Chapter 7

The peculiar rwxture of Moorish and Gothic styles in the churches, and in the great fortress commanding the city's highest hill, brought back to Byron his dead-and-gone fine arts drudgery. They left the cab to descend arm in arm the steep, narrow, extremely small streets of the Alfama, where ragged children swarmed in and out of cracking crazy houses hundreds of years old, and open shops the size of telephone booths sold fish, bread, and meat scraps. It was a long wandering walk. "Where did the cab promise to meet us?" Natalie spoke up in a strained tone, as they traversed an alley where the stinks made them gasp. "Everything all right?" he said. She wearily smiled. "At the risk of sounding like every stupid woman tourist in the world, my feet hurt." 'y, let's go back. I've had plenty of this." "Do you mind?" She said not a word as they drove along the river road back to the hotel. When he took her hand it was clammy. Entering the hotel, she pulled at his elbow. "Don't forget-passports." It proved unnecessary. With the key, the desk clerk, showing large yellow false teeth in an empty grin, handed him two maroon booklets. Natalie snatched hers and riffled through it as they walked to the elevator. "Okay?" he said. "Seems to be. But I'll bet anything the Gestapo's photographed it, and yours too." "Well, it's probably routine in this hotel. I don't think the Portuguese are denying the Germans much nowadays. But what do you care?" When she went into the bedroom of the suite to put away her coat and hat, Byron followed, took her in his arms, and kissed her. She responded, she held him close, but her manner was apathetic. He leaned back with a questioning look. "Sorry," she said. "I have a thundering headache. Burgundy for breakfast may not be just the thing, after all. Luckily I have some high-powered pills for this. just let me take one." Soon she came back from the bathroom smiling. "Okay. Proceed." He said, "It couldn't work that fast." "Oh, it will. Don't worry." They kissed, they lay on the bed, Byron was on fire to make love and tried to please her, but it was as though a spring had broken in Natalie.
She whispered endearments and tried to be loving. After a while he sat up, and gently raised her. "All right. What is it?" She crouched against the head of the bed, hugging her knees. "Nothing, nothing! What am I doing wrong? Maybe I'm a little tired. The headache's not gone yet." "Natalie." He took her hand, kissed it, and looked straight into her eyes. "Oh, I guess nobody can experience such joy without paying. That's all. If you must know, I've been in a black hole all afternoon. it started when we didn't get our passports back, and those Germans were standing there in the lobby. I got this horrible sinking feeling. All the time we were sightsecing, I was having panicky fantasies, The hotel would keep stalling about my passport, and you'd sail away in the submarine, and here I'd be, just one more Jew stuck in Lisbon without papers." "Natalie, you never turned a hair all through Poland. You've got your passport back now." "I know. It's sheer nonsense, just nervous and pie on, too many wonderful things happening too fast. I'll get over it." He caressed her hair. "You fooled me. I thought you were enjoying Lisbon." "I loathe Lisbon, Briny. I always have. I swear to God, whatever else happens, I'll regret to my dying day that we married and spent our wedding night here. It's a sad, painful city. You see it with different eyes, I know- You keep saying it looks like San Francisco. But San Francisco isn't full of Jews fleeing the Germans. The Inquisition didn't baptize Jews by force in San Francisco, and burn the ones who objected, and take away all the children to raise them as Christians. Do you know that little tidbit of history? It happened here." Byron's face was serious, his eyes narrowed. "Maybe I read it once." "Maybe? If you had, how could you forget? Anybody's blood should run cold at such cruelty. But somehow, what's happened to Jews in Europe over the centuries is just a matter of course. What was Bunky's pretty phrase? Fish in a net." Byron said, "Natalie, I'll do anything you want about the religion. I've always been prepared for that. Would you want me to become Jewish?" 'Are you insane?" She turned her head sharply to him and her eyes had an angry shine. She had looked like this in Kenigsberg, giving him a rude abrupt good-bye. 'Why did you insist on getting married?
That's what's eating at me. just tell me that.. We could have made love, you know that, all you wanted. I feel tied to you now with a rope of raw nerves. I don't know where you're going. I don't know when I 'll ever see you again. I only know you're sailing away 'nursday in that damned submarine. Why don't we tear up those Portuguese documents? Let everything be as it Was. My God, if we ever find ourselves in a human situation, and if we still care, ive can get properly married. This was a farce." "No, it wasn't. It's the only thing I've wanted since I was born. Noil, I've got it. We're not tearing up any papers. You're my wife." "But God in heaven, 'why have you gone to all this trouble? Why have you put yourself in this mess?" "Well, it's like this, Natalie. Married officers get extra allowances." She stared at him. Her taut face relaxed, she slowly, reluctantly smiled, and thrust both her hands in his hair. "I see! Well, that makes a lot of sense, Briny. You should have told me sooner. I can understand greed." Mouth to mouth, they fell back on the bed, and the lovemaking started to go better, but the telephone rang. It rang and rang and rang, and the kisses had to stop. Byron sighed, "Could be the S-45," and picked up the receiver. "Yes? Oh, hello. Right. That's thoughtful of you. Nine o'clock? Wait." He covered the mouthpiece. 'Thurston apologizes for intruding. He and Slote thought we might conceivably want to have dinner in a special place. Best food in Lisbon, best singer in Portugal." 'Good heavens. Old Slote is uncovering a masocmstic streak." 'Yes or no?" 'As you wish." Byron said, They mean to be nice. why not? We have to eat. Get away Emm the black raincoats." He accepted, hung u, and took her in his arms. The restaurant was a brick-walled low room, illuminated only by table candles and the logs blazing in an arched fireplace. Jews, many in sleek dinner clothes, filled half the tables. Two large British parties side by side made most of the noise in the sedate place. Directly in front of the fire a table for six empty, longingly eyed by customers clustering in a small bar. The four Americans sat at another favored table near the fire. Over Portuguese white wine, Bunky Thurston and the newlyweds soon grew merry. Not Slote; he drank a lot but hardly spoke or smiled. The firelight glittered on his square glasses, and even in that rosy light his face looked ashen.
