by Herman Wouk
The first notes of the overture swept across her nerves like a wind through harp strings, setting up shuddery vibrations; the more so because of her terrific tension. She tried to give herself to the music, but within a few measures her mind was racing back over Beck’s disclosures. Who could have made that futile and damaging approach when they were in Lourdes? As she puzzled and wondered and worried, the curtain rose on a setting as opulent as any in peacetime. Figaro and Susanna, both excellent singers, launched into their immortal high-spirited antics. Natalie did not get much out of this Marriage of Figaro, though it was a polished performance. Her mind kept darting here and there over her predicament.
For the entr’acte Beck had reserved a little table in one of the smaller lounges. The waiter greeted them with an amiable smile and bow. “Bonsoir, Madame, bonsoir, Monsieur le Ministre.” He whisked away the reservé sign, and brought champagne and sugar cakes.
“By the bye,” Beck said, after some judicious comments on the singers as he ate cakes and sipped wine, “I’ve been rereading your uncle’s broadcast scripts. He was truly prescient, do you realize that? The things he wrote a year ago are being said now all over the Allied world. Vice President Henry Wallace recently gave a speech that might have been lifted from your uncle’s pages. Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, many such first-class minds, have been saying these things. Astonishing.”
“I haven’t had much contact with the Allied world.”
“Yes. Well, I have the press cuttings. When Dr. Jastrow is stronger, he ought to see them. I’ve been sorely tempted to publish his scripts. Really, all that talk about further polishing was silly. They are gems. Memorable essays, with a beautiful intellectual progression to them.” Beck paused as the waiter refilled his glass. Natalie wetted her lips with wine. “Don’t you think he might want to broadcast them now? Perhaps over Radio Paris? Really, he owes me that much.”
“He’s too weak to discuss anything like that.”
“But his doctor told me today that he should have his strength back in a couple of weeks. Is he comfortable at the Victoria Home?”
“He has had the best of everything.”
“Good. I insisted on that. The Frankfurt hospital is very good, but I knew that he’d be happier here — ah, the first bell already, and you’ve hardly touched your wine. Isn’t it all right?”
Natalie drank off her glass. “It’s very good.”
The torrent of brilliant music thereafter passed by Natalie like distant train noises. Fearful possibilities crowded on her, as the singers on the stage capered through their farcical disguises and misunderstandings. Once again, the worst possibility was proving the reality. The move to a hospital in Paris had not been innocuous. Dr. Beck had wanted to get them here, had bided his time, and had used the mischance of Aaron’s illness to do it, since more brutal tactics might have embarrassed him with the Swiss. And what now? Aaron would still balk at broadcasting; and even if he agreed, wouldn’t that only seal his fate and probably hers? Obviously he could repudiate the broadcasts as soon as he returned to the United States, and Dr. Beck was smart enough to know that. Therefore once the Germans had those recordings, they would hold on to Aaron in one way or another, and very likely to herself as well. Could the Swiss “protection” hold in such a case, considering their dubious status?
Yet what would happen if Aaron confronted Werner Beck with an outright refusal? In Follonica he had played out the procrastination game.
The trap, in fact, had sprung, or so it seemed to her. It was the most horrible imaginable sensation to be sitting there in the Paris Opera in a borrowed Worth original, with a thickly painted face, with a nervous stomach rebelling at the glass of wine she had gulped, beside a polite and intelligent man, a former Yale graduate student, in every nuance of word and manner a cultivated and civilized European, who nevertheless when it came right down to it was threatening her and her baby with a veiled hideous future. And this was not a preposterous dream from which she would wake up; it was reality.
“Perfectly charming,” said Dr. Beck, as the curtain descended to great applause, and the singers came out to bow. “And now for a bite of supper, eh?”
“I must get home to my baby, Dr. Beck.”
“You’ll be home very early, I promise you.”
