PART ONE Chapter 1

Natalie OMMER Victor Henry rode a taxicab home from the Navy Building on Constitution Avenue, in a gusty gray March rainstorm that matched his mood. In his War Plans cubbyhole that afternoon, he had received an unexpected word from on high which, to his seasoned appraisal, had probably blown a well-planned career to rags. Now he had to consult his wife about an urgent decision; yet he did not altogether trust her opinions. At forty-five, Rhoda Henry remained a singularly attractive woman, but she was rather a crab. This colored her judgment, and it was a fault he found hard to forgive her. She had married him with her eyes open. During an incandescent courtship, they had talked frankly about the military life. Rhoda Grover had declared that all the drawbacks-the separations, the lack of a real place to live and of a normal family existence, the long slow climb through a system, the need to be humble to other men's wives when the men were a notch higher-that none of these things would trouble her, because she loved him, and because the Navy was a career of honor. So she had said in 1915, when the World War was on, and uniforms had a glow. This was 1939, and she had long since forgotten those words. He had warned her that the climb would be hard. Victor Henry was not of a Navy family. On every rung of the slippery career ladder, the sons and grandsons of admirals had been jostling him. Yet everyone in the Navy who knew Pug Henry called him a corner. Until now his rise had been steady. The letter that first got him into the Naval Academy, written to his congressman while in high school, can be adduced here to characterize the man. He showed his form early. May 5th, 1910 Dear Sir: You have sent me three kind answers to three letters I have sent you, from my freshman year onward, reporting my progress in Sonoma County igh School. So I hope that you will remember my name, and my ambition to obtain appointment to the Naval Academy. plete my senior year. It may seem conceited to Now I am about to co list my achievements, but I am sure you will understand why I do so.
I am year, playing fullback, and I am also on captain of the football team this the boxing tea-. e Arista SocietY-In mathematics, historyp I have been elected to th and the sciences, I am a candidate for prizes. My English and foreign language (German) marks are not on that level. However, I am secretary of the small Russian-speaking club of our school. Its nine members come from local families whose ancestors wre settled in Fort Ross long ago by the best chum was in the club, so I joined and learned some PusCzar. My ility is not deficient. Russian. I mention this to show that my language ah officer ill the United States Navy. I can't My life aim is to serve as an my family has no seafaring background. MY actually explain this, since lumbering business. I have never liked father is an engineer in the redwood lumbering business. I have lumbering, but have always been interestd in ships and bit, gun ri vi the naval ships gone to San Fran,isco and San Diego often just to sit diere. Out of my savings I have bought and studied about two dozen books on marine engineering and sea warfare. I realize you have orly one appointment to make, and there must be many applicants in our district. if one is found more deserving than I am, I will enlist in the, Navy and work up from the ranks. However I have seriously tried for your nsideration, and trust that I have earned it. . co Respectfully yours, Victor Henry With much the same directness, Henry had won his wife five years later, though she was a couple of inches taller than he , and though her prosperous parents had looked for a better match than a squat Navy fullback from California, of no means or fIY-courting Rhoda, he had come out of this single-minded shell of ambition to show much tenderness, humor, considerateness, and dash. After a month or two Rhoda had lost any inclination to say no. Mundane details like height differences had faded from sigbtstill, over the long pull it may not be too good for a pretty woman to look down at her husband. Tall men tend to make plays for her regarding the couple as slightly comic. Though a very proper woman, Rhoda had a weakness for this sort of thing-up to a point short of trouble-and even coyly provoked it. Henry's reputation as a bleak hard-fibered individual discouraged the men from ever getting out of hand. He was very much Rhoda's master. Still, this physical detail was a continuing nagThe real shadow on this couple was that Commander Henry thought Rhoda had welshed on their courtship understanding. She did what had to be done as a Navy wife, but she was free, loud, and frequent in her complaints. She could crab for months on end in a place she disvers, liked, such as Manila. Wherever she was, sheortended to fret about the servants, or taxi tin rdressers. To hear Rhoda Henry's heat, or the cold, or the rain, or the dry spell, or shop clerks, or seamstresses, or hal daily chatter, her life passed in combat with an incompetent world and a malignant climate. It was only female talk, and not in the least uncommon. But talk, not sex, constitutes most of the intercourse between a man and his wife. Henry detested idle whining. More and more, silence was the response he had Come to use. It dampened the noise. On the other hand, Rhoda was two things he thought a wife should be: a seductive woman, and an adroit homemaker. In all their married years, there had been few times when he had notdesired her; and in all those years, for all their moving about, wherever they landed, Rhoda had provided a house or an apartment where the coffee was hot, the food appetizing, the rooms well furnished and always clean, the beds propen, made, and fresh flowers in sight. She had fetching little ways, and when her spirits were good she could be very sweet and agreeable. Most women, from the little Victor Henry knew of the sex, were vain clacking slatterns, with less to redeem them than Rhoda had. His longstanding opinion was that, for all her drawbacks, he had a good wife, as wives went. That was a closed question. But heading home after a day's work, he never knew ahead of time whether he would