rising before dawn to sit blanketed on the terrace and watch the sun come up. He believed that the Battle of Britain had decided the war, that Hitler had made his bid and failed, and that a negotiated peace would soon emerge. "I suppose I made a mistake, after all, going back to Italy," she said, as they walked into the hotel. "With me around he's perfectly comfortable and not inclined to budge." Slote said, "I think you were right to return. He's in more danger than he realizes, and needs a hard push. Maybe you and I together can shake him free." "But you're going to Moscow." "I have thirty days, and I've only used up ten. Perhaps I'll go back to Rome with you. I know several people in that embassy." "That would be Marvelous!" Natalie halted in the middle of the pillared lobby. "Where's thebar?" "It's down at that end and it's very dismal and beery. It's virtually Gestapo headquarters. Why? Would you like a drink?" "I'd just as lief have tea, Leslie." Her manner was oddly evasive. "I haven't eaten a I day. I w I as just wondering where the bar was." He took her to a long, narrow public room full of people in sofas and armchairs drinking tea or cocktails. Walking down the smoky room behind the headwaiter, they heard conversations in many languages: German was the commonest, and only one little group was talking English. 'Izague of Nations here," Namlie said, as the waiter bowed them into a dark corner with a sofa and two chairs, "except that so many look Jewish." "A lot of them are," Slote said dolefully. "Too many of them are." Natalie devoured a whole plate of sugared cakes with her tea. "I shouldn't do this, but I'm famished. I'm big as a house. I've gained ten pounds in six months at the villa. I just eat and eat." "Possibly I'm prejudiced, but I think you look like the goddess of love, if a bit travel-worn. "Yes, you mean these hefty Venus de Milo hips, hey?" She darted a pleased look at him. "I hope Byron likes hips. I've sure got'em." "I hadn't noticed your hips, but I assure you Byron will like them. Not that I really think you're worrjed. There's Bunky Thurston." Slote waved as a little man at the doorway far down the room came toward them. "Bunky's a prince of a fellow." "He has the world's most impressive mustache," Natalie said. "It's quite a mustache," Slote said. The mustache approached, a heavy rounded tawny brush with every hair gleamingly in place, attached to a pleasant pink moon face set on a slight body dressed in natty gray flannel. Slote said, "Hi, Bunky. You're late for tea, but just in time for a drink." With a loud sigh, Thurston sat. "Thanks. I'll have a double Canadian Club and water. What foul weather. The chill gets in your bones. Natalie, here's that list I promised you." He handed her a folded mimeographed sheet. "I'm afraid you'll agree that it kills the notion. Now, I couldn't track down Conanander Bathurst, but I left word everywhere. I'm sure he'll call me here within the hour." Slote glanced inquisitively at the paper in Natalie's hand. It was a list of documents required for a marriage of foreigners in Portugal, and there were nine items. Avidly studying the sheet, Natalie drooped her shoulders and glanced from Slote to Thurston.
'Why, getting all this stuff together would take months!' "I've seen it done in one month," Thurston said, "but six to eight weeks is more usual. The Portuguese government doesn't especially want foreigners to get married here. I'm not sure why. In peacetime we send people over to Gibraltar, where you go through like greased lightning. But the Rock is shut up tight now." "Thinking of getting married?" Slote said to Natalie. She colored at the dry tone. "That was one of many things Byron wrote about. I thought I might as well check. It's obviously impossible, not that I thought it was such a hot idea anyway." "Who's Commander Bathurst?" Slote said. Thurston said, 'Our naval attache. He'll know exactly when the submarine's arriving." He tossed off half his whiskey when the waiter set it before him, and carefully smoothed down his mustache with two forefingers, looking around the room with a bitter expression. "God, Lisbon gives me the creeps. Forty thousand desperate people trying to get out of the net. I've seen most of the faces in this room at our legation." Thurston turned to Slote. This isn't what you and I bargained for when we went to Foreign Service school." 'Bunky, you'd better get rid of that Quaker conscience, or you really will crack up. Remember that it isn't us who's doing it. It's the Germans." 'Not entirely. I never thought much about our immigration laws until this thing started. They're pernicious and idiotic." Bunky Thurston drank again and coughed, empurpling his face. 'Forty thousand people. Forty thousand! Suppose we admitted them all? What difference would forty thousand people make, for God's sake, in the wastes of Montana or North Dakota? They'd be a blessing!" "They wouldn't go there. They'd huddle in the big cities, where there's still an unemployment problem." Thurston struck the table with a fist. "Now don't you give me that stale drivel, Leslie. It's enough that I have to parrot it all day myself. They'd go anywhere. You know that. They'd sign papers to live out their lives in Death Valley. Our law's inhuman. Wasn't America started as a sanctuary from European oppression?" Slote took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and glanced warily at the people nearest them, four elderly men arguing in French. "Well, I'm not going to defend the law, but how do you draw the line? Or do you have unrestricted immigration? Do you let in everybody who wants to come? You'd empty southern and eastern Europe. They'd flood our economy, starve, ferment, and boil up in a revolution. What about the Orientals?
