The Winds of War

do it on the next boat home." "But I'm quite serious, Leslie," Jastrow said with a faintly puckish smile. "you rang wild alarms when Mussolini passed the anti-Jewish laws. They proved a

with him; she used almost no paint once Slote left, combed her hair back in a heavy bun, and talked to Byron with offhand dryness. Still, his infatuation took quick root and grew rankly. She was the first American girl he had spoken to in months; and they were thrown together for many hours every day, just the two of them in the book-lined room. This was reason enough for him to feel attracted to her. But she impressed him, too. Natalie Jastrow talked to her famous uncle as to a mental equal. Her range of knowledge and ideas humiliated Byron, and yet there was nothing bookish about her. Girls in his experience were lightweights, fools for a smile and a bit of flattery. They had doted on him at college, and in Florence too. Byron was something of an Adonis, indolent and not hotly interested; and unlike Warren, he had absorbed some of his father's straitlaced ideas. He thought Natalie was a dark jewel of intellect and loveliness, blazing away all unnoticed here in the Italian back hills. As for her indifference to him, it seemed in order. He had no thought of trying to break it down. He did things he had never done before. He stole a little pale blue handkerchief of hers and sat at night in his hotel room in town, sniffing it. Once he ate half a cake she had left on her desk, because it bore the mark of her teeth. when she missed the cake, he calmly lied about it. Altogether he was in a bad way. Natalie Jastrow seemed to sense nothing of this. Byron had a hard shell of inscrutability, grown in boyhood to protect his laziness and school failures from his exacting father. They chatted a lot, of course, and sometimes drove out in the hills for a picnic lunch, when she would slightly warm to him over a bottle of wine, treating him more like a younger brother. He soon got at the main facts of her romance. She had gone to the Sorbonne for graduate work in sociology. Jastrow had written about her to Slote, a former pupil. A fulminating love affair had ensued, and Natalie had stormily quit Paris, and lived for a while with her parents inFlorida. Then she had come back to Europe to work for her uncle; also, Byron surmised, to be near Slote for another try. The Rhodes Scholar had now received orders to Warsaw, and Natalie was planning to visit him there in July while Jastrow took his summer holiday in the Greek islands. On one of their picnics, as he poured the last of the wine into her glass, Byron ventured a direct probe. 'Natalie, do you like your job?" She sat on a blanket, hugging her legs in a heavy checked skirt, looking out over a valley of brown wintry vineyards. With an arch questioning look, cocking her head, she said, 'Oh, it's a job. Why?" "It seems to me you're wasting away here." "Well, I'll tell you, Byron. You do peculiar things when you're in love." His response to this was a dull unfocussed expression. She went on: 'That's one thing. Besides, frankly, I think Aaron's rather wonderful. Don't you? Horribly crotchety and self-preoccupied and all that, but this Constantine book is good. My father is a warm, clever, good-hearted man, but he's the president of his temple and he manufactures sweaters. Aaron's a famous author, and he's my uncle. I suppose I bask in his glory. What's wrong with that? And I certainly enjoy typing the new pages, just watching the way his mind works. It's an excellent mind, and his style is admirable." She gave him another quizzical look. "Now why you're doing this, I'm far less sure." "Me?" Byron said. "I'm broke." Early in March Jastrow accepted an offer from an American magazine for an article about the upcoming Palio races. It meant he would have to put off his trip to Greece, for the race was run in July and again in August; but the fee was too absurdly fat, he said, to decline. If Natalie would watch the races and do the research, he told her, he would give her half the money. Natalie jumped at this, not perceiving-so Byron thought-that her uncle was trying to stop, or at least delay, her trip to Warsaw. Jastrow had once flatly said that Natalie's pursuit of Slote was unladylike conduct and bad tactics. Byron had gathered that Slote did not want to marry Natalie, and he could see why. For a Foreign Service man, a Jewish wife at this time would be disastrous; though Byron thought that in Slote's place he would cheerfully give up the Foreign Service for her. Natalie wrote to Slote that same day, postponing her visit until after the August Palio. Watching her bang out the letter, Byron tried to keep joy off his face. She might go, he was thinking, and then again she might not! Maybe a war would come along meantime and stopher. Byron hoped that Hitler, if he was going to invade Poland, would do it soon. When she finished, he went to the same typewriter and rattled off the famous letter to his parents. He intended to write one sheet, and wrote seven. It was his first letter to them in months. He had no idea that he was picturing himself as an infatuated young man. He was, he thought, just describing his job,