'I don't know if you youngsters are interested in the war, by the way," Thurston said over the meal. 'Remember the war? There's news." "If the news is good I'm interested," Natalie said. "Only if it's good." "Well, the British have captured Tobruk." Natalie said, 'Is Tobruk important?" Byron exclaimed, 'Important! It's the best harbor between Egypt and Tunis. that's mighty good news." "Right," Thurston said. "they're really roaring across North Africa now. Makes the whole war look different." Slote broke his silence to say hoarsely, 'They're fighting Italians." He cleared his throat and went on, "Byron, did you actually read the list of books I gave you in Berlin? Natalie says you did." "Whatever I could find in English, yes. Maybe seven or eight of]t of ten." The diplomat shook his head. "Extraordinary heroism." "I don't claim I understood them all," Byron said. "Sometimes my eyes just pas"ed over words. But I plowed on through." "What books?" Thurston said. "My darling here became slightly curious about the Germans," said Natalie, "after a Luftwaffe pilot almost shot his head off. He wanted to know a little more about them. Slote gave him a general syllabus of German nineteenth-century romanticism, nationalism, and idealism. "Never dreaming he'd do anything about it," Slote said, turning his blank firelit glasses toward her. "I had all this time in Siena last year," Byron said. "And I m,as interested." "What did you find out?" said Thurston, refilling Byron's glass. "You couldn't get me to read German philosophy if the alternative were a firing squad." 'Mainly that Hitler's always been in the German bloodstream," Byron said, "and sooner or later had to break out. That's what Leslie told me in Berlin. He gave me the list to back up his view. I think he pretty well proved it. I used to think the Nazis had swarmed up out of the sewers and were something novel. But all their ideas, all their slogans, and practically everything they're doing is in the old books. That thing's been brewing in Germany for a hundred years." "For longer than that," Slote said. "You've done your homework well, Byron. A plus." 'Oh, balderdash!" Natalie exclaimed. "A plus for what? Repeating a tired cliche? It's only novel to Byron because American education is so shallow and because he probably didn't absorb any he got." "Not much," Byron said. 'Mostly I played cards and ping-pong." "Well, it's very evident." His bride's tone was sharp. "Or you wouldn't have gone boring through that one-sided list of his like a blind bookworm, just to give him a chance to patronizeyou." 'I deny the patronizing and the one-sidedness," said Slote. "Not that it matters, Jastrow-I guess I'll have to call you Henry now-but I think I covered the field, and I admire your hubby for tackling the job so earnestly." "The whole thesis is banal and phony," Natalie said, "this idea that the Nazis are a culmination of German thought and culture. Hitler got his radsm from Gobineau, a Frenchman, his Teutonic superiority from Chamberlain, an Englishman, and his Jew-baiting from Lueger, a Viennese political thug. The only German thinker you can really link straight to Hitler is Richard Wagner. He was another mad Jew-hating socialist, and Wagner's writings are all over Mein Kampf. But Nietzsche broke with Wagner over that malignant foolishness. Nobody takes Wagner seriously as a thinker, anyway. His music disgusts me too, though that's neither here nor there. I know you've read more in this field than I have, Slote, and I can't imagine why you gave Byron such a dreary loaded list. Probably just to scare him off with big names. But as you ought to know, he doesn't scare." 'I'm aware of that," Slote said. Abruptly he splashed wine into his glass, filling it to the brim, and emptied it without pausing for breath. "Your veal's getting cold," Byron said to his bride. This unexpected edgy clash between Natalie and her ex-loyer was threatening to get out of hand. She tossed her head at him and impatiently cut a bit of meat, talking as she ate. 'We created Hitler, more than anybody. We Americans. Mainly by not joining the League, and then by passing the insane Smoot-Hawley tariff in 1930, during a deep depression, knocking over Europe's economy like a row of dominoes. After Smoot-Hawley the German banks closed right and left. The Germans were starving and rioting. Hitler promised them jobs, law and order, and revenge for the last war. And he promised to crush the Communists. The Germans swallowed his revolution to fend off a Communist one. He's kept his promises, and he's held the Germans in line with terror, and that's the long and short of it. Why, there isn't a German in a thousand who's read those books, Briny. It's all a thick cloud of university gas. Hitler's a product of American isolation and British and French cowardice, not of the ideas of Hegel and Nietzsche." "University gas is good, my dear," Slote said, 'and I'll accept it." He touched his spread fingertips together, slouched in his chair, regarding her with a peculiar smile at once superior and frustrated. "In the sense that in any time and place the writings of the philosophers are a kind of exhaust gas of the evolving social machinery-a point that Hegel more or less makes, and that Marx took and vulgarized. But you can recover from an analysis of the gas what the engine must be like and how it works. And the ideas may be powerful and true, no matter how produced. German romanticism is a terribly important and powerful critique of the way the West lives, Jastrow. It faces all the nasty weaknesses.""Such as?" Her tone was mean and abrupt. A rush of argument broke from Slote, as though he wanted to conquer her with words in Byron's presence, if he could do nothing else. He began stabbing one finger in the air, like exclamation points to his sentences. "Such as, my dear, that Christianity is dead and rotting since Galileo cut its throat. Such as, that the ideas of the French and American revolutions are thin fairy tales about human nature. Such as, that the author of the Declaration of Independence owned Negro slaves. Such as, that the champions of liberty, equality, and fraternity ended up chopping off the heads of helpless women, and each other's heads. The German has a very clear eye for such points, Natalie. He saw through the rot of imperial Rome and smashed it, he saw through the rot of the Catholic Church and broke its back, and now he thinks Christian industrial democracy is a rotting sham, and he proposes to take over by force. His teachers have been telling him for a century that his turn is coming, and that cruelty and bloodshed are God's footprints in history. That's what's in the books I listed for Byron, poured out in great detail. It's a valid list. There was another strain in Germany, to be sure, a commonsense liberal humanist tendency linked with the West. The 'good Germany!" I know all about it, Natalie. Most of its leaders went over to Bismarck, and nearly all the rest followed the Kaiser. When his time came, Hitler had a waltz. Now listen!" In a solemn tone, like a priest chanting a mass, beating time in the air with a stiff finger, Slote quoted: "The German revolution will not prove any miuff or gentler because it was preceded by the Critique of Kant, by the Transcendental Idealism of Fichte. These' doctrines served to develop revolutionary forces that only await their times, to break forth. Christianity subdued the brutal warrior passion of the Germans, but it could 'not quench it. When the cross, that restraining talism", falls to pieces, then will break forth again the frantic Berserker rage. The old stone gods will then arise from the forgotten ruins and wipe from their eyes the dust of centuries. Thor with his giant hamtwr will arise again, and he will shatter the Gothic cathedrals." Slote made an awkward, weak gesture with a fist to represent a hammer-blow, and went on: "'Smile not at the dreamer whowarns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and the other philosophers. Smile not at the fantasy of one who foresees in the region of reality the same outburst of revolution that has taken place in the region of intelt. The thought precedes the deed as the lightning the thunder. Ger thunder is of true German character. It is not very nimble, but rumbles along somewhat slowly. But come it will, and 'when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then know that at last the German thunderbolt has fallen." "Heine-the Jew who composed the greatest German poetry, and who fell in love with German philosophy-Heine wrote that," Slote said in a quieter tone. "He wrote that a hundred and six years ago." Behind him chairs rasped, and a party in evening clothes, cheerily chattering in German,flanked by three bobbing, ducking waiters, came to the big table by the fire. Slote was jostled; glancing over his shoulder, he looked straight into the face of the Gestapo chief, who amiably smiled and bowed. With him was the man with the scarred forehead they had seen in the hotel, and another German with a shaved head, and three giggling Portuguese women in bright evening dresses. "End of philosophy seminar," muttered Bunky Thurston. "Why?" said Byron. "Because for one thing," Natalie snapped, "I'm bored with it." As the Germans sat down, conversation died throughout the restaurant. The Jews were looking warily toward them. In the lull, only the boisterous and oblivious British parties sounded louder. 'Who are those English people?" Natalie said to Thurston. 'Expatriates, living here because it's cheap and there's no rationingAlso, I guess, because it's out of range of Luftwaffe bombs," Thurston said. 'The British embassy staff isn't crazy about them." 'That's a remarkable quote from Heine," Byron said to Slote. 'I wrote a paper on Hegel and Heine at Oxford." Slote smiled thinly. "Heine was fascinated by Hegel for a long time, then repudiated him. I translated that passage for an epigraph. The rhetoric is rather purple. So is Jeremiah's. Jewish prophets have one vein." As they were drinking coffee, a pink spotlight clove the dark room, striking a gray curtain on a little platform. Bunky Thurston said, "Here he comes. He's the best of the fado singers." 'The best of what?" Byron said. A pale dark-eyed young man, in a black cloak with thick fringes, stepped through the curtain holding an onion-shaped guitar. "Fado singers. Fate songs. Very pathetic, very Portuguese." At the first chords that the young man struck-strong sharp sad chords, in a hammering rhythm-the restaurant grew still. He sang in a clear high florid voice, looking around with his black eyes, his high bulging forehead pink in the spotlight. Natalie murmured to Thurston, "What song is that?" "That's an old one, the fado of the students." 'What do the words mean?" Oh, the words never amount to anything. just a sentence or two. That one says, 'Close your eyes. Life is simpler with your eyes closed."' The glance of the newlyweds met. Byron put his hand over Natalie's.
