Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  Slote contemplated with heavy eyes, across his half-eaten dinner and a centerpiece of scarlet poinsettias, this bright comely girl. For Madeline Henry, clearly, these were all happenings in the Land of Oz.

  "Does your boss read the New York Times? There was a front-page story about this day before yesterday. Eleven Allied governments have announced it as a fact that Germany is exterminating the Jews of Europe."

  "In the Times? You're sure?" Madeline asked. "I always read it straight through. I saw no such story."

  "You overlooked it, then."

  "I didn't notice that story, and I read the Times, too," Victor Henry observed. "It wasn't in the Washington Post, either."

  "It was in both papers."

  Even a man like Victor Henry, Slote thought in despair, had unconsciously blocked out the story, slid his eyes unseeing past the disagreeable headlines.

  "Well, then they are in a pickle. From what you say, their papers are phony," Madeline persisted. "Really, won't the Germans get wise and haul them olga.

  "They're still in official French custody, Madeline, and their position's not like that of other Jews. They're interned, you see, not detained."

  "I can't follow you," Madeline said, wrinkling her pretty face.

  "Neither can I," said Rhoda.

  "Sorry. In Berne the distinction became second nature to us.

  You're interned, Mrs. Henry, wtien war catches you in an enemy country. You've done nothing wrong, you see. You're just a victim of timing. Internees get traded off: newspapermen, Foreign Service officers, and the like. That's what we expect to happen with our Americans in Lourdes. Natalie and her uncle, too. But if you're detained when a war starts -that is, if you're arrested -for anything from passing a red light to suspicion of being a spy, it's just too bad. You have no rights.

  The Red Cross can't help you. That's the problem about the European Jews. The Red Cross can't get to them because the Germans assert that the Jews are in protective custody.

  Detained, not interned."

  "Christ Almighty, people's lives hanging on a couple of goddamned words!" Madeline expostulated. "How sickening!"

  This one lethal technicality, Slote thought, had penetrated the girl's hard shell. "Well, the words do mean st)something, but on the whole I agree with you."

  "When will she ever get home, then?" Rhoda asked plaintively.

  "Hard to say. The negotiations for the exchange are well along, but-" The doorbell rang. Madeline jumped up, giving Slote a charming smile. "This is all wildly interesting, but I'm going to the National Theatre, and my friend's here. Please forgive me.

  "Of course."

  The outer door opened and closed, letting cold air swirl through the room. Rhoda began to clear away the dinner, and Pug took Slote to the library. They sat down with brandy in facing armchairs. "My daughter is a knucklehead," Pug said.

  "On the contrary," Slote held up a protesting hand, "she's very bright. Don't blame her for not being more. upset about the Jews than the President is."

  Victor Henry frowned. "He's upset."

  ."Is he losing sleep nights?," '!He can't afford to lose sleep."

  Slote ran a hand through his hair. "But the evidence the.

  State Department has in hand is monstrous. What gets up to the President, of course, I don't know, and I can't find out.

  It's like trying to catch a greased eel with oily hands in the dark. report back to the White House next week. Can I do anything about Natalie?"

  Slote sat up. "You do? Do you still have your contact with Harry Hopkins?"

  "Well, he still calls me Pug."

  "All right, then. There was no point in alarming you before."

  Slote leaned forward, clutching the big brandy glass so hard in both hands that Pug thought he might smash it.

  "Captain Henry, they won't remain in Lourdes."

  "Why not?"

  "The French are helpless. We're actually dealing with the Germans. They've caught some fresh American civilians, and they're squeezing that advantage. They want in exchange a swarm of agents from South America and North Africa.

  We've already had strong hints from the Swiss that the Lourdes people will soon be taken to Germany, to build up the bargaining pressure. that will enormously heighten Natalie's danger."

  "Obviously, but what can the White House do?"

  "Get Natalie and Aaron out of Lourdes before they're moved. It might be done through our people in Spain. The Spanish border isn't forty miles away. Informal, quiet deals can be made, sometimes indirectly even with the Gestapo.

  People like Franz Werfel and Stefan Zweig have been spirited across borders. I'm not saying it'll work. I'm saying you'd better try it."

  "But how?"

  "I could attempt it. I know whom to talk to at State. I know where the cables should go. A phone call from Mr. Hopkins would enable me to move. Do you know him that well?"

  Victor Henry drank in silence.

  Slote's voice tightened. "I don't want to sound frantic, but I urge you to try this. If the war goes on two more years, every Europe will be dead. Natalie's no journalist. Her Jew in documents are fraudulent. If they break down she'll be -a goner.. Her baby, too."

  "Did this New York Times story say the German government plans to kill all the Jews they can lay their hands on?"

  "Oh, the text was fudged, but the implication was to that effect, yes."

  "Why hasn't such an announcement created more noise?"

  With an almost insane jolly grin, Leslie Slote said, "You tell me, Captain Henry."

  Leaning his chin on a hand and rubbing it hard, Henry gave Slote a long quizzical look. "What about the Pope? If such a thing is happening, he's bound to know."