ly interest him. His majors had been history and the sciences. After an early lunch, he spent the day with her in a hotel bedroom. That did interest him. When he dined with his sister that evening, Madeline helped herself to a cigarette from his pack on the table, and lit and smoked it inexpertly. Her defiant, self-satisfied, somewhat pathetic air made Warren laugh. "When the cat's away, hey?" he said. "Oh, I've,been smoking for years," Madeline said. The three blasts of the ship's horn, the pier girders moving outside the porthole, the band far below crashing out "The Star-Spangled Banner," touched a spring in Rhoda. She turned to her husband with a smile such as he had not seen on her face for weeks, threw her arms around him, and gave him an aroused kiss, opening her soft familiar lips. "Well! We made it, Pug, didn't we? Off to Deutschland. Seco

walk on deck," Pug said. "See the Statue of Liberty." "No, sir. I want another drink. I've seen the Statue of Liberty." Pug made a slight peremptory move of a thumb, and Rhoda got off the stool. When anything touched his Navy work, Pug could treat her like a deckhand. He held open a door for her, and in a whipping wind they walked to the stern, where gulls swooped and screeched, and passengers clustered at the rails, watching the Manhattan buildings drift past in brown haze. Pug said quietly, leaning on a patch of clear rail, "Look, unless we're assume anything we say on this ship will in the open air like this, you can be recorded, one way or another. At

ace, gesturing at the waiters, long tailcoat flapping. The food was abundant and exquisite, the bowl of white and purple orchids spectacular. The parade of wines worried Pug, for when Rhoda was excited she could drink too much. But she ate heartily, drank normally, and delighted the captain by bantering with him in fluent German. The submarine man's wife sat on Henry's left, a blonde in green low-cut chiffon that lavishly showed big creamy breasts. Pug surprised her into warm laughter by asking if she had ever worked in films. At his right sat a small English girl in gray tweed, the daughter of Alistair Tudsbury. Tudsbury was the only real celebrity at the table, a British broadcaster and correspondndent, about six feet, with a big belly, a huge brown mustache, bulging eyes, a heavy veined nose, thick glasses, bearish eyebrows, booming voice, and an enormous appetite. He had arrived at the table laughing, and laughed at whatever was said to him, and at almost e

." "And I was down below. Maybe this is not the first time our paths cross." Grohke spoke English with a slight, not unpleasant Teutonic accent. "Possibly not." When Pug put the U-boat volume on the shelf and took down the Tudsbury book, Grohke remarked, "Perhaps we could have a drink before dinner and compare notes on the Atlantic in 1918?" 'I'd enjoy that."Pug intended to read Tudsbury in a deck chair for a while and then go below to work. He had brought weighty books on German industry, politics, and history, and meant to grind through the lot on the way to his post. Intelligence manuals and handbooks were all right, but he was a digger. He liked to search out the extra detail in the extra-discouraginglooking fat volume. Surprising things were recorded, but patient alert eyes were in perpetual short supply. The bow wave was boiling away, a V of white foam on the blue sunlit sea, and the Bremen was rolling like a battleship. Wind from the northwest, Pug estimated, glancing up at the thin smoke from the stacks, and at the sea; wind speed fifteen knots, ship's speed eighteen, number four sea on the port quarter, rain and high winds far ahead under the cumulonimbus. Nostalgia swept over him. Four years since he had served at sea; eleven since he had had a command! He stood by the forward rail, leaning against a lifeboat davit, sniffing the sea air. Four unmistakable Jews walked by in jolly conversation, two middle-aged couples in fine sports clothes. They went out of sight around the deckhouse. He was still looking after them when he heard Tudsbury blare, "Hello there, Commander. I hear you were out walking my Pam at the crack of dawn." "Hello. Did you see those people who just went by?" "Yes. There's no understanding Jews. I say, is that my book? How touching. How far have you got?" "I just drew it from the library." Tudsbury's mustache drooped sadly. "What! You didn't buy it? Damn all libraries. Now you'll read it and I won't gain a penny by it." He bellowed a laugh and rested one green-stockinged leg on the rail. He was wearing a baggy pepper-and-salt golfing outfit and a green tam o'shanter. 'It's a bad book, really a fake, but it's selling in your country, luckily for me. If you didn't happen to hear my drivelling on the air in the past year or two, there are a couple of interesting paragraphs. Footnotes to history. My thing on Hitler's entry into Vienna is actually not too awful. Quite a time we're living in, Commander." He talked about the German take-over of Austria, sounding much as he did on the air: positive, informed, full of scorn for democratic politicians, and cheerfully ominous. Tudsbury's special note was that the world would very likely go up in flames, but that it might prove a good show. "Can you picture the bizarre and horrible triumph that we let him get away with, dear fellow? I saw it all. Something straight out of Plutarch, that was! A zero of a man, with no schooling, of no known family -at twenty a dropped-out student, a drifter and a failure-five years a dirty, seedy tramp in a Vienna doss housed you know that, Henry? Do you know that for five years this Fuhrer was what you call a Bowery bum, sharing a vile room with other assorted flotsam, eating in soup kitchens, and not because there depression-Vienna was fat and prosperous then-but because he was a dreamy, lazy,(wasa) incompetent misfit? That house painter story is hogwash. He sold a few hand-painted postcards, but to the age of twenty-six he was a sidewalk-wandering vagrant, and then for four years a soldier in theGerman army, a lance corporal, a messenger-runner, a low job for a man of even rrainimum intelligence, and at thirty he was lying broke, discharged, and gassed in an army hospital. That is the background of the Fuhrer. "And then-" The ship's horn blasted, drowning out Tudsbury's voice, which was beginning to roll in his broadcasting style. He winced, laughed, and'went on: 'And then, what happened? Why, then this same ugly, sickly, uncouth, prejudiced, benighted, half-mad little wretch leaped out of his hospital bed, and went careering in ten years straight to the top of a German nation thirsting for a return match. The man was a foreigner, Henry! He was an Austrian. They had to fake up a citizenship proceeding for him, so he could run against Hindenburg! And I myself watched this man ride in triumph through the streets of Vienna, where he had sold postcards and gone hungry, the sole their to the combined thrones of the Hap

