by Herman Wouk
He took her to a long, narrow public room full of people in sofas and armchairs drinking tea or cocktails. Walking down the smoky room behind the headwaiter, they heard conversations in many languages: German was the commonest, and only one little group was talking English.
“League of Nations here,” Natalie said, as the waiter bowed them into a dark corner with a sofa and two chairs, “except that so many look Jewish.”
“A lot of them are,” Slote said dolefully. “Too many of them are.”
Natalie devoured a whole plate of sugared cakes with her tea. “I shouldn’t do this, but I’m famished. I’m big as a house. I’ve gained ten pounds in six months at the villa. I just eat and eat.”
“Possibly I’m prejudiced, but I think you look like the goddess of love, if a bit travel-worn.”
“Yes, you mean these hefty Venus de Milo hips, hey?” She darted a pleased look at him. “I hope Byron likes hips. I’ve sure got ’em.”
“I hadn’t noticed your hips, but I assure you Byron will like them. Not that I really think you’re worried. There’s Bunky Thurston.” Slote waved as a little man at the doorway far down the room came toward them. “Bunky’s a prince of a fellow.”
“He has the world’s most impressive moustache,” Natalie said.
“It’s quite a moustache,” Slote said.
The moustache approached, a heavy rounded tawny brush with every hair gleamingly in place, attached to a pleasant pink moon face set on a slight body dressed in natty gray flannel.
Slote said, “Hi, Bunky. You’re late for tea, but just in time for a drink.”
With a loud sigh, Thurston sat. “Thanks. I’ll have a double Canadian Club and water. What foul weather. The chill gets in your bones. Natalie, here’s that list I promised you.” He handed her a folded mimeographed sheet. “I’m afraid you’ll agree that it kills the notion. Now, I couldn’t track down Commander Bathurst, but I left word everywhere. I’m sure he’ll call me here within the hour.”
Slote glanced inquisitively at the paper in Natalie’s hand. It was a list of documents required for a marriage of foreigners in Portugal, and there were nine items. Avidly studying the sheet, Natalie drooped her shoulders and glanced from Slote to Thurston. “Why, getting all this stuff together would take months!”
“I’ve seen it done in one month,” Thurston said, “but six to eight weeks is more usual. The Portuguese government doesn’t especially want foreigners to get married here. I’m not sure why. In peacetime we send people over to Gibraltar, where you go through like greased lightning. But the Rock is shut up tight now.”
“Thinking of getting married?” Slote said to Natalie.
She colored at the dry tone. “That was one of many things Byron wrote about. I thought I might as well check. It’s obviously impossible, not that I thought it was such a hot idea anyway.”
“Who’s Commander Bathurst?” Slote said.
Thurston said, “Our naval attaché. He’ll know exactly when the submarine’s arriving.” He tossed off half his whiskey when the waiter set it before him, and carefully smoothed down his moustache with two forefingers, looking around the room with a bitter expression. “God, Lisbon gives me the creeps. Forty thousand desperate people trying to get out of the net. I’ve seen most of the faces in this room at our legation.” Thurston turned to Slote. “This isn’t what you and I bargained for when we went to Foreign Service school.”
“Bunky, you’d better get rid of that Quaker conscience, or you really will crack up. Remember that it isn’t us who’s doing it. It’s the Germans.”
“Not entirely. I never thought much about our immigration laws until this thing started. They’re pernicious and idiotic.” Bunky Thurston drank again and coughed, empurpling his face. “Forty thousand people. Forty thousand! Suppose we admitted them all? What difference would forty thousand people make, for God’s sake, in the wastes of Montana or North Dakota? They’d be a blessing!”
“They wouldn’t go there. They’d huddle in the big cities, where there’s still an unemployment problem.”
Thurston struck the table with a fist. “Now don’t you give me that stale drivel, Leslie. It’s enough that I have to parrot it all day myself. They’d go anywhere. You know that. They’d sign papers to live out their lives in Death Valley. Our law’s inhuman. Wasn’t America started as a sanctuary from European oppression?”