The young man sang several songs, with strange moments of speeding UP, slowing down, sobbing, and trilling; these evidently were the essence of fado, because when he performed such flourishes in the middle of a song, the Portugu in the room applauded and sometimes cheered. "Lovely " Natalie murmured to Bunky Thurston when a song ended. "Thank you." He smoothed his mustache with both hands. "I thought you'd find it agreeable. It's something different." "Spielerl Kennen Sie 'O Sole Mio' singen?" The shaven-headed German was addressing the singer. He sat only a few feet from the platform. Smiling uneasily, the singer replied in Portuguese, gesturing at his oddly shaped guitar, that he only performed fado songs. In a jolly tone, the German told him to sing "O Sole Mio" anyway. Again the young man made helpless gestures, shaking his head. The German pointed a smoking cigar at him, and shouted something in Portuguese that brought dead quiet in the restaurant, even among the British, and froze the faces of the three women at his table. With a piteous look around at the audience, the young performer began to do "O Sole Mio," very badly. The German leaned back, beating time in the air with his cigar. A thick pall fell in the restaurant. Natalie said to Thurston, "Let's leave now." "I'm for that." The singer was still stumbling through the Italian song as they walked out. On the counter at the entrance, under a picture of him, phonograph records in paper slipcovers were piled. "If that first song is there," Natalie said to Byron, "buy me a record." He bought two. The streetlights outside were brighter than the illumination in the restaurant, and the wind was cutting. Leslie Slote, tying a muffler around his neck, said to Byron, when do you leave?" "Not till day after tomorrow." 'Years hence, the way I'm counting time," said Natalie with a note of defiance, hugging her husband's arm. "Well, Natalie, shall I try to get us on a plane to Rome Saturday?" "Oh, wait. Maybe he won't leave. I can always hope." "Of course." Slote held out his hand to Byron. "If I don't see you again, congratulations, and good luck, and smooth sailing.""Thanks. And thanks for that suite. It was brash of us to put you out of it." "My dear fellow," said Slote, "it was quite wasted on me." All her limbs jerking, Natalie woke from a nightmare of Gestapo men knocking at the door. She heard real knocking in the darkness. She lay still, hoping that a trace of the nightmare was hovering in her fogged brain, and that the knocking would stop. It did not. She looked at her luminous watch and touched Byron's warm hairy leg. "Byron! Byron!" He raised himself on an elbow, then sat up straight. "What time is it?" "Quarter to two." The knocking became faster and louder. Byron jumped from the bed and slipped into a robe. "Briny, be careful about letting anyone in! First make sure who it is." Natalie left the warm nest of the bed and was putting on a negligee, shivering in the chilly night air, when Byron opened the bedroom door. "It's only Aster, so don't be scared." "What does he want?" that's what I'm finding out." The door shut. Natalie went and leaned her ear against it, and heard Tobruk mentioned. Humiliated at having to eavesdrop, she rattled the knob and went in. The two young men rose from the sofa where they sat hunched in talk. Lieutenant Aster, in a blue and gold uniform and white peaked cap, was eating an apple. "Hi, Natalie. This is one terrible thing to do, breaking in on honeymooners," he said cheerily. "Talk about extrahazardous duty!" "What's the matter?" Byron said, "Change of orders, nothing serious or urgent, no sweat 'Right. Matter of fact I was just shoving off." Lieutenant Aster dropped the apple core in a tray. "I have to round up some crew members that had overnights. It's going to be an interesting tour of Estoril and Lisbon after dark. See you, Byron." With a grin at her, and a brief tip of his rakishly tilted hat, the lieutenant left. "Well? Tell me." Natalie confronted her husband, arms folded. Byron went to the red marble fireplace and touched a match to papers under a pile of kindlingand logs. "The S-45 leaves this morning." "This very morning, eh? Too bad. Where to?" "I don't know. The fall of Tobruk has changed the mission-which to tell you the truth, I never exactly knew in the first place. Something about surveying submarine facilities in the Mediterranean." "Well. A-11 right. I guess I asked for this. My entire married life-as it may yet turn outut short by one third." "Natalie, stir married life starts when you get back from Italy." He put his arm around her and they stood watching the fire brighten. "It's going to be very long, happy, and fruitful. I plan on six kids." This made the young wife laugh through her gloom and put a hand to his face. "Oh lord. Six! I'll never last the course. jimmy, that fire feels Marvelous. Did we finish the wine before we went to sleep? Look and see." He brought a glass of wine and lit a cigarette for her. "Briny, one thing you should know. Back in November, Aaron was so sick he thought he might die. I had to take him to a specialist in Rome. It was a kidney stone. He lay in the Excelsior for two weeks, really in torture. Finally it cleared up, but one night, when he was very low, Aaron told me that he'd left everything he has to me. And he told me what it added up to. I was amazed." She smiled at him, sipping her wine. Byron looked at her with slitted eyes. "I guess he's sort of a miser, like most bachelors. That's one reason he moved to Italy. He can live handsomely there on very little. Aaron's actually kept nearly all the money he made on A Jew's Jesus, and it brings in more every year. The book on Paul earned quite a bit too. And before that he'd saved a lot of his professor's salary. Living in Italy, he hasn't even,paid taxes. Aside from the value of his house, Aaron's worth more than a hundred thousand dollars. He lives just on his interest. The money is invested back in New York. I had no idea of any of this. Not the slightest. That he would leave anything to me never crossed my mind. Nevertheless, that's how things stand." Natalie took Byron's chin in her hand and pushed it this way and that. 'What are you looking so grim about? I'm telling you you've married an heiress." Byron poked a fallen red coal back into the fire. "Damn. He's really cute. Cuter than I thought.""Are you being fair? Especially with your plan for six kids?" "Possibly not." Byron shrugged. "Do you have enough money to get home with? You're coming home in two months, no matter what." "I know. I agreed to that. I have plenty. Whew, that fire's beginning to scorch." She reclined on a couch before the blaze. The negligee fell away, and the light played warmly on her smooth legs. "Briny, does your family know you intended to get married?" "No. No sense making trouble when I wasn't sure it would come off. I did write Warren." 'Is he still in Hawaii?" "Yes. He and Janice love it. I think you and I may well land there. The Navy keeps beefing up the Pacific Fleet. Warren thinks we'll be fighting japan soon. That's the feeling all through the Navy." "Not Germany?" 'No. It may sound strange to you, sitting here, but our people still don't get excited about Hitler. A few newspapers and magazines froth around, but that's about it." He sat on the floor at her feet, looking at the fire, resting his head against her soft uncovered thigh. She caressed his hair. "Exactly when do you leave, and how?" "Lady's going to corue back for me at six." "Six? Why, that's hours and hours. Big big chunk of our marriage left to enjoy. Of course you have to pack." "Ten minutes." "Can I go with you to the boat?" "I don't see why not." With a deep sigh, Natalie said, "Why are you sitting on the floor? Come here." There was no dawn. The sky turned paler and paler until it was light gray. Mist and drizzle hid the sea. Lieutenant Aster picked them up in a rattling little French car; the back seat was packed with four glum sailors smelling of alcohol and vomit. He drove with one hand, leaning far out to work a broken windshield wiper, keeping the accelerator on the floor.
