by Susan Isaacs
“For Christ’s sake,” George Grunwald cut in. “Poland! Poland was born to be invaded. To compare it with France is to…is to be taken in by the Anglo lobby. I hate to say it, Jim, but you are the perfect dupe for the Democratic-British-Jewish propaganda machine. You’re just the sort of stooge they’re looking for, the gullible American willing to sell short his own country so that—”
“Ram it, Grunwald.”
“You ram it.”
“Do you honestly believe we’re not in jeopardy?”
“I know we’re not. The only thing we have to fear—to paraphrase that man—is our own stupidity.”
“Then you’re a bigger ass than I suspected.”
“If that’s your attitude, Cobleigh—”
“What’s wrong with Jim? Why is he so damned emotional?” Peter Wooster whispered.
Dick Halloran shrugged. “Can’t understand what’s bothering him. For God’s sake, we all know there’s a war and that it’s serious, but it’s pointless to take it personally.”
“Tell me what happened today at the office,” Win said. She sat curled up in a big club chair, her hands resting on her flat but pregnant belly. Once in a while she’d stroke it, as though it were a kitten resting on her lap.
“Nothing terribly exciting. René Thibaut from the French-American Steamship Line is in town, and I’ve been assigned to calm him down, but that’s nearly impossible. Well, at least he’s crazy for a reason.”
“What’s his reason?”
“He’s afraid Germany may invade France.”
“Oh, of course. James, you don’t have to squeeze your eyes together and glare at me. There could be another reason why a man becomes upset. His wife could be sick or his children doing poorly in school or maybe his business is in trouble.”
“That’s true. Sorry. We had that associates’ lunch today, and I almost bit off George Grunwald’s head. He’s such a fool. And the rest of them. I just don’t understand them. Why am I the only one who feels this way?”
“What way?”
“Well, we were discussing the Maginot Line—”
“Oh, I read about it the other day, although I must say it’s all very depressing. If you weren’t so terribly wrapped up in it, I’d skip the front page entirely. It doesn’t seem real, all those tiny countries falling. I wake up and turn on the radio and it’s goodbye Latvia or Bohemia or Budapest or some such place. I know it’s a dreadful situation, but the real reason it upsets me is that I know it upsets you. You’re taking it so to heart, James. I mean, we’re all on the same side, aren’t we? No one really likes the Germans. They’re so—I don’t know—so lumpy. Mama’s friend Nellie Weldon married a German count or baron, and Mama says he looks like a troll and has the ugliest castle and he’s so tightfisted he won’t allow Nellie to fix it up and she wouldn’t be surprised if Nellie leaves him and comes home. It is a third marriage, you know. Oh well, this Maginot Line will keep them out of France. Did Monsieur Thibaut talk about it?”
“No.”
“James, why are you so abrupt?”
“I am not abrupt.”
“You are so. Just because I don’t want to spend the evening poring over maps of Europe doesn’t mean I’m worthless.”
“I did not say you were worthless, Win.”
“But you get so—so piqued with me whenever I don’t want to spend an entire evening discussing Winston Churchill. It’s war, war, war all the time, and then you expect—”
“Expect what?”
“I don’t know. I forget what I was going to say.”
“You were saying all I do is talk about war and then I expect—something. What do I expect?”
“You expect me to get into bed and laugh and be gay after an entire evening analyzing the war. I know I’m not as clever as you are, James, but I never felt it mattered until now.”
“Win, please. You’re very clever.”
“No, I’m not. I can’t even find the Netherlands on the map. But you never cared about that, and all of a sudden you are so angry with me for not being smart about troop movements and Maginot Lines.”
James walked to Win’s chair, pulled her out of it, sat, and then drew her onto his lap. His arms went around her and he rubbed the back of her neck and her back. “You’re very smart, Win. Really you are. Now tell me, what do you want to talk about? Anything you want.”
