Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  “I met Charlot in Vichy just recently,” Lanny told the vegetable-oil man. “He is active in organizing the Légion Tricolore and seems very hopeful about it. He told me that Denis, fils, is in Algeria, and I have been meaning to look for him.”

  “He is here in the city,” volunteered the other, “but I have not seen him. It is rumored that he is a Gaullist.”

  “Mon Dicu!” exclaimed the American. “What a sorrow for the old man! How do you account for such a thing?”

  “De Gaulle is a fanatic, but he is also an exceedingly shrewd intriguer, and the broadcasts he is sending from Britain are well contrived to affect French youth. I fear they have done so even more than we realize. It is a calamity, because it can have no result other than a dreadful civil war.”

  “I will make it a point to see young Denis and try to influence him,” Lanny said. “I have known him since he was a boy, you know; his mother was my very dear friend.”

  The word amie can mean two kinds of friendship, and therefore offers a way of carrying delicate intimations; it left Lanny in the position of saying something and yet not quite saying it. When M. Lemaigre-Dubreuil replied: “So I have been told,” he, too, had said something and yet not quite said it.

  X

  In this conversation Lanny followed his practice of giving information in the hope of getting more. He knew that this able Frenchman would be watching every word that both of them spoke; he was not the one to give without getting, and he would not spend a couple of hours and the price of a lunch because of an American’s beaux yeux, nor yet because of his beaux arts. He wanted to know about that young giant of a country and what it was doing and planning. Lanny told him that this giant, who had so much more muscle than brain, was waking up and wiping the sleep from his eyes, but as yet hardly knew what he saw. There was much opposition to the war throughout America, but Lanny feared that this opposition would not be able to do much. He explained the unhappy position of his father, who was forced to turn out warplanes regardless of his own convictions. He had many friends in Germany and had done good business with General Göring; but now the government didn’t ask what he thought, they just ordered him to make fast fighters to kill German pilots, and if he should refuse to do it they would take his plant away from him.

  It had been the same way in France for many years, the host remarked; businessmen were the prey of military men and politicians, and the dream of M. Lemaigre-Dubreuil’s life was that there might some day be a government that was run by and for businessmen; indeed, that was why he had organized his Ligue des Contribuables—of which the last word means, literally, those who contribute. M. Huiles Lesieur said that all the contributing that was ever done anywhere in the world was done by the property owners, the taxpayers, and he and they were tired of it, and surely there must be many in the United States of America who were in the same frame of mind.

  Lanny was so sympathetic to this point of view and quoted his father so effectively that his host became confidential and said that the businessmen of both parts of France, fearing disturbances, were transferring funds to North African banks. Lanny said he had heard this in Vichy and wondered why the Germans allowed it. The reply was that there were many Germans, and their ideas and interests were not all the same. There, as in France, politicians wanted one thing and businessmen wanted another, and the latter had to pay, but they managed to get back still more. Businessmen knew that wars came and went, but business continued, and its interests were permanent. There were various kinds of business that were half-French, half-German, and the two halves found no pleasure in fighting each other.

  Lanny was here confronting that old situation which his father had explained to him as a small boy. The great cartels, in America called “trusts,” were international in ownership and operation, and so were the banks which co-operated with them. The Comité des Forges, a union of the steel and munitions makers of France, used ore from Lorraine, which was French, and coal from the Ruhr, which was German. The French and Germans who owned these vast interests wanted nothing but to make goods and sell them at prices which they fixed in secret with the steel makers of Britain and America. They didn’t want to fight each other, they wanted to save their own property from the general wreck. So the French chiefs of the Comité des Forges had got their German colleagues and associates to help them with the Nazi officials. They had let these officials into their companies, and thus obtained permission to ship their wealth to their banks in North Africa. Lanny heard about it from one source after another, and some said that ten billion francs had come to Algiers, and others said twenty billion, and all agreed that it was still coming.

  XI

  Why should a man of money like Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil have become confidential on a subject so delicate as this? Lanny could guess; and before the talk came to an end it was made plain to him. The vegetable-oil man was doing the same thing that Lanny did—telling secrets in the hope of getting more secrets. He had somehow got wind of the fact that the American Army might choose French North Africa as a safe pied-à-terre for its attack upon the soft underbelly of Europe, and it had occurred to him that the President of Budd-Erling Aircraft would be apt to know about this and might have dropped hints to his mysteriously traveling son. In short, M. Lemaigre-Dubreuil was “fishing,” and Lanny let him jiggle the bait for a long time before he approached it.

  Suddenly the Frenchman asked: “Do you know Mr. Robert Murphy?”

  This was not the first time the question had been asked of Lanny. The American diplomatic representative, whose title was “Counselor to the Embassy at Vichy stationed in Algiers,” was a much-sought-after person, and it would have been natural for an art expert to ask his advice. But Lanny had avoided doing so, because he wanted to feel out the situation for himself and without incurring obligation to any American. Now he answered cautiously that he thought he had met Mr. Murphy in Paris, where the latter had been Counselor to the Embassy before the war broke out; but he doubted if Mr. Murphy would remember him.