The foggy road along the river was empty, and they reached Lisbon quickly. The submarine was dwarfed by a very rusty tramp steamer berthed directly ahead, with an enormous Stars and Stripes painted on its side, an American flag flying, and the name Yankee Belle stencilled in great drippy white letters on bow and stern. Its grotesquely cut-up shape and crude revetted plating looked foreign, and thirty or forty years old. It rode so high in the water that much of its propeller and mossy red bottom showed. Jews lined the quay in the drizzle, waiting quietly to go aboard, most of them with cardboard suitcases, cloth bundles, and frayed clothes. The children-there were quite a number-stood silent, clinging to their parents. At a table by the gangway, two uniformed Portuguese officials, under umbrellas held by assistants, were inspecting and stamping papers. Policemen in rubber capes paced up and down the queue. The rail of the ship was black with passengers staring at the quay and the Lisbon bills, as freed prisoners look back at the jail to savor their liberty. "When did that ocean greyhound show up?" Byron said. "Yesterday morning. It's an old Polish bucket, and the crew are mostly Greeks and Turks," Aster said. "I've tried talking to them. The pleasanter ones seem to be professional cutthroats. I gather the Jews will be packed in like sardines in five-decker bunks, for which they'll pay the price of deluxe suites on the Queen Mary. These fellows laughed like hell about that." He glanced at his wristwatch. "Well, we cast off at 0715. Good-bye, Natalie, and good luck. You were a beautiful bride, and now you're a beautiful Navy wife." The exec stepped aboard, smartly returning the salute of the gangway watch. On the dock near the gangway, unmindful of the rain beginning to fall, a sailor was hugging and kissing a dumpy Portuguese trollop dressed in red satin. Byron held out his arms to his wife, with a glance at the sailor and a grin, She embraced him. "You fool. Your trouble is, you went and married the creature." "I was drunk," Byron said. He kissed her again and again. A boatswain's whistle blew on the submarine, and a loudspeaker croaked, "Now station the special sea details." "Well, I guess this is it," he said. 'So long." Natalie was managing not to cry; she even smiled. 'Getting married was the right idea, my love. I mean that. It was an inspiration, and I adore you for it. I feel very married. I love you and I'm happy." "I love you." Byron went aboard the submarine, saluting as he stepped on deck.
In the thickening drizzle, her raincoat pulled close, her breath smoking in the damp frigid air, Natalie stood on the dock, smelling wharfside odorstar, machinery, fish, the sea-hearing the bleak cry of the gulls, and feeling for the first time what she had gotten herself into. She was a Navy wife all right! Three men in black trench coats and oversized fedora hats came strolling along the quay, cy inspecting the refugees, who either tried to ignore them or peered at them in horror. Women pulled their children closer. The men halted near the gangway; one pulled papers from a black portfolio, and they all began talking to the officials at the table. Meanwhile on the submarine sailors in pea coats pulled in the gangplank. The boatswain's whistle blew; the loudspeaker squawked. Appearing on the narrow little bridge in foul-weather clothes, the captain and Lieutenant Aster waved. "Good-bye, Natalie," Captain Caruso called. She did not see Byron rome out on the forecastle, but after a while noticed Men standing near the anchor among the sailors, in a khaki uniform and a brown windbreaker, hands in his back pockets, trousers flapping in the breeze. it was the first time she had ever seen Byron in a uniform; it made him seem different, remote, and older. Aster was shouting orders through a megaphone. Colored signal flags ran up. The sailors hauled in the lines. Byron walked along the forecastle and stood opposite his bride, almost close enough to reach out and clasp hands. She blew him a kiss. His face under the peaked khaki cap was businesslike and calm. A foghorn blasted. The submarine fell away from the dock and black water opened between them. "You come home, now," he shouted. "I will. Oh, I swear I will." "I'll be waiting. Two months!" He went to His duty station. With a swish of water from the propellers, the low black submarine dimmed away into the drizzle. Craaal Craaal Craaal Mournfully screeching, the gulls wheeled and followed the fading wake. Natalie hurried up the quay, past the Gestapo men, past the line of escaping Jews, whose eyes were all fixed in one direction-the gangway table they still had to pass, where the Portuguese officials and the three Germans were comparing papers and laughing together. Natalie's hand sweatily clutched the American passport in her pocket. "Hello, old Slote," she said, when she found a telephone and managed to make the connection. "This is Mrs. Byron Henry. Are you interested in buying me a breakfast? I seem to be free. Then let's push on to Italy, dear, and get Aaron out. I have to go home." In Washington Victor Henry was reassigned to War Plans. He did not hear from Roosevelt at all. People said the President was unaccountable, and from firsthand knowledge, the naval captain was beginning to believe it. But he was untroubled by the assignment, though he hadcraved and expected sea duty. More than anything else-more than the gray hairs beginning to show at his temples, more than the sharper lines on his forehead and around his mouth, more than his calmer pace on the tennis court-his contentment with still another desk job showed how Victor Henry was changing. Washington in January 1941, after London and Berlin, struck him as a depressing panorama of arguments, parties, boozing, confusion, lethargy, and luxury, ominously like Paris before the fall. It took him a long time to get used to brilliantly lit streets, rivers of cars, rich overabundant food, and ignorant indifference to the war. The military men and their wives, when Pug talked to them, discussed only the hairline advantages that the distant explosions might bring in their own tiny lives. Navy classmates of his calibre were stepping into the major sea commands that led to flag rank. He knew he was regarded as a hard-luck guy, a corner sunk by bureaucratic mischance. But he had almost stopped caring. He cared about the war; and he cared about the future of the United States, which looked dark to him. The Navy was as preoccupied as ever by japan. Every decision of the President to strengthen the Atlantic Fleet caused angry buzzes and knowing headshakes in the Department, and at the Army and Navy Club. When he tried to talk about the Germans, his friends tended to regard him askance; a bypassed crank, their amused glances almost said, trying to inflate his importance by exaggerating