Slote took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and glanced warily at the people nearest them, four elderly men arguing in French. “Well, I’m not going to defend the law, but how do you draw the line? Or do you have unrestricted immigration? Do you let in everybody who wants to come? You’d empty southern and eastern Europe. They’d flood our economy, starve, ferment, and boil up in a revolution. What about the Orientals? Do you break the dike to the west? In ten years the United States would be a big Chinese suburb.”
Natalie said with a gesture at the room, “He’s talking about these few people in Lisbon who have escaped from the Germans. That’s all.”
“Tried to escape,” said Thurston. “The Germans can take Portugal overnight.”
“And I’m talking about the arguments that arise in Congress when you try to alter the law,” Slote said, “especially in favor of Jews. Nobody wants any more competition from them, they’re too energetic and smart. That’s the fact of it, Natalie, like it or not.”
“We could give refuge to all the Jews in Europe, all five million of them. We’d only be a lot better off,” Thurston said. “Remember your Ruskin? ‘Wealth is life,’ he said. And if that’s a bit too simple, it’s certainly true that wealth is brains.” He leaned toward Natalie, lowering his voice. “If you want to see the head of the Gestapo in Portugal, he’s just walking in, and with him is the German ambassador. Charming man, the ambassador. My wife really likes him.”
Natalie stared. “Is he the one with the scar?”
“No, I don’t know who that one is, though I’ve seen him around. I’m sure he’s Gestapo too. The ambassador’s the one in the gray suit.”
The three men sat not far from them, and the headwaiter fluttered and grinned eagerly, taking their orders.
“They look so ordinary,” Natalie said.
“The Germans are quite ordinary,” Slote said. “It’s a little scary, in fact, how much like Americans they are.”
Gloomily, Natalie said, “Those people at the table next to them are obviously Jews. Drinking and laughing, side by side with the Gestapo. Eerie.”
Thurston said, “I know them. They bought their way out of Belgium, and they still don’t believe they can’t buy their way into the United States. Most of the Jews here have been stripped penniless, but there are a handful of those. They’re in the casino night after night, whooping it up. Fish in the net, jumping and flopping, still enjoying the water while they can.” Thurston finished his drink, smoothed his moustache, and waved his glass at the waiter. “I want another. I’ve had some awful interviews today. Lisbon is a very sad and horrible place right now. My request for a transfer is in. The question is whether I’ll wait. I may just quit the service. I’ve never realized before how nice it is to have a wealthy father.”
Slote said to Natalie, “Am I taking you to dinner?”
“Please, I’d love that.”
“How about you, Bunky? Will you join us? Let’s all go upstairs to my suite for a while. I want to change my shirt, and all that.”
“No, I have a dinner appointment. I’ll sit here and have my drink with Natalie. I left word for Bathurst to page me here.”
Slote stood up. “Well, thanks for all you’ve done.”
“I can do wonders for people who don’t need help.”
Slote told Natalie the number of his suite, and left. Later she found a pencilled note stuck in his doorjamb: N—door’s open. She walked into a very large living room, looking out onto the purple sea beyond a long iron-railed balcony. Old heavy gilt and green furniture, gold cloth draperies, gilded mirrors, and large dark old paintings
filled the room. Slote sang in a remote gushing shower. She yelled through an open bedroom door, “Hey! I’m here.”
The water shut off, and he soon appeared in a plaid robe, towelling his head. “How about these digs? Fit for a rajah, what? The legation had it reserved for some petroleum big shot and he didn’t show. I’ve got it for a week.”
“It’s fine.” She dropped heavily in a chair.
“What’s the matter?”
“Bathurst finally called. Briny’s sub has been re-routed to Gibraltar. It won’t come to Lisbon at all. No explanation, that’s just how it is.”
“I see. Well, too bad. Maybe you can get to see him at Gibraltar.”
“Thurston doesn’t think so, but he’s going to the British embassy tomorrow morning, first thing, to find out. He’s being very kind. Especially since it’s obvious he thinks I’m a damned fool. No doubt you do, too.” She looked up at him with a defiant scowl that was familiar and beguiling, took off her hat, and tossed her hair. “What had you told him about Briny, anyway? And about me? He seemed to know quite a bit.”
