Stimson’s voice trailed off.
King pointed out, “The Swedes and Swiss have no real axe to grind—they make money off the Slavs as well as off the Germans.”
“And speaking of the Russians, I was talking to your young Rex last week and he reminded me of Hank Whitehead’s horror story that I have heard from Hank’s own lips. You must remember Hank’s father from your time in Cambridge.”
Roosevelt frowned for a moment and then smiled his wonderful smile, remembering Hank’s father’s kindness,
“Oh, yes, Jack Whitehead, my Phil professor. Yes, fine man—he gave me a Gentleman’s C Minus to pass the course. Had I read any of the books, I may have gotten a proper C.”
Stimson continued,
“Well, young Hank volunteered for the Spanish War and went over there all piss and vinegar to help fight ‘fascism,’ as he called it. He was in the Lincoln Brigade, as the name suggests, mostly Yanks. As he tells it, the Soviet advisers were all animals. Treated all their troops as chattel, never enough food for the men, even though the commissars lived well in the town with their Spanish whores. Often times, no water on the battlefields when the temperature was 110 degrees. In two of the last battles, the commissars placed their machine guns behind the Republican troops.”
Roosevelt frowned and asked why.
“So as to shoot any of the American men in the Lincoln Brigade who wanted to retreat.”
Roosevelt said nothing and looked out of the windows of the Oval Office into the garden.
“So your point is that boozy Winston’s blind hate of the Germans is blinding him to the natural Slav barbarism?”
Stimson nodded and said, “Before we go professing our undying love and admiration of all things Slavic, perhaps we need to think about who we’re getting into bed with. We can cut a deal with the Germans in an afternoon, and the Germans are the natural rulers of central Europe, not these half-mad, mongoloid Slavs who all lack an ounce of civilization.”
Over the next two weeks, the Californian newspapers, then the papers back East, all started running the same story—“The Phony War, Part 2.” As the papers explained, after the invasion of Poland in 1939, “a state of eerie quiet enveloped Europe”—the English papers had called it “The Phony War,” which ended in May 1940 with the sudden collapse of France.
In early afternoon, Roosevelt was amused to see the telegram Stimson had gotten from MacArthur in Manila where the General had personally had taken all the credit for the sudden calm, “I have created a sense of overwhelming trepidation in the enemy throughout Asia with the concomitant reduction of all enemy actions against the United States’ possession of the Philippines.”
“I am surprised Douglas is not also claiming responsibility for the sun rising every morning,” was Roosevelt’s terse and tart comment.
In the first week after the Japanese attack, the country had been at fever pitch to “kill all the Japs,” and there were some extremely unpleasant mob lynchings in San Francisco of innocent American business men of Japanese descent. But Roosevelt’s weekly radio addresses had been very, very carefully crafted to deflect this anger. And with this calm and reassuring voice, he again created a new—and better—reality.
Just as suddenly as it had erupted, the mob anger subsided.
28: Bad News For The Lisper
Washington
Wednesday, 7 January 1942
The Japanese ambassador arrived at the White House promptly at 9 a.m. for the meeting he had requested the previous day. Nomura was his typical Japanese self: quiet, polite and deferential. Truth be told, there was absolutely no reason for his modest demeanor.
The President and Stimson were not friendly but were also by no means frosty—they realized that the Japanese were doing precisely what they said they would do: honoring the unofficial armistice regarding the Americans while, at that same time, precisely and elegantly demolishing what was laughingly called the British “Empire.”
“So, what do you have for us today, Mr. Ambassador?” the President asked.
As always, the deference of the Japanese was extreme—he had bowed deeply and solemnly before the two men before speaking quietly.
“And please take a seat.”
With quiet reluctance, the ambassador sat, but unlike the sprawl of Stimson, Nomura sat, like a nervous schoolboy, on the edge of the sofa.
“Mr. President and Mr. Stimson, I am pleased to tell you that Tokyo has requested that I ask your permission to extend the armistice for another six weeks. My government feels we are making progress and they are anxious to continue this dialogue. Would it be possible for us to continue this arrangement while we continue speaking?”
The President, holding no cards, smiled and was equanimous, “That can be arranged.”
The Japanese ambassador stood and bowed to the President.
“Mr. President, I can assure you that you have made my Emperor extremely happy.”
Stimson said, “I see you have taken Hong Kong.”
“Yes, Mr. Stimson. The British colony surrendered on Christmas Day.”
The Japanese ambassador’s simple reply showed none of the pride he, and his country, felt.
“But I suspect Singapore will prove to be a far tougher nut to crack.”
Nomura was lost for a second until he grasped the Secretary of War’s idiom.
Realizing Stimson’s meaning, he said,
“Well, Admiral Yamamoto, who has spent quite a deal of time in your country, uses the American expression, ‘Time Will Tell.’ ”
Curious, Stimson said, “You really think you can take Singapore?”
“Well, as I mentioned to you and to Admiral King, we think we may have the good fortune to do so.”
Then Nomura’s next question shocked the other two,
“Suppose, for a moment, that the Japanese army was able to secure Singapore, would that be grounds for a more permanent armistice between our two countries?”
