War and Remembrance

by Herman Wouk

  It is the free play period before bedtime. Madame Rosen knows where Miriam probably is. The girl has a favorite herself, a little French orphan named Jean Halphan, barely a year and a half old. Jean resembles Louis Henry, above all in the way his large blue eyes light up when he smiles. While Miriam was still with her parents she never stopped talking about Louis. She soon ceased asking questions, because she saw that they saddened her mother and irritated her father. But she endlessly reminisced, reliving her time with him, displaying a memory like a film library. Now that her parents are gone, and she has nobody, she has fastened on Jean. The little boy adores her, and when she is with him she is happy.

  Madame Rosen finds them on the floor of Jean’s big dormitory room, carefully building blocks amid milling children. She chides Miriam for sitting on the cold floor, though both children are bundled up as though they were outside in the snow. The home has not yet received its meager fuel ration this month. What little coal is left must be used to keep the water pipes from freezing, and to cook the meals. Miriam wears the fringed red shawl Madame Rosen gave her. It is so big it quite hides her face, but it is very warm. Miriam and Jean perch on a cot, and Madame Rosen talks to the girl in Italian. Miriam always likes that; she holds Jean on her lap, playing with his hands, and making him repeat Italian words. This visit of Madame Rosen’s does not last long. She returns to the office, warmed and cheered to face her problems.

  They are the old administrative ones, many times magnified: overcrowding, shortages, staffing difficulties, lack of funds. Now that the small Toulouse Jewish community is almost gone, she is all but overwhelmed. Happily, the mayor of Toulouse is a kindly man. When matters get desperate, as they are now regarding fuel, medicine, bed linen, and the milk supply, she appeals to him. She sits at her desk to resume writing her letter, this time with dimmed expectations. The French friends of the Jewish children have become very wary of showing their sympathy. This wizened yellow-faced little woman in her late fifties, wrapped in a faded coat and a torn shawl, weeps as she writes. The situation seems hopeless when she puts it down on paper. But she must do something, or what will become of the children?

  Worse yet, warnings have been chilling the remaining Jews in the area for a week: another action impending. Madame Rosen feels safe herself. She has an official position, and clear papers of native French citizenship. So far, only foreign Jews have been taken, though in the last action some of the deportees were naturalized citizens. Her concern is for the children. Nearly all the newcomers are foreigners. Hundreds of them! For about a third she has no papers at all. They were dumped on her by the police; the French government separates children from parents being deported to the east, and puts them anywhere. The Jewish orphanages are becoming swamped. The regulation seems humanely intended, despite the anguish for the torn-apart families, for horrible stories circulate about the east; but why is so little provision made for the children?

  And now supposing that in this new action, the police come and ask for the foreign tots? Dare she claim she has no records of any child’s origin? Or since that is so farfetched in bureaucratic France, can she plead that she burned her records in panic when the Allies landed in North Africa? Shall she actually burn the records now? Will that save the foreign waifs, or merely condemn the French-born children to be taken off with them?

  Madame Rosen has no reason to believe that the Germans are collecting foreign children. She has not yet heard of such a thing, and the fact that they have been dumped on her argues that they are meant to be spared deportation. But the anxiety haunts her. It is about midnight, bitter cold, and she is folding the letter up with numbed fingers in the candlelight (the electricity has long since gone off)when she hears crashing knocks at the street door.

  Her office is close to the street. The knocks startle her out of the chair. Crash! Crash! Crash! My God, all the children will wake up! They will be frightened to death!

  “Ouvrez! Ouvrez!” Loud coarse male shouts. “Ouvrez!”

  SS Obersturmfuhrer Nagel has a problem too.

  A tremendous flap is going on: a quota unfilled, and a partly empty train scheduled to pass through Toulouse in the morning. The top SS man in Jewish affairs in Paris is in a gigantic rage, but there just aren’t that many Jews left in this prefecture. They have melted into the countryside, or fled to the Italian-occupied zone. There is just no way to fill three entire freight cars. The Toulouse action so far has collected five hundred. The demanded count from Paris is fifteen hundred.