Do you break the dike to the west? In ten years the United States would be a big Chinese suburb." Natalie said with a gesture at the room, "He's talking about these few people in Lisbon who have escaped from the Germans. that's all." "Tried to escape," said T'burston. "The Germans can take Portugal overnight." "And I'm talking about the arguments that arise in Congress when You try to alter the law," Slote said, "especially in favor of Jews. Nobody wants any more competition from them, they're too energetic and smart. That's the fact of it, Natalie, like it or not." 'We. could give refuge to all the Jews in Europe, all five million of them. We'd only be a lot better off," Thurston said. "Remember your Russian? Wealth is life," he said. And if that's a bit too simple, it's certainly true that wealth is brains." He leaned toward Natalie, lowering his voice. 'If you want to see the head of the Gestapo in Portugal, he's just walking in, and with him is the German ambassador. Charming man, the ambassador. My wife really likes him." Natalie stared. "Is he the one with the scar?" "No, I don't know who that one is, though I've seen him around. I'm sure he's Gestapo too. The ambassador's the one in the gray suit." The three men sat not far from them, and the headwaiter fluttered and grinned eagerly, taking their orders. "They look so ordinary," Natalie said. "The Germans are quite ordinary," Slote said. "It's a little scary, in fact, how much like Americans they are." Gloomily, Natalie said, "Those people at the table next to them are obviously Jews. Drinking and laughing, side by side with the Gestapo. Eerie." Thurston said, "I know them. They bought their way out of Belgium, and they still don't believe they can't buy their way into the United States. Most of the Jews here have been stripped penniless, but there are a handful of those. They're in the casino night after night, whooping it up. Fish in the net, jumping and flopping, still enjoying the water while they can." Thurston finished his drink, smoothed his mustache, and waved his glass at the waiter. "I want another. I've had some awful interviews today. Lisbon is a very sad and horrible place right now. My request for a transfer is in. The question is whether I'll wait. I may just quit the service. I've never realized before how nice it is to have a wealthy Eather."Slote said to Natalie, "Am I taking you to dinner?" 'Please, I'd love that." 'How about you, Bunky? Will you join us? Let's all go upstairs to my suite for a while. I want to change my shirt, and all that." "No, I have a dinner appointment. I'll sit here and have my drink with Natalie. I left word for Bathurst to page me here." Slote stood up. "Well, thanks for all you've done." "I can do wonders for people who don't need help." Slote told Natalie the number of his suite, and left. Later she found a pencilled note stuck in his doorjamb: N-door's open. She walked into a very large living room, looking out onto the purple sea beyond a long iron-railed balcony. Old heavy gilt and green furniture, gold cloth draperies, gilded mirrors, and large dark old paintings filled the room. Slote sang in a remote gushing shower. She yelled through an open bedroom door, "Hey! I'm here." The water shut off, and he soon appeared in a plaid robe, towelling his head. "How about these digs? Fit for a rajah, what? The legation had it reserved for some petroleum big shot and he didn't show. I've got it for a week." 'It's fine." She dropped heavily in a chair. "What's the matter?" 'Bathurst finally called. Briny's sub has been re-routed to Gibraltar. It won't come to Lisbon at all. No explanation, that's just how it is." "I see. Well, too bad. Maybe you can get to see him at Gibraltar." "Thurston doesn't think so, but he's going to the British embassy tomorrow morning, first thing, to find out. He's being very kind. Especially since it's obvious he thinks I'm a damned fool. No doubt you do, too. )P She looked up at him with a defiant scowl that was familiar and beguiling, took off her hat, and tossed her hair. "What had you told him about Briny, anyway? And about me? He seemed to know quite a bit." "Oh, we had too much wine one night and I cried on his shoulder about my tragic love life. I was very nice about Byron, I assure you, considering." bet. Say, this is quite a lay She said with a trace of malice, "Yes, I'll out at that. It'll bankrupt you." 'Not in the few days I'll be here." "Me, I've dropped my bags in a flea trap back in town, sharing a room with a Poor old Jewish lady from Rotterdam, whose husband got pulled off the train in Paris. I haven't had a shower since Sunday.""Look, why not mole in here? There's an extra room for a maid. I'll sleep in there. Look at that bed. A football field. It's yours." "Nothing doing. Listen, Slote, if I can get to Gibraltar I'll marry Byron. That's what he wants." Slote, combing his hair at a mirror framed by trumpeting gilded cherubs, stopped and gave her a pained skeptical look. She went on nmously, "I know it sounds harum-scarum and wild." Her eyes suddenly shone, and she laughed. "But in point of fact, I want to do it myself." "Well, I suppose I should congratulate you, Natalie. God knows I wish you well." "Oh, I know you do, Slote. Don't bother telling me how bizarre this is. Some things are just inevitable. I love Byron." all "Well, the place is at your disposal, anyway. They eat dinner late here. Take a shower." "And climb into the same old underwear?" Natalie shook her head, looking thoughtful. "I noticed a shop downstairs. Let me see what Lisbon can offer a big heifer like me." ho SI She came back shortly, carrying a x and looking y. "Did you mean that invitation? I bought a pile of stuff. Maybe it's my trousseau! A fast half hour of shopping. They had all these things from Seville, cheap and just Yummy. Byron's eyes will pop out of his head, if he ever shows up. "Are you low on money now?" "My dear, I'm still rolling in it. That's one thing about sitting on that Siena hill, with nothing to spend it on! Aaron pays me like clockwork and it just accumulates. Really, may I stay? I hate the idea of going back to town tonight. That poor old woman gives me the horrors." 'I said the place is yours." "I can't register." "Don't worry." "All right." She paused at the bedroom door and turned, holding the box in both arms. Her intense dark glance shook the diplomat. "People Wouldn't understand about us, would they, Slote?" "There's nothing to understand about me. You're the puzzle." "You didn't used to think I was puzzling." "I thought I had you figured out. I'm paying a steep price for oversimplifying." "You were an egotistical fool. I am very fond of you.""Thanks, Jastrow. Go take your goddamned shower." Next morning a buzzing at the suite door woke Slote. Tying on a robe, he came yawning out of the tiny maid's room, and blinked. There in a blaze of sunshine sat Natalie in a dazzling white wool dress with a broad red gold-buckled belt, watching a waiter fuss over a breakfast on a wheeled table. 'Oh, hi," she said, smiling brightly and touching her carefully coiffed hair. "I didn't know whether you wanted to get up. I ordered eggs for you, just in case. Everything's so cheap and plentiful here!" 'I'll brush my teeth and join you. You're all spilled up! How long have you been awake?" 