The two men were not children; what Nomura was saying in essence was, with the British impotent, would a new order in Asia—a duopoly of the United States and Japan, centered on Roosevelt’s beloved NIRA program—be possible? As Britain was the last of the European colonialists in the Asia, if Britain was defeated and thus made completely powerless, could a new “arrangement” be made?
“I have to be honest, Mr. Ambassador, I speak daily to Mr. Churchill, on this telephone,” the President said, patting the black Bakelite instrument.
“And Mr. Churchill tells me that the Japanese cannot possibly take Singapore.”
Nomura nodded, “I understand, sir. But if we Japanese were able to prove our military acumen, would it be possible for you to consider a change?”
Roosevelt showed a shard of unusual candor, “Well, Henry, what do you think?”
Stimson pulled on his ear lobe,
“Well, to be perfectly honest, Mr. Ambassador, if the Japanese were able to conquer Singapore, then yes, that would potentially change the balance of forces in Asia in a very significant way. But, as my advisers tell me, that is unlikely. And without the British defeated, an American-Japanese Asia Council would be difficult to establish. But, conversely, with a major British defeat, a vacuum of power would exist and would need to be filled by senior and responsible countries.”
Nomura pressed, “But if the British were to suffer a major defeat, you would be open to considering a dialogue?”
The President pre-empted Stimson, who was about to give the same answer,
“Sure, we would consider it.”
Ever the politician, Roosevelt added, “But, just consider, if and when such an event did ever occur.”
Having achieved what he had wanted, Nomura followed a sacrosanct rule of selling and did not buy it back.
“Mr. President, you are being more than fair. May I return to my embassy and send this message to the government of my emperor?”
The President nodded and said that he could.
With no further ado, the ambass
ador rose, bowed and left.
“Henry, what the fuck just happened?”
“Well Franklin, I think we have just fucked short, fat, drunk Winston.”
Roosevelt smiled, “Could be worse—could be us. Get me a drink, will you.”
Stimson obliged and got himself one as well.
Sitting on the yellow sofa, Stimson said,
“You know, Franklin, we could do far, far worse than dealing with these people. Churchill goes on and on with his bullshit about ‘English Speaking Peoples’ and all that claptrap but we have to be realistic—our two countries border the Pacific. The French and Dutch are moribund, Chang is a toady and is completely unreliable, and if the British lose Singapore then they are finished in Asia, and that means they are finished as an empire. Let’s see what happens. And I don’t know about you, but I think I can work with Nomura. He’s modest, reliable, sober and polite, essentially the opposite of the Lisper.”
Roosevelt said nothing, but it was clear he was in agreement.
29: The Billiard Table
Nassau
Saturday, 31 January 1942
Nassau in January is always cool and dry—the long and glorious summer days with their delicious, lazy heat and sudden downpours have disappeared. And this January, the incessant flood of the most petty regulations from Whitehall confused the natives and annoyed the English. This morning the native head gardener asked David about Supplementary Regulation Concerning the Washing of Farm and Gardening Implements For Cultivating Peat. It was pure gibberish, written, no doubt, by a civil servant who had never set foot outside the British Isles.
From the next room, David’s wife asked, “Darling, can you zip up, please?”
Wallis’ slim body and mannish face appeared in the mirror. No one could ever be guilty of calling her beautiful, but many strong men had fallen under her spell, and the former King of England was not a strong man. And as Wallis was the always willing to admit—to herself at least—David did not come from the strong branch of the Windsor family tree. Far from it; he was weakest of her many conquests. The joke—too extensive to be mere gossip—was that she had an unequalled ability to make a man equipped with a toothpick to feel like he had a cigar.
She whispered, “there’s nothing underneath, so don’t dally too long tonight, darling.”
These small indiscretions were all that was needed to keep him interested—he was, and he would always be, a dunderhead. She would remind him twice during the dinner, but her main message would be to the ladies after the ladies had left the men to their brandy and cigars. These ladies would all offer disapproving clucking ranging from the mild to the severe at such a meretricious trick. Of course, they all immediately adopted the practice themselves to try to rekindle a little carnal fire with their boring husbands. Much more important to Wallis would be the faithful retelling to their husbands. Among the small colony of British in the Bahamas, Wallis would always have an ample supply of English supplicants to entertain herself, and when she tired of them and their congenital lack of stamina, there were the occasional “informals” with a native helper that seemed so spontaneous, but which Wallis actually planned to the last detail—she did so love the animism of being dominated by a massive black frame of raw muscle and power sweating over her, his sweat making the grabbing of his massive arms and shoulders all the more challenging and exciting.
Wallis was buoyant as she had recently started a discreet correspondence, first by mail and then by the occasional long-distant telephone with the very polite, very proper, well-educated, and sophisticated Lord Halifax. She admired Halifax and saw him as a potential ally. She sensed Halifax could lead the charge to have her pathologically weak husband regain a position of influence. True, the terms of the Abdication had been exceedingly severe but this was after all simply a piece of paper, and new pieces of paper could always be created when the time was right. And Halifax knew that both Wallis and David were very well liked in Germany.