  Fortunately, the Toulouse police records show that the children and the staff here add up to nine hundred and seven Jews. Nagel has obtained permission from Paris to pick them up, while a squad combs Toulouse for the balance needed; any Jews, no protection applicable. So the SS lieutenant sits in a car across the street from the children’s home, watching the French policemen knocking at the door. Given half a chance, those fellows would report back with some lame excuse and no results. He will sit here until the police chief comes out and reports to him.

  The story Nagel has given the chief to tell is a good one. The occupation authority needs the building as a convalescent home for wounded German soldiers. Therefore the children and staff will be moved to a ski resort in the Tyrol, where all the hotels have been converted into an enormous special care center for children, with a school, a hospital, and many playgrounds; and where thousands of children from the bigger camps near Paris are already settled. In transporting Jews, standard procedure requires giving them some kind of reassuring story. Secret circulated instructions from Berlin emphasize that the Jews are very trusting, and eagerly believe any kind of flimsy official information. This greatly facilitates the processing of the Jews.

  The door opens, the police disappear inside. Lieutenant Nagel waits. He is on his third cigarette, very chilled despite his warm new greatcoat and wool-lined service boots, and he is nervously thinking of going over there himself, though the uniform may scare the Jew staffers, when the door opens again, and out comes the police chief.

  That fellow manages to stay nice and fat on French rations; plenty of black-market fat on that belly. He comes to the car, and reports with very garlicky breath that it is all arranged. The staff people will pack their belongings, and the central records of the institution. Nagel emphasized that touch about taking the records; it makes the story more plausible. The children will be wakened at three, dressed, and given a hot meal. The police vans and the trucks will come for them at five. They will all be on the railroad station platform at six. The Frenchman’s fat face in the pallid moonlight is expressionless, and when Lieutenant Nagel says, “Bon,” the drooping mustache lifts in a nasty sad smile.

  So all is well. The train is due at a quarter to seven, and at that hour most people of the town won’t be up and about. That is a bit of luck, Nagel thinks, as he drives back to his apartment to catch a few winks before the morning’s business. Orders are to avoid arousing sympathy in the population when transports leave. Repeated bulletins from Berlin caution that there can be unpleasant episodes, especially if children are moved about by day in populous places.

  In fact, it turns out to be a gloomy morning, and when the train pulls in it is still almost dark. The Jews are shadowy figures, climbing into the cars. The station lights have to be turned on to speed up the loading of the children. They march quietly up the wooden ramps into the freight cars, two abreast, hand in hand as they have been told to do, the staff women carrying the youngest ones. Miriam Castelnuovo is walking with little Jean. She has been moved several times in this fashion, so she is used to it. This is not as bad as when they took her from her parents. Jean’s hand in hers makes her happy. Madame Rosen walks behind her carrying a baby, and that too is reassuring.

  Lieutenant Nagel wonders at the last minute whether there is any point in shoving those twelve big cartons of records into the freight car. They will just be a nuisance, and they may puzzle the fellows at the other end. But he sees the white terrorized face of Madame Rosen, who
is staring out of the freight car at the cartons, as if her life hung on what happened to them. Why panic her? She’s the one to keep the children quiet all the way to the end. He gestures with his stick at the cartons. The SS men load them into the car, and shut the big sliding doors on the children. Black gloved hands seize the frigid iron levers, rotate them, lock the doors in place.

  The train starts with no whistle sound, only the chuffing of the locomotive.

  60

  PUG HENRY had made a fast departure for the Soviet Union. However, he was awhile getting there.

  As the Clipper slapped and pounded clear of Baltimore harbor and roared up into low gray January murk, he pulled from his dispatch case two letters which he had had no time to read. He opened the bulky White House envelope first to skim the typewritten pages, a lengthy harangue by Hopkins on Lend-Lease.

