“Do you want me to leave?”
“No, Jimmy,” she said, disappearing through the doorway. “I don’t want you to leave.”
He wondered what she did want, and what he really wanted. His greatest desire, much as he had any, was to be off this damned boat and in New York. He had an urge to give birth, as a long-pregnant woman longed to give birth—to be in the New York bureau of the Press-Bulletin and writing and filing this long, sordid, tragic, magnificent newspaper story that would change his life.
He listened to her brushing her teeth as she ran water into the bath. It would be nice to be clean again, utterly clean everywhere, to have skin as fresh as flowers, hair soft and cleansed of brine, a mouth sweet.
But instead of returning to his own stateroom to accomplish this sublimely imperative task, he remained where he was as she had asked. He tried rewriting the story in his mind again, tried thinking of the perfect lead. But nothing useful came. There could no lead until the story had an end, until the voyage was over.
Nora finally emerged, wrapped in a thick terry-cloth robe, drying her hair with a large towel. Some color had returned to her face and her eyes seemed less haggard.
“Now you, Jimmy. Go in there and take yourself a long, hot bath.”
“But I need to shave, and …”
She seemed puzzled by his reluctance. “There’s a razor in there. And shaving cream and extra toothbrushes and everything you need. There’s even a rose in a vase above the toilet. This a first-class suite, Jimmy. Indulge yourself.”
He fell asleep in the tub, but she did not disturb him. When he awoke some minutes later, sensitive to the cooling of the water, he finished his ablution quickly. When he had at last completed his metamorphosis into a civilized man, he looked down with repugnance at the pile of soiled clothes he had left on the floor—the absurd, salt-stained Legionnaire’s uniform. He had no wish even to touch it.
Wrapping a large towel around him, he stepped barefoot across the soft carpeting and into the sitting room.
Nora was on the divan. She had brushed out her hair and, he noticed, had consumed most of the brandy and water he had poured for her. Her cheeks were quite flushed. The front of her robe had fallen open slightly, revealing much of her breasts.
“I’ll get a steward to bring me some clean clothes from my cabin,” he said. “And take away my costume. I think I’ll have him throw it over the side.”
“No, Jimmy. Don’t call a steward.” Putting the drink aside, she gracefully got to her feet and took a step toward him. The robe came completely open, and Spencer felt a stronger temptation than he could ever remember.
Nora held his eyes with hers and then, with the barest movement, slipped the garment off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She struck an artist’s model’s pose, a statue for a garden fountain. Her body was as flawlessly beautiful as her face.
Glancing down at the front of his towel, she smiled almost innocently, blushing, then slowly came toward him, pulling the towel from his waist.
“I’m twenty-eight years old,” she said, “and I have made love just four times. Never once was it really love. I thought the first time it might be, but afterward it wasn’t.”
She lifted his arms around her waist and then slid hers up the muscles of his back, pulling him close.
“Now it’s going to be for love,” she said. “It’s more than time.”
The prince’s suite was filled with chatter. Their costumes notwithstanding, they all might have been on a country weekend at Edward’s Fort Belvedere retreat outside London. The prince’s valet had been banned to the lower decks for his treachery in making reports to Buckingham Palace, so an East Indian steward had been brought in to serve cocktails and keep the gramophone going.
Edward seemed almost joyful, a small boy who had beaten every opponent at some game.
“We’ve come through riots and now we’ve come through this,” he said. “Well played all. The English kings are indestructible, what?”
“At least since Charles I,” said Duff, but regretted the remark, which was as untoward as Edward’s presumption of kingship while his father lay ill.
In the uncomfortable moment that followed, Diana rode up in rescue.
“You were superb, sir,” she said. “An example to us all. I shall remember forever your reminding us to be British with that hellish storm breaking all around us.”
“Hear, hear,” said Chips.
The prince beamed. “Tonight we must have a party, in celebration of our saga and its triumphant conclusion.” He stuck a cigarette in his mouth as Chips leaned to light it for him.