minor matters he happened to know about. The roaring debate over Lend-Lease, in Congress and the newspapers, seemed to him a farrago of illogic and irrelevance. It suited Hitler's book at the moment not to declare war on the United States-that was all. It apparently suited the American people in Turn to fake neutrality while commencing a sluggish, grudging effort on the British side, arguing every inch of the way. These two simple facts were being lost in the storm of words. Pug Henry was content in the War Plans Division because here he worked in another world, a secret, very small world of hard-boiled reality. Early in January, with a few other officers in War Plans, he had begun conversations" with British military men. In theory, Lord Burne-Wilke and his delegation were in Washington on vague missions of observing or purchase. Supposedly the talks were low-level explorations binding on nobody, and supposedly the President, the Army Chief of Staff, and the Chief of Naval Operations took no cognizance of them. In fact, by the first of March these conferences were finishing up a written war operations plan on a world scale. The assumption was that japan would sooner or later attack, and the key decision of the agreement lay in two words: "Germany first." It heartened Victor Henry that the American Army and Air Corps planners concurred in this, and ajso, to his considerable surprise and pleasure, Admiral Benton and two other naval colleagues who had thought the war through-unlike the rest of the Navy, still rolling along in the greased grooves of the old drills and war games against "Orange," the codename for japan. It was clear to Pug Henry that if japan entered the war, with her annual steel production of only a few million tons, she could not hold out long if Germany were beaten. But if the Germans knocked out the British and got the fleet, they could go on to conquer whole continents, getting stronger as they went, whatever happened to japan. From his conversations at the Army and Navy Club he knew that this "Germany first" decision would, if it came out, create a fearsome howl. He was one of a handful of Americans-perhaps less than twenty, from the President downward-who knew about it. This was a peculiar way to run national affairs, perhaps; but to his amazement, which never quite faded, this was how things were going. To be part of this crucial anonymous work satisfied him. It was passing strange to arrive in the morning at the drab little ofices in a remote wing of the old Navy Building, and sit down with the British for another day of work on global combat plans, after reading in the morning papers, or hearing on the radio, yesterday's shrill LendLease argument in Congress. Pug could not get over the cool dissembling of the few high officials who knew of the "conversations." He kept wondering about a form of government which required such deviousness in its chiefs, and such soothing, cajoling fibs to get its legislators to act sensibly. Once the planners, weary after a hammering day, sat in their shirt-sleeves around a radio, listening to General Marshall testify before a Senate committee. They heard this Army Chief of Staff, whose frosty remote uprightness made Henry think of George Washington, assure the senators that no intention existed for America to enter the war, and that at present there was no need for any large buildup of its armed forces. The planners had just been discus an allocation of troops based on an American army of five million in 1943, a projection of which Marshall was well aware. 'I don't know," Pug remarked to Burne-Wilke, "maybe the only thing you can say for democracy is that all other forms of government are even worse." "Worse for what?" was the air commodore's acid reply. "If other forms are better for winning wars, no other virtue counts." Pug got along well with Burne-Wilke, who had fully grasped the landing craft problem. Among the planners, a labored joke was spreading about Captain Henry's girlfriend, 'Elsie'; this was in fact a play on L.c. (landing craft), which he kept stressing as the limiting factor of operations in all theatres. Pug had worked up formulas converting any troop movement across water into this and quantities of landing craft, and these formulas threw cold water on many an ambitious and plausible plan. Somebody would usually say, 'Pug's girl Elsie acting up again"; and Burne-Wilke alwayssupported his insistence on this bottleneck. Henry seldom encountered Pamela Tudsbury, whom the air commodore had brought along as his typist-aide. Tucked in an office in the British Purchasing Nhssion, she evidently worked like a dog, for her face was always haggard. A glad shock had coursed through him when he first saw Pamela, standing at Burne-Wilkes elbow, regarding him with glowing eyes. She had not written that she was coming. They met for a drink just once. Pug amplified all he could on his letter about the meeting with Ted Gallard. She looked extremely young to him; and his gust of infatuation with this girl after the bombing miwon seemed, in the bustling Willard bar in Washington, a distant and hardly believable episode. Yet the hour with her was warmly pleasurable. Any day thereafter when he saw her was a good day for him. He left these encounters to chance. He did not telephone her, nor ask her to meet him again; and while she always acted glad to see him, she made no move to do so more often. As a college boy thinks about fame, and an exile about going home, this Navy captain of forty-nine once in a while mused on what a romance with the young Englishwoman might be like; but it was the merest daydreaming. He remained devoted to his wife, in his fashion. Rhoda had received her husband back with a puzzling mixture of moods-demonstrative affection, and even lust, alternating with spells of heavy gloom, coldness, and loud irascibility over her move back to Washington from New York She levelled off to a low-temperature detachment, busying herself with Bundles for Britain and her old-time music committees, and making numerous trips to New York for one reason or another. She sometimes mentioned Palmer Kirby, now one of the chairmen of Bundles for Britain, in a most casual way. Rhoda went to church with Pug, and sang the hymns, and relayed gossip about unfaithful Navy wives, all exactly as before. She was plainly disappointed when Pug went back to War Plans instead of getting a command at sea. But they settled back into their old routines, and Pug soon was too preoccupied to worry much about Rhoda's moods, which had always been jagged. News about their children intermittently drew them together. Byron's offhand letter about his hasty marriage in Lisbon was a shock. They talked for days about it, worrying, agonizing, comforting each other, before resigning themselves to live with the fact. Warren as usual sent the good news. His wife was returning to Washington to have her baby, and he had been promoted to lieutenant. Pug turned fifty on a Sunday early in March. He sat in church beside his wife, trying, as he listened to the choir sing "Holy, Holy, Holy," to shake off a sense that he had not-dssed all the right turns in life. He counted his blessings. His wife was still beautiful, still capable of love; if she had failings, what woman didn't? His two sons were naval officers, his daughter was self-supporting and clever. Perhaps his career had gone off the rails, but he was serving in a post where he was doing some good. He could not really complain.