were having as gay a time as everybody else, under the polite ministrations of smiling German waiters. The captain followed Henry's glance, and a genial superior grin relaxed his stern fat face. "You see, Commander? They are as welcome aboard the Bremen as anybody else, and get the same service. The exaggerations on that subject are fantastic." He turned to Tudsbury. 'Between us, aren't you journalists a wee bit responsible for making matters worse?" "Well, Captain," Tudsbury said, "journalism always looks for a theme, you know. One of the novel things about your government, to people " outside Germany, is its policy toward the Jews. And so it keeps turning up. "Tudsbury is not entirely wrong, Captain," Grohke broke in, draining his wineglass. "Outsiders think of nothing but the Jews nowadays when Germany is mentioned. That policy h

sion, where do I get in touch with you? The embassy?" 'Sure. Office of the Naval Attache." "Ah!" said Tudsbury. "Our little trip to Swinemilnde! So glad you haven't forgotten." 'I'll do my best to include you," said Grohke coldly. He shook hands with both of them, bowing and clicking his heels, and he left. "Come and say good-bye to Pamela," Tudsbury said. "She's below, packing." "I'll do that." Pug walked down the deck with the correspondent, who limped on a cane. "I have notions of matching her up with a son of mine." "Oh, have you?" Tudsbury gave him a waggish glance through his thick spectacles. "I warn you, she's a handful." "What? Why, I've never met a gentler or pleasanter girl." "Still waters," said Tudsbury. "I warn you." The Henrys had only just arrived in Berlin when they were invited Tto meet Hitler-It was a rare piece of luck, the embassy people told them. Chancellery receptions big enough to include military attaches were none too common. The Fuhrer was staying away from Berlin in order to damp down the war talk, but a visit of the Bulgarian prime minister had brought him back to the capital. WMIe Commander Henry studied the protocol of Nazi receptions in moments snatched from his piled-up office work, Rhoda flew into a twoday frenzy over her clothing, and over her hair, which she asserted had been ruined forever by the imbecile hairdresser of the Adlon Hotel (pug thought the hair looked more or less the same as always). She had brought no dresses in the least suitable for a formal afternoon reception in the spring. Why hadn't somebody warnedher? Three hours before the event Rhoda was still whirling in an embassy car from one Berlin dress shop to another. She burst into their hotel room clad in a pink silk suit with gold buttons and a gold net blouse. "How's this?" she barked. "Sally Forrest says Hitler likes pink." "Perfect!" Her husband thought the suit was terrible, and decidedly big on Rhoda, but it was no time for truth-telling. "Gad, where did you ever find it?" Outside the hotel, long vertical red banners of almost transparent cheesecloth, with the black swastika in a white circle at their center, were swaying all along the breezy street, alternated with gaudy Bulgarian flags. The way to the chancellery was lined with more flags, a river of fluttering red, interspersed with dozens of Nazi standards in the style of Roman legion emblems-long poles topped by stylized gilt eagles perching on wreathed swastikas-and underneath, in place of the Roman SPQR, the letterS NSDAP. "What on earth does NSDAP stand for?" Rhoda said, peering out of the window of the embassy car at the multitudinous gilded poles. 'National Socialist German Workers Party," said Pug. "Is that the name of the Nazis? How funny. Sounds sort of Commie when you spell it all out." Pug said, "Sure. Hitler got in on a red-hot radical program." "Did he? I never knew that. I thought he was against all that stuff. Well, it couldn't be more confusing, I mean European politics, but I do think all this is terribly exciting. Makes Washington seem dull and tame, doesn't it?" When Victor Henry first came into Hitler's new chancellery, he was incongruously reminded of Radio City Music Hall in New York. The opulent stretch of carpet, the long line of waiting people, the high ceiling, the great expanses of shiny marble, the inordinate length and height of the huge space, the gaudily uniformed