'Hours and hours. I'm supposed to wait for Byron in the bar here at eleven o'clock today. That was the original plan." Slote rubbed his eyes and peered at her. 'What's the matter with you? His sub's enroute to Gibraltar." 'That's what that man Bathurst said. Suppose he's mistaken?" "Natalie, he's the naval attache." 'I know that." Shaking his head, Slote signed for the breakfast and left the room. Soon he returned in a shirt, slacks, and sandals, and found her eating with appetite. She grinned at him. 'Forgive me for being a pig, dear. What a difference sunlight makes, and coffee! I feel Marvelous." He sat down and cut into a ripe Spanish melon. "Sweetie, do you honestly expect Byron Henry to materialize in the bar of this hotel at eleven o'clock? Just on your sheer willpower?" "Well, Navy signals get crossed up like any others, don't they? I'm going to be there." 'It's just irrational, but suit yourself." 'Do you like my dress? I bought it yesterday, right out of the window of that shop." "Very becoming." She kept glancing at her watch. "Well, wish me luck," she said at last, dropping her napkin on the table. "I'm off." "Do you intend to sit in the bar all day, like patience on a monument?" "Don't be cross with me, Leslie." "I'm not. I'd just like to plan the time." "Well, obviously, if he hasn't showed by noon or thereabouts, the next thing is to find out how I get to Gibraltar." "I'll call Bunky on that, and I'll come down at noon." "Will you, please? Thanks, Leclie, thanks for everything. That bed's wonderful, I haven't slept so well in months." She could not quite keep the mischief out of her face as she said this and left with a nonchalantwave. Clearly, thought Slote, she was relishing his discomfiture. The tables were turned, and he had to endure it until he could Turn them again. He judged his chance was now at hand. Leslie Slote intended to take every possible advantage of this encounter. He could not understand Natalie's resolve to squander herself on Byron Henry. He had made a fearful mistake in his early treatment of this magnificent girl, and now he wanted to retrieve it. Slote knew how a divorced man must feel, finding himself thrown together with an ex-wife he still loved. Between them stood a barrier of old quarrels and new proprieties-it had effectively kept him out of the big bed last night-but beneath all that lay a deep bond. If it had not been for Natalie's fortuitous passion for the strange skinny Henry kid, he believed, they would by now be back together, very likely married. And he honestly thought he was more worthy of her and better suited to her. Natalie might thrash about here in Lisbon for a while, he calculated; her willpower was formidable; but Gibraltar was probably impossible to get to. She would have to go back to Italy. He would accompany her to Siena, pry Aaron Jastrow loose, and send them both home. If necessary he would wire Washington for a travel time extension. If he could not win Natalie back during all this, he sadly overestimated himself and the tie between them. He had been her first lover, after all. Slote believed that no woman ever really forgot the first man who had had her, ever got him quite out of her system. He finished his breakfast at leisure, then telephoned Thurston. "Morning, Bunky- What did you find out about Natalie's going to Gibraltar?" "Forget it Les. That submarine's here." Slote had seldom heard worse news, but he suppressed any emotion in His voice. "it is? How come?" "I don't know. It came in at dawn. It's tied up down at the river, near the customhouse." "Then what on earth was Bathurst talking about?" "He's mighty puzzled and he's going down there later to talk to the skipper. That submarine had orders to go to Gibraltar." "How long will it be berer' "The origin al schedule called for three days." Thurston's voice turned uckish. "Tough luck, Les. Fantastic girl. I'd sweat out the three days and p then see." In self-defense Slote said calmly, "Yes, she's all right, but she used to be a lot prettier." He dressed and hurried downstairs. In the dark bar there were only a handful of Germans, who turned suspicious faces to him. He went striding through the lobby. 'Here, Slote! Look behind you!" Natalies voice rang like joyous bells.
Half screened by potted palms, she sat on a green plush sofa with Byron. Before them on a coffee table, beside an open dispatch case, lay a pile of documents. The girl's cheeks flamed, her eyes were gleaming, her whole face brilliantly animated. Byron Henry jumped up to shake hands. He appeared just the same, even to the tweed jacket in which Slote had seen him for the first time slouched against a wall in Siena. Slote said, "Well, hello there! Did Natalie tell you we had some very wrong information?" Byron laughed. "It wasp't wrong, exactly, but anyway, here we are." His glance swept the lobby. "Say, this place has a queer smell of Berlin. Isn't it full of Germans?" "They swarm, darling. Don't say anything about anything." Excitedly shuffling the documents, Natalie pulled at Byron's hand. "I can't find your certificate of residence." "It's clipped with yours." Then he's got everything," Natalie exclaimed to Slote. 'Everything! All by the regulations, translated into Portuguese, notarized, and the notary seals authenticated by Portuguese consuls. The works." As Byron dropped beside her, she put her hand in his thick hair and gave his head a yank. 'I thought you were lousy at paperwork, you devil. How in God's name did you manage this?" Slote said, 'Are you really sure everything's there? I've never seen regulations as tough as these. Suppose I check that stuff over for you." -Oh, please, Leslie? Would you?" Natalie said, making room on the sofa and handing him the documents and the sheet Thurston had given her. Red ink check marks ran down the side of the page. 'Homed you assemble all this?" Slote said, starting to examine the papers. Byron explained that as soon as he had learned of the scheduled cruise to Lisbon, he had obtained an emergency four-day pass, and had flown to Washington to find out at the Portuguese embassy what the marriage regulations were. The naval attache there, Captain D'Esaguy, had turned Out to be a friend of his from Berlin; the captain had been his tennis doubles partner for a while, playing against his father and the Swedish attachs. IYEsaguy had gone right to work. "It's surprising what those fellows can accomplish in a few days when they want to," Byron said. "I rounded up some of the papers, but the Portuguese consuls themselves did the hardest ones." "That's the Foreign Service everywhere," said Slote, methodically turning over one paper after another and glancing at the check list.