encounter Rhoda the charmer or Rhoda the crab. At a crucial moment like this, it could make a great difference. In her down moods, her judgments were snappish and often silly. Coming into the house, he heard her singing in the glassed-in heated porch off the living room where they usually had drinks before dinner. He found her arranging tall stalks of orange gladiolus in an oxblood vase from Manila. She was wearing a beige silky dress cinched in by a black patent-leather belt with a large silver buckle-. Her dark hair fell in waves behind her ears; this was a fashion in 1939 even for mature swo ommaedne. Her welcoming glance was affectionate and gay. just to see her him feel better, and this had been going on all his life. "Oh, m there. Why on EARTH didn't you warn me Kip Tollever was coming? He sent these, and Luckily he called too. I was skipping around this house like a scrubwoman." Rhoda in casual talk used the swooping high notes of smart Washington women. She had a dulcet, rather busk), voice, and these zoomed words of hers gave what she said enormous emphasis and some illusion of sparkle. "He said he might be slightly late. Let's have a short one, Pug, okay? The fixings are all there. I'M PARCIIED." Henry walked to the wheeled bar and began to mix martinis. "I asked Kip to stop by so I could talk to him. It's not a social visit." "Oh? Am I supposed to make myself scarce?" She gave him a sweet smile. "No, no." "Good. I like Kip. Why, I was flabbergasted to hear his voice. I thought he was still stuck in Berlin." "He's been detached.""So he told me. Who relieved him, do you know?" "Nobody has. The assistant attache for air took over temporarily." Victor Henry handed her a cocktail. He sank in a brown wicker annchair, put his feet up on the ottoman, and drank, gloom enveloping him again. Rhoda was used to her husband's silences. She had taken in his bad humor at a glance. Victor Henry held himself very straight except in moments of trial and tension. Then he tended to fall into a crouch, as though he were still playing football. He had entered the room hunched, and even in the armchair, with his feet up, his shoulder,-, were bent. Dark straight hair hung down his forehead. At forty-nine, he had almost no gray hairs, and his charcoal slacks, brown sports jacket, and red bow tie were clothes for a younger man. It was his small vanity, when not in uniform, to dress youthfully; an athletic body helped him carry it off. Rhoda saw in the lines around his greenish brown eyes that he was tired and deeply worried. Possibly from long years of peering out to sea, Henry's eyes were permanently marked with what looked like laugh lines. Strangers mistook him for a genial man. "Got a dividend there?" he said at last. She poured the watery drink for him. "Thanks. Say, incidentally, you know that memorandum on the battleships that I wrote?" "Oh, yes. Was there a backlash? You were concerned, I know." "I got called down to the C.N.O's office." "My God. To see Preble?" "Preble himself. I hadn't seen him since the old days on the California. He's gotten fat." Henry told her about his talk with the Chief of Naval Operations. Rhoda's face took on a hard, sullen, puzzled look. "Oh, I see. That's why you asked Kip over." "Exactly. What do you think about my taking this attache job?" "Since when do you have any choice?" "He gave me the impression that I did. That if I didn't want it, I'd go to a battlewagon next, as an exec.)) "Good lord, Pug, that's more like it!" "You'd prefer that I go back to sea?" "I'd prefer? What difference has that ever made?" "All the same, I'd like to hear what you'd prefer."Rhoda hesitated, sizilg him up with a slanted glance. "Well-naturally I'd adore going to Germany. It would be much more fun for me than sitting here alone while you steam around Hawaii in the Ne-w Mexico or whatever. It's the loveliest country in Europe. The people are so friendly. German was my major, you know, aeons ago. "I know," Victor Henry said, smiling, if faintly and wryly, for the first time since arriving home. "You were very good at German." Some of the early hot moments of their honeymoon had occurred while they stumbled through Heine's love poetry aloud together. Rhoda returned an arch glance redolent of married sex. "Well, all right, you. All I mean is, if You must leave Washington-I suppose the Nazis are kind of ugly and ridiculous. But Madge Knudsen went there for the Olympics. She keeps saying it's still wonderful, and so cheap, with those tourist marks they give you." "Yes, no doubt we'd have a gay whirl. The question is, Rhoda, whether this isn't a total disaster. Two shore assignments in a row, you, understand, at this stage-" "Oh, Pug, you'll get your four stripes. I know you Will. And you'll get your battleship command too, in due course. My God, with your gunnery pennants, your letter of conmendation-Pug, suppose C.N.O's right? Maybe a war is about to Pop over there. Then it would be an important job, wouldn't it?" "That's just sales talk." Pug got up and helped himself to cheese. "He says the President wants top men in Berlin now as military attaches. Well, okay, I'll believe that. He also says it won't hurt my career. That is what I can't believe. First thing any selection board looks for-or will ever look for-in a man's record is blue water, and lots of it." " Pug, are you sure Kip won't stay to dinner? There's plenty of food. Warren's going to New York." "No, Kip's on his way to a, party at the German embassy. And why the hell is Warren going to New York? He's been home all of three days. "Ask him,- Rhoda said. The slam of the front door and the quick firm steps were unmistakable Warren sounds. He entered the porch greeting them with a wave of two squash rackets in a fist. "Hi." In an old gray sweater and slacks, his tanned lean face glowing from the exercise, his hair tousled, a cigarette slanting from his thin mouth, he looked much like the lad who, on graduating from the Academy, had vanished from their lives. Pug was still not used to the way Warren had filled out on shipboard food. The boyish weediness was changing into a tall solid look. A sprinkle of premature gray in his dark hair had startled his parents on his return.