He took her to a crowded dim restaurant nearby. Natalie had heard about it in the old days: far too expensive for student purses, requiring reservations a day in advance. Here the uniformed German customers were bald or grizzle-haired generals, and the Frenchmen tended to potbellies and naked pates. She recognized two politicians and a famous actor. Some of the women were gray and plump, but for the most part they were, once again, exquisite young Parisiennes, dressed to kill and bubbling with charm.
The very smell of food nauseated Natalie. Beck advised her to try the Loire salmon; this was the only place in Paris where one could get Loire salmon just now. She begged off, asking for an omelette, and when it came she ate only a fragment, while Beck devoured his salmon with serene appetite. Around them the Germans, the prosperous French insiders, and their women were eating duck, whole fresh fish, and roast meats, quaffing good wines, arguing, laughing, on top of the world. It was an incredible sight. Rationing was very severe in Paris. The papers were full of feature articles and sourly humorous pieces on the food shortage. At the convalescent home Aaron’s daily ration of custard, requiring an egg, was regarded as royal fare. But for enough influence or money, at least in this obscure oasis, Paris was still Paris.
Natalie drank a little white wine to quiet Beck’s urging. There was something so gross, she thought, about what he was doing; the swanky entertainment to soften her up, and the simultaneous harsh pressure of his demands, which he kept up over supper in wheedling tones. Even before the food came, he was at it again. When they had first turned up in Lourdes, he said, Gestapo headquarters in Paris had wanted to take them into custody at once, as Jewish fugitives from Italy with faked papers. Luckily, Ambassador Otto Abetz was a cultured and spiritual man. Thanks only to Dr. Abetz they had gone on to Baden-Baden. Dr. Abetz had read Dr. Jastrow’s broadcast scripts with tremendous enthusiasm. In Dr. Abetz’s view, the only way to achieve a positive outcome of the war now was for the Anglo-American allies to realize that Germany was fighting their fight, the fight of Western civilization, against brutish Slav imperialism. Anything that could promote understanding with the West was of huge importance to Ambassador Abetz.
That was the sugar. The pill came as they were eating. Beck let her have it casually, while smacking his lips over the salmon. The Gestapo pressure to arrest them had never ceased, he informed her. The Gestapo was exceedingly anxious to question them about their trip from Siena to Marseilles. Policemen, after all, had their job to do. Dr. Abetz had been shielding Dr. Jastrow thus far, said Beck, and if he withdrew his protection, the Gestapo would at once sweep them in. Beck could not be responsible for what happened after that, though he would be most enormously distressed. Swiss diplomatic protection, in such a case, would be like a straw fence against a fire. The Swiss had the whole record of their illegal escape from Italy. In view of Natalie’s and Dr. Jastrow’s clear criminal record the Swiss would be powerless. Dr. Otto Abetz was their shield and their hope.
“Well,” Dr. Beck said, turning off the motor as he parked outside her house, “I trust the evening proved not so bad, after all.”
“Thank you very much for the opera and the supper.”
“My pleasure. Despite all your vicissitudes, Mrs. Henry, I must say you look more lovely than ever.”
Good God, was he going to make a pass at her, too? She said hastily and coldly, “Every stitch I’m wearing is borrowed.”
“The comtesse?”
“Yes, the comtesse.”
“So I assumed. Dr. Abetz will be awaiting a report from me on our evening. What can I tell him?”
“Tell him I enjoyed The Marriage of Figaro.”
“That will charm him,” Beck said with his eye-shutting smil
e, “but he will be strongly interested in your position on the matter of the broadcasts.”
“It will be up to my uncle.”
“You yourself are not rejecting the idea out of hand?”
Natalie bitterly thought how much simpler it would be — however skin-crawling — if all he really wanted was to sleep with her.
“I don’t have much choice, do I?”
He nodded, a pleased look on his shadowy face. “Mrs. Henry, our evening has been well spent if you understand that. I would love to have a glimpse of your delightful boy, but I suppose he is asleep now.”
“Oh, for hours.”
After a long moment, during which Beck silently smiled at her, he got out and opened the door.
The flat was dark.