"The wheels either Turn glacially, or so fast you can't see them whiz-well, Byron, I honestly think you, or this Portuguese navy captain, or both of you, did it. Everything seems to be here." "What now?" Natalie said. "Will you marry me?" Byron said, very solemnly. Natalie said, 'I sure will, by God." They burst out laughing. With a melancholy chuckle, Slote slipped the papers into the folder which Byron had labelled in neat red block letters: MMMIACIE. "Suppose I telephone Tlurston and ask him what you do next? Tburstonjs my friend here in the legation, Byron." Byron Henry slowly, gratefully smiled, and Slote could not but see how appealing the smile was. "Thanks a lot. Will you? I'm not thinking too clearly at the moment.)P "No? On the whole, I'd say you're doing all right." Returning a few minutes later, he saw them holding hands on the sofa, looking adoringly at each other and both talking at once. He hesitated, then approached them. "Sorry. Problems." Natalie looked up at him, startled and frowning. "What now?" "Well, Bunky's bowled over by what you've done, Byron, just impressed as hell. He's at your service and wants to help. But he doesn't know what he can do about that twelve-day requirement for posting bonds. Then there's the Foreign Office's authentication of the consuls' signatures. He says that usually takes a week. So-" Slote shrugged, and dropped the folder on the table. "Right, D'Esaguy mentioned both those points," Byron said. "He thought they could be gotten around. I stopped off at the navy ministry on the way here this morning and gave his uncle a letter. His uncle's a commodore, or something. He was awfully nice to me, but he only speaks Portuguese. I think he's working on those snags. I'm supposed to go back to the ministry at one o'clock. Could Mr. Thurston meet us there? That might be a real help." Slote looked from Byron to Natalie, whose mouth was twitching with amusement. She still held Byron's hand in her lap. 'I'll call back and ask him. You've certainly been forehanded." "Well, I sort of wanted this to come off." With some stupefaction, Bunkey Thurston agreed over the telephone to meet them at the navy building at one. "Say, Leslie, I thought you called this ensign of hers a sluggard and a featherhead. He's organized this thing like a blitzkrieg." 'Surprised me." "You have my sympathies." "Oh, shut up, Bunky. I'll see you at one." "You're coming too?""Yes, oh yes. "You're a glutton for punishment." A tall man in Navy dress blues leaned on the fender of an automobile outside the hotel, smoking a very black, very fat cigar. "Hey, Briny! Is the exercise on?" 'It's on." Byron introduced him to atalie and Slote as Lieutenant Aster, his executive officer. Aster took in the girl with a keen, rather greedy glance of pale small blue eyes. He was broader and heavier than Byron, with thick wavy blond hair growing to a peak on his forehead, and a long face that looked genial because the corners of his mouth turned upBut it was a tight tough mouth. 'Say, Natalie, that picture of you that Briny keeps mooning over doesn't do you justice. Hop in, everybody. I phoned the skipper, Briny, and told him you'd made contact. You're off the watch list while we're here." 'Great, Lady. Thanks." Not sure she had heard this right, Natalie said, "Lady?" The executive officer's smile was a bit weary. 'That happened to me in my plebe year at the Academy. With a name like Aster, I guess it had to. My name's Carter, Natalie, and by all means use it." Driving into the city, the two submariners described how the S-45, a hundred fifty miles out of Lisbon, had in fact been ordered to Gibraltar. The captain, who knew about Byron's plans, had expressed his regrets but altered course to the south. Within an hour reports came in to the captain that the number two main engine was down, the forward battery was throwing off excessive hydrogen, an evaporator had salted up, and a general plague of malfunctions was breaking out in the old boat, necessitating an emergency call in Lisbon for two or three days of alongside repairs. Aster, who brought in the reports, gave his opinion, which was backed by the Chief of the Boat, that it might be hazardous to proceed to Gibraltar. All this was done with a straight face, and with a straight face the captain accepted the executive officer's recommendation and turned back to Lisbon. "How can you possibly get away with that?" said Slote. "Won't you all be court-martialled?" "Nobody was lying,-Aster said with an innocent smile. t4 We have the engine records to prove it. These old S-boats just gasp and flounder along, and at practically any moment you could justify an order to abandon ship. ming into sbon COLd was highly commendable prudence." Natalie said to BYron, "And you submerge in an old wreck like that?" "NVell, the S-45 has made four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three dives, Natalie. Itshould be good for a few more." "Diving is nothing," said Lady Aster. ('You pull the plug and she goes down; you blow air and she pops up. It's going from one place to another that's kind of a strain on the old hulk. But we manage. By the way, everybody's invited aboard after the ceremony." tm Me? On a submarine?") Natalie tucked her skirt close around her ghs. 'The captain wants to congratulate you. He was pretty nice about coming in to Lisbon, you know." "We'll see," Natalie said. 'Slote! Are you trying to maim us all?" "Sorry, that truck came out rut of nowhere,)' said Slote, pulling the car back on the bumpy road. He was driving too fast. Henry shaking hands in the sunshine outside the navy minist , Bunker 'Thurston gave Ensign Henry a prolonged curious scrutiny. 'I'm glad to meet a fellow with such a knack for getting things done." "This thing's not done yet, by a long shot, sir. Thanks for offering to help out." "Well, come along, and let's see what happens. You've got some strong pull on your side. D'Esaguy seems to be something like a deputy chief of naval operations." Judging by the number of anterooms and armed guards outside his office, the size of the room, the magnificence of the furniture, and the effulgence of his gold braid and combat ribbons, D'Esaguy certainly held some exalted post. He was a short dark man, with an elongated stern Lati, face, and heavy hair graying at the sides. He held himself, and shook hands, and gestured as he welcomed them, with noble grace; and to Natalie he made a deep bow, his black eyes showing a spark of admiration. He turned businesslike and rattled rapidly to Thurston in Portuguese. -He says these things take time," Thurston reported. "He would like to invite us all to lunch." Byron glanced at Natalie, and said, "That's very cordial of him. Does he know we only have three days?" "I'm not sure you ought to press him," Thurston muttered. "Please tell him what I said." 