“I just want to know about you. Tell me about your day with Monsieur Thibaut.” Her eyes closed as he massaged her back. She nestled her head on his shoulder. “That feels so soothing. Tell me things. How is your French coming along? I think your accent sounds perfectly splendid, although languages were never my strong suit. Can you actually carry on an entire business conversation with Monsieur Thibaut?”
“I manage.”
“Hmm? Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I said, I’m doing fairly well, although Thibaut insists I sound like a Provençal fisherman who studied diction with a Parisian shopgirl—not the sort of accent one expects from an American. He did say that for someone who had never been to France and who had only studied French in college, I speak passably well. What he actually said was that I didn’t befoul the language, but he intended it as a compliment.”
“That’s marvelous. I can barely read a menu, and if I say anything it has to be in the present tense. Oh, well, maybe when all this nastiness is over we can spend some time abroad. You know, Mama was telling me she ordered all my baby things from France. All those dear little dresses with the tucking. It’s too bad things are so awful there. Well, we still have my christening gown to use. I saw it the other day when I had lunch with Mama. It’s a bit yellowed, but it really looks fine. Such beautiful detail on it. Oh, James, I don’t think I can bear waiting six months more for Baby to be born. It’s just the most exciting thing in the world.” A sudden flush spilled across Win’s face. “Except for you.”
“Come,” James said. “Let’s go inside.”
“You don’t want to talk any more?” she asked.
“No. We’ve talked enough.”
“Jesus, Jesus, help me. Oh, it’s so bad. Oh, please.”
“Shhh,” said the labor room nurse.
“No. I can’t any more. I can’t take—Give me something. Please. Some medicine for the pain.”
“Come on now, Winnie. That’s your name, isn’t it, Winnie? Be a big, brave girl and Dr. Ward will be here in just a minute. Come on now. Screaming doesn’t help. It just makes things worse.”
The only other man in the fathers’ waiting room at Lying-In Hospital had rushed out two hours earlier after learning his wife had a baby girl. “Good luck to you, bud,” he called to James as he went through the door, although the two had not exchanged a word in the three hours they had spent together.
James picked up the Times the man had left. July 2, 1940. The paper was soft from folding and unfolding, the ink smeared by the man’s sweaty hands. The headline was about the invasion of Rumania. The sub-headline read: Reich Prestige Up. He closed his eyes, then opened them to an adjacent article:
Striking with increasing boldness, German bombers yesterday carried out their first daylight raids over Britain since the western offensive began….
“Mr. Cobleigh. Mr. Cobleigh,” a nurse called from a doorway. She came up to James’s chair and stood before him. “No. Not yet. Dr. Ward just said to say that Mrs. Cobleigh’s headed for the delivery room now. Something should happen in—oh, the next half hour or so. I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s quite a day, isn’t it? By this time tomorrow, you’ll have some sweet little thing to call you Daddy. Can you believe it? Quite a day.”
Another headline, lower on the page, read: Nazi Forces Take the Channel Isles. The article reported that Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark were lost and that, by taking them, the Germans had established a position on British soil.
“Give her a little more,” the obstetrician said to the anesthesiologist. “Be over in a
minute. No problem. She’s got the pelvis of an elephant.”
He read that former French premier Paul Reynaud was not the victim of an auto accident, as had been reported, but had been “‘taken for a ride’ by the Gestapo to prevent his flight to Morocco to form an anti-Nazi government.”
“Here it comes,” Dr. Ward announced.
Reich Sees Alarm in Britain Growing, he read. He covered his face with his hands. Later, when the nurse tapped his shoulder, he removed them. Gray smudges from the newsprint dotted his forehead and cheeks.
“Congratulations,” she cooed.
“What?”
“It’s a boy!”
“Nicholas,” she said. “It’s so manly, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve gone through hundreds of names and always come back to Nicholas. I’ve always been mad for the name. Unless you want to name him for your father.”
“No, Win. Nicholas is fine.”
“No James Junior?”
“No. One is enough.”