“Maman?” A wide-awake voice.
Natalie turned on a light. In a chair in the sitting room beside Louis’s cot, the old lady dozed under a blanket. Louis was sitting up, blinking and joyously smiling, though his face was tear-streaked. The light woke the old woman. She apologized for going to sleep and waddled out, yawning. Quickly Natalie rubbed off all the paint with a ragged towel, and scrubbed her face with soap. She came to Louis and hugged and kissed him. He clung to her.
“Louis, you must go to sleep now.”
“Oui, maman.” Since Corsica, she had been maman.
As he snuggled down under his blanket, she began to sing in Yiddish the lullaby that had become his bedtime ritual in Marseilles, and ever since:
Under Louis’s cradle
Lies a little white goat.
The little goat went into business,
That wûl be your career.
Raisins and almonds,
Sleep, little boy, sleep, dear.
Louis drowsily sang along, mangling the Yiddish in his babyish way.
Rozhinkes mit mandlen,
Shlof, mein ingele, shlof.
One glance at Natalie’s face next day told the comtesse that the opera evening had not been an unalloyed delight. She asked, as Natalie set down the two bags of clothing by the desk, how it had gone.
“All right. It was terribly generous of your cousin.”
With that, Natalie went silently to work on catalogue cards in her own tiny office. After a while the Comtesse de Chambrun came in and shut the door. “What’s up?” she twanged, sounding very little like a French noblewoman.
Turning haunted eyes on her, Natalie did not reply. In her fog of fear she hesitated to take any step, not knowing what pits surrounded her. Could she trust this collaborationist woman? That question, with others as hard, had kept her awake all night. The comtesse sat down on a small library stool. “Come on, we’re both Americans. Let’s hear.”
Natalie told the Comtesse de Chambrun the whole story. It took a long time. She was under such strain that twice she lost her voice, and had to drink water from a carafe. The comtesse listened wordlessly, eyes bright as a bird’s, and said when she finished, “You had better go back to Baden-Baden at once.”
“Back to Germany? How will that help?”
“Your best protection is the chargé d’affaires. Tuck’s a flaming New Dealer but he’s competent and tough. You have no advocate here. The Swiss can only go through the motions. Tuck will fight. He’s got the threat of the German internees in the U.S.A. You’re in a situation where once things happen, it’s too late to protest. Can your uncle travel?”
“If he must, he will.”
“Tell the Swiss you want to rejoin your group. Your uncle misses his fellow journalists. The Germans have no right to hold you here. Move quickly. Ask them to get in touch with Tuck right away, and to arrange your return to Baden-Baden. Or I will.”
“It’s risky to involve yourself, Comtesse.”
With a grim writhing smile of ribbon lips, the comtesse stood up. “Let us go and talk to the comte.”
Natalie went along. It was a plan; otherwise she was at the end of the road. The comtesse stopped at the hospital, and Natalie went on to the convalescent home. Aaron’s vitality was too low for a violent reaction to the news about Beck. He shook his head wearily and murmured, “Nemesis.” To the proposal that they return to Baden-Baden, he said he left it in Natalie’s hands; they must do whatever was best for herself and Louis. He felt strong enough for the journey, if that was the decision.
When Natalie rejoined the comtesse at the hospital, her husband had already talked to the Swiss minister, who had promised to get in touch with Tuck and arrange for the return to Baden-Baden, anticipating no difficulty.
Nor did there seem to be any. The Swiss legation telephoned Natalie next day at the library to say that everything was in order. The Germans had approved the return, the railroad tickets were in hand. Telephone communication with Tuck in Baden-Baden was limited, and had to be routed through the Berlin switchboard, but they expected to be able to notify him before Jastrow left Paris. That same afternoon the Swiss telephoned again: a snag. Ambassador Abetz was personally interested in the famous author, and was sending his own physician to examine Jastrow and certify his fitness for travel.