'Okay." The Portuguese officer listened gravely to Thurston. His eyes were on Byron. A wrinkle of his mouth, a flash of fun in the sombre face, acknowledged the impatience of a young lover. He turned and rapped an order to an assistant only slightly less crusted with gold braid thanhimself, who sat at a small desk. The assistant jumped up and went out. After a minute of heavy silence he returned with a bouquet of red roses. He gave these to D'Esaguy, who handed them to Natalie Jastrow with a bow and a few charmingly spoken words. Thurston translated, "The dew will not dry on these roses before you are married." "Good God. How beautiful. Thank you!" Natalie's voice trembled. She stood holding the roses, looking around at the men, blushing. "You know, I'm beginning to believe it! For the very first time." "The exercise is on, lady," said Lieutenant Aster. "Cancel now, if you're ever going to." "Cancel?" She took Byron's arm. "Nonsense. Commence firing!" "Hey, a Navy wife," said Lieutenant Aster. D'Esaguy, trying alertly to follow this chatter, asked Thurston to translate. He burst out laughing, took Natalie's hand, and kissed it. "Come," he said in English. "A leetle luncheon." The lunch was long and excellent, in a restaurant with a lordly view, much like a San Francisco panorama, of the Lisbon hills and the broad sparkling river. The conunodore seemed in no hurry at all. Thurston kept checking his watch, knowing that most government offices would shut by four-thirty or five. At three D'Esaguy said casually that perhaps they might see now how the little business was coming along. In an enormous black Mercedes limousine they commenced a whirling tour of office buildings. Thurston tried to explain what was happening, but after a while he gave up, because he wasn't sure. Sometimes the commodore descended for a few minutes by himself, sometimes he took the couple along to sign a ledger or a document, with 'Thurston accompanying them. An official invariably waited at the door to greet them and to lead them past crowded anterooms into dusty old inner offices, where fat pallid old d& partment heads got awkwardly out of their chairs to bow to D'EsaguyAbout two hours later they arrived at an office familiar to Thurston, where civil marriages were registered. It was closed for the day and the blinds were drawn. As the black limousine came to a stop, one blind went up and the door opened. A huge old woman in a brown smock, with visible chin whiskers, led them through dark empty rooms to an inner office where a chandelier blazed. At an ancient desk, fussing with papers, sat a dark frog-faced man with gold-rimmed glasses, several gold teeth, and three thick gold rings. He smiled at them and spoke to Thurston in Portuguese.
Thurston translated his questions; the man scratched with a blotchy pen on many of Byron's documents and kept stamping them. Natalie, Byron, and the two witnesses-Aster and Slote-signed and signed. After a while the man stood, and with a lewd gold-flecked smile held out his hand to Natalie and then to Byron, saying brokenly, 'Good luck for you." "What's this now?" Natalie said. 'y, you're married," 'Thurston said. "Congratulations." 'We are? Already? When did we get married? I missed it." "At one point there, where you both signed the green book. That was it." "I haven't the faintest recollection." Byron said, "Nor have I. However, I'll take your word for it. Let's have that ring, Lady." Aster put it in his hand. He slipped the yellow band on Natalie's finger, swept her into his arms, and kissed her. Meantime Thurston told D'Esaguy how -the couple had missed the moment of marriage, and the Portuguese officer laughed. He laughed again when Thurston explained the American custom of kissing the bride. Natalie said that D'Esaguy must kiss her first. With marked pleasure, the old aristocrat executed the privilege on her lips. Then he left, after cour y handshakes all around, as Byron gathered up his sheaf of documents and paid the fees. Slote was the last to kiss her. Natalie hesitated, looking into his eyes, and said, "Well, old Slote, I seem to have done it, don't I? Wish me well." "Oh, I do, I do, Jastrow. You know that. She gave him a cool brief on the mouth, putting her free hand on his neck. When they emerged into the late golden sunshine, the black limousine was gone. The office door closed behind them and Slote felt something loose and grainy thrust in his hand. It was rice. Lieutenant Aster grinned a strange cold thin-lipped grin at him and winked a sharp blue eYe-At a signal from Aster, the three men pelted the couple. Natalie, brushing rice from her dress, wiped her eyes with a knuckle. "Well, that certainly makes it official! Now what happens?" "if you don't know," said Lady Aster, "Byron's got a lot of fast explaining to do."Natalie choked and turned brick red. "My God, Briny, who is this character?" "Lady's spent too much time submerged," said Byron. "He has trouble raising his mind to sea level." 'Marriage is holy and beautiful," said Lady Aster. "But before you hop to it, how about visiting the old S-45 for a minute? The skipper's sort of expecting us." "Of course, of course," Natalie said hurriedly. "I want to see the S45-I'm dying to. By all means." "Have you any idea where you'll go after that?" Leslie Slote dryly put in. Byron said, "Well, I figured there'd be a place-a hotel, something." 'Lisbon's jammed to bursting," said Slote. "My God, so it is. I never gave it a thought," Natalie said. 'y not take my place?" said Leslie Slote. "That's suite, if ever I saw one." Natalie looked very surprised and glanced at Byron. of you, Siote, but I wouldn't dream of it." "We'll find something," Byron said, shaking his head. 'Oh, but his place is out of the Arabian Nights," said Natalie, adding very casually, 'I had a drink there last night. Would you do such a thing for us, old Slote?" 