Victor Henry envied Warren the deep sunburn which bespoke a destroyer bridge, tennis, green Oahu hills, and above all, duty at sea thousands of miles from Constitution Avenue. He said, "You're off to New York, I hear." "Yes, Dad, Is that okay? My exec just blew into town. We're going up there to see some shows. He's a real Idaho farmer. Never been to New York." Commander Henry made a grouchy sound. It was no bad thing for Warren to be friendly with his executive officer. What bothered the father was thoughts of a woman who might be waiting in New York. A top student at the Academy, Warren had almost ruined his record with excessive trenching-out. He had ended with a bad back attributed by himself to a wrestling injury; by other reports, to an escapade involking an older woman and a midnight car crash. The parents had never raised the topic of the woman, partly from bashfulness-they were both prudish churchgoers, ill at ease with such a topic-and partly from a strong sense that they would get nowhere with Warren. The door chimes rang. A gray-headed houseman in a white coat passed through the living room. Rhoda stood up, touching her hair and Sliding slim hands over her silk-clad hips. "Remember Kip Tollever, Warren? That's probably Kip." "Why, sure. That tall lieutenant commander who lived next door in Manila. Where's he stationed now?" "He's just finished a tour as naval attache in Berlin," Victor Henry said. Warren made a comic grimace, and dropped his voice. "Jehosephat, Dad. How did he ever get stuck with that? Cookie pusher?" Rhoda looked at her husband, whose face remained impassive. "Commander Tollever, ma'am," said the houseman at the doorway, "Hello, Rhoda!" Tollever marched in with long arms outstretched, in a flawlessly cut evening uniform: blue mess jacket with medals and gold years younger than you did in the Philippines." buttons, a black tie, a stiff snowy shirt. "My lord, woman! You look ten "Oh, you, )) she said, eyes gleaming, as he lightly kissed her cheek. "Hi, Pug." Smoothing o the manicured hand over heavy wavy hair just turning gray, Tollever stared at the son. "Now for crying out loud, which boy is this?" Warren held out his hand. "Hello, sir. Guess." "Aha. It's Warren. Byron had a different grin. And red hair, come to think of it." "Right you are, sir.""Rusty Traynor told me You're serving on the Monaghan. What's Byron doing?" Rhoda chirruped after a slight silence, "Oh, Byron's our romantic dreamer, Kip. He's studying fine arts in Italy. And you should see Madeline! All grown up." Warren said, "Excuse me, sir," and went out. -blue eye, widened. "Well, that is romanhandsome face, and his cobalt "Fine arts! Italy!" one heavy eyebrow went up in Tollever's gaunt I tic. Say, Pug, since when do you indulge?" Tollever inquired, accepting a martini and seeing Henry refill his own glass. "Why, hell, Kip, I was drinking in Manila. Plenty." "Were You? I forget. I just remember what a roaring teetotaller you were in the Academy. No tobacco either. "Well, I fell from grace long ago." Victor Henry had started to drink and smoke on the death of an infant girl, and had not returned to the abstinences his strict Methodist father had taught him. It was a topic he did not enjoy exploring. With a slight smile, Tollever said, "Do you play cards on Sunday now, too?" "No, I still hold to that bit off-lishness" "Don't call it foolishness, Pug." Commander Tollever began to talk about the pOSt of naval attache in Berlin. "You'll love Germany," were his first words on the topic. "And so will Rhoda. You'd be crazy not to grab the chance." Resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, legs neatly crossed, he clipped out his words with all the -old articulate crispness; still out of the Academy, while officer of the deck of a destroyer, -Two years the handsomest men in Pug's class, and one of the unluckiest one Tolliver had rammed a sub at midnight in a rainsquall, during a fleet exercise. The submarine had surfaced without warning a hundred yards in front of him, It had scarcely been his fault, nobody had been hurt, and the ri general court-martial had merely given him a letter of rep mand. But that letter had festered in his promotion jacket, sapping his career. He drank two martinis in about fifteen minutes, as he talked. When Victor Henry probed a bit about the Nazis and how to deal with them, Kip Tollever sat up very erect, his curled fingers stiffened as he gestured, and his tone grew firm. The National Socialists were in, he said, and the other German parties were out, just as in the United States the Democrats were in and the Republicans out. That was the one way to look at it. TheGermans admired the United States, and desperately wanted our friendship. pug would find the latch off, and the channels of information open, if he simply treated these people as human beings. The press coverage of the Germany was distorted. When Pug got to know the newspapermen, he would understan(new) d why- disgruntled pinkos and drunks, most of them. "Hitler's a damned remarkable man," said Tollever, poised on his elbows, one scrubbed hand to his chin, one negligently dangling, his face flushed bright pink. "I'm not saying that he, or Goering, or any of that bunch, wouldn't murder their own grandmothers to increase their power or to advance the interests of Germany. But that's politics in Europe nowadays. We Americans are far too naive. The Soviet union is the one big reality Europe lives with, Pug-that Slav horde, seething in the east. We can hardly picture that feeling, but for them it's political bedrock. The Communist International is not playing mali-jongg, you know, those Bolos are out to rule Europe by fraud or force or both. Hitler isn't about to let them. That's the root of the matter. The Germans do things in politics that we wouldn't-like this stuff with the Jews-but that's just a passing phase, and anyway, it's not your business. Remember that. Your job is military information. You get hell of lot of that from these people. They're proud of what they're accompli(can) shing,(a) andnotat(a) all bashful about showing off, and I mean they'll give you the real dope." Rhoda asked questions about the Jews, as Pug Henry mixed more martinis. Tollever assured her that the newspaper stories were exaggerated. The worst thing had been the so-called Crystal Night when Nazi toughs had smashed department store windows and set fire to some synagogues. Even that the Jews had brought on themselves, by murdering a German embassy official in Paris. As an embassy official himself, Tollever said, he took rather a dim view of that! He and his wife had gone to the theatre that very night, and on the way home had seen a lot of broken glass along the Kurfiirstendamm, and the glow of a couple of distant fires. The account in Time had made it seem that Germany was ablaze from end to end, and that the Jews were being slaughtered en masse. There had been conflicting reports, but so far as he knew not one of them had really been physically harmed. A big fine had been put on them for the death of the official, a billion marks or something. Hitler did believe in strong medicine. 'Now as to the President's recalling our ambassador, that was a superfluous gesture, utterly superfluous," Tollever said. "It only made things worse for the Jews, and it completely fouled up our embassy's workings. There's just no common sense here in Washington about Germany." Drinking two more martinis, the erect warrior began dissolving into a gossipy, slouched Navy insider, reminiscing about parties, weekend S, hunting trips, and the like; about the potato soup he had drunk with Luftwaffe OiTicers in the dawn, while recovering from a drinking bout after a Party rally; about the famous actors and politicians who had befriended him. Great fun and high living went with an attache's job, he chuckled, if one played one's cards right.