men ushering the guests along, all added up to much the same theatrical, vulgar, strained effort to be grand; but this was the seat of a major government, not a movie house. It seemed peculiar. An officer in blue took his name, and the slow-moving line carried the couple toward the Fuhrer, far down the hall. The SS guards were alike as chorus boys with their black-and-silver uniforms, black boots, square shoulders, blond waved hair, white teeth, bronzed skin, and blue eyes. Some shepherded the guests with careful smiles, others stood along the walls, blank-faced and stiff. Hitler was no taller than Henry himself; a small man with a prison haircut, leaning forward and bowing as he shook hands, his head to one side, hair falling on his forehead. This was Henry's flash impression, as he caught his first full-length look at the Fuhrer beside the burly muchmedalled Bulgarian, but in another moment it changed. Hitler had a remarkable smile. His down-curved mouth was rigid and tense, his eyes sternly self-confident, but when he smiled this fanatic look vanished; the whole face brightened up, showing a strong hint ofhumor, and a curious, almost boyish, shyness. Sometimes he held a guest's hand and conversed. When he was particularly amused he laughed and made an odd sudden Move with his right knee: he lifted i-t and jerked it a little inward. His greeting to the two American couples ahead of the Henrys was casual. He did not smile, and his restless eyes wandered away from them and back again as he shook hands. A protocol officer in a sky-blue, gold-crusted Foreign Service uniform intoned in German: "The naval attache to the embassy of the United States of America, Commander Victor Henry!" The hand of the Fuhrer was dry, rough, and it seemed a bit swollen. The clasp was firm as he scanned Henry's face. Seen this close the deepsunk eyes were pale blue, puffy, and somewhat glassy. Hitler appeared fatigued; his pasty face had streaks of sunburn on his forehead, nose, and cheekbones, as though he had been persuaded to leave his desk in Berchtesgaden and come outside for a few hours. To be looking into this famous face with its hanging hair, thrusting nose, zealot's remote eyes, and small mustache was the strangest sensation of Henry's life. Hitler said, "Willkomnwn in Deutschland," and dropped his hand. Surprised that Hitler should be aware of his recent arrival, Pug stammered, "Danke, Herr Reichskanzler." "Frau Henry!" Rhoda, her eyes gleaming, shook hands with Adolf Hitler. He said, in German, "I hope you are comfortable in Berlin." His voice was low, almost folksy; another surprise to Henry, wh

time without my consent. However, if there's a tenant in residence with diplomatic immunity, that can't be done." Rosenthal smiled. "Hence the modest rent, Herr Commandant! You see, I'm not hiding anything." "May I ask you a question? Why don't you sell out and leave Germany?" The Jew blinked. His face remained debonair and imposing. "My family has a business here more than one hundred years old. We refine sugar. My children are at school in England, but my wife and I are comfortable enough in Berlin. We are both native Berliners." He sighed, looked around at the snug rosewood-panelled library in which they sat, and went on: "Thingsare not as bad as they were in 1938. That was the worst. If there is no war, they'll improve quickly. I've been told this seriously by some high officials. Old friends of mine." Rosenthal hesitated, and added, "The Fuhrer has done remarkable things for the country. It would be foolish to deny that. I have lived through other bad times. I was shot through a lung in Belgium in 1914. A man goes through a lot in a lifetime." He spread his hands in a graceful resigned gesture. Victor Henry said, "Well, Mrs. Henry loves the house, but I don't want to take advantage of anybody's misfortune." "You'll be doing just the opposite. You know that now. Two years?" "How about one year, with an option to renew?" At once Rosenthal stood and held out his hand. Henry rose and shook it. "We should have a drink on it perhaps," said Rosenthal, "but we emptied the liquor closet when we left. Liquor doesn't last long in a vacant house." It felt odd the first night, sleeping in the Rosenthals' broad soft