inquiry about Natalie’s whereabouts, but I’m grateful for it anyway. I must recommend that for your own sake you forget about Siena, Constantine, and the Jastrows.
Thank you for all you did for my niece. I gather from her letter — not from your far too modest and bare note — that you saved her from danger, perhaps from death. How glad I am that you went!
My warmest regards to your parents. I briefly talked with your father on the telephone. He sounded like a splendid man.
Faithfully yours,
When Byron got home that evening he took one look at his father, sitting in a lounge chair on the porch facing the garden, and backed away. Pug’s head was thrust forward and down, over a highball glass clenched in two hands. Byron went to his room and plugged at Hegel and his baffling “World Spirit” until dinner time.
Rhoda endured Victor Henry’s glowering silence at the table until the dessert came. “All right, Pug,” she said, digging into her ice cream, “what’s it all about?”
Pug gave her a heavy-lidded look. “Didn’t you read the letter?”
Byron thought his mother’s reaction was exceedingly peculiar. Her face stiffened, her eyes widened, her back straightened.
“Letter? What letter? From whom?”
“Get the letter on my dressing table for your mother, please,” Pug said to Byron.
“Well, goodness me,” Rhoda gasped, as she saw Byron trampling down the stairs with a pink envelope, “it’s only from Madeline.”
“Who did you think it was from?”
“Well, good lord, how was I to know? The Gestapo or somebody, from your manner. Honestly, Pug.” She scanned the letter. “So? What’s wrong with this? That’s quite a raise, twenty dollars a week.”
“Read the last page.”
“I am. Well! I see what you mean.”
“Nineteen years old,” Pug said. “An apartment of her own in New York! And I was the fusspot, about letting her leave school.”
“Pug, I merely said when you got here that the thing was done. She couldn’t have enrolled any more.”
“She damn well could have tried.”
“Anyway, Madeline will be all right. She’s a good girl. She’s as straitlaced as you.”
“It’s this war,” Pug said. “The world’s coming apart at the seams by the day. What can that girl do that’s worth fifty-five dollars a week? That’s what a senior grade lieutenant makes, after ten years in the service. It’s absurd.”
Rhoda said, “You’ve always babied Madeline. I think she’s showed you up, and that’s what really annoys you.”
“I wish I were back there. I’d have a damn good look around.”
Rhoda drummed the fingers of both hands on the table. “Do you want me to go home and be with her?”
“That would cost a fortune. It’s one thing when you travel on government allowance, but -” Pug turned to Byron. “You’ll be going back, won’t you? Maybe you could find a job in New York.”
“As a matter of fact, I wanted to talk about that. I got a letter too. From Dr. Jastrow. I’m going to Siena.”
“You are?”
“Yes.”
“Who says so?”
“I do.”
Silence.
Rhoda said, “That’s something we should all discuss, isn’t it, Briny?”
“Is that girl there?” Pug said.
“No.”
“She’s gone back to the States?”
“No. She’s trying to get there from England.”
“How do you propose to go?”
“Train. They’re running regularly to Milan and Florence.”
“And what will you use for money?”
“I have enough to get there. I saved nearly all I made.”
“And you’ll do what? Literary research up in an Italian mountain town, with a war on?”
“If I get called to active duty, I’ll go.”
“That’s damned bighearted, seeing that if you didn’t, the Navy would track you down and put you in the brig for a few years. Well, I’m proud of you, Briny. Do as you please.” Victor Henry coughed, rolled up his napkin, and left the table. Byron sat with his head thrust down and forward, his face white, the muscles in his jaw working.
Rhoda saw that talking to her son would be useless. She went upstairs to her dressing room, took out a letter she had put in a drawer beneath her underwear, read it once, then tore it into very small pieces.
Chapter 17 — Sitzkrieg
The “Phony” War
The quiescent half year between the fall of Warsaw and the Norway episode became known in the West as the “phony” war, a phrase attributed to an American senator. We called it the Sitzkrieg, or “sitting war,” a play on Blitzkrieg. On the British and French side the name was perhaps justified. During this lull they in fact did unbelievably little to improve their military posture, besides sit on their backsides and predict our collapse.
Early in this strange twilight period, the Fuhrer delivered his “outstretched hand” peace speech to the Reichstag. Like most of his political moves, it was cleverly conceived. Had the Allies swallowed it, we might have achieved surprise in the west with a November attack, which Hitler had ordered when Warsaw fell, and which we were feverishly planning. But by now the Western statesmen had developed a certain wariness toward our Fuhrer, and their response was disappointing. In the event this did not matter. A combination of bad weather and insoluble supply problems forced one postponement after another on the impatient Fuhrer. The intent to attack France was never at issue, but the date and the strategy kept changing. In all, the attack day was postponed twenty-nine times. Meanwhile preparations went forward at an ever-mounting tempo.
Our staff’s favorite comic reading as we worked on
Distraction in Finland
The sitzkrieg lull was temporarily enlivened when the Soviet Union attacked Finland.
