and Mark Hartley sang right along too, though his eyes never ceased rolling at the German soldiers. Natalie, silent, regarded them both with a satirical motherly look.
Returning to the waiting room, stuffed and dizzy after this incredible, this visionary feast, they saw crudely lettered placards around the brown tile walls: BELGIEN, BULGARIEN, KANADA, NIEDERLANDE. They went and stood under the VEREINIGTE STAATEN sign. Laughing, chattering, the refugees sorted themselves out, gay as though returning from a picnic. Men in black uniforms entered the waiting room. Conversation died among the Americans and the cheery noise faded throughout the station.
Slote said soberly, “Listen, please, everybody. Those are the SS. I’ll do any talking to them that has to be done.”
The men in black fanned out, one to each group of neutrals. The one who headed for the Americans did not appear sinister. Except for the operatic black costume, with its silver double-lightning-flash insignia, he looked like an American himself, perhaps a young insurance salesman one might sit next to on a train or plane. He carried a black leather portfolio. Slote walked out to meet him. “I’m Leslie Slote, first secretary of the United States embassy and acting charge d’affaires.”
The SS man bowed, heels together, both hands on the case. “You have a gentleman named Byron Henry in your party?” His English was smooth.
“This is Byron Henry,” Slote said.
Byron took a step forward.
“Your father represents the American Navy in Berlin?”
Byron nodded.
“This message is forwarded to you via the foreign ministry.” Byron put the yellow envelope in his breast pocket. “You may read it now, of course.”
“Thanks. I’ll look at it later.”
The SS man turned to Slote. “I am to collect the American passports.” His tone was brisk and cool, his blue eyes distant, almost unfocussed on the Foreign Service man. “Let me have them, please.”
Slote was very pale. “I’m reluctant to surrender them, for obvious reasons.”
“I assure you it is quite routine. They are to be processed on the train. They will be returned to you before you arrive in Konigsberg.”
“Very well.” At a motion from Slote, an assistant gave him a thick red portfolio, which he handed to the man in black.
“Thank you. Now your roster, please.”
The assistant held out three clipped sheets. The SS man glanced through them, and then looked around. “No Negroes in your party, I see. How many Jews?”
Slote took a moment to reply. “I’m sorry, but in our passports we make no record of religious affiliation.”
“But you do have Jews.” The man spoke offhandedly, as though discussing doctors or carpenters.
“Even if there were Jews in the party, I would have to decline to answer. The policy of my country on religious groups is one of absolute equality of treatment.”
“But nobody is suggesting that there will be inequality of treatment. Who are these Jews, please?” Slote looked silently at him, touching his tongue to his lips. The SS officer said, “You have mentioned your government’s policy. We will respect it. The policy of my government is simply to maintain separate records where Jews are concerned. Nothing else is involved.”
Byron, a couple of paces forward from the group, wanted to see how Natalie and Hartley were behaving, but he knew it would be disastrous to glance at them.
Slote did look around at the whole party in a glance of caution, appeal, and great nervousness. But he produced a calm professional tone when he spoke. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know if anybody here is Jewish. I’m not personally interested, I haven’t asked, and I don’t have the information.”
“My instructions are to separate out the Jews,” said the officer, “and I must now do that.” He turned to the Americans and said, “Form a double line, alphabetically, please.” Nobody moved; they all looked to Slote. The SS man turned to him. “Your party is in the custody of the Wehrmacht, in a combat zone under strict martial law. I call this to your attention.”
Slote glanced out toward the waiting room, his face harried. In front of several parties — the Swiss, the Rumanian, the Hungarian, the Dutch — a few miserable Jews already stood separated, heads bowed, with their suitcases. “Look here, for your purposes you can assume we’re all Jews.” His voice was starting to shake. “What next?”
Byron heard a shrill woman’s voice behind him. “Now just a minute. What on earth do you mean by that, Mr. Slote? I’m certainly not a Jew and I won’t be classified or treated as one.”
Slote turned and said angrily, I mean that we all must be treated alike, Mrs. Young, that’s all. Please cooperate as I asked—”
“Nobody’s putting me down for a Jew,” said a man’s voice from a different direction. “I’m just not buying that either, Leslie. Sorry.”
Bryon recognized both voices. He turned around as the SS officer addressed the woman: “Yes, madam. Who are you, please?”
“Clara Young of Chicago, Illinois, and I’m not Jewish, you can be darn sure of that.” She was a dried-out little woman — of sixty or so, a bookkeeper in the American movie distributor’s office in Warsaw. She giggled, glancing here and there.
“Would you be kind enough to point out the Jews in your party, madam?”
“Oh, no, thank you mister. That’s your business, not mine.”
Byron expected that. He was more worried by the man, a retired Army officer named Tom Stanley, who had been selling heavy machinery to the Polish government. Stanley was given to saying that Hitler was a great man and that the Jews had brought all their trouble on themselves.
The SS man asked for Stanley’s name and then said to him in a cordial man-to-man way, “Who are the Jews here, please? Your party can’t leave until I know. You seem to understand this matter better than your charge.”
Stanley, an old turkey-cock of a man with hanging jowls, a wattled throat, and a brush of gray hair, grew quite red and cleared his throat several times, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his loud green-and-brown sports jacket. All the Americans were staring at him. “Well, I’ll tell you, friend, I’d like to cooperate, but so far as I know there aren’t any. Not in this party.”
The SS officer shrugged, ran his eyes over the group, and stopped at Mark Hartley. He flicked two fingers forward. “You. Yes, you, the one with the blue bow tie, step this way.” Again he flicked the fingers.
“Stay where you are,” Slote said to Hartley; then, to the officer, “I would like to have your name and rank. I protest this procedure, and I warn you that this incident will result in a written protest from my government if it continues.”
The SS officer gestured around the waiting room, and said in a reasonable tone, “The officials of all the other governments are cooperating. You see for yourself. This is nothing to protest. This is a simple matter of conforming to local regulations. What is your name, you there?”
“Mart Hartley.” The voice was steady enough, steadier than Slote’s.
“Mark Hartley, I see.” The SS man smiled a peculiar, chilling smile, his eyes wide and serious. It was the smile of the Polish soldier on the road to Warsaw, who had yanked the beard of the taxi driver. “
“That name.”
“Really! What were your parents?”
“Both Americans.”
“Jews?”
Byron said, “I happen to know him, sir, we’ve been going to church together all the time in Warsaw. He’s a Methodist like me.”
The tall silver-haired minister, standing near Clara Young ran his fingers inside his clerical collar. “I can vouch for that. I conducted services when Mr. Hartley was present. Mark is a devout Christian.”