The previous August, Wallis had redecorated the boat house and had it painted a light cream with sky-blue trim. The boat house was far from the main house, and had the added attraction of a private winding track to the main road, and the track was very well hidden by the greenery—a man could quite easily slip down to the boat house unseen.
Actually, Wallis had been caught once and it always made her tingle when she remembered it. She had an extension added to the boat house with its glorious view of the harbor. Wallis had installed four soft, dark tan club chairs, the type David loved and that one sinks into rather than sits on. She also installed a billiard table in the far end of the room, away from the windows. It was on this table, with her legs wrapped around a stout leg, that she had been caught in flagrante delicto.
With her typical thoroughness and planning, Wallis had bespoke dark brown cushions made that just happened to be a little thicker than the height of the walls of the billiard table. The cushions were surprisingly firm and covered in a smooth silk. In the cupboard beneath the small bar there were four extra cushion covers, in case any of the cushions in service suffered any spontaneous but potentially embarrassing stains. One of these cushions was in use the day of the surprise discovery.
Dickie and Edwina had been David and Wallis’s best friends before all the troubles started with David’s mother. It was from this prim and proper archetypical upper-class English lady—and an heiress, at that—that Wallis had been educated in the glories of dark flesh.
“You have never experienced such a feeling. It’s overwhelming—they are so big everywhere, especially down there,” Edwina had stated matter-of-factly.
“Well, Edwina, I am a Southern belle and to think about having a huge, sweating Negro on top of me. And inside me. Well, I just cannot consider it.”
“Pfff, don’t be such a prude. I’ve been to Harlem a dozen times and I told you about the adventures I have had on billiard tables. You need to be open minded. After all, it’s not as if you have to be seen in public with these Negro men. It’s all just light-hearted fun. And remember, as you’re a white woman, you’re prized among these men so you get treated like royalty. Come to think of it, you are royalty.”
They both giggled as Wallis was clearly warming to the idea.
Edwina had been correct. On the first few encounters with the local boys, Wallis had been thrilled to actually be nervous, as she had been in the early days working as a whore in Shanghai. The nervousness made her feel young again.
Wallis had arranged for one of the native boys who had painted the boat house earlier to return, “just to do a little touch-up work” she had explained on the telephone to the harried and rude British captain who was in charge of work details for government properties on the island.
The young man arrived wearing sandals, an old straw hat, and overalls that had once been a deep blue, but now the color had been reduced to a very pale blue with all the washing and bleaching. The bleaching had removed all the hardness of the original material so now the overalls were soft as baby flannel.
Wallis knew the seduction protocol by heart. And what excited her as much as the penetration by this strong young man was the seduction. Of course, she knew it was not really seduction, as she had complete mastery over the young man, but she loved to make all her conquests—black or white—beg.
Wallis was wearing sunglasses with a large dark brown frame, flat canvas espadrilles, and her favorite summer sun flower dress—mid-calf length white cotton with blue and yellow sun flowers; she had nothing underneath, as was her custom with the dress. She opened the door and explained to the young man that she wanted an area on the veranda painted above the main picture window. She sat in one of the white painted wicker chairs drinking a rum punch that she had made herself. Languidly the young man painted. She noted with a quiet delight that his arms were extremely well developed, as were his back and shoulders—his muscles were clearly visible, so different from the flabby white men on the Colony. She estimated his weight at 17 stone, or over twice her
demure eight stone—“he will be able to throw me around like a rag doll;” she dampened at the thought.
She loved the sense of complete control; ordering a man to satisfy her carnal needs was the greatest pleasure she could imagine—the sense of absolute power, of complete mastery, and the sense of not needing to ensure he was being satisfied—it was all just about her; if she was in the mood for rough, then she would simply command it that way, and she would get it that way.
The day was an unexpectedly hot. For an hour in the blazing sun, he worked. He was sweating and the armpits on his bleached overalls were dark with sweat. Wallis was perspiring and she went to the small toilet and saw with approval that her small, ruby-red nipples were starting to show through the sun flower dress. To amplify the effect and to ensure nothing was left to imagination, she daubed a little water around the top of her dress. She returned to the main room and made a cold drink of water and pineapple juice. One of the luxuries of the boat house was a small refrigerator that held three pressed-steel trays of ice cubes. And, Lord, she had to fight to get that machine—“don’t-you-know-there’s-a-war-on” was the standard refrain.
She took the glass to the young man, who was so passive that he would not look at her and kept his eyes on the ground. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him steal a long look at her modest chest and the two ruby-red nipples as she paused to stare absentmindedly into the harbor. Her nipples were now standing proud through the dampened white cotton. She could see the start of his excitement growing at the crux of his overalls.
Over the next hour, the young man very, very slowly became bolder. Wallis could see his boldness corresponded to the growing swelling in his overalls. Now it was time for the next step. She tossed her head back and arched her back a little. With her legs tightly crossed in English-Lady mode, she said,
The Goddess Of Fortune Page 26