“Oh, we had too much wine one night and I cried on his shoulder about my tragic love life. I was very nice about Byron, I assure you, considering.”
She said with a trace of malice, “Yes, I’ll bet. Say, this is quite a layout at that. It’ll bankrupt you.”
“Not in the few days I’ll be here.”
“Me, I’ve dropped my bags in a flea trap back in town, sharing a room with a poor old Jewish lady from Rotterdam, whose husband got pulled off the train in Paris. I haven’t had a shower since Sunday.”
“Look, why not move in here? There’s an extra room for a maid. I’ll sleep in there. Look at that bed. A football field. It’s yours.”
“Nothing doing. Listen, Slote, if I can get to Gibraltar I’ll marry Byron. That’s what he wants.” Slote, combing his hair at a mirror framed by trumpeting gilded cherubs, stopped and gave her a pained skeptical look. She went on nervously, “I know it sounds harum-scarum and wild.” Her eyes suddenly shone, and she laughed. “But in point of fact, I want to do it myself.”
“Well, I suppose I should congratulate you, Natalie. God knows I wish you well.”
“Oh, I know you do, Slote. Don’t bother telling me how bizarre all this is. Some things are just inevitable. I love Byron.”
“Well, the place is at your disposal, anyway. They eat dinner late here. Take a shower.”
“And climb into the same old underwear?” Natalie shook her head, looking thoughtful. “I noticed a shop downstairs. Let me see what Lisbon can offer a big heifer like me.”
She came back shortly, carrying a box and looking sly. “Did you mean that invitation? I bought a pile of stuff. Maybe it’s my trousseau! A fast half hour of shopping. They had all these things from Seville, cheap and just yummy. Byron’s eyes will pop out of his head, if he ever shows up.”
“Are you low on money now?”
“My dear, I’m still rolling in it. That’s one thing about sitting on that Siena hill, with nothing to spend it on! Aaron pays me like clockwork and it just accumulates. Really, may I stay? I hate the idea of going back to town tonight. That poor old woman gives me the horrors.”
“I said the place is yours.”
“I can’t register.”
“Don’t worry.”
“All right.” She paused at the bedroom door and turned, holding the box in both arms. Her intense dark glance shook the diplomat. “People wouldn’t understand about us, would they, Slote?”
“There’s nothing to understand about me. You’re the puzzle.”
“You didn’t used to think I was puzzling.”
“I thought I had you figured out. I’m paying a steep price for oversimplifying.”
“You were an egotistical fool. I am very fond of you.”
“Thanks, Jastrow. Go take your goddamned shower.”
Next morning a buzzing at the suite door woke Slote. Tying on a robe, he came yawning out of the tiny maid’s room, and blinked. There in a blaze of sunshine sat Natalie in a dazzling white wool dress with a broad red gold-buckled belt, watching a waiter fuss over a breakfast on a wheeled table. “Oh, hi,” she said, smiling brightly and touching her carefully coiffed hair. “I didn’t know whether you wanted to get up. I ordered eggs for you, just in case. Everything’s so cheap and plentiful here!”
“I’ll brush my teeth and join you. You’re all spiffed up! How long have you been awake?”
“Hours and hours. I’m supposed to wait for Byron in the bar here at eleven o’clock today. That was the original plan.”
Slote rubbed his eyes and peered at her. “What’s the matter with you? His sub’s en route to Gibraltar.”
“That’s what that man Bathurst said. Suppose he’s mistaken?”
“Natalie, he’s the naval attaché.”
“I know that.”
Shaking his head, Slote signed for the breakfast and left the room. Soon he returned in a shirt, slacks, and sandals, and found her eating with appetite. She grinned at him. “Forgive me for being a pig, dear. What a difference sunlight makes, and coffee! I feel marvellous.”
He sat down and cut into a ripe Spanish melon. “Sweetie, do you honestly expect Byron Henry to materialize in the bar of this hotel at eleven o’clock? Just on your sheer willpower?”
“Well, Navy signals get crossed up like any others, don’t they? I’m going to be there.”
“It’s just irrational, but suit yourself.”
“Do you like my dress? I bought it yesterday, right out of the window of that shop.”
“Very becoming.”