'Leslie can stay with me," Thurston said. "No problem at all. Pick me up at the legation, Les. I have to rush there now." "It's all set," said Slote. "Mile you two visit the submarine, I'll go to the hotel and dear out." "Bless you. Thank you. My bags," said Natalie distractedly, "they're in Mrs. Rosen's room. Maybe I should get them! No, I have things to throw in. I'll get 'em later. Thanks, Slote. And you too, Bunky. Thanks for everything." Slote signalled at a passing taxicab. "Good luck." Natalie was astonished at the small size of the submarine, at its ugliness, and at its rustiness. "Good heavens!" she shouted over the clanks and squeals of the crane moving overhead, as they got out of the cab. "Is that the S-45? Briny, honestly, don't you get claustrophobia when you dive in that thing?" "He's never stayed awake long enough to find out," said Aster. They a honeymoon "That's sweet were walking toward a gangway that was only a couple of planks nailed together. Sailors lounged on the low Hat black forecastle, staring at the girl in white with an armful ofroses. "One day when we're submerged he'll open his eyes and begin screaming." (11 don't mind anything but the low company," said Byron, "and the body odors. It's especially marked among the senior officers. when I sleep I don't notice it." A young tousle-headed sailor at the gangway, wearing a gun slung low on his hip, saluted Aster, gave Natalie a yearning respectful glance, and said, "Capon wants you-all to wait for him on the dock, sir." "Very well." Soon a figure in a blue uniform, with the gold stripes of a lieutenant, emerged from the rust-streaked black sail-the housing that rose amidships over the conning tower-and crossed the gangplank to the dock. The captain was shaped rather like his submarine, clumsily thick in the middle and tapering abruptly to either end. He had big browm eyes, a broad nose, and a surprisingly boyish face. "Captain Caruso, this is my wife," said Byron, jolting Natalie with the word. Caruso took her hand in a white fat Paw. "Well, congratulations! Byron's a good lad, in his short conscious intervals." "DO You really sleep that much?" Natalie laughed at Byron. it ic It's pure slander. I seldom close my eyes on this boat," said Byron, except to meditate on my folly in going to sub school. That I admit I do very frequently." "Eighteen hours at a stretch, he can meditate," said Aster. "That's solid gold meditating." Two sailors in dungarees came up out of an open hatch on the forecastle and crossed the gangway, one carrying a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, the other a tray of water glasses. here we go. Navy Regs don't allow us to consume spirituous liquors on board, M. Hen " d e captain, and again she felt the lit rs rY said ai the joyous jolt. He popped the cork and ceremoniously ur as the ilor poured sa held out one glass after another. "To your happiness," he shouted, as the crane went by overhead with a wild clanging. "To You, God bless you," yelled Natalie, "for bringing men here." 'To number two engine," bellowed Lady Aster, "to the evaporators, the exhaust system, and theforward battery. Never has there been such I massive breakdown on a naval vessel." Byron silently lifted his glass to his captain and executive officer. They drank. The crane rumbled away. "Captain," said Lady Aster, as Caruso refilled the glasses, "do you think that picture in Byron's room does Natalie justice?" "Not in the least," said the captain, looking at her with liquid womanloving Italian eyes. 'It doesn't begin to." ually seen he u nlaes how I feel. Now that you've act r, sir, don't you at least five agree with me that what has to be done in Lisbon may take days?" "Three," snapped Captain Caruso, the dreamy look vanishing. "Exactly seventy-two hours." "Aye aye, sir." 'And you'd better produce some damned convincing malfunction reports, Lady." The captain tossed off his wine and smiled at Natalie. "Now, can I offer you the hospitality of the boat for a little while?" She followed the officers into the rusty sail and down a hatch. The ladder was cold and greasy, with narrow slippery rungs hat caught at Natalie's high heels. She had to lower herself through a second round hatch and down another ladder into a tiny room full of machinery, strongly conscious of her exposed legs and glad that they were pretty and that her skirt was narrow. "This is the control room," Byron said, helping her down. "Up above was the conning tower." Natalie looked around at solemn-faced sailors in dungarees, and at the valves, knobs, dials, handles, big wheels, twisted cables, and panels of lights fining all the green-painted bulkheads. Despite a humming exhaust blower, the close, warm air smelled sourly of machinery, cooking, old cigars, and unwashed men. "Briny, do you really know what all these things are?" 'He's learning," said Lady Aster. "Between hibernations." They stepped through an open watertight door to the tiny wardroom, where Natalie met two more young officers. On the table stood a heartshaped white cake, iced in blue with a submarine, cupids, and Mr. and Mrs. Byron Henry. She squeezed herself into the place of honor at the head of the table, opposite the captain. Byron and Lady Aster sat crouched against the bulkhead, to avoid a bunk folded back over their heads. Somebody produced a sword, Natalie cut up the cake, and the captain sent what was left to the crew's quarters. The two glasses of champagne were going to Natalie's head. She was halfdizzy anyway from the rush of events and the longing that blazed at her from the young men's eyes. Over the coffee and cake she laughed and laughed at Lady Aster's jokes, and decided that the old submarine, for all its cramped squalor, its reek of machine and mazes, was a mighty jolly vessel. Byron looked more desirable to her by the minute, and she kissed him often. Before they left the S-45, Byron took his bride to a tiny cabin and showed her the narrow black aperture near it(he deck, beneath two other bunks, where he slept. 'I ask you," he said, would anybody spend extra time in that morgue slot through choice?" "The alternative might be more frightful," said Lady Aster, over Natalie's shoulder. "Like staying awake.when Natalie and BYron came out on deck into cool fresh air, crewmen on the forecastle waved and cheered. Natalie waved back and some bold sailors whistled. The taxicab, called by the gangway watch for them, started off with a great clatter. The driver jammed his brakes, jumped out, and Natalie and Byron heard him cursing in Portuguese(on) as he threw aside shoes and tin cans.