“Isn’t he beautiful, James? With that teeny button nose?”
“He’s very beautiful.” He took her hand to his lips and kissed it. In the bright light of the hospital room, her freckles had a yellow cast. “Like you.”
“Oh, James, no. He’s handsome. He has your looks. And your brains. Look at his sweet forehead. All those important thoughts going on behind it, just like his father. Oh, James, isn’t this the happiest time ever?”
On the third weekend in October, 1940, they left Nicholas and his nanny with the Tuttles and drove through the autumn blaze of color to a small cabin on a two-hundred-acre preserve in the Berkshires they had bought with Win’s inheritance from a great-aunt. “Are you sure you won’t join me?” Win asked. She stuffed her corduroy trousers into her high-topped shoes and double-knotted the laces.
“No. I have some reading.”
“Oh, James. This was to be a second honeymoon. You promised. Long walks in the forest and stargazing and chopping wood and drinking gallons of cider. And you haven’t even looked out the window.”
“Stop it, Win.”
“Well, you haven’t.” She threw a thick wool vest over her flannel shirt. “Tell me. What color are the leaves on the tree right outside the front door?”
“I don’t know. Red.”
“They happen to be yellow.”
“Enough, Win.”
“You’re so wrapped up in newspapers and magazines and all those dreary reports from your war lobbyist friends.”
“Leave me alone.
“It’s true.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I do. This is the most beautiful time of the year and here we are alone in this darling cabin and you don’t even know the color—”
“I saw five million goddamn trees driving up here. They were beautiful. I said they were beautiful. What more do you want, Win?”
“I just want to have fun. I don’t want to hear about Nazis all the time. I don’t want to hear that Western civilization is doomed unless we go to war. This—this thing has nothing to do with us. We’re thousands of miles away. Why can’t you stop thinking about it every minute?”
“I don’t think about it every minute.”
“You do. And every time I want to do something exciting—buy a horse or visit Prissy and Glenn in St. Croix—you look down your nose at me.”
“All I’m saying is that there is more to life than inspecting the stables in Central Park to see if they’re luxurious enough for some damned horse.”
“If you rode you’d understand.”
“If I rode I’d still find the time to take a look at the world I’m living in. And I’d still realize that if something doesn’t happen fast, all that will be left of England is that stupid Hepplewhite chest you had to run out and buy.”
“We can afford it, James.”
“That’s not the point, damn it!”
“You think I’m frivolous. Go ahead. Say it. Say, ‘Win, you only think of silly things while I think deep and important thoughts.’”
“Leave me alone.”
“The only time you take me seriously is in the bedroom. It’s true. Whenever you come home from the office and I dare start to tell you about buying a rug or Nicholas’s tooth starting to come in, you can barely stifle a yawn. You can’t wait to get to your study and plow through that briefcase full of boring papers until midnight, and then you expect me—”
“Go take your walk, Winifred.”
“James—”
“Do me a favor. Get the hell out of here.”
Nicholas began walking a week before his first birthday and by the day of his party, dressed in navy shorts and a sailor’s middy blouse, was tottering about the living room, now and then stepping on his own foot or tripping over a toy truck and flopping to the floor. But he got up immediately and, gnawing away simultaneously on his red tie and his thumb, went from grandparent to grandparent, from chair to piano to table.
“Good lord,” breathed Samuel. “When does he stop?”
“When we’re so exhausted we don’t care any more,” Maisie said. “Now come here, Nicholas. That’s my big boy. Good. Climb right up here and destroy Grandma’s stockings. That’s my sweet boy. Oh, Win, he’s so precious. Tiny nosey-nosey. And that hair!”
“Just like James’s.”
“Well, not exactly. I mean, there’s a definite red Tuttle tinge to it. I’m sure James will allow us that. Now, Nicholas, let Grandma help you down. That’s my boy. When is James coming?”
“He said he’d take the noon train from Washington. But he said to go ahead with the cake without him.”
“He’s certainly busy these days,” Maisie observed.