She kept glancing at her watch. “Well, wish me luck,” she said at last, dropping her napkin on the table. “I’m off.”
“Do you intend to sit in the bar all day, like patience on a monument?”
“Don’t be cross with me, Leslie.”
“I’m not. I’d just like to plan the time.”
“Well, obviously, if he hasn’t showed by noon or thereabouts, the next thing is to find out how I get to Gibraltar.”
“I’ll call Bunky on that, and I’ll come down at noon.”
“Will you, please? Thanks, Leslie, thanks for everything. That bed’s wonderful, I haven’t slept so well in months.”
She could not quite keep the mischief out of her face as she said this and left with a nonchalant wave. Clearly, thought Slote, she was relishing his discomfiture. The tables were turned, and he had to endure it until he could turn them again.
He judged his chance was now at hand. Leslie Slote intended to take every possible advantage of this encounter. He could not understand Natalie’s resolve to squander herself on Byron Henry. He had made a fearful mistake in his early treatment of this magnificent girl, and now he wanted to retrieve it. Slote knew how a divorced man must feel, finding himself thrown together with an ex-wife he still loved. Between them stood a barrier of old quarrels and new proprieties—it had effectively kept him out of the big bed last night—but beneath all that lay a deep bond. If it had not been for Natalie’s fortuitous passion for the strange skinny Henry kid, he believed, they would by now be back together, very likely married. And he honestly thought he was more worthy of her and better suited to her.
Natalie might thrash about here in Lisbon for a while, he calculated; her willpower was formidable; but Gibraltar was probably impossible to get to. She would have to go back to Italy. He would accompany her to Siena, pry Aaron Jastrow loose, and send them both home. If necessary he would wire Washington for a travel time extension. If he could not win Natalie back during all this, he sadly overestimated himself and the tie between them. He had been her first lover, after all. Slote believed that no woman ever really forgot the first man who had had her, ever got him quite out of her system.
He finished his breakfast at leisure, then telephoned Thurston. “Morning, Bunky. What did you find out about Natalie’s going to Gibraltar?”
“Forget it, Les. That submarine’s here.”
Slote had seldom heard worse news, but he suppressed any emotion in his voice. “It is? How come?”
“I don’t know. It came in at dawn. It’s tied up down at the river, near the customhouse.”
“Then what on earth was Bathurst talking about?”
“He’s mighty puzzled and he’s going down there later to talk to the skipper. That submarine had orders to go to Gibraltar.”
“How long will it be here?”
“The original schedule called for three days.” Thurston’s voice turned puckish. “Tough luck, Les. Fantastic girl. I’d sweat out the three days and then see.”
In self-defense Slote said calmly, “Yes, she’s all right, but she used to be a lot prettier.” He dressed and hurried downstairs. In the dark bar there were only a handful of Germans, who turned suspicious faces to him. He went striding through the lobby.
“Here, Slote! Look behind you!” Natalie’s voice rang like joyous bells.
Half screened by potted palms, she sat on a green plush sofa with Byron. Before them on a coffee table, beside an open dispatch case, lay a pile of documents. The girl’s cheeks flamed, her eyes were gleaming, her whole face brilliantly animated. Byron Henry jumped up to shake hands. He appeared just the same, even to the tweed jacket in which Slote had seen him for the first time slouched against a wall in Siena.
Slote said, “Well, hello there! Did Natalie tell you we had some very wrong information?”
Byron laughed. “It wasn’t wrong, exactly, but anyway, here we are.” His glance swept the lobby. “Say, this place has a queer smell of Berlin. Isn’t it full of Germans?”
“They swarm, darling. Don’t say anything about anything.” Excitedly shuffling the documents, Natalie pulled at Byron’s hand. “I can’t find your certificate of residence.”
“It’s clipped with yours.”
“Then he’s got everything,” Natalie exclaimed to Slote. “Everything! All by the regulations, translated into Portuguese, notarized, and the notary seals authenticated by Portuguese consuls. The works.” As Byron dropped beside her, she put her hand in his thick hair and gave his head a yank. “I thought you were lousy at paperwork, you devil. How in God’s name did you manage this?”