Rhoda, as she sat there beside him, was thinking mainly about the fact that her husband, for the first time since his return from abroad, would soon be meeting Palmer Kirby face to face. Asnowstorm clogged the capital on the night of Rhoda's dinner party. By quarter past seven her guests, including Kirby, had straggled in, brushing and stamping off snow, but the dinner was still stalled. Pug was mussing. In the cramped hot kitchen of an elegant little furnished house on Tracy Place, rented from a millionaire bachelor who was now the ambassador to Brazil, Rhoda made a last-minute check of the dinner and found all in order: soup hot, ducks tender, vegetables on the boil, cook snarling over the delay. She sailed out to her guests after a scowl in the hallway mirror and a touch at her hairdo. Rhoda wore a silvery dress molded to her figure; her color was high, her eyes bright with nervous excitement. In the living room, Kirby and Pamela Tudsbury were talking on the big couch, Madeline and Janice had their heads together in a corner, and on facing settees before a log fire, Alistair Tudsbury and Lord Burne-Wilke were chatting with the recently elected Senator Lacouture and his wife. It was a hodgepodge company, but since it was only for a hurried dinner before a Bundles for Britain concert, she was not too concerned. Pug's meeting with Kirby was the chief thing on her mind. "We'll wait ten more minutes." Rhoda sat herself beside the scientist. "Then we'll have to eat. I'm on the committee." "Where is Captain Henry?" Pamela said calmly. Her mauve dress came to a halter around her neck, leaving her slim shoulders naked; her tawny hair was piled high on her head. Rhoda remembered Pamela Tudsbury as a mousy girl, but this was no mouse, Rhoda recognized Kirby's expression of lazy genial appetite. 'I'm blessed if I can say. Military secrecy covers a multitude of sins, doesn't it?" Rhoda laughed. "Let's hope he's working on defense, and not a blonde." "I very much doubt that it's a blonde," said Pamela. "Not Captain Henry." "Oh, these goody-goody ones are the wors my dear. That's a dinine dress." "Do you like it? Thank you." Pamela adjusted the skirt. "I feel all got up for a pantomime, almost. I've been in uniform day and night for weeks." "Does Lord Burne-Wilke drive you that hard?" "Oh no, Mrs. Henry. There really are masses of things to do. I feel so lucky at being in Washington, that I guess I work off my guilt with the late hours." "The Waring Hotel then would be the best bet, Pamela?" Kirby's tone took up the conversation Rhoda had broken into. "If they've repaired the bomb.damage. By now, they should have.
The Germans went after Buckingham Palace very hard, and the whole neighborhood took quite a beating, but that was back in October." I'll shoot a cable to the Waring tomorrow." "Why, Palmer, are you going to London?" said Rhoda. Kirby turned to her, crossing his long legs. "It appears so." "Isn't that something new?" "It's been in the works for a while." "London! How adventurous." Rhoda laughed, covering her surprise. Mrs. Lacouture's voice rose above the talk. "Janice, should you be drinking all those martinis?" "Oh, Mother," said Janice, as the white-coated old Filipino, a retired Navy steward hired by Rhoda for the evening, shakily filled the glass in her outstretched hand. 'That baby wig be born with an olive in its mouth," remarked the senator. The two Englishmen laughed heartily, and couture's pink face wrinkled up with self-satisfaction. " So, you did see Byron," Janice said to Madeline. "When was this?" 'A couple of weeks ago. His submarine put in at the Brooklyn Navy Yard overnight. He took me to dinner." "How was he?" "He's-I don't know-more distant. Almost chilly. I don't think he likes the Navy much." 'Maybe he doesn't like being married much," Janice said. 'I never heard of anything so peculiar! A couple of days of whoop-de-do in Ilsbon, and back she goes to Italy, and off he chugs in his little S-boat. y on earth did they bother to get married?" "Well, possibly a Jewish girl would insist," Madeline said in arch tones. Janice laughed shortly. "That may well be. I'll say this, she's a mighty bright and pretty one." She grimaced, moving her large stomach under her flowing green gown, trying to get more comfortable. "Ugh, what a bloated cow I am. This is what it all leads to, honey. Never forget it. And how's your love life?" 'Oh dear. Well-" Madeline glanced toward her mother. "You remember that trombone player? With the big sad eyes, the one who dressed all in brown?" "That Communist? Oh, Madeline, don't tell me-" "Oh, no, no.
Bozey was an utter drip. But I went with him to this peace rally at Madison Square garden. It was really something, Jan! Packed, and this gigantic red, white, and blue sign stretching clear across the garden-nm Ys men NoT comiNG'-Madeline waved her hands far apart-"and all these Loyalist Spain songs, and these mass chants they do, and novelists and poets and college professors making red-hot antiwar speeches and whatnot. Well, there was this other fellow in our box. He writes horror programs. He's very successful, he makes about five hundred dollars week, and he's handsome, but he's another Communist." Madeline sneezed, blew her nose, an(a) d looked slyly at Janice. "What do you think would jolt my family more, Byron's Jewish girl or a Communist? Bob comes from Nhnnesota, he's a Swede at least. He's awfully nice." Janice said, "What about that boss of yours?" "Hugh Cleveland? What about him?" The two young women regarded each other. Wry knowing wrinkles turned up the corners of Janice's mouth. Madeline colored under the rouge and powder on her pallid face. "Yes? Why the grin, Janice?" She drank most of her martini. "Oh, I don't know. You keep taking up with one impossible fcllo'A, after another." "If you mean am I lying in wait for Mr. Cleveland," Madeline said with her father's briskness, "you're about as wrong as you can be. He's a paunchy pink-haired freckled man, ten years older than I am, and personally I regard him as a snake." "Snakes have the power to hypnotize, dear." " Yes, rabbits and birds. I'm neither." Rhoda went to a small Chinese Chippendale desk to answer the telephone. "Oh, hello there," she said. "Where are you?... Oh, my gawd... of course... yes, naturally. Okay. I'll leave your ticket at the box office. Yes, yes, they've been here for hours. Right. Bye, dear." She hung up, and fluttered her long pale hands at the company. "Well, let's drink up. Pug sends apologies. He's at the White House and he doesn't know when he can get away.") In Washington, when the absent diner is at the White House, the empty chair is not an embarrassment. Quite the contrary. Nobody asked what Victor Henry was doing at the executive mansion, or indeed commented on Rhoda's words. She put Burne-Wilke on her right and the senator on her left, saying, "After all these years protocol still baffles me.