  I’m taking breakfast orders, sir.” A white-coated steward touched his elbow. Pug ordered ham and eggs and pancakes, though his uniform was tight after two weeks of Rhoda’s food and wine. One should fatten up for Soviet Union duty, he thought, like a bear for the winter sleep. His career was damned well going into hibernation, he was damned well hungry, and he would damned well eat. And Harry Hopkins’s disquisition could damned well wait while he found out what was on Pamela Tudsbury’s mind. The spiky handwriting on the airmail envelope from London was obviously hers, and Pug tore it open with more eagerness than he wanted to feel.

  December 20th, 1942

  Dear Victor,

  This is a mere quick scrawl, I’m just off to Scotland to do a story on American ferry pilots. You surely know that my father’s gone, killed by a land mine at El Alamein. The Observer has generously given me a chance at carrying on as a correspondent. No use writing about Talky. I’ve pulled myself together, though for a while I felt that I had died too, or might as well have.

  Did my long letter from Egypt ever reach you, before you lost your ship? That news horrified me, but luckily hard upon it I learned that you were safe and en route to Washington, where I myself will shortly be heading. I said in that letter, among other things, that Duncan Burne-Wilke wanted to marry me. In effect, I guess, I asked for your blessing. I received no answer. We have since become engaged, and he’s off to India as Auchinleck’s new deputy chief of staff for air.

  I may not stay in Washington long. The great crunch at Stalingrad has given my editor the notion of sending me back to the Soviet Union. But I’ve run into mysterious visa problems which the Observer is working on, and meantime here I come. If I can’t ever return to Moscow, for inscrutable Marxist reasons, my usefulness will dim; and I may then just pack it up and join Duncan for a tour of duty as memsahib. We’ll see.

  No doubt you know that Rhoda and I met in Hollywood, and that I told her about us. I just wanted to take myself out of the picture, and I trust you’re not angry at me. Now I’m engaged to a darling man, with my future all settled, so that’s that. I’ll be at the Wardman Park Hotel on or about January 15th. Will you give me a ring? I can’t tell how Rhoda would feel about my telephoning you, though obviously I’m no threat to her. About meeting you of course I want to be open and aboveboard. I just don’t propose to pretend you don’t exist.

  Love,

  Pamela

  So, Pug thought — astonished, amused, impressed — Rhoda knew all along and said nothing. Good tactics; good girl. Perhaps she had noticed the London postmark, too, when she handed him the letters. About the disclosure, he felt sheepish; innocent, but sheepish. Rhoda was quite a woman, take her for all in all. Pamela’s letter was proper, calm, friendly; in the situation, well put. He ate the large breakfast very cheerily, despite grim clouds tumbling past the window of the bumping Clipper, because of the slight chance that he might see the future Lady Burne-Wilke in the Soviet Union.

  Then he read the Hopkins letter.

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Jan. 12

  Dear Pug,

  You pleased the Boss greatly the other morning, and he’ll remember it. The landing craft problem won’t go away. You might still tackle it, depending on how long Ambassador Standley wants you. The special request about your daughter-in-law went through, but the Germans queered the effort by moving those people to Baden-Baden. Welles says they’re in no hazard, and that negotiations for exchanging the whole crowd are well along.

  Now to business:

  Admiral Standley came back to Washington at his own request because he thinks we’re mishandling Lend-Lease. But there are only two ways to handle Lend-Lease: unconditional aid, or aid on a quid pro quo basis. It burns up the old admiral that we give, give, give, asking for no accounting, no justification of requests, no trade-offs. That’s our policy, all right. Standley’s a wise and salty old bird, but the President as usual is miles ahead of him.

  The President’s overall policy toward the Russians is three-pronged, and very simple. Remember it, Pug:

  Keep the Red Army fighting Germany

  Bring the Red Army in against Japan

  Create a stronger postwar League of Nations with the Soviet Union in it.

