Presidential Mission

by Sinclair, Upton;

  “Vraiment,” said the Premier, “mais quelle ivresse! They really imagine they can conquer the whole of Europe? They will make a shambles of it, and what they leave the Reds will finish!”

  “Perfectly true, cher Maître. The only question is whether our people can be awakened in time.”

  “Look at the situation, M. Budd! The Germans are almost at the Volga and the Caspian Sea. When they have reached those goals they will have cut Russia in half, and will stop her oil supply and bring all her machinery to a halt. And Rommel is at the gates of Alexandria and Suez, and then of what use will the Mediterranean be to the Allies? They will have to go all the way around Africa, and what means will they have to keep the Panzer forces from penetrating to India and meeting with the Japanese?”

  “I agree with you altogether, cher Maître; the situation is the most encouraging we have yet seen.”

  “May I talk to you in confidence, mon ami?”

  “Indeed so; I shall feel honored.”

  “As you must know, I have never had any heart for this or any war. I am a man of peace, a lawyer and no killer—even my worst enemies will tell you that. As a French statesman, I am by no means pleased that one nation should be gaining too great power on this old Continent where we all have to live.”

  “I understand that, and you are right.”

  “What I desire to know is whether, when Russia has been forced out of this war, Britain and America cannot be persuaded to listen to reason, and to make a settlement with Herr Hitler and myself, whereby a peace can be established in Europe that will last for the lifetimes of our grandchildren. All that any of us want is to keep what we have, and to unite in establishing and maintaining a government in Russia that will respect the rights of private property and will not carry on propaganda of social revolution throughout the rest of the world. I have the personal word of Herr Hitler that that is all he desires, and that he is willing to respect and to guarantee the rights of both the British Empire and of the United States. Surely that is statesmanship, M. Budd!”

  “It is, and also it is what I have been urging upon my friends.”

  “Here is what I have in mind, mon ami: would you be willing to take that message to the public men of Britain and America for me?”

  “Hélas, cher Maître, I do not have access to such persons; nor do I have confidence in my own ability as an envoy.”

  “That last statement is surely a mistake; you have the ability, and I should be glad to give you a note stating that I have authorized you to speak for me. The time to act is now, before the German victories have become too great, and before their armies have advanced into territory which they might not be so willing to give up.”

  “Everything you say is wise, cher Maître; and I promise you this—I will do my best to make contact with men of influence and present your views to them.”

  “When do you intend to return?”

  “I wish to see my mother on the Riviera, and then I have several art commissions to carry out, one of them in North Africa. I hope to return to New York by way of Britain, where I have a little daughter whom I try to see as often as I can.”

  “If it is because of business reasons that you do this work, M. Budd, let me make it possible for you to postpone it, and attend to this far more important commission for my government.”

  “Thank you for the kind offer, but I do not need money, and would not consent to take the money of the people of France in this tragic hour.”

  “Let me assure you, cher ami, there is no service that would be worth so much to the people of France as to get them peace and national unity once more. For that they would authorize the payment of half the contents of our treasury.”

  The pair had a little debate over this proposal. Pierre Laval simply couldn’t believe that any man was actually turning down money; it was contrary to human nature, and to good manners if not good morals. He was sure that the son of Budd-Erling was holding out for a high price, and first he offered half a million francs and then he offered a round million, to be paid in dollars in New York, and strictly on the quiet. “We know how to handle money, M. Budd.”

  Lanny saw that the matter was serious, and he had to be careful or he might awaken suspicions. He said that he had lived most of his life in France, and that Marianne was his fostermother; he would do everything he could to help her, and some day he might receive a medal for it, but no money. He would be willing to drop everything and go to her aid, but his recent talks with British and Americans of his way of thinking and Laval’s convinced him that the time was not yet. Let the Germans get to the Volga and across it, let them actually divert the oil of the Caucasus into the tanks of their Panzers, and then there might be a chance of putting some sense into the heads of Roosevelt and Churchill—or possibly of replacing them. Lanny brought encouragement to the soul of Vichy’s Premier by telling of the conspiracy of high-up Americans to do just that, and the pair shook hands warmly and parted on the basis of friendship and trust. Of course the fripon mongol wouldn’t really trust anybody, but he would tell them that he did, and with the manner which the French call empressé.

  V

  A train which needed repairs and did not run on time conveyed the P.A. to Cannes. At the station he was met by the “Bienvenu local,” as he had dubbed the family buggy. The steed was thinner, it seemed to him, and so was the driver; he congratulated her as he kissed her, and she said: “I am getting so that I cannot eat when I know that so many other people are hungry.” He assured her that it was the way to live longer, and she answered that it was the way to make wrinkles deeper, and to shudder every time you caught a glimpse of your own throat.

  At home everything was peaceful, as much so as was possible with a World War in the newspapers and radio waves, and in the atmosphere, too, for guns were heard out at sea now and then, and military planes large and small passed overhead. Parsifal Dingle refused to let himself be troubled by the war; it was God’s plan, otherwise it could not have been. Beauty insisted that whether it was God’s plan or Satan’s, the lovely little Marcel wasn’t allowed to hear anything about it, and that had become one of the rules of the household.