Moreover, you were supposed to do those things, so as to dig up information. It was dream duty. A man was entitled to get whatever he could out of the Navy! He had sat in a front seat, watching history unfold, and he had had a glorious time besides. "I tell you, you'll love it, Pug. It's the most interesting post in Europe nowadays. The Nazis are a mixed crowd, actually. Some brilliant, but between you and me, are pretty crude and vulgar. The profession(are) almilitarycrowdsortoflooksdownonthem(some) . But hell, how do we feel about our own Politicians? Hitler's in the saddle and nobodvis arguing about lat. He is boss man, and I kid you not. So lay off that , t topic and you'll do fine, because really you can't beat these people for hospitality. In a way they're a lot like us, you know, more so than the French or even the Limeys. they'll turn'themselves inside out for an American naval officer." A strange smile, rueful and somewhat beaten, appeared on his face as he glanced from Rhoda to Pug. "Especially a man like you. They'll know all about you long before You get there. Now if this is off the reservation say so, but how on earth did a gunnery redbot like you come up for this job?" 'Stuck my neck out," Pug growled. "You know the work I did on the magnetic torpedo exploder, when I was at BuOrd-" "Hell, yes. And the letter of commendation you got? I sure do." "Well, I've watched torpedo developments since. Part of my job in war Plans is monitoring the latest intelligence on armor and armaments. The japs are making some mighty healthy torpedoes, Kip. I got out the old slide rule one night and ran the figures, and the way I read them our battlewagons are falling below the safety margin. I wrote a report recommending that the blisters be thickened and raised on the Maryland and New Mexico classes. Today C.N.O called m, d"wr, to his office. My report's turned into a hot potato. BuSbips and BuOrd are blaming each other, memos are flying like fur, the blisters are going to be thickened and raised, and-" "And by God, pug, you've got yourself another letter of commendation. Well done!" Tollever's brilliant blue eyes glistened, and he wet his lips. "I've got myself orders to Berlin," Victor Henry said. "Unless I can talk my way out of it. C.N.O says the White House has decided it's a crucial post now." "It is, Pug, it is." well, maybe so, but hell's bells, Kip, you're wonderful at that Sort of thing.e monkey. I don't belong there. I had the I'm not. I'm a grease myself, that's all, when the boss man was misfortune to call attention to my german. Now I'm in a looking for someone. And I happen to know some Ge crack." tch. "Well, don't pass this up. That's my Tollever glanced at his watch rtant, and sorneadvice to you as an old friend. Hitler isvery, very impo thing's going to blow in Europe. I'm overdue at the embassy." Victor Henry walked him outside to his shiny gray Mercedes. Tollever's gait was shaky, but he spoke with calm clarity. "Pug, if you do go, call me. I'll give you a book fun of phone numbers of the right men to talk to. In fact-"-A twisted grin came and went on his face. "No, the numbers of the little frauleins would be wasted on you, wouldn't they? Well, I've always admired the hell out of you." He clapped Henry's shoulder. "God , I'm looking forward to this party! I haven't drunk a decent glass of Moselle since I left Berlin." Reentering the house, Victor Henry almost stumbled over a suitcase and a hatbox. His daughter stood at the foyer mirror in a green wool suit, putting on a close-fitting hat. Rhoda was watching her, and Warren oat slung on his shoulder, holding his old pigskin valise. waited, trench c oing?" "What's this, Madeline? Where are you g She smiled at him, opening wide dark eyes. "Oh, didn't Mom tell you? Warren's taking me to New York." Pug looked dourly at Rhoda, who said, "Anything wrong with that, tickets for the shows. She loves the theatre dear? Warren's lined up extra and there's precious little in Washington." "But has college closed down? is this the Easter vacation?" The daughter said, "I'm caught up in my work. it's only for two days, and I don't have any tests." "And where would you stay?" Warren put in, "There's this Hotel Barbizon for women. "I don't like this," Victor Henry said. Madeline glanced at him with meltin appeal. Nineteen and slight, with Rhoda's skin and a pert figure, she oddly resembled her father, in the deep-set brown eyes and the determined air. She tried wrinkling h" small nose at him. Often that made him laugh, and won her point. This time his face did not change. Madeline glanced at her mother for support, but it was not forthcoming. A little smile curved Warren for sup 1 th Madeline's mow That's that. Warren, I th, more ominous perhaps than a rebellious tantrum; a smile hope you can get rid of those extra tickets. When's dinner?" of indulgence. She took off her hat. "Well, okay!
"Any time," Rhoda said. Warren donned his trench coat and picked up the suitcase. "Say, incidentally, Dad, did I mention that a couple of months ago my exec put in for flight training? I sent in one of the forms too, just for the hell of it. Well, Chet was snooping around BuNav today. It seems we both have a chance." "Flight training?" Rhoda looked unhappy. "You mean you're becoming a carrier pilot? just like that? Without consulting your father?" "Why, Mom, it's just something else to qualify in. I think it makes sense. Doesn't it, sir?" C Commander Henry said, "Yes, inde d. The future of this here Navy might just belong to the brown shoes." "I don't know about that, but Pensacola ought to be interesting, if I don't bilge o'ut the first week. Back Friday. Sorry, Madeline," She said, "Nice try. Have fun." He kissed his mother, and left. Pug Henry consumed vichyssoise, London broil, and strawberry tart in grim abstracted silence. Kip Tollever's enthusiasm for the spying job had only deepened Henry's distaste. Madeline)sitchtoavoidschoolworkwasa(mocre) steady annoyance. But topping all was Warren's casually dropped news; Pug was both proud and alarmed. Carrier aviation was the riskiest duty in the Navy, though officers even his own age were now applying for Pensacola, so as to get into the flattops. A devoted batLleship man, Henry wondered all through the meal whether Warren hadn't hit on something, whether a request for flight training might not be a respectable if desperate way to dodge Berlin. Madeline kept a cheerful face, making talk with her mother about the student radio station at George Washington University, her main interest there. The houseman, an old Irishman who also did the gardening in warm weather, walked softly in the candlelit dining room, furnished with Rhoda's family antiques. Rhoda contributed money to the household costs so that they could live in this style in Washington, among her old friends. While Victor Henry did not like it, he had not argued. A commander's salary was modest, and Rhoda was used to this better life. Madeline excused herself early, kissing her father on the forehead. The somber quiet during dessert was unbroken except by the hushed footfalls of the manservant. Rhoda said nothing, waiting out her husband's mood. When he cleared his throat and said it might be nice to have brandy and coffee on the porch, she smiled pleasantly. "Yes, let's, Pug." The housema light in the artificial fireplace. She waited and set the silver tray there, turning up the red flickering until her husband was settled in his favorite chair, drinking coffee and sipping brandy. Then she said, "By the bye, there's a letter from Byron.""What? He actually remembered we're alive? Is he all right?" They had not heard from him in months. Henry had had many a nightmare of his son dead in an Italian ditch in a smoking automobile, or otherwise killed or injured. But since the last letter he had not mentioned Byron. "He's all right. He's in Siena. He's given up his studies in Florence. Says he got bored with fine arts." ?l "I couldn't be less surprised. Siena. That's still Italy, isn't it "Yes, near Florence. In the Tuscan hills. He goes on and on about the Tuscan hills. He seems to be interested in a girl." "A girl, eh? What kind of girl? Eyetalian?" "No, no. A New York girl. Natalie Jastrow. He says she has a famous uncle." "I see. And who's her uncle?" "He's an author. He lives in Siena. Dr. Aaron Jastrow. He once taught history at Yale, Briny says." "Where's the letter?" "On the telephone table." He returned in a few minutes with the letter, and with a thick book in a black dust jacket, marked with a white crucifix and a blue Star of David. "That's who the uncle is." "Oh, yes. A few's Jesus. That thing. Some club sent it. Did you ever read it?" "I read it twice. It's excellent." Henry scanned his son's letter in yellow lamplight. "Well. This business is kind of far along." "She does sound attractive," Rhoda said. "But he's had other nine-day wonders." Commander Henry tossed the letter on the coffee table and poured more brandy for himself. "I'll read it through later. Longest letter he's ever written. Is there anything important in it?" "He wants to stay on in Italy." "Indeed? How does he propose to live?" "He has some kind of research job with Dr. Jastrow. The girl works there, too. He thinks he can get by on what he earns, Plus the few dollars from my mother)s trust.") "Really?" Henry peered at her. "If Byron Henry is talking about He drank his coffee and brandy, and stood up, retrieving the letter with supporting himself, that's the biggest news about him since you had him. a swipe of his hand.