“Sir,” said Lord Brownlow. “I’m not sure how many aboard are in the partying mood. There’s been some loss of life, and people are still in shock.”
“I mean a small party,” Edward said, the cigarette still in his mouth and tilted at a raffish angle. “Just those who were aboard our motorboat.”
“David,” said Metcalfe. “Not everyone’s up to it. Certainly not Mrs. Parker or Count von Kresse.”
“Just us then,” the prince said, still cheerful. “Please. I just want a bit of fun.”
The door opened, as Inspector Runcie admitted a sleepy-looking Lord Mountbatten. Behind him stood Kees.
“Sorry to disturb you, David,” Lord Louis said to his cousin. He looked over at Metcalfe. “This officer would like to speak to us in private, Fruity. I rather think it’s important.”
“Very well,” said the major, rising, knowing exactly what the subject of their discussion would be. “When I get back, sir, we ought to talk a bit about making arrangements for a return to England. This ship won’t be making another crossing for a bit.”
“Oh, Fruity. Not now. Please.”
“Very well, sir. But soon.”
“Fruity’s gotten so dreadfully serious of late,” Edward said, when the major had gone. “All right. Who’s for another drink? Here’s luck. Chin chin.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Lady Diana, rising with a slight curtsy. “But I for one need to change out of this costume. I never thought the day would come, but I must say I’m tired of being a goddess.”
There was laughter and then the startling sound of a door being slammed back against a wall. In the doorway to her bedroom stood Wallis, wearing a shimmering long blue dressing gown and for some reason clutching loops of diamond jewelry in each hand. Diana guessed she’d been taking inventory of her collection, making certain no piece had been lost. The prince had given her a hideous diamond-encrusted flamingo that certainly deserved to have been lost.
“Will you all shut up!” Wallis bellowed, her Southern accent briefly disappearing. “Will you all go!”
No one spoke. Quietly they left their chairs and began to file out the door.
“Wallis,” said the prince. “These are our friends.”
“I can’t sleep! I can’t think! Damn it, why must I be abused this way!”
He turned away, his eyes almost tearful. The steward left his station at the bar and hurried out the door after the others.
Wallis went back to her bedchamber, slamming the door again as she closed it. Her thin chest still heaving in anger, she looked down at the array of sparkling jewelry spread out on the counterpane. She realized suddenly she had made a serious mistake.
She found the prince in the sitting room’s largest chair, drinking, and pouting. Wallis leaned and kissed his forehead.
“A girl is sorry,” she said. “She loves a boy very much. A girl has just been through a lot.”
His blue eyes turned upward, uncertain but less unhappy.
“Come with me, darling,” Wallis said. “I think this is a very good time for a girl to make a boy very, very happy.”
He followed her docilely into his bedroom and stood contentedly as she removed his Roman soldier’s costume and set him back gently on the bed, easing him further back onto the coverlet. Thelma Furness and others of the prince’s previous ladies had failed him sexually because they had misunderstood his need
s. They had thought of his inclinations in the most conventional of terms, not minding their own lack of satisfaction but presuming he would achieve his own by exerting at least some effort, however briefly. What Wallis had quickly come to realize was that this was a man whose desires could be fulfilled only when he was completely passive. His satisfaction had to come entirely through the efforts of his partner.
Removing her gown—he did appreciate that, at least—she once again employed the curious skills she had learned long ago as a spectator in the singsong houses of China. To Wallis, sex had long been a matter of doing what she felt she had to do. It was like her life.
Spencer and Nora awoke to a soft darkness. A glint of moonlight was coming through the porthole. He leaned over her and felt her reach with the back of her hand to stroke his chest.
“Bonsoir, mademoiselle.”
“Bonsoir, monsieur.”
“Tu es heureuse?”
“Heureuse?”
“Are you happy?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Very.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Won’t say.”
“Are you thinking about the names of our children?”
“Oh, no. Not that.”