  Lenin walked out of World War I in 1917, you know, by making a deal with the Kaiser. Stalin opted out of this war in 1939 by making a deal with Hitler. He’d still be out of it if Hitler hadn’t attacked him. The President doesn’t forget those things.

  Stalin’s rhetoric notwithstanding, I doubt that Hitlerism is such a great evil to him. He too is a dictator running a police state, and he got cozily into bed with Hitler for two whole years. Now Russia’s been invaded, so he has to fight. He’s a total pragmatist, and our intelligence is that they’ve been exchanging peace feelers over there. A separate peace on that front is always possible, if Germany makes a substantial offer.

  That may not be in the cards just yet. Hitler would have to show his people some territorial gains for all the German blood he’s spilled. The more we strengthen the Russians, the less likely it is that Stalin will make such a deal. We want him to throw the Germans clear out of Russia, and not stop there, but drive on to Berlin. This will save millions of American lives, because our war aim is to eradicate Nazism, and we won’t quit till we do.

  So, it’s a confusion of objectives to look for quid pro quos from Lend-Lease. The quid pro quo is that the Russians are killing large numbers of German soldiers who won’t oppose us one day in France.

  We have not exactly lived up to our commitments on Lend-Lease. We’re at about 70 percent. We’ve tried, and our aid is massive, but the U-boats have taken a big toll, the Japanese war is a drain, and we had to cannibalize Lend-Lease to mount the North African landings. Nor have we lived up to our promise of a second front in Europe, not yet. So we are in no position to get tough with the Russians.

  Even if we were, it would be bad war-making. We need them more than they need us. Stalin can’t be fooled about such a fundamental reality. He is a very complicated figure, very difficult to deal with, a sort of Red Ivan the Terrible, but I’m damn glad we’ve got him and his people in the war on our side. I’m candid about that in public, and take a lot of lumps for it.

  Admiral Standley will want you to try to obtain quid pro quos. He has a high opinion of your ability to handle Russians. It’s true that they could loosen up a lot on air transport routes, military intelligence, shuttle bases for our bombers, release of our airmen downed in Siberia, and so on. Perhaps you’ll make Standley happy by succeeding where others have failed. But on the basic issue, General Marshall has told the President that nothing the Russians can give us as a Lend-Lease trade-off would change our strategy or tactics in this war. He approves of unconditional aid.

  The President wants you to know all this, and to resume sending him informal reports, as you did from Germany. He mentioned again your prediction of the Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939, and he requested (not wholly humorously) that if your crystal ball warns you of any moves toward a separate peace over there, to let him know fast.

  Harry H.

  Scarcely an encouraging letter; Pug w
as on his way to serve under a former CNO, and here was an order right at the start to bypass the old admiral with “informal reports” to the Commander-in-Chief. This new post promised to be nothing but a quagmire. Pug took from his dispatch case a sheaf of intelligence documents on the Soviet Union, and dug into them. Work was the best refuge from such thoughts.

  The Clipper was diverted to Bermuda; no explanation. As the passengers were lunching in a beach hotel they could see, through the dining room windows, their flying boat heavily lifting away into the rain. They remained in Bermuda for weeks. In time they learned that the aircraft had been recalled to take Franklin Roosevelt to the Casablanca Conference. The conference by then was the great news on the radio and in the press, sharing the headlines with the growing German collapse at Stalingrad.

  Pug did not mind the delay. He was in no great hurry to get to Russia. This little green isle far out in the Atlantic, in peacetime a quiet flowery Eden without automobiles, was now an American naval outpost. Jeeps, trucks, and bulldozers boiled around in clouds of exhaust and coral dust; patrol bombers buzzed overhead, gray warships crowded the sound, and sailors jammed the shops and the narrow town streets. The idle rich in the big pink houses seemed to have gone underground, waiting for the Americans to sink all the bothersome U-boats, win the war, and go away; the black populace looked prosperous and happy, for all the fumes and noise.