"Now don't take on, Pug. Byron's a strange fish, but there's a lot of brains underneath.PP "I have some work to do." Henry went to his den and smoked a cigar, reading Byron's letter twice through with care. The den was a converted maid's room. On the ground lloor a large handsome study looked out on the garden through French windows. That room in theory was his. It was so attractive that Rhoda sometimes liked to at her hu ]rn receive visitors there, and was given to nagging shand when he left Papers and books around. After a few months of this Henry had put bookshelves, a cot, and a tiny secondhand desk in the narrow maid's room, had moved into it, and was content enough with this small space-He had done with less in a destroyer cabin. writer. With his hands on the keys he paused ta When the cigar was burned out, Henry went to his old por able type in a leather frame on , Contemplating three pictures the desk: Warren, in uniform and bristle-beaded, a stern boyish candidate for Rag rank; Madeline, at seventeen much, much younger than she seemed now; Byron, in the center, with the defiant what sloping large mouth, the half-closed analytic eyes, the thick ful hair, the somber face peculiarly mingling softness and obstinate Byron owed his looks to neither parent. He was his strange self. Dear Briny: Your mother and I have your long letter. I intend to take it seriously. Your mother prefers to pooh it, but I don't think You've written such a letter before, or described a girl in quite such terms. I'm glad You're well, and gainfully employed. 'That's good news. I never could take that fine arts business seriously. Now about Natalie Jastrow. In this miserable day and age, especially with what is going on in Germany, I have to start by protesting that I have nothing against Jewish people. I've encountered them very little since few of them enter the Navy. In my Academy class there were four, which was very unusual back in 1911. One of them has stayed the course, Han Goldfarb, and he is a damned good officer. Here in Washington there is quite a bit of prejudice against Jews. They've made themselves felt in business lately, doing somewhat too well. The other day one of your mother's friends told me a joke. I wasn't amused, possibly because of my own Glasgow great-grandfather. The three shortest books in the Library of Congress are A History of Scotch Charities, Virginity in France, and A Study of jewish Business Ethics. Ha ha ha. This may be a far cry from Hitler's propaganda, but the person who told me this joke is a fine lawyer and a good Christian.
You'd better give some hard thought to the long pull that a marriage is. I know I'm jumping the gun, but now is the time to reflect, before you're too involved. Never, never forget one thing. The girl you marry, and the woman you must make a life 'with, are two different pe,people. Women have a way of living in the present. Before marriage she's out to win you. Afterward you're just one of the many factors in her life. In a way you're secondary, because she has you, whereas everything else is in flux-children, household, new clothes, social ties. If these other factors are disagreeable to her, she will make you unhappy. In a marriage with a girl like Natalie Jastrow, the other factors would all tend to bother her perpetually, from the mixed-breed children to the tiny social slights. Then might get to be like the Chinese water-drop torture. If so, you'd both gradually grow bitter and miserable, and by then you'd be tied together by children. This could end up as hell on earth. Now I'm just telling you what I think. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, or stupid, and out of touch. It doesn't matter to me that this girl is Jewish, though there would be grave questions about the children's faith, since I feel you're a pretty good Christian, somewhat more so than Warren at the moment. I'm impressed by what you say about her brains, which her being the niece of Aaron Jastrow sure bears out. A Jew's Jesus is a remarkable work. If I thought she could make you happy and give you some direction in life I'd welcome her, and take pleasure in personally punching in the nose anybody who upset her. But I think might become a second career for me. Now, I'm reconciled to letting you go your own way. You know that. It's hard for me to write a letter like this. I feel like a fool, elaborating the obvious, expressing truths that I find distasteful, and above all intruding on your personal feelings. But that's okay. You sent us your letter. I take it to mean that you wanted an answer. This is the best I can do, If you want to write me off as a bigot, that's all right with me. I'll show this letter to your mother, who will no doubt disapprove of it, so I'll be forwarding it without her endorsement. Maybe she'll add something of her own. Warren is home. He has put in for flight training and may get it. Love, Dad Rhoda liked to sleep late, but her husband woke her the following morning at eight o'clock, handing her his letter to Byron and a cup of hot coffee. She sat up with grouchy abrupt gestures, read the letter through as she sipped, and passed it back to him without a word. "Do you want to add anything?" "No." Her face was set. She had worked her eyebrows a bit over Pug's passage on women and marriage. "Don't you approve of it , "Letters like that don't ? change things," Rhoda said with deep su" female contempt.