“Or what we’ll do when we get to New York?”
“No. Nothing so far in the future. I’m not even thinking about tomorrow, or the next hour. I’m thinking about love, about being in love.”
“And?”
“It’s so much different than I thought.”
“Oh, dear.”
“No, it’s much more wonderful.” She lifted herself on her elbow and pulled his head down to kiss him.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, after. “Should we get something to eat?”
“No, I don’t want something to eat.”
“Would you like another drink?”
“No, no. And not you either.”
“Well, what would you like?”
“What I’d like I don’t think I can have for a while, but let’s try.”
As they lay back again against the pillows, they could hear the ship’s engines and the sound of the sea wind. It was wonderfully comforting.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dr. Goebbels’s gala party for two thousand was held at Berlin’s Schloss Charlottenburg, an imposing ancient fortress situated between Spandauerdamm and a wide sweeping curve of the Spree River. The occasion was the first screening of Leni Riefenstahl’s breathtaking motion picture rendering of that year’s historic Nuremberg Rally, Triumph des Willens, subtitled for the English diplomatic guests at the gathering as The Triumph of Will. It was easily the most awesomely powerful propaganda film that had ever been made or ever would be, surpassing her own Nazi apologia Reichsparteitag released a few months earlier and making Goebbels’s own efforts at cinema look like newsreels or home movies.
A film crew of more than one hundred had worked on the Nuremburg project, including thirty-two cameramen and camera assistants operating thirty-six different cameras and employing hundreds of enormous spotlights. It was a massive work that used heroic Teutonic imagery to subordinate the individual into the mass and glorify the authority such a mass represented. She had borrowed from both the stark, dramatic techniques of the German film pioneers of the 1920s and the grand stagecraft of Wagnerian opera. Though few in Berlin had seen it, Triumph des Willens was considered certain to win a gold medal at the next Venice Film Festival.
Without any doubt, it would establish Fräulein Riefenstahl as the Reich’s preeminent film maker. Hitler had appointed her the film chief of the party shortly after coming to power in 1933, but the hierarchy had accorded her only that respect due a useful creative talent and minor party functionary. After Triumph, she would enjoy a prominence, prestige, and inviolability on a level with that of the Führer and his chief lieutenants.
Goebbels was proud rather than envious. He was too smart to be otherwise. She had made it clear publicly and privately that she remained his protégée and had evidenced no other interest than in serving Hitler and the Reich. Certainly she made Goebbels’s work enormously easier.
Fräulein Riefenstahl, after the Führer, was the guest of honor. Neither, of course, had yet arrived. Both electrifying entrances would wait until the rest of the two thousand were in place.
A continuous parade of automobiles and motorcycles roared and rumbled into the long driveway leading to the Schloss, the debarkation process much less efficient than should otherwise have been the case because so many of the arriving personages traveled in huge motorcades. Goering had deliberately planned on arriving late and was pleased to encounter further delay at the entrance. When at last he and Emmy pulled up before the great castle gate, he emerged from his limousine dressed in his grandest uniform ever. Though his promotion to colonel general of the Luftwaffe had not yet been proclaimed officially, he had decked himself out in appropriate plumage. His blue-green Luftwaffe tunic was adorned with Prussian blue, gold, and crimson facings, and his breeches were striped along the sides with the same colors. In addition to the standard general’s oak-leaf collar and gold cap insignia, he was draped with so much gold cord he seemed encased in ship’s rigging. At his throat he wore his World War I Pour le Mérite medal, and over his shoulders a long, flowing cape lined in white. All he needed to complete the ensemble was a marshal’s baton, and he supposed that would come soon enough.
With the statuesque Emmy following like an ocean liner under tow, he ascended the steps as grandly as his bulk would allow, carrying himself almost as if he and not the drab Führer were the master of the Reich. That would never be unless the Führer were to perish, but in that unhappy event Goering would make certain the crown would go to no lesser personage than himself. He had been wounded at Munich, after all. Not even Hess could boast that.