  One of the first items of news Lanny got was that his half-sister had gone back to Berlin. “Oskar crooked his finger, and she went,” said Beauty. “He wrote her, and she wouldn’t even show me the letter.”

  “Perhaps he neglected to be polite,” ventured Lanny. “Or maybe he was a little too frank as to the nature of his interest. The Nazis are that way.”

  “Love is a terrible thing to a woman, Lanny. Marceline does not trust her man, I don’t think she even respects him; and yet she goes to him.”

  “My guess is that snobbery has much to do with it. Oskar is an aristocrat, and she takes him at his own valuation. The more arrogant he is, the more she admires him in her secret heart, even when she herself is the victim. You brought her up wrong, Beauty.”

  “What can you do?” demanded the mother, making a French gesture with the shoulders. “The world is more powerful than any person in it, and what the world admires is what a child desires. I must admit that I have looked at Marceline with surprise most of her life; she is so self-centered, and so quietly determined.”

  “Why not start over again with this new one? Let him set out to be useful at once, and let him understand that all his life he is never going to get anything without earning it.”

  “What strange ideas you have, Lanny! I believe you are just as much a radical in your heart as when you were young!”

  “Say that to me, but never to anybody else,” replied the son.

  He listened to his mother’s account of what Marceline had been doing before her departure. She had got an engagement to dance at the International Sporting Club in Monte Carlo. A fantastic story. The Italian Army was respecting the independence of that tiny principality, and the hotels, pensions, and villas were packed with wealthy refugees from every country in Europe. Gambling at the Casino was going on from noon till da
ybreak, and hundreds of millions of francs changed hands every evening. Marceline had been paid a hundred and fifty thousand francs per week, but she hadn’t been happy because of the crowding—people sleeping even in the chairs and on the sofas of the world’s most famous gambling palace. To Lanny the place meant Sir Basil Zaharoff, who had owned it, and whom Lanny had met there as a small boy. He was moved now to try another séance with Madame, and heard the old munitions king of Europe lamenting the breakdown of the world, especially those parts of it which he had possessed and had been reluctant to leave behind him!

  VI

  The Golfe Juan was still blue in the deeps and green in the shallows, and the sun set each night in glory behind the red Esterel Mountains. The oleanders along the hedge were masses of white blossoms or pink, and the scarlet hibiscus were small flaming suns. In the court the bees made an endless humming in the flowers, and a new half-grown puppy tumbled over himself trying to follow Marcel about. The Midi displayed all its midsummer lusciousness, and the playfolk, as distinguished from the working folk, went about in bathing suits all day. If anybody wept for the million and a quarter young Frenchmen who were prisoners of war in Germany and were being worked as slave labor, they did their weeping alone and kept a face of courage in public.

  Of old, Lanny had come here to rest and to refresh himself with happy memories. But this time he came as a disturber, a herald of bad tidings. A day or two after his arrival he went into his mother’s room and shut the door. “Old darling,” he began, “we have to have a confidential talk, the most important ever.”

  “Yes, Lanny?” she said, and a scared look came upon her face, for his tone was even more grave than his words. She was sitting at her dressing table, doing her best to repair the ravages of time. Now she put down her tools, and he seated himself on the side of the bed, facing her.

  “You must have been doing a lot of guessing about your son during the last few years, and you have been very good about not talking—or so I have believed.”

  “Never a word to anyone, Lanny.”

  “This time is the most important of all. Here is something about which you are not to breathe the faintest hint to anybody on earth. It might cost me my life, and more important yet, it might cost the lives of a great many American boys. I really haven’t the right even to speak of the matter, but I am trusting to your tact and good sense. You have to take yourself and Parsifal and the child away from Bienvenu.”

  “Oh, mon Dieu!” she exclaimed. “The war is coming here?”

  “You must never breathe such words, nor even think the thought. You are a lady of the leisure class, and you haven’t had any sort of trip or vacation for many years. You have a whim to see some new part of the world, some place where food is not rationed.”

  “Where is the place?”

  “I have been trying to think of one that isn’t too far away or too difficult to reach. I have decided that French Morocco would be highly suitable.”

  “But Lanny! such a fantastic place! And I keep hearing that the war may come there!”

  “Trust my judgment, dear mother. Marrakech is one of the most fascinating spots I ever visited. It is high up and reasonably cool in summer. There are elegant villas there, and you might find one to rent, and play the social queen if you have a mind to. Also, there are good hotels. It will be expensive, but don’t try to save money at this time.”

  “And when do we have to go, Lanny?”

  “I don’t know the date, and if I did I wouldn’t be free to tell it. But you have time to make your plans and build up a propaganda among your friends. It will be O.K. if you are out of France by a month from now.”

  “It is going to be so hard to make anybody believe that I am really interested in a trip to Morocco!”