"Shouldn't I seti it?" "I don't care." He put the envelo in h s hr Pe east pocket. "I see Admiral Preble at ten O'clock this morning. Have you had any second thoughts?" "Pug, will You please do xactly as you choose?" Rhoda said, in a pained bored tone. She sank down into the bedclothes as he left. The Chief of Naval Operations did not appear surprised when Pug said he would take the post. At dawn Henry had awakened with a, overmastering sense that he could not duck the assignment, and with this, he had stopped thinking about it. Preble told him to get ready in a hurry. His orders to Berlin were already cut. Byron Henry's encounter with Natalie Jastrow two months earlier Bhad been much in character. He had drifted into it. Unlike his father, Byron had always been directionless. Growing up, he had dodged the Sea Scouts, Sevem Academy, and anything else pointing to a naval career. Yet he had no ideas for any other career. His marks were usually poor, and he developed early a remarkable capacity for doing absolutely nothing. In fits of resolve he had shown himself able to win a few A's, or put together a radio set that worked, or rescue an old car from a junkyard and make it run, or repair a collapsed oil heater. In this knack for machinery he took after his father and grandfather. But he became bored with such tinkering. He did too poorly in mathematics to think of engineering. He might have been an athlete. He was agile, and sturdier than he looked, but he disliked the regimens and teamwork of school athletics, and he loved cigarettes and beer, though the gallons of beer he drank did not add a millimeter to his waistline. At Columbia College (where he was admitted because he charmed an interviewer, scored well on the intelligence test, and wasn't a New Yorker) he barely avoided expulsion for bad grades. What he enjoyed was taking his ease at his fraternity house, or playing cards and pool, or reading old novels over and over, or talking about girls and fooling with them. He did find in fencing a sport suited to his independent temper and his wiry body. Had he trained more he might have been an intercollegiate finalist at the epec. But it was a bore to train, and it interfered with his idleness. In his junior year he elected a course in fine arts, which athletes took because, so the report ran, nobody ever failed it. However, at midsemester, Byron Henry managed to fail. He had done no work and cut half the classes. Still, the F startled him. He went to see the professor and told him so. The professor, a mild bald little lover of the Italian Renaissance, with green spectacles and hairy ears, took aliking to him. A couple of remarks Byron made on Leonardo and BotticeHi showed that, in the few sessions he had attended, he had learned something, unlike the rest of the hulking somnolent class. They became friends. It was the first intellectual friendship in Byron Henry's life. He became an enthusiast for the Renaissance, slavishly echoing the professor's ideas, and he finished college in a blaze of B pluses, cured of beer guzzling and afire to teach fine arts. One year of graduate work at the University of Florence for a Master of Arts degree; that had been the plan. But a few months in Florence cooled Byron. One rainy November night, in his squalid rented room overlooking the muddy Amo, sick of the smells of garlic and bad plumbing, and of living alone among foreigners, he wrote his friend that Italian painting was garish, saccharine, and boring with its everlasting madonnas, babes, saints, halos, crucifixions, resurrections, green dead Saviors, flying beared jehovahs, and the rest; that he much preferred moderns like Mire and Klee; and that anyway, painting was just interior decoration, which didn't really interest him. He scrawled several pages in this cornered-rat vein, mailed them off, and then went vagabonding around Europe, forsaking his classes and his hope of a graduate degree. When he got back to Florence, he unda cheering letter from the professor. ... I don't know what will become of you. Obviously art was a false lead. I think it did you good to get hot or, some subject. If you can only shake off your lethargy and find something that truly engages you, You may yet go far. I am an old traffic cop, and standing here on my corner I have seen many Chevrolets and Fords go by. It's not hard for me to recognize the occasional Cadillac. Only this one seems badly stalled. I've written about you to Dr. Aaron Jastrow, who lives outside Siena, You know of him. He wrote A Jew's Jesusp made a pot of money, and got off the miserable academic treadmill. We used to be friends at Yale, and he was very good indeed at bringing out the best in young men. Go Ind talk to him, and give him my regards. 'That was how Byron happened to call on Dr. Jastrow. He took a bus to Siena, a three-hour run up a rutted scary mountain road. Tmice before he had vi ted the bizarre S' little town, all red towers and battlements and narrow crooked streets, set around a gaudy zebra-striped cathedral, ona hilltop amid rolling green and brown Tuscan vineyards. Its main claim to fame, aside from the quasi-Byzantine church art he had studied there, was a peculiar annual horse race called the Palio, which he had heard about but never seen. At first glance, the girl at the wheel of the old blue convertible made no strong impression on him: an oval face, dark enough so that he first Italian, dark hair, enormous sunglasses, a pink sweater took her for an over an open white Shirt. Beside her sat a blond man covering a yawn with a long white hand. "Hi! Byron Henry?""Yes." "Hop in the back. I'm Natalie Jastrow. This is Les bassy in Paris, and He's visiting my uncle." i works in our em girl either. X"at Natalie Jastrow saw I Byron did not much impress the American, through the dark glasses was a slender lounger, obviously with red glints in his heavy brovm hair; he was propped against the wall of the Hotel Continental in the sun, smoking a cigarette, his legs loosely crossed. The light gray jacket, dark slacks, and maroon tie were faintly dandyish. The forehead under the hair was de, the long slanting jaws narrow, the face pallid. He looked like what he was-a collegiate drone, a rather handsome one. Natalie had brushed these off by the dozen in earlier years. As they wound through narrow canyons of crooked ancient redbrown houses and drove out into the countryside, Byron idly asked Slote was s d about his embassy work. The Foreign Service man told him he pote a section and was studying Russian and Polish, hoping in the political sc w or Warsaw. Sitting in the car, Sic)te appeared for an assignment to Mo 0 very tall; later Byron saw that he himself was taller than Slote; the Foreign Service officer had a long trunk but medium-sized legs. Slote's thick blond hair grew to a peak over a high forehead and narrow pinkish face; the light blue eyes behind rimless glasses were alert and penetrating, and his thin lips were compressed as though with habitual resolve. All the time they drove, he held a large black pipe in his hand or in