  "The Pope! This Pope has been a lifelong reactionary. politician. A decent German priest I talked to in Bern said he prayed nightly for the Pope to drop dead. I'm a humanist, so I expect nothing of any Pope. But this one is destroying whatever was left of Christianity after Galileo - I see that offends you. Sorry. All I want to impress on you is, this is a time to cash whatever credit at the White House you have.

  Try to get Natalie out of Lourdes."

  "I'll think about it, and call you."

  Slote nervously leaped to his feet. "Good. Sorry if I got worked up. Will Mrs. Henry think me rude if I leave? I've got a lot to do tonight."

  "I'll give her your apologies." Pug stood up. "Incidentally, Slote, when is Pamela getting married? Did she tell you?"

  Slote suppressed the grin of a huntsman who sees the fox break from cover. In his overwrought state, he took this almost as comic relief. "Well, you know, Captain, la donna mobile! Pam once complained to me that his lordship's a slave driver, a snob, and a bore. Maybe it won't come off."

  Pug saw him out the front door. He could hear Rhoda pottering in the kitchen. On the coffee table in the living room, the copy (yf Time lay. Pug opened it and sat hunched over the magazine.

  He had lost the snapshot of Pamela in the Northampton sinking, but the image was fixed in his memory, a little icon of dead romance.

  This story of her marriage had, hit him hard.

  Acting indifferent had been tough. She didn't look good at all in this chance shot" with her head down, her nose appeared long, her mouth prissily thin. The desert sun overhead put dark shadows around her eyes. Yet this small poor picture of a woman four thousand miles away could wake a storm in him; while toward his very attractive flesh-and-blood wife in the next room he was numb. A hell of a note!

  He trudged back to the library, and was sitting there reading Time and drinking brandy when Madeline and Sime Anderson returned from the theatre in a rollicking mood. "Is that spook from the State Department gone? Thank heavens," she said.

  "How was the play? Shall I take your mother to see it?"

  "Christ, yes, give the old girl some giggles, Pop. You'll enjoy it yourself, these four girls in a Washington apartment, popping in and out of closets in their scanties-" Anderson said, grinning uncomfortably, "There's not
much to it, sir."

  "Oh, come on, you laughed yourself silly, Sime, and your eyes about fell out of your head." Madeline noticed the Warren album, and her manner sobered. "What's this?"

  "Haven't you seen it yet? Your mother put it together."

  "No Madeline said. "Come here, Sime."

  Their heads together, they went through the scrapbook, at first silently; then she began exclaiming over the pages. A gold medal reminded her of how Warren had been borne off the field on his schoolmates' shoulders after winning a track meet with a spectacular high jump. "Oh, my God, and his birthday party in San Francisco! Look at me, cross-eyed in a paper hat! There was this horrible boy, who crawled under the table and looked up girls' dresses. Warren dragged him out and almost murdered him. Honestly, the memories this brings back!"

  "Your mother's done an outstanding job," said Anderson.

  "Oh, Mom! System is her middle name. Lord, Lord, how handsome he was! How about this graduation picture, Sime?

  Other kids look so sappy at that age!"

  Her father was watching and listening with a cold calm expression.

  As Madeline turned the pages, her comments died off. Her hand faltered, her mouth trembled; she crashed the album shut, dropped her head on her arms, and cried Anderson awkwardly put an arm around her, with an embarrassed glance at Pug. After a few moments, Madeline dried her eyes, saying, "Sorry, Sime. You'd better go home."

  She went out with him and soon returned. She sat down, crossing shapely legs, quite self-possessed again. It still jarred, Victor Henry to see her light up a cigarette with the automatic gestures of a boatswain's mate. "Say, Pop, a Caribbean sunburn does things for Sime Anderson, eh? You should talk to him. He tells wild tales about hunting the U-boats."

  "I've always liked Sime."

  "Well, he used to remind me of custard. You know? Sort of bland and blond and blah. He's matured, and -all right, all right, never mind the grin. I'm glad he's coming to Christmas dinner." She dragged deeply on the cigarette and gave her father a hangdog glance. "I'll tell you something. The Happy Hour is beginning to embarrass me. We tool from camp to camp, making money off the naive antics of kids in uniform.

  These wise-guy scriptwriters I work with laugh up their sleeves at sailors and soldiers a lot better than they are. I get so goddamned mad."

  "Why don't you chuck it, Madeline?"

  "And do what?"

  "You'd find work in Washington. You're an able girl.

  Here's this nice house, almost empty. Your mother's alone."

  Her expression disturbed him-sad, timorous, with a touch of defiant mischief. She had looked like this at fourteen, bringing him a bad report card. "Well, frankly, that very thought crossed my mind tonight. The thing is, I'm pretty involved."

  "They'll get someone else to handle that fol-de-rol."

  "Oh, I like my work. I like the money. I like those numbers jumping up in my little brown bank book."

  "Are you happy?"