They swept inside, greeted effusively as they made their interior progress by swarming sycophants, subordinates, bootlicks, and influence seekers. Goering left Emmy among them, admonishing her to ignore any chance remarks or overheard jokes, and sought a waiter and refreshment. To his disgust, he discovered that Himmler had not yet made his appearance. The chicken farmer had likely arranged to arrive just before Hitler.
Admiral Canaris was there, however. He had noticed Goering’s triumphal progress into the castle hall and now discreetly made his way toward him. His admiral’s uniform was nearly as grand as Goering’s, though strictly regulation.
“I have news,” he said, suavely lifting a glass of champagne from a passing tray.
“You always have news, Wilhelm. That is why you are such a cherished servant of the Reich.”
Canaris stood sipping his wine, watching a tall blond woman sweep by on the arm of an S.S. colonel.
“Wilhelm! What is it?”
The admiral turned back toward Goering with a clever smile. “Why, it’s good news, Hermann. The Dutch liner Wilhelmina did not go down. She is proceeding to New York under her own power with nearly the full complement of passengers, officers, and crew aboard.”
“The word ‘nearly’ means what, Admiral?”
“Unfortunately, there were some fatalities, two of them German.”
“The von Kresses?”
“One of them a von Kresse. Your beautiful protégée, the countess. She has apparently drowned.”
“And the other?”
“I believe it was the mysterious, or not so mysterious, Herr Braun. He was burned to death in the fire. They found him in one of the cabins.”
“How do you know this?”
“Wireless messages. Some intercepted, some received directly, others received indirectly. That fool Cunard woman sent one to Ribbentrop in London. It was virtually in the clear: ‘I am safe. Edward is safe.’ Remind me never to employ her as a spy. Or anyone who knows her.”
“Including Ribbentrop.”
“Especially Ribbentrop.”
Emmy was looking furtively about the crowded room for her husband, her expression anxious. What had she heard that u
pset her now?
“What about Mrs. Simpson?” Goering asked curtly.
“Apparently alive and well. Were it otherwise, I’m sure Lady Cunard would have messaged Franklin Roosevelt, the King of England, and the Führer, too.”
“Hmmm,” said Goering. “Then all is as we would wish, nicht wahr?”
“Viellicht. Vielleicht nicht. Your friend the Count von Kresse is presumed to be alive. Whether all is well depends much on what you told him to do.”
“I told him merely to serve the interests of the Reich.”
“Well then, Hermann,” said the admiral, his eyes quite twinkly now. “All must be well indeed.”
There was a sudden demonic flourish of what sounded like several hundred trumpets being played at once. Uniformed servants began to urge and usher the guests out of the hall, deeper into the castle. Despite the cool of the evening, they were being made to go outside again, out onto the castle grounds to the rear that overlooked the river. Goering reached Emmy and put his arm around her waist, nodding angrily to two of his following aides to help make a path for them. He was not going to mush along with the crowd like some railroad passenger.
“I thought this was going to be an evening of cinema,” Emmy said.
“It’s going to be an evening of Dr. Goebbels.”
Beautiful young girls dressed in theatrical costumes and suffering from it in the chill greeted them as they stepped out onto the vast lawn, the lights of the city shimmering in the river beyond. Tables had been set up in great number, laden with drink and food. Goering and Emmy hurried toward one, but barely had they bit into their roast peafowl when Goebbels’s sound and light show commenced. Cannon set atop the castle battlements and along the river were set off in furious fusillades, firing blank but rattlingly fearsome charges. Joining the cacaphonous din were more aerial pyrotechnics than had been seen and heard in the bombardment of Fort Douamant at Verdun, and the effect of the immensity of light and sound was mind-numbing. People stood about motionless, unable to speak or hear and having to blink rapidly to be able to see. This was kept up for an interminable half hour.
“Mein Gott,” said Emmy, when silence abruptly came upon them in the wake of rolling echoes.
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