his mouth, not smoking it. It occurred to Byron that the Foreign Service might be a pleasant career, offering travel, adventure? and encounters with important people. But when Slote mentioned that he was a Rhodes Scholar, Byron decided not to pursue the topic. Jastrow lived in a yellow stucco villa on a steep hillside, with a tile roofs. It was a fine view of the cathedral and Siena's red towers and after the girl drive of about twenty minutes from town. Byron hurried and Slote through a terraced flowering garden full of black-stained plaster statues. "Well, there you are!" The voice was high, authoritative, and impatient, with a faint foreign note in the pronouncing of the r's. Two sights struck Byron as they entered a long beamed living room. a painting of a red-robed Saint Francis with arms outstretched, on a background of gold, taking up a good part of one wall, and far down the long sitting room on a red silk couch, a bearded little man in a light gray suit, who looked at his watch, stood, and came toward them coughing. "This is Byron Henry, Aaron," the girl said. Jastrow took Byron's hand in two dry little paws and peered up at him with prominentwavering eyes. jastrov/s head was large, his shoulders slight; he had aging freckled skin, light straight hair, and a heavy nose e beard was all gray. "Columbia 'reddened by a cold. The neatly trimm d 38, is it?" "Yes, sir." "Well, well, come along." He went off down the room,\buttoning the flapping folds of his double-breasted suit. "Come here, Byron." Plucking the stopper out of a heavy crystal decanter, he carefully poured amber wine into four glasses. "Come Leslie, Natalie. We don't take wine during the day, Byron, but this is an occasion." He held up his glass. "To Mr. Byron Henry, eminent hater of the Italian Renaissance." Byron laughed. "Is that what Dr. Milano wrote? I'll drink to that." Jastrow t k one sip, Put d tossed off the sherry like a shot of roo Own his glass, and ked at his w tch. ye. Jastrow exclaimed with a delighted smile, "Ah! One, two, akeyryour glass to the table." Seeing the Professor wanted to get at hilselsulinec,lit, Byron 100 a three. good lad. Come along, Natalie. It was a spare lunch: nothing but vegetables with white rice, then cheese and fruit. The service was on fine old china, maroon and gold. A small, gray-headed Italian woman passed the food. The tall dining room %endows stood open to the garden, the view of Siena, and a flood of pale sunshine. Gusts of cool air came in as they ate. When they first sat, the girl said, "What have you got against the Italian Renaissance, Byron?)f that's a long story.)) "Tell us," said Jastrow in a classroom voice, laving a thumb across his smiling mouth. Byron hesitated. Jastrow and the Rhodes Scholar made him uneasy. The girl disconcerted him more."Removing her sunglasses, she had disvi closed big slanted dark eyes, gleaming with bold intelligence. She had a Soft large mouth, painted a bit too orange, in a bony face. Natalie was regarding him with a satiric look, as though she had already concluded that he , a fool; and Byron was not fool enough to miss that. "Maybe I've had too much of it," he said. "I started out fascinated.
join ending up snowed under and bored. I realize much of the art is brilliant, but there's a lot Of overrated garbage amid the works of genius. My main objection is that I can't take the mixture Of Paganism and Christianity. I don't believe David looked like Apo o or Mos ke Jupiter, ores ll Mary like every Renaissance artist's mistress with a borrowed baby on her lap. Maybe they couldn't help showing Bible Jews as local Italians or pseudo-Greeks, but-" Byron dried up for a moment, seeing his listeners' amused looks. "Look, I'm not saying any of this is important criticism. I guess it just shows I got into the wrong field. But what has any of it to do with Christianity? That's what sticks in my craw. Supposing Christ came back to earth and visited the Uffizi, or Saint Peter's? The Christ of your book, Dr. Jastrow, the poor idealistic Jewish preacher from the back hills? that's the Lord I grew up with. My father's a religious man; we had to read a chapter of the Bible every morning at home. Why, Christ ings." Nata wouldn't even suspect the stuff related to himself and his teachings Jastrow was regarding him with an almost motherly smile. He said brusquely to her, "Okay. You asked me what I had against the Italian Renaissance. I've told you." "Well, it's a point of view," she said. Eyes twinkling behind his glasses, Slote lit his pipe, and said between puffs, "Don't fold up, Byron, there are others who have taken your polition. A good name for it is Protestantism." "Byron's main point is accurate." Dr. Jastrow sounded kindly, danctal oc rred when paganining his the fingers together. "The I ian Renaissance was a great blossoming,of art and ideas, Byron, that cu sin and the Hebrew spirit-in its Christian expression-briefly fertilized instead of fighting each other. It was a hybrid growth, true, but some hybrids are stronger than either parent, you know. Witness the mule." "Yes, sir," said Byron, "and mules are sterile." Amused surprise Hashed on Natalie Jastrow's face, and her enormous dark eyes flickered to Leslie Slote, and back to Byron"Well said. just so." Jastrow nodded in a pleased way. "The Renaissance indeed couldn't reproduce itself, and it died off, while the pagan and Hebrew spirits went their separate immortal ways. But that mules bones are now one of mankiners richest deposits of cultural achievement, Byron, whatever your momentary disgust from overexposure." Byron shrugged. Leslie Slote said, "Is your father a clergyman?" "His father's a naval officer," said Jastrow. "Really? What branLh?" Byron said, "Well, right now he's in War Plans." "My goodness! War plans?" Dr. Jastrow pretended a comic flutter. "I didn't know that. Is it as ominous as it sounds?""Sir, every country draws up theoretical war plans in peacetime." fl your father think a war is imminent?" "I got my last letter from him in November. He said nothing about a war. The other three exchanged odd glances. Slote said, "Would he, in casual correspondence?" "He might have asked me to come home. He didn't." "Interesting," said Dr. Jastrow, with a little complacent grin at Slote, rubbing his tiny hands. "As a matter of fact, I think there's going to be a war," Byron said. This caused a silence of a second or two, and more glances. Jastrow said, "Really? Why?" "Well, I just toured Germany. You see nothing but uniforms, rades, drills, brass bands. Anywhere you drive, you end up passing army trucks full of troops, and railroad cars loaded with artillery and tanks. Trains sometimes a couple of miles long." "But, Byron, it was with just such displays that Hitler won Austria and the Sudetenland," said Jastrow, "and he never fired a shot." Natalie said to Byron, 'Leslie thinks my uncle should go home. We've had a running argument for three days." "I see." Jastrow was peeling a pear with elderly deliberate gestures, using an The use of the word 'Being a hybrid of sorts