(soon) The crew laughed and yelled until the cab drove away, "I daresay poor Slote's left the hotel by now." Natalie snuggled against her husband, 'We'll collect my bags and go there, right? Wait till you see it. It was terrible of me to jump at it like that, but honestly, Briny, it's the royal suite." In Natalie's room, in a boardinghouse on a side street, an old woman snored in an iron bed. "Well Slote's place must be better than this, " Byron whispered, glancing at the cracked ceiling and at the roaches on the peeling wallpaper, scurrying to hide from the electric light. Natalie swiftly gathered her things and left a note with her key on the table. At the door she turned to look at Mrs. Rosen, lying on her back, jaw hanging open, gray hair tumbled on the pillow. What kind of wedding night had Mrs. Rosen had, she thought, with the husband whose silver-framed face smiled brownly on her bedside table, her one memento of the wretched man dragged off a French train by Germans? Natalie shivered and closed the door. The desk clerk at the Palace Hotel evidently had been informed and tipped by Slote, for he yielded up the key to Byron with a greasy grin. The newlyweds had to give him their passports. Natalie felt a touch of fear, handing over the maroon American booklet that set her off from Lisbon's forty thousand other Jews. "I just thought of something," she said in the elevator. "How did you register?" "Mr. and Mrs naturally. Big thrill." "I'm still Natalie Jastrow on that passport." "So you are." The elevator stopped. He took her arm. "I wouldn't worry about it." "But maybe you should go back and explain." "Let them ask a question first."As the bellboy opened the door to the suite, Natalie felt herself whisked off her feet. "Oh, Byron, stop this nonsense. I'm monstrously heavy. You'll slip a disk." But she clung to his neck with one hand and clutched her skirt with the other, excited by his surprising lean strength. "Hey!" he said, carrying her inside, "I see what you meant. Royal suite is right." When he put her down she darted ahead into the bedroom. Natalie had a slight nag of worry about the negligee she had left hanging in Slote's bathroom, and the new sexy underwear in a bureau drawer. It might take some explaining! But all the stuff was gone-here, she had no idea. She was puzzling over this when Byron appeared in the french window of the bedroom, on the balcony. "This is great out here, all right. Cold as hell, though. Fabulous string of lights along the water. Did you notice the champagne? And the lilies?" 'Lilies?" "In there." In a corner of the living room, beside champagne in a silver cooler on a marble table, stood a bouquet of red and white calla lilies, and beside them Slote's small white card, with no writing. The doorbell rang: A bellboy gave Natdlie a box from the lingerie shop. She hurried into the bedroom and opened it. There lay the underclothes Slote had cleared Out, a many-colored froth of silk and lace. "What's that?" Byron said from the balcony. 'Oh, some stuff I bought in a lobby shop," Natalie said airily. "I guess Slote told them I'd be here." She picked up a peach nightgown, and with mock witchery draped it against her bosom. "Not bad for an academic type, hey?" Then she saw a note in Slote's handwriting, lying under the sill. Byron started to come in. She ran for the french door and shut it on him. "Give me a minute. Open the champagne." The note read: Wear the gray, jas-trow. You always looked angelic in gray. Confidential communication, to be destroyed. Yours till death. S. The words brought a mist to Natalie's eyes. She tore the note to bits and dropped them in a wastebasket. In the next room she heard a cork pop. She pulled from the box the gray silk nightdress laced and trimmed in black, and quite forgot Leslie Slote, as she speedily showered and perfumed herself. She emerged from the bedroom brushing her long black hair down onher shoulders. Byron seized her.... ... Wine, lilies, and roses; the dark sea rolling beyond the windows under a round moon; young lovers separated for half a year, joined on a knife-edge of geography between war and peace, suddenly married, far from home; isolated, making love on a broad hospitable bed, performing secret rites as old as time, but forever fresh and sweet between young lovers, the best moments human existence offers-such was their wedding night. The human predicament sometimes seems a gloomy tapestry with an indistinct, baffling design that 5mrIs around and inward to brilliant naked lovers. The Bible starts with this centerpiece. Most of the old stories end with the lovers married, retiring to their sacred nakedness. But for Byron and Natalie, their story was just beginning. The lavish pulses and streams of love died into the warm deep sleep of exhausted lovers: Mr. and Mrs. Byron Henry, Americans, slumbering in wedlock in the Palace Hotel outside Lisbon, on a January night of 1941, one of the more than two thousand nights of the Second World War, when so much of mankind slept so badly. ATALM opened her eyes, awakened by the warbling and chirping of birds. Byron sat beside her, smoking. A cool breeze was blowing from an open door to the balcony. In a pink-streaked sky, the wan moon and one star hung low over the choppy sea. "Hi. Listen to those birds! How long have you been awake, Byron?" "Not long, but I'm really wide awake. Wide awake and still trying to believe it." She sat up. The bedclothes slipped from her breasts as she kissed him softly, sighing with satiated pleasure. "Gosh, that air's icy, isn't it?" "I can close the door." "No, no, the sea smell is lovely." She pulled the blanket to her neck, nestling beside him. After a silence she said, "Byron, how does a submarine work?" He glanced down at her. His arm was around her, caressing her shoulder. "Are you kidding?" "No. Is it hard to explain?" Not at all, but why talk about that?" "Because I want to know." "Well, it's a hell of a topic to take up with a beautiful naked girl, but okay. I'll tell you how a submarine works. To begin with, it's built so that it just about floats when ballasted. So when you flood the diving tanks with a few tons of seawater you go right down, and when you blow the water out with compressed air, you pop up again. You begin with marginal buoyancy, and by changing the water ballast you become a rock or a cork as desired. That's the general idea. The details are numerous and dull.""Well, is it safe? How much have I got to worry about?" "Less than if I were a New York traffic cop." "You get hazardous duty pay." "That's because civilians, like congressmen and you, yourself, have the illusion that it's scary and risky to dive a boat under the water. No submariner will ever argue Congress out of that." "But when you go deep, isn't there quite a risk of being crushed?" 