“Yes,” Win said. “No, no, no, Nicholas. Don’t put the ashtray in your mouth. No. Dirty. Good boy.”
“Winifred, you really must find a decent nanny. This Miss Horrible with the walleyes isn’t teaching him a thing.”
“It’s difficult, with the war in England. The man at the agency told me he’s at his wits’ end. Can’t bring anyone over here.”
“You’d think they’d be grateful to get away from the bombs.”
“Maisie,” Samuel interjected. “There are higher priorities than nannies. Win and Nanny Whatever are doing admirably. Now, Win, what business does James have in Washington?”
“I’m not sure, Papa. But he was supposed to meet Mr. Donovan yesterday. He’s very—um, concerned about the world situation. He wants to do something.”
“Do what, Winifred?” her father asked gently.
“I’m not certain, Papa. He really hasn’t told me. But he’s taking all this—all the world problems—very much to heart.”
“Well, the problems are serious, Win.”
“I know. But serious enough to miss his son’s first birthday?”
On July 11, 1941, nine days after Nicholas Cobleigh’s first birthday, President Roosevelt appointed a Wall Street lawyer, William Donovan, director of an agency called the Coordinator of Information. The agency was to “collect and analyze all information and data which may bear upon national security.” Donovan sought recruits. Although America was not at war, he knew war was coming and he had some odd jobs he wanted done. He wanted young men of intellect, honor, valor, and ingenuity, men of his own kind. So with the help of his friends, he sought them in the one place he was convinced he would find them, his own turf: the largely white Anglo-Saxon enclaves of eastern law firms, universities, and banks. In other words, the COI (which evolved into the OSS, which evolved into the CIA) began as a nest of Ivy League spies. And James Cobleigh was one of them.
“Of course I’m not a spy,” James said.
“But James, Papa said that Colonel Donovan—”
“Win, all I’m doing—Nicky, no. Stop that. Don’t let the dog kiss your mouth. All I am doing is managing a few things for Bill Donovan. My French isn’t bad, and I’m speaking to one or two fellows who know what the situation is in France.”
“You’re
not getting involved with secret agents?”
“Secret agents? Win, I’m an ordinary Wall Street lawyer. I toil in the fields of Ivers and Hood and—Come on, Nicky, don’t let Buster lick you like that. That’s my big fella.”
“Then why can’t you tell me where you’re going? You never want to talk to me any more.”
“I can’t tell you where I’m going because it’s secret. Believe me, it will be a quick trip, but it’s important. If there were a choice, do you think I’d willingly leave you and Nick?”
“I just don’t understand why you have to go.”
“Do we have to go through this again? I’m going because it’s important—vital—that I gather certain information.”
“You don’t have to. Someone else could go who doesn’t have a wife and—”
“I want to go. Now, don’t start crying. It’s not fair to me. I’ll be back before you know it. Before you have a chance to realize how much fun it is having me out of your hair.”
“James, you know I can’t enjoy myself if you’re away.”
He took a deep, long breath before he spoke. “I know, Win.”
They sent him to England. From there, along with a member of de Gaulle’s secret-service-in-exile, the BCRA, James—whose only time at sea had been afternoon jaunts on Long Island Sound with an Ivers and Hood colleague—crossed the English Channel. He traveled in an X23, a British submarine only fifty-seven feet long. He was barely aboard when a crew member put a waxed bag into his hand. “For vomit,” the man said cheerfully.
James and his escort were dropped at a fishing village in the department of Pas-de-Calais. They spent two weeks with three of the leaders of the French Resistance movement. The youngest of them had been an assistant professor of classical languages before the German invasion. Her name was Denise Levesque and she was slightly overweight, with lank, mouse-brown hair and large-pored skin. Frenchwomen have a reputation for chic, and even the plainest of them is supposed to carry herself with the élan of a favored courtesan. But Denise proved stereotypes were nonsense. She was simply plain. However, she was very smart.