wanted Natalie Jastrow. Her distracted lean look of the moment was peculiarly enticing. He was quite willing to marry her, or to do anything else, to have her again.
He opened his apartment door and snapped on lights. “Ye gods, a quarter to one. Long show. How about a drink?”
“I don’t know. If I’m to search around tomorrow in New York courthouses for Aaron’s documents, I’d better get to bed.”
“Let me see his letter again, Natalie. You mix us a couple of shorties.”
“All right.”
Removing his shoes, jacket, and tie, Slote sank in an armchair, donned black-rimmed glasses, and studied the letter. He took one book after another from the wall — heavy green government tomes, and drank, and read. The ice in both drinks tinkled in the silence.
“Come here.” he said.
Natalie sat on the arm of the couch, under the light. Slote showed her, in a book, State Department rules for naturalized citizens living abroad more than five years. They forfeited citizenship, but the book listed seven exceptions. Some seemed to fit Aaron Jastrow’s case — as when health was a reason for staying abroad, or when a man past sixty and retired had maintained his ties with the United States.
“Aaron’s in hot water on two counts,” Slote said. “There’s this joker about his father’s naturalization. If Aaron actually wasn’t a minor at the time, even by a week or a day, he isn’t an American, technically, and never has been one. But even if he was, he has the five-year problem. I mentioned this to him once, you know. I said he should go back to the United States and stay a few months. I’d just seen too many passport messes crop up on this point, ever since the Nazis took over Germany.” Slote picked up the glasses, went to his kitchenette, and mixed more drinks, continuing to talk. “Aaron’s been a fool. But he’s far from unique. It’s unbelievable how careless and stupid Americans can be about citizenship. In Warsaw a dozen of these foul-ups turned up every week. The best thing now — by far — is to get the Secretary of State to drop a word to Rome. The day that word arrives Aaron will be in the clear.” Padding to the couch in his stocking feet, he handed her a drink and sat beside her. “But trying to unravel any technical problem, however small, through channels scares me. There’s a monumental jam of cases from Europe. It could take Aaron eighteen months. I therefore don’t think there’s much point in your digging around in Bronx courthouses for his alien registration and his father’s naturalization records. Not yet. After all, Aaron’s a distinguished man of letters. I’m hoping the Secretary will shake his head in amusement at the folly of absentminded professors, and shoot off a letter to Rome. I’ll get on this first thing in the morning. He’s a thorough gentleman. It ought to work.”
Natalie stared at him.
He said, “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing.” The girl drank off half her drink, all at once. “It certainly helps to know a man who knows a man, doesn’t it? Well! If I’m to hang around Washington till the end of the week, we’ll have to get me a hotel room, Leslie. I’m certainly not going to stay here after tonight. I feel damned odd even about that. I can still try a few of the hotels.”
“Go ahead. I was on the phone for an hour. Washington in May is impossible. There are four conventions in town.”
“If Byron finds out, God help me.”
“Won’t he believe that I slept on the couch?”
“He’ll have to, if he finds out. Leslie, will you get me permission to go to Italy?”
He compressed his mouth and shook his head. “I told you, the Department’s advising Americans to leave Italy.”
“If I don’t go, Aaron won’t come home.”
“Why? A broken ankle isn’t disabling.”
“He just will never pull himself together and leave. You know that. He’ll dawdle and potter and hope for the best.”
Slote said with a shrug, “I don’t think you want to go there to help Aaron. Not really. You’re just running away, Natalie. Running away, because you’re in way over your with your submarine boy, and shattered by losing your father, and actually don’t know what on earth to do next with yourself.”
“Aren’t you clever!” Natalie clinked the half-full glass down on the table. “I leave in the morning, Slote, if I have to stay at the YWCA. But I’ll make your breakfast first. Do you still eat your eggs turned over and fried to leather?”
“I’ve changed very little, altogether, darling.”
“Good-night.” She closed the bedroom door hard.
Half an hour later Slote, dressed in pajamas and a robe, tapped at the door.
“Yes?” Natalie’s voice was not unfriendly.
“Open up.”
Her faintly smiling face was pink and oily, and over a nightgown she had bought that afternoon she wore a floppy blue robe of his. “Hi. Something on your mind?”
“Care for a nightcap?”
She hesitated. “Oh, why not? I’m wide awake.”
Humming happily, Leslie Slote went to the kitchen and emerged almost immediately with two very dark highballs. Natalie sat on the couch, arms folded, face shiny in the lamplight.
“Thanks. Sit down, Leslie. Stop pacing. That was a mean crack about Byron.”
“Wasn’t it the truth, Natalie?”
“All right. If we’re playing the truth game, isn’t it simpler today than it was a year ago for a Foreign Service officer to have a Jewish wife, since the Nazis are now beyond the pale?”
Slote’s cheery look faded abruptly. “That never once occurred to me.”
“It didn’t have to occur to you. Now listen, dear. You can feed me stiff highballs and play ‘This Can’t Be Love’ on the phonograph, and all that, but do you really want me to invite you into the bedroom? Honestly, it would be a sluttish thing to do. I don’t feel like it. I’m in love with somebody else.”
He sighed and shook his head. “You’re too damned explicit, Natalie. You always have been. It’s coarse, in a girl.”
“You said that the first time I proposed, sweetie.” Natalie stood, sipping her highball. “My goodness, what a rich drink. I do believe you’re nothing but a wolf.” She was scanning the books. “What can I read? Ah, Graham Wallas. The very man. I’ll be asleep in half an hour.”
He stood and took her by the shoulders. “I love you, I’ll love you forever, and I’ll try every way I can to get you back.”
“Fair enough. Leslie, I must go to Italy to get Aaron out. Honestly! I feel horrible about my father. He was worrying over Aaron the very day he died. Maybe this is irrational expiation, but I’ve got to bring Aaron home safe.”
“I’ll arrange it, if it’s arrangeable.”
“Now you’re talking. Thanks. Good-night.” She kissed him lightly, went to the bedroom, and closed the door. He did not rap again, though he read for a long time and had more drinks.
Chapter 28
The Vice Chief of Naval Operations for Air was drinking coffee with a blond man in a blue Royal Air Force uniform. It was Lord Burne-Wilke; he nodded at Victor Henry, with a faint smile. During their long convivial dinner with the Tudsburys, Burne-Wilke had said not a word to Pug about this meeting.
“Good morning, Henry. I understand you know the Air Commodore.” The admiral worked his eyebrows at Pug.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Have a cup of coffee.” The wiry old man bounced away from his desk to a map of the United States on the wall. “And let’s get at it. Here, here, and here” — his bony finger jumped to Pensacola, St. Louis, and