How do you choose between a United States Senator and a British lord? I'm favoring our foreign guest, Senator." "Absolutely proper," said Lacouture. Alistair Tudsbury said, "Lord Burne-Wilke will gladly yield you his seat on this occasion, Senator, if he can take yours when Lend-Lease comes to a vote." "Oh, done, done," exclaimed the air commodore, whose bemedalled dress uniform dazzled Rhoda. Everyone laughed, Tudsbury loudest of all. "Haw haw haw!" The correspondent's belly shook under a vast expanse of wrinkled waistcoat, spanned by an enormous suspension of gold chain. Rhoda said, "Well, what good spirits! I was half afraid our English friends would eat Senator Lacouture alive." The senator wrinkled his eyes. "You British aren't that hard up for meat ye are you?" He added after the laugh, "No, seriously, Rhoda, I'm glad you brought us together. Maybe I've convinced our friends that I'm not a Nazi-lover, but just one fellow out of ninety-six, with my own point of view. I certainly don't go for this talk of Senator Wheeler's, that LendLease will plow under every fourth American boy. That's way out of bounds. But if Roosevelt wants to send England arms free of charge, why the devil doesn't he come out and say so, instead of giving us all this LendLease baloney? It insults our intelligence." "I went to a peace rally in New York," Madeline piped up. "One speaker told a good story. A p tramp stops a rich man on the street. 'Please, mister, give me a quarter, Im starving," he says. The rich man says, "My dear fellow, I can't give you a quarter. I can lend you or lease you a quarter." Senator Lacouture burst out laughing. "By God, I'll work that into my next speech." From across the table, Palmer Kirby said, "Are you sure you want to draw on a Communist source?" "Was that one of those Commie meetings? Well, a story's a story." "It's so crazy," said Janice. 'I got stuck in a raid on Pennsylvania Avenue this afternoon, in front of the White House. We just couldn't move. The newsreel people were there, taking pictures of the pickets. Communists with signs marching round and round in a circle, chanting, 'The Yanks are not coming," and next to them a mob of women kneeling and praying, right there on the sidewalk in the snow, The Christian Mothers of America. They'll pray there round the clock, my driver said, until LendLease is defeated or vetoed. Honestly! Coming from Hawaii, I get the feeling the country's going mad." "It just shows how broad the opposition to this thing is," said the senator. "Cuts across all lines." "On the contrary," put in Kirby, "both extremes seem to be against helping England, while themass in the middle is for it." Senator Lacouture waved a flat hand in the air. "No, sir. I've been a middle-of-the-roader all my life. You should hear some of the quiet talk in the Senate dining room. I tell you, if they didn't have to worry about the big-city Jews-and I don't blame the Jews for feeling as they do, but this issue can't be decided on any parochial basis-there'd be twenty more votes on my side of the fence right now. I still think they'll end there. The nose count changes every day. If the ground swell continues for another week, we'll lick this thing." The street door opened and closed. Victor Henry came into the dining room, brushing flakes of snow from his blue bridge coat. "Apologies to all hands," he said, doffing the coat. "No, no, don't get up, I'll just join you, and change my duds later." But the men were all standing. Victor Henry walked around the table for handshakes, and came last to Palmer Kirby. "Hello," he said. "It's been a long time." "Sure has. Too long." Only Rhoda knew the scientist well enough to note that his smile was awkward and artificial. At this moment, which she had been dreading for a couple of weeks, Rhoda had a surprising sensation-pleasure and pride that two such men loved her. She felt no trace of guilt as her lover clasped hands with her husband of twenty-five years. Kirby was more than a head taller than Captain Henry, and in the columnar black and white of full dress he was a magnificent fellow. Yet Pug was impressive too: erect, short, thickset, his tired eyes in deep sockets very shrewd and alive, his whole bearing charged with energy-her own husband, just back from the White House. Rhoda felt lucky, beautiful, desired, pleasantly confused, and quite safe. It was actually one of the nicest moments in her life, and it went off like a dream. Pug took his seat and began eating shrimp cocktail. "Say, it's a bit late for this," he remarked to Kirby, "but I sure want to thank you for driving Rhoda up from New York last summer to see Byron at sub school. That was a long way." Kirby spread his big hands. y, it was great to get a look at a submarine base. Your friend Captain Tully really gave us the ten-dollar tour." "Red Tully is 4-0," Pug said. 'I sort of suspect he nudged Byron through that school. However, I've asked no questions." It was exciting as a play for Rhoda, that the two men were actually talking straight off about that fateful trip. She said gaily, "Oh, Pug, you're always selling poor Briny short-Red told us he was the champion of his Plass in the training tank. Caught on to the lung right away, and did his escape perfectly the first time cool as a fish. Why, when we were there they had him instructing in the tank." "That's self-preservation, not work. Briny's always been good at that.""That's a talent, too," said Pamela Tudsbury. Pug looked at her with a trace of special warmth. "Well, Pamela, one can't get far without it, that's true. But it's the talent of a tu e." "Honestly! Did you ever?" Rhoda said to Lord Burne-Wilke. "What a father." Mrs. Lacouture uttered a little shriek. The old steward was offering soup to Lord Burne-Wilke, and distracted by the Englishman's medals, he was tilting the tray. The open soup tureen went slipping toward Rhoda, and her silver dress was seconds away from ruin. But as the tureen came sliding off the tray, Rhoda, who had a watchful eye for servants, plucked it out of the air, and with the quick controlled movements of a cat in trouble, set it on the table, not spilling a drop. Pug called out over the gasps and laughter, "Well done." "Self-preservation runs in the family," Rhoda said. Amid louder laughter, Alistair Tudsbury started a round of applause. "By God! Never have I seen anything so neat," exclaimed Senator Lacouture. Everybody had a joke or a compliment for Rhoda. She became exhilarated. Rhoda loved to entertain. She had the ability to nail down details beforehand, and then breeze airily through the evening. Rhoda told stories of mishaps at dinner parties in Berlin, and began to reminisce with sharp satire about the Nazis. Forgotten was her former friendliness to the Germans; she was now the Bundles for Britain lady, partisan to the core. Palmer Kirby, getting over his nervousness in Pug's presence, threw in his experiences at a Nuremberg Parteitag. Pug offered an account of the slide at Abendruh, making the women giggle. Then Lord Burne-Wilke gave jocular anecdotes about the arrogance of captured Luftwaffe pilots. Senator Lacouture interrupted him. "Lord Burne-Wilke, were you people ever really in trouble last year?" "Oh, rather." The air commodore told of the dwindling of planes and pilots through July and August, of the week in September when the count of pilots fell below the survival minimum, of the desperate pessimism in the R.A.F all through October, with London burning, civilians dying in large numbers, no night fighters available, and the Luftwaffe still coming on and on, setting fire to residential districts and bombing and spreading the fires, trying to break the city's spirit. Lacouture probed with more questions, his pink face growing sober. The R.A.F, the air commodore said, was anticipating a new, larger onslaught in the spring andsummer. The submarine sinkings, at their present rate, might ground the British planes for lack of fuel. An invasion would then be in the cards. 