  “Put it on my account if you like. I have been there, and am going to be there again, perhaps for months. I have found a gold mine there—I mean, figuratively speaking. I have interested American millionaires in the marvelous fountains and floor mosaics which are in that country; they have become quite a fad in New York, as fascinating as jigsaw puzzles. You can say that I made several thousand dollars in a single month out of them, and that I want you to help me, inspecting and overseeing the packing and shipping. That’s business, and you know how to talk about it as well as the next person. I have a book about Moroccan art, and you can pick up a few phrases and become an expert. I have photographs you can show to friends, and a letter from a millionaire ordering, a fountain. With a little practice you can get yourself all steamed up.”

  “I suppose I could. What shall I do with Bienvenu?”

  “Pick out some trustworthy French couple and put them in charge; pay them to take care of the place.”

  “And the paintings, and your library?”

  “We just have to take our chances with all those things. If you started packing them it would certainly look like, a flight, and that would be absolutely fatal. People would say, I have just been here and have told you something to frighten you. Don’t take anything but what you would naturally take on a trip. Be a tourist, think like a tourist.”

  “What shall I tell Parsifal?”

  “Tell him what you tell the others. It makes no difference to him where he is. There are many mosques in Marrakech, and he will study the Mohammedan religion and find out if they have any psychic experiences and what they make of them. Tell Parsifal that you have seen so little of me during the past few years, and I am going to be there off and on during the next few months.”

  “Shall we take Madame with us?”

  “That would be too much of a burden. No one will harm an old woman here. But take a maid, of course.”

  “And what about Emily? Should we not warn her?”

  “That is a painful decision. I simply dare not take the chance of having her leave at the same time that we do. Emily is an old woman, all but bedridden; the worst that can happen is that her home will be taken by the military and she moved into one of her cottages. I am sure she would not be interned.”

  “Oh, then it is the Germans who are coming here!”

  “Nobody can say who is coming, dear. Only a foolish person would attempt to guess the result of the clash of forces. What I have tried to do is think of some place where there is little chance of your being caught in any fighting, or of being shut up in a concentration camp for the duration—and this war may have a dreadful lot of duration! It happens that I have special knowledge, and you must trust me. Play the game according to my rules.”

  “All right, I will take your word. One question more. What am I to do about that money I buried in the garden?”

  “The best thing will be for me to dig it up and use it, and send a check for your account in your New York bank. It so happens that I have use for a lot of money in small bills, which cannot be traced because of being new and having consecutive serial numbers.”

  “Lanny, I have felt for a long time that you were doing something frightfully dangerous!”

  “Others are doing far more dangerous things, Mother dear. Let it rest here, that I am doing something that counts, and that some day I’ll tell you a lot of interesting stories!”

  VII

  Next morning the P.A. called his old friend Jerry Pendleton on the telephone. First he inquired: “How’s business?” and when Jerry gave the expected reply: “Rotten!” Lanny said: “I have to go to Geneva to get a painting. Can you fix me up for the train tomorrow night?” The travel bureau man promised to attend to it, and Lanny added: “How would you like to play some tennis this afternoon?”

  They played three sets, and then went for a swim from the rocks below the estate. Sitting in the hot sunshine, with the insurgent waves drowning his low voice, Lanny opened up: “Do you suppose your wife could run the bureau for a while, Jerry?”

  “A child could run it,” said the other. He was what the French call a petit bourgeois, and the Americans a small businessman; by either name his situation was unpromising.

  Lanny
looked at this good fellow who had once been his tutor, although only half a dozen years older. The Army had claimed him in World War I, and he had risen to be a lieutenant; but he hadn’t bothered to come home, he had stayed and married a French girl and a pension, or so he had said, in his playful fashion. Now Lanny observed that Jerry’s hair was turning gray. He remarked: “You are worrying, aren’t you?”

  “Well,” was the reply, “it’s hard to run a travel bureau when people can’t travel and to run a pension when the cost of food goes up faster than the boarders’ incomes.”

  “Have you thought about the danger of staying on here?”

  “Of course; but what can I do? I can’t afford to drop everything and take Cerise and the kids to America.”

  “I have an idea to suggest. I have come onto a fairly prosperous business, buying mosaics in Morocco and shipping them to New York. I told Beauty about it, and she has taken a notion to go in with me. She thinks she’d like to see Marrakech, and Parsifal wants to study the Mohammedan religion.”

  “Jeepers!” exclaimed the ex-tutor. “Isn’t that a sort of dangerous place to be in? I keep hearing talk about our Army coming to Casablanca.”

  “Well, suppose they do? The fighting will be at the coast, and Marrakech is a hundred miles or so in the interior. From what I’ve learned of the French Army there they couldn’t stand up against us very long even if they wanted to, which I don’t think they will. And when they give up, any Americans who are there will be in America, and without the expense of crossing the ocean.”

  “You know the situation better than I, Lanny.”

  “I’d a lot rather be there than here when the fighting starts; for it’s certain that if we invade any French territory, the Germans will move here. They have to do it, not merely to keep us from landing here, but to keep the French from helping us.”

  “Yes, and their first move will be to intern all the Americans, especially the able-bodied men.”