When she heard that, Natalie knew the game was lost. So it was. The Swiss legation reported the following day that the German doctor had declared Jastrow was in very poor condition and should not be moved for a month. Ambassador Abetz therefore felt he could not take the responsibility of permitting him to leave Paris.
* * *
Fortress Europe crumbles
(from “Hitler as Military Leader,” the epilogue to Land, Sea, and Air Operations of World War II, by General Armin von Roon)
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE:Armin von Roon’s epilogue gives a vivid picture of the Führer in action, especially as he was falling apart. In this reminiscence Roon is much harder on Hitler than in the operational analysis. His German editor notes that Roon drafted this memoir on his last sickbed, and did not revise it.
The memoir opens with these words:
For more than four years I observed Adolf Hitler at close hand in Supreme Headquarters. Keitel and Jodl, who had the same opportunity, were hanged by the Allies. Most of the generals who knew the Führer well were executed by him, or sickened and died from the strain, or fell on the battlefield. I have seen no military memoir which truly portrays him as a man. The books of Guderian and Manstein pass over his personal aspects in understandable silence.
In my military history I have acknowledged his adroitness and his inspiring force as a politician, and have cited his flare for strategic and tactical decision-making in war, especially involving surprise. I have indicated that at his peak he seemed to us the soul of Germany reborn. I have also suggested his serious failings as a supreme commander that led to catastrophe.
Personally, he more and more revealed himself in adversity as a low and ugly individual. In his behavior after the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt he showed his true colors. Nobody who sat beside him as I did, and saw him gloat and giggle and applaud at motion pictures of great German generals, my revered superiors and friends, strangling naked in nooses of piano wire, their eyes popping from their discolored faces, their purple tongues thrust out, blood, urine, and feces streaking down their jerking bodies, could thereafter feel anything for Adolf Hitler but distaste.
If Germany is ever to rise again, we must uproot the political and cultural weaknesses that led us to follow a man like this to defeat, disgrace, and partitioning. Hence I have written this unsparing personal description of the Führer as I saw him in his headquarters.
This is a far cry from Roon’s encomiums in the first volume of Land, Sea, and Air Operations; such as, “A romantic idealist, an inspiring leader dreaming grand dreams of new heights and depths of human possibilities, and at the same time an icy calculator with iron willpower, he was the soul of Germany.”
Roon seems to have decided to level about the Führer before he died. Or possibly he felt more kindly toward him in writing about the victorious years; then, as he worked through the second volume, the bitterness of collapse came back to min
d. At any rate, the epilogue is a warty picture of Hitler and a brisk recapitulation of the war. My translation of World Holocaust concludes with excerpts which sketch the war to the end.— V.H.
Tunis and Kursk
Hitler’s phantom “Fortress Europe,” a pure propaganda bluff, began to crumble visibly in July 1943, when the Red Army smashed our big summer offensive at Kursk, the Anglo-Americans landed in Sicily, and Mussolini fell.
These disasters stemmed straight from Hitler’s two most colossal and pigheaded blunders: Stalingrad and Tunis. When I returned from my inspection trip to Tunis I told Hitler that Rommel was right, that our successes against the green American soldiers at Kasserine Pass were ephemeral, that in the long run we couldn’t supply three hundred thousand Italian and German troops across a sea dominated by enemy navies. But Goring airily assured Hitler that Tunis was “just a hop” from Italy, and that the Luftwaffe would keep the armies supplied. Despite Göring’s abject failure to make good the identical boast at Stalingrad, Hitler accepted this and kept pouring troops into North Africa, when he should have been evacuating the ones who were there. Had he taken out all those troops to Italy as an operating reserve, they might well have pushed the Allies off Sicily, and kept Italy in the war. We never recovered in the south from the Tunis bloodletting.
The Kursk offensive was just as ill-advised. My son Helmut fell there on July 7 at the head of a tank battalion under Manstein. He was a studious gentle lad who perhaps would not have been a professional soldier if not for his father’s example. He died for Germany in the gigantic and futile operation called Citadel, the last gasp of German strategic initiative.