'Mind you, we hope to weather all this," he said, "but this time, Hitler may have the wherewithal. He's expanded his armed forces massively. We haven't been idle either. But unfortunately a lot of our stuff is ending up these days at the bottom of the Atlantic." Lacouture's fingers were rolling little balls of bread. He looked straight at the air commodore. "Well," he said, 'nobody's comparing the British and the Nazis as people, as civilizations. You people have been fine, and I'll tell you, possibly we should be hearing a bit more of this stuff up on the hill." Lord Burne-Wilke, with a humble little bow that made the party laugh, said, "I'm available." While the others had dessert, Victor Henry changed into his dress uniform. The guests were wrapping up to brave the snow when he rejoined them. He helped Pamela Tudsbury into her coat, scenting perfume that stirred his memory. She said over her shoulder, "There's news of Ted." For a moment Victor Henry didn't understand. On the Bremen she had slipped across the joke about Hitler in just that swift quiet way. "Oh? Really? Good or bad?" "Won't you telephone me?" "Yes." "Do. Please do. Do." The party separated into three cars, with Pug driving the British guests. He said to the air commodore, as they stopped on Massachusetts Avenue at a red light that made a cherry-colored halo in the falling snow, "You scored some points with Senator Lacouture." "Words over wine," said the air commodore, shrugging. w v v ell! Nobody's seen Constitution Hall looking like this before," Rhoda said, "or ever will again, maybe. It's fantastic." Every seat was filled. All the men in the orchestra, and many up the long side slopes wore full dress stilts or goldsted military uniforms. The women made a ' sea of uncovered skin, bright colors, and winking gems. Great American and British flags draped the stage. Rhoda had taken for herself two boxes nearest to the President's. The Lacoutures with Janice, the air commodore, and Alistair Tudsbury were ensconced in the choicer. one, and she and Pamela sat at the rail in the other, with Pug and Kirby cehind them, and Madeline in the rear. A commotion arose in the aisle behind them among police guards and latecomers. A murmurwashed across the auditorium, and the Vice President and His wife stepped into the presidential box, into a blue-white spotlight. The audience stood and applauded. Henry Wallace responded with a self-conscious smile and a brief wave. He looked like an intelligent farmer, unhappily wearing full dress for some anniversary. The orchestra struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner," and then 'God Save the King." The British anthem, with the nearness of Pamela Tudsbury's bare white shoulders, awakened the London days and nights in Victor Henry's mind. As the audience settled in its seats and the violins began the slow introduction of a Haydn symphony, Pug's thought wandered through the blitz, the bombing run over Berlin, the German capital showing yellow in the 'light under the Hare of the exploding gas, Pamela flinging herself at him as he came into his apartment. The music broke into a dancing allegro and brought him back to the present. Pug studied the profile of his wife, sitting in her usual concertgoing pose-back straight, hands folded in lap, head tilted to suggest attentive pleasure. He thought how charming she could be and how splendidly she had carried off the dinner. A wisp of guilt touched him for the affection he felt for Pamela Tudsbury. Victor Henry was inexpert at self-excuse, having done too few things in his life of which he disapproved. Rhoda herself couldn't have been more at ease. The music of Haydn delighted her. She loved being highly visible in her new silver dress in a box so near the Vice President. She was pleased that the concert was a sellout. She looked forward to the supper-dance afterward. All this splendid fun was actually work in the noblest of causes, and her name stood high on the committee list. How could things be better? Only Palmer Kirby's news that he was going to England troubled her a bit. She meant to ask him more questions about that. No doubt Dr. Kirby had his thoughts, and Pamela hers. The two intruders on the long marriage, with the husband and wife, looked much like dozens of other foursomes in boxes along both sides of the cavernous hall: attractive people, elegantly clad, calmly listening to music. Kirby was sitting behind Rhoda, Pug in back of Pamela Tudsbury. A stranger might have guessed that the tall people were one pair, the short ones another, except that the smaller woman seemed young for the naval officer with the weathered face and heavy eyebrows. During the intermission crush, Victor Henry and Dr. Kirby were left together by the ladies in an overheated lobby foul with smoke. Pug said, 'How's for a breath of air? Looks like the snow's stopped." "You're on." Chauffeurs were stamping by their limousines on the fresh snow. It was bitter cold. A few young music lovers from the rearmost seats, in sweaters and parkas,chatted with smoking breaths on the slushy steps of the hall. Pug said, "Anything very new on uranium?" The scientist looked at him with head aslant. "what's uranium?" "Are you that far along?" Pug grinned. Kirby slowly shook his head, making a discouraged mouth. "Are the Germans going to beat us to it?" The answer was a shrug. 'As you know, I'm in War Plans," Victor Henry said curtly. "I'm pushing you on this because we ought to have the dope, and we can't get it. If this other thing is really in the works, maybe we're just playing tic-tac-toe in our shop." Kirby stuited his pipe and lit it. "You're not playing tic-tac-toe. It's not that close. Not on our side." "Could we be doing more about it?" "One hell of a lot more. I'm going to England on this. They're apparently far ahead of us." "They've been ahead on other things," Pug said. "That's something nobody mentions in this brainless Lend-Lease dogfight. We have to be goddamned glad we've got the British scientists on our side, and we better break our necks to keep them there." "I tend to agree. But we're ahead of them in many things too." Kirby puffed his pipe, squinting at Pug. "Are you happy to be home?" "Happy?" Pug scooped up snow and packed a snowball. The crunching snow in his warm hands always gave him an agreeable flash of childhood. "I'm too busy to think about it. Yes, I guess I'm happy." He pegged the snowball over the cars into the empty street. "Rhoda was sick of Berlin, and being there by myself was certainly grim." "She's a superb hostess, Rhoda," said Kirby. "I've never attended better dinner parties than hers. That was something, the way she rescued that tureen." The pipe in his teeth, Kirby uttered a harsh laugh. "Really something." "Among her other talents," said Pug, "Rhoda's always been a born juggler." Kirby wrinkled his whole face. "It's pretty sharp out here at that, eh? Let's go back." At the top of the stairs they encountered Madeline hurrying out, her white fox coat wrapped close around her long dress, a red shawl on her hair tied under her chin.