'No. A sub's just a long watertight steel tube, braced to hold off sea pressure. That's the inner bull, the pressure hull. it's the real ship. The outside that you see is just a skin for tanks, open at the bottom. The water sloshes in and out. The inner hull has a test pressure depth. You never submerge near that. Nobody to this day knows how deep the old S-45 can go. We ride on a thick cushion of safety." "Submarines have been lost." "So have ocean liners and sailing yachts. when men are trapped in a bull on the ocean bottom, tapping out Morse code, it makes a good story, but it's only happened a couple of times. Even then there are ways of escaping, and we're all trained in them." "But when you Hood the boat to go down, can't the Hooding get out of hand? Don't mile, darling. It's all a mystery to somebody like me. 'I smile because you ask good questions. But as I told you, the main tanks are outside the real hull. They're just stuck on. When they Hood, you're awash, waterlogged. For diving there's a small sealed tank inside, the negative tank. It can hold about twelve tons of sea water. Flood negative and down you go fast. When you're at the depth you want, you blow negative, and there you are, hanging. You spread your bow planes, and you're sort of like a fat airplane, flying slowly through thick air. Submanners are picked men, and great guys, darling, and all seventy-five of them dearly want nothing to go wrong! There are no slobs on a submarine. That's the truth about submarines, and this is one peculiar conversation to be having in I bed with a new wife." Natalie yawned. "You're making me feel better. That rusty little boat scared me." "The new fleet submarines are luxury liners compared to the S-45," Byron said. 'I'll go to one of those next." She yawned again, as a patch of pink light appeared on the wall. "Bless my soul, is that the sun? Where did the night go? Draw the curtains." Byron walked naked to the windows and closed the heavy draperiesAs he returned to her in the gloom, she thought with piercing pleasure how handsome he was-a sculptured male figurealive, warm, and brown. He settled de her. She leaned over him and gave him a kiss. When the young husband strongly pulled her close she pretended for a moment to fight him off, but she couldn't choke down her welling joyous laughter. As the sun rose outside the screening curtains on another day of war, Byron and Natalie Henry went back to lovemaking. They breakfasted at noon in the sunny sitting room, where the air was heavy with the scent of roses. Their breakfast was oysters, steak, and red wine; Natalie ordered it, saying it was precisely what she wanted, and Byron called it a perfect menu. They ate in dressing gowns, not talking much, looking deep in each other's eyes, sometimes laughing at a foolish word or at nothing at all. They were radiant with shared, gratified desire. Then she said, "Byron, exactly how much time do we have?" "well, seventy-two hours from the time we came alongside would be half past two, Thursday." Some of the pure gladness in her eyes dimmed. "When. That soon? Short honeymoon." "This isn't our honeymoon. I'm entitled to twenty days' leave. I reported straight to the S-45 from sub school. I'll take those twenty days once you're back home. When will that be?" She leaned her head on her hand. "Oh, dear. Must I start thinking?" "Look, Natalie. Why not send Aaron a wire that we're married, and go straight home?" "I can't do that." "I don't want you going back to Italy." Natalie raised her eyebrows at his flat tone. "But I have to." "No, you don't. Aaron's too cute," Byron said. "Here, let's finish this wine. As long as you or I or somebody will do the correspondence and dig in the library and keep after the kitchen, the gardeners, and the plumbers, he won't leave that house. It's that simple. He loves it, and he doesn't scare easily. He's a tough little bird, Uncle Aaron, under the helplessness and the head colds. What do you suppose he'd do if you sent him that wire?" Natalie hesitated, "Try to get me to change my mind. If that failed, make a real effort to leave." "Then it's the best favor you can do him." "No. He'd make a mess of it. He's not good with officials, and the stupider they are the worse he gets. He could really trap himself. Leslie Slote and I together can get him on his way in short order, and this time we'll & it." "Slote? Slote's enroute to Moscow.""He's offered to stop off in Rome and Siena first. He's very devoted to Aaron." "I know who he's devoted to." Natalie said softly with a poignant look, "Jealous of Leslie Slote, Briny?" "All right. Sixty days." "What, dear?" "Co back there for two months. No more. That should be plenty. If Aaron's not out by April first or before, it'll be his own doing, and you come home. Book your own transportation, right now." Natalie's wide mouth curved wryly. 'I see. Are you giving me orders, Byron?" "Yes.) She rested her chin on her palm, contemplating him with surprised eyes "You know, that feels pretty good being ordered around. I can't say why. Possibly the delicious novelty will wear off. Anyway, lord and master, I'll do as you say. Sixty days." "All right," Byron said. "Let's get dressed and see Lisbon." "I've seen Lisbon," said Natalie, "but I'm all in favor of coming up for air." Dropping the key at the desk, Byron asked for their orts. With a heavy-lidded look, the swarthy short clerk disappeared through a door. "Look at those fellows," Byron said. Half a dozen Germans, in belted black raincoats despite the sunshine, were talking together near the lobby entrance, looking hard at everybody who came in and went out. 'They might as well be wearing boots and swastikas. what is it about them? Those raincoats? The big brims on the hats? The bronze sunburns? How do they find time for sunbathing?" "I recognize them with the back of my neck. It crawls," Natalie said. The desk clerk emerged from the door, busily shuffling papers. "Sorry, Passports not ready yet." "I need mine!" Natalie's tone was strident. The clerk barely lifted his eyes at her. "Maybe this afternoon, madame," he said, turning his back. After the languors of the bedroom, the cold sunny outdoors felt bracing. Byron hired a tad to drive them into and around Lisbon. The city was no Rome or Paris for sights, but the rows of pastel-colored housesgreen, pink, blue-perched along the hills above a broad river made a PrettY picture. Byron enjoyed himself, and he thought his bride was having fun too; she clung to his arm and smiled, saying little.