  “I, too, have known him from the Paris days,” said the man of great affairs. “Now he has become my very good friend. He is a charming person.”

  “So I have been told,” replied the P.A. “I gather that he has a rather thankless task with you.”

  “Oh, we get along perfectly. He is most considerate in the carrying out of his duties.”

  The special duty of the Counselor and his twelve vice-consuls was to see that the precious supplies which America allotted to French North Africa—such as oil and gasoline without which modern industry comes to a dead stop—were apportioned to the needs of the community and that none of these went to Germany. That would bring Mr. Murphy into conflict with just about everything that M. Lemaigre-Dubreuil wanted in North Africa or anywhere else. If they had become “very good friends,” that didn’t necessarily mean anything sinister, for a tactful Frenchman would say that in any case and try to pretend that it was so even though it was otherwise. In the same way it might be the Counselor’s role to pretend that it was so, even though it was otherwise. The State Department career man would be doing what Lanny was doing, trying to get as much as he could out of the vegetable-oil man at as low a price as possible. And he would be using the same means—that is, being “charming”!

  XII

  The time came when the host asked the direct question: “Do you think there is much chance of this province becoming a battleground?” A natural question, of course, and entirely innocent. If Lemaigre and his friends of the Comité des Forges were bringing their money into French North Africa, they would be concerned to know if it would be safe.

  Lanny’s smile had been prepared in advance. “If I had any idea that Algiers was going to be a battleground very soon, I surely wouldn’t be here looking for mosaics.” Then, lest this might seem like teasing, he added: “My own opinion would have no value, Monsieur; but my father meets people who are in a position to know, and he tells me that the decision has not yet been taken. There are
some who want to risk the chance of a landing in Normandy at once; there are others who think it will be at least a year before we are ready for such a venture. As you know, the Allies are under heavy pressure from the Russians to do something to draw the enemy away from the east.”

  “We hear much about that so-called ‘second front.’”

  “That clamor may compel the Americans to make some move this year. My father tells me he has heard the suggestion of Marseille and Toulon, of Genoa and Naples, of Salonika and the Dardanelles. There is a wide range of choice.”

  “Yes, M. Budd. But I have also heard mention of our own ports, all the way from this city to Dakar.”

  “It is easy to pick out places on a map,” commented the art expert, “but not so easy to estimate the military factors. One, I should guess, would be what resistance was to be expected, here and elsewhere.”

  It was the most delicate of hints, and a capitalist concerned with the manufacture of vegetable oils was free to take it or leave it. If you have ever watched ants, you have seen them rushing along an ant highway, and when one encounters another coming in the opposite direction they stop for a small fraction of a second and touch each other ever so lightly with their sensitive feelers; when they have made certain that it is a friendly ant and not an enemy, they both hurry on about their affairs, so urgently important to ants. This vegetable-oil ant appeared to be satisfied with what his feelers reported, for he chose to answer: “My friends and I discuss that subject frequently, as you can guess. Opinions differ as to what our policy should be; but this much is certain, the decision would depend in great part upon the nature of the force which attempted a landing. I have heard one of our generals say, and not entirely in jest: ‘If they come with one division, we should fire on them; if they come with twenty divisions, we should embrace them.’”

  Said Lanny: “On that point, Monsieur, my father’s informants are most positive. Wherever the Army comes, it will come with the full intention of staying. You should make your plans upon that basis.”

  6

  A Tangled Web We Weave

  I

  The vegetable-oil magnate recommended an assistant to the art expert: an educated Arab, middle-aged and substantial, who had served as steward to a wealthy French lady recently deceased. His name was Hajek, and he spoke reasonably good French. Lanny could suppose that M. Lemaigre-Dubreuil had dropped him a hint that he might watch this plausible American and report on what he was up to; but Lanny didn’t mind that, for he was really going to find some mosaics and have them shipped, and if this white-robed and black-bearded half-servant, half-scholar was any good at all, Lanny would keep him busy. The visitor was careful never to talk politics, but he acquired a mass of information on such subjects as the practice of the Mohammedan religion, the various tribes which inhabited North Africa, and their ways of life and history.

  All subject races have their underground means of communication, and word spread with surprising rapidity that there was an eccentric American desiring to buy mosaics, wall fountains, and possibly a doorway or two, for transportation across the sea. It was Hajek’s duty to interview all callers, and if what they had sounded promising, to make an inspection and report. Should the report sound good, the American lord—so they were calling him in Arabic, as not long ago they had been calling him in Chinese—would hire a conveyance and be driven through the streets of Algiers, which climb the hills in zigzag ramps, and sometimes have a step every few feet, so that only a donkey can make it.

  Visiting the Casbah, the vile and filthy native quarter, Lanny was led to an old house which had once been the home of a merchant and now served as lodgings for a score of squalid families. There he found an inner courtyard with a fountain, now used to store junk. On all four sides of the fountain were floors, and when they were cleared of trash and scrubbed, Lanny discovered beautiful iridescent tiles. He had studied enough designs to know what was representative, and he had known good coloring most of his life.