myivory-handled knife. "Yes, Byron, I'm being mulish." was accidental, for he grinned and added, self, I guess. This is a comfortable house, it's the only home I have now, and my work, is going well. Moving would cost me half a year. If I tried to sell the house, I couldn't find an Italian to offer me five cents on the dollar. They've been dealing for many centuries with foreigners who've had to cut and run. They'd skin me alive. I was aware of all this when I bought the villa. I expect to end my days here." "Not this fall at the hands of the Nazis, I trust," Slote said. "Oh, hell, Slote," Natalie broke in, slicing a flat hand downward through the air. "Since when does the Foreign Service have such a distinguished record for foresight? Since Munich? Since Austria? Since the Rhineland? Weren't you surprised every time?"Byron listened with interest to this exchange. The others seemed to have forgotten he was at the table. -Hitler has been making irrational moves With catastrophic possibilities," Slote retorted. "Anybody can pull a gun in the street and shoot four people down before the cops come and stop him. Until now that's been Hitler's so-called foreign policy brilliance in a nutshell. The surPrise of an outlaw running wild. That game's played out. The others are aroused now. They'll stop him over Poland." JastTow ate a piece of pear, and began to talk in a rhythmic, mellifud and lecturing in a classluous way, something between meditating alo harles the Twelfth, room. "Leslie, if Hitler were the Kaiser, or a man like you think I'd admit I'd be worried. But He's far more competent than Fortunately the old ruling class is destroyed. They unleashed the World War tted incompetence, those preening, posturing, sleek royalwith their dry-rod sodomites ties and politicians of 19'4t those bemedalled womanizers an out of Proust-They never dreamed that the old manners, the old paperwork, the old protocol, were done for, and that industrialized warfare booked through a dollhouse. So would shatter the old system like at kic they went to the trash heap, and new leadership came up out of the sewers, where realism runs and change often starts. The early Christians haunted the sewers and catacombs of Rome, you know," Jastrow said to Byron Henry, clearly relishing a fresh audience. "Yes, sir, I learned about that." "Of course you did. Well, Hitler's a vagabond, Mussolini's a vagabond, and Stalin's a jailbird. These are new, tough, able, and clever men, straight up from the sewers. Lenin, another jailbird, was the great originator. He made it all up, Leslie, you realize-the jesuitical secret party, the coarse slogans for the masses and the contempt for their intelligence and memory, the fanatic language, the strident dogmas, the Moslem religiosity in politics, the crude pageantry the total cynicism of tactics y it's all Leninism. Hitler is a Leninist, Mussolini is a Leninist. The talk of anti-communism and pro-communism is for fools and children." "Oh, for Pete's sake, Aaron-2 "Just a moment, now! Lenin was all prudence and caution in foreign affairs, and that is my whole point. Glory, and honor, and all those tinselly illusions of the old system that led to wars, were to Lenin the merest eyewash. So it is to Hitler. He has never moved when he couldn't get away with it. The outlaw running wild with a gun is the exact effect he wishes to create. I'm surprised that you're taken in. He is really a very, very prudent man. If he can make it in Poland without war, he'll do iL Otherwise he'll not move. Not now. Perhaps in ten years, when he's built Germany up enough. I shall be very content to live another ten years." Slote pulled at his mustache with lean nervous fingers. 'You really lose me, Aaron. Can you be serious? Hitler a Leninist! That's a coffeehouse paradox, and you know iL The Russian Revolution is a radical change in history. The abolition of privateproperty has created a new world. You may like it or detest it, but it's new. Hitler's socialism was a sham to get a mob of gangsters into power. He's frozen the German economy just as it was, smashed the labor unions, lengthened the working hours, cut the pay, and kept all the old rich crowd on top, the Krupps and Thyssens, the men who gave him the money to run for office. The big Nazis live like sultans. The concentration camps are for anybody who still wants the socialist part of National Socialism. Don't you know that? The 1934 purge was nothing but a showdown between the socialist element of the Nazi Party, and the army generals and richconservatives. Hitler shot his old Party friends like partridges. That you rely on this man's prudence for your safety, and for Natalie's, strikes as grotesque." 'Does it?" Jastrow glanced at his watch and sighed. "I'm sorry. I'mimpres(me) sed with Hitler's ability to use socialist prattle when necessary, and then discard it. He uses doctrines as he uses money, to get things done. Theyre expendable. He uses racism because that's the pure distillate of German romantic egotism, just as Lenin used utopian Masen because it appealed to Russia's messianic streak. Hitler means to hammer out a united Europe. If a nonsense jumble of racist bunkum, socialist promises, brass bands, parades, uniforms, and weepy songs is what welds Germans into a blunt instrument, he gives them that. The Germans are stolid, clever, brutal, and docile, and they will vigorously execute any command barked at them with a loud enough voice. He understands them, and he may just succeed. A united europe must come. The medieval jigsaw of nations is obsolete. The balance of power is dangerous foolishness in the industrial age. It must all be thrown Out. Somebody has to be ruthless enough to do it since the peoples with their ancient hatreds will never do it themselves. It's only Napoleon's original vision, but he was a century ahead of his time-The old crowd was still strong enough to catch him and put him in a cage to die. But there's nobody to cage Hitler." Byron blurted, "Dr. Jastrow, when I was in Germany I saw the signs on park benches and in trolley cars about the Jews. I saw burnt-out synagogues." "Yes?" They all looked at him. He went On, "I'm surprised you talk as calmly about Hitler as you do. Being Jewish, I mean." Dr. Jastrow smiled a slow, acid smile, showing little yellowish teeth with one gold crown. He stroked his beard and spoke deliberately, the classroom note strong. "Well! Your surprise doesn't surprise me. Young people-Young Americans especially-aren't aware that the tolerance for Jews in Europe is only fifty to a hundred years old and that it's never gone deep. It didn't touch Poland, where I was born. Even in the West-what about the Dreyfus case? No, no. In that respect Hitler represents only a ret"m to 'CY for Europe, after the b el ow of her sen. The the anti-Sematic parties behostility simply moved from the Church to s to a political cause the French Revolution changed Europe from a religious ndcontinent. If Hitler does win out, the Jews will fall back to the second class status they always had under the kings and the popes.