  "Why, I'm just fine, Pop. There's nothing I can't handle."

  Victor Henry was seeing her on this visit for the first time in a year and a half. The letter he had received at Pearl Harbor, seaming him that she might be named in a divorce action, was going unmentioned.

  Yet Madeline was flying distress signals, if he knew her at all.

  "Maybe I should' go and have a talk with this fellow Cleveland."

  "What on earth about?"

  "You."

  Her laugh was artificial. "Funnily enough, he wants to talk to you. I was almost ashamed to mention it." She flicked ash from her skirt. "Tell me, how does the draft work? Do you know anything about it? It seems so cockeyed. There are young fellows I know, unmarried, healthy as horses, who haven't gotten their draft notices yet. And Hugh Cleveland's got his."

  "Oh? Fine," Pug said. "Now we'll win the war."

  "Don't be mean. The chairman of his draft board is one of these creeps who enjoy hounding a celebrity. Hugh thinks he'd better get into uniform. Volunteer, you understand, and just keep on with The Happy Hour and everything. Do you know anyone in Navy public relations?"

  Victor Henry slowly, silently shook his head.

  "Okay." Madeline sounded relieved. "I've done my duty, I've asked you. I said I would. It's his problem. But Hugh really shouldn't carry a gun, he's all thumbs. He'd be more of a menace to our side than to the enemy."

  "Doesn't he have all kinds of military contacts?"

  "You wouldn't believe how they fade away, once they know he's got his draft notice."

  "Glad to hear that. You should get away from him yourself. He's nothing but trouble."

  "I'm having no trouble with Mr. Cleveland." Madeline stood up, tossed her head exactly as she had done whin she was five, and she kissed her father. "If anything, the shoe's on the other foot. Night, Pop."

  A really grown-up woman, Pug thought as she left, could lie better than that. Undoubtedly she was in a wretched mess.

  But she was young, she had margins for error, and there was nothing he could do about it. Shut it from mind!

  He picked up Time to look yet again at the little picture of Pamela and her dead father. "The future Lady BurneWilke," coming to Washington. Something else to shut from mind; and one excellent reason to duck the landing craft job and return to the Pacific. Rhoda had adroitly laid the true basis for salvaging their marriage in the scrapbook there on the table, in the pool of yellow lamplight, where Madeline had slammed it shut. They were linked by the past and by death. The least he could do was cause her no more pain. He might not make it through the war. If he did, they would be old. There would be five or ten years to live side by side in cool decay. She was pitifully contrite, she would surely not slip again, and there was nothing she could do about what had happened. Let time repair what it could. He tossed the magazine in a leather wastebasket, suppressing'as kid stuff a notion to tear out the picture, and went off to his dressing room.

  In her boudoir, Rhoda was thinking, too. Weary from kitchen work, she was more than ready for sleep. But should she tell Pug of her talk with Pamela? It was the old manta] question: have something out, or let it lie? As a rule, Rhoda thought the less said the better, but this time might be the exception. She was getting tired of remorse.

  Were those nasty anonymous letters on his mind? Well, he had been no saint himself. It might clear the air if she put that truth before him.

  The news of Pam's engagement was an opening. The scene might be a rough one. Fred Kirby would come up, and possibly the letters. Still, she was wondering if even that might not be better than the dead thick heaviness of Pug's long silences. Their marriaie was going out, like the candle under the alas jar in the high school experiment, for want of air. Even the lovemaking at night was making little differenceShe had a horrid sense that her husband with some effort was being polite to her in bed. Rhoda put on a lace-trimmed black silk nightgown, brushed out her hair for looks instead of pinning it up for the pillow, and out she went, ready for peace or a sword. He was sitting up in bed with his old bedside Shakespeare in the cracked maroon binding.

  "Hi, honey," she said.

  He laid the book on the night table. "Say, Rhoda, this fellow Slote has an idea about helping Natalie."

  "Oh?" She got in bed and listened, her back to the headboard, her brow furrowed.

  Pug was honestly consulting her, by way of trying to grope back to their old footing. She heard him out, nodding and not interrupting.

  "Why not do it, Pug? What's there to lose?"

  "Well, I don't want to make more trouble for the White House than they've got."

  "I don't see that. Harry Hopkins may Turn you down, for his own reasons. MOUNTMNS of such requests must come his way. But they're your family, and they're in danger. To me the real question is, suppose he's willing to try? Do you trust Slote that much?"

  "Why not? It's his field."

  "But he's so, I don't know, SO OBSESSED. Pug, I'd worry about rocking that boat. You're far away. You can't know what's going
on.

  By singling them out-I mean the White House, honestly!--won't you throw a spotlight on them?

  And isn't their game to stay inconspicuous, just two more names in that batch of Americans, until they get exchanged?

  Besides, Natalie's a pretty woman with a baby. The worst fiends in the world would lean over backward for her. Maybe it's tempting fate to interfere."

  He took her hand and squeezed it. "That's good thinking."

  "Oh, I'm not sure I'm right. Just be very careful."