  Hajek undertook to find out the price at which these items could be bought. The owner, an Arab, of course decided that he had the world’s greatest art treasure, and his price was a quarter of a million francs. Lanny knew about Mediterranean bargaining and took it as a safe rule that the asking price was six times the real price, and for an American even higher. He left the matter to Hajek, who took delight in it, and in the coffee drinking which was part of the ceremony. In the final settlement he would get a rake-off, called dasturi; it was the custom, and worth while to an American lord whose time was precious and would not let the sordid details of business interfere too greatly with his pleasures.

  The one essential to the bargaining process is that there must be no hurrying. Arabs have a great sense of dignity and are extraordinary conversationalists. They take the same interest in a financial deal that Americans take in a baseball game, and if it is a really big deal, it is like the World Series. The wretched tenants in this decayed mansion knew what was going on and asked eagerly for the score; every gain for their side, the Arab side, was received with pleasure, and every loss with sorrow. All sympathized with the landlord, who lay awake at night in an agony of fear lest the American lord should make some other purchase and depart. The lord encouraged this idea by finding other mosaics which were as good or better.

  The news about the battle spread through the bazaars, and it became a betting game—the natives are great gamblers. These negotiations and others went on for two or three weeks, and Lanny carried a notebook with memoranda containing names and addresses, details about the works offered, and the prices with the date of offering; the last was important, for you must know how long to wait before a reduced offer is to be expected. All this must have been convincing to anyone having suspicions as to the good faith of a visiting art expert. Lanny wanted it that way and helped to spread the news by telling his French and American acquaintances funny stories about the difficulties he was having. They all assured him that it was quite in order.

  II

  There came word of treasures to be uncovered in the old city of Constantine, three or four hundred miles to the east; so Lanny engaged accommodations for himself and his assistant on the fearfully over-crowded and always late French railroad. He took the day train because he wanted to observe the scenery and the people in the interior of the country, which he had never visited. The road ascends along the slopes of the snow-covered Djurdjura Mountains, which form a distant background to the landscape of Algiers. The mountains are brown or gray against a deep blue sky; big trees line the roads, and on isolated points here and there are perched tiny villages of the Kabyles. Everything in this country tells of centuries of invasion and plunder, and the peoples sought safety in the most inaccessible places.

  It is this which had determined the building of the city, one of the strangest a world traveler had seen. It stands on a rocky plateau, surrounded by a chasm of something like a thousand feet, through which flows a roaring river; the plateau is four-sided, something more than half a mile on each side, and there is only a narrow isthmus connecting it with the surrounding land. The rocks are red. Maupassant had compared the river and its gorge to a dream of Dante. A city with only one gate, it is said to have withstood eighty sieges. Hajek, proud of himself as an historian, assured his employer that during the first thirty years of the preceding century no fewer than twenty Beys, or rulers of the city, had died by poison, the bowstring, or the sword.

  In this small space, less than half a square mile, are crowded a European, an Arab, and a Jewish quarter. Marble of the ancient Roman city had been used for modern buildings, and the white city on red rocks appeared most impressive, until you were inside and investigated its narrow stone-lined alleys filled with men, donkeys, camels, and the filth of all three. The Arabs wore their dirty white robes, as everywhere, and when nature called they just squatted in the street. The Jewish women dressed in bright colors and wore tiny red felt hats, and heavy jewelry, broad bracelets of gold and silver and heavy rings in
the lobes of their ears. The war had brought prosperity to all lands to which it had not yet come; and around Constantine were the broad plains which had been wheatfields for at least two thousand years. This part of North Africa had been one of the granaries of the ancient Roman Empire.

  Ruins were everywhere in this countryside. Through the centuries they had been plundered to build peasant huts and storehouses. Lanny was shown a few stones which marked where a villa had once stood. He took a chance and offered the peasant owner of the land ten thousand francs for the privilege of digging and taking away whatever he might find. Hajek brought workmen from the city, a donkey train of them, one of the most comical spectacles the art expert had ever beheld. The donkeys were the smallest ever, and each had apparently been conditioned to traveling only in response to a tattoo of strokes from the rider’s slipper-clad heels. Each rider sat on the rump of his beast, and in front were strapped saddlebags or baskets. Lanny discovered what these were for—when the work was done the worker would use his wages to buy produce and carry it to town.

  A couple of days’ digging sufficed to uncover a tessellated floor with a fine representation of the huntress Diana. Lanny stayed right there and saw it taken up piece by piece. With a borrowed camera he took pictures at the start, so it wasn’t necessary to mark each piece; but each had to be wrapped in cloth, and the packing boxes had to be small, and then half a dozen of them packed in larger boxes. This was a lot of work, and his commission would hardly pay for the time; but it was a novelty, and he learned a lot about Arabs which would be useful to him later on. Always he had in mind that the American Army was coming and would want every scrap of information. Here, as everywhere in wartime, goods were more precious than money, and G.I.’s exchanging trinkets for fresh eggs would owe thanks to the son of Budd-Erling without having any idea of it.