Do you believe that?”
“It’s ridiculous to think that Poland attacked Germany,” Bozey said calmly, “but it’s highly likely that Finland attacked the Soviet Union. It was probably a provocation engineered by others to embroil socialism in the imperialist war.”
“The Soviet Union is fifty times as big as Finland,” Janice Lacouture said.
“I’m not saying the Finns did something wise,” said Bozey. “They were egged on into making a bad mistake. Anyway, Finland just used to be a duchy of Czarist Russia. It’s not an invasion exactly, it’s a rectification.”
“Oh, come on, Bozey,” Madeline said. “Stalin’s simply making hay while the sun shines, slamming his way in there to improve his strategic position against Germany.”
“Of course,” Warren said, “and that’s a damned prudent move in his situation, whatever the morality of it may be.”
Bozey smiled cunningly, his eyes starting from his head. “Well, it’s quite true he wasn’t born yesterday. The imperialists all lift up their hands in holy horror when a socialist government does something realistic. They think that’s their exclusive privilege.”
“Why do you suppose the invasion’s flopping on its face?” Warren said.
“Oh, do you believe the capitalist newspapers?” said Bozey, with a broad wink.
“You think the Russians are really winning?”
“Why, all this nonsense about the Finnish ski troops in white uniforms makes me ill,” Bozey said. “Don’t you suppose the Russians have skis and white uniforms too? But catch the
“This is a lovely stew,” Janice said.
“I used too many cloves,” Madeline said, “Don’t bite into one.”
Warren and Janice left right after dinner to go to the theatre. He was on a seventy-two-hour pass from Pensacola, and Janice had come up from Washington to meet him; dinner with Madeline had been a last-minute arrangement by long-distance telephone. When they left, Madeline was cutting out her dress and Bozey was washing the dishes.
“What do I do now?” Warren said, out in the street. The theatre was only a few blocks away. It was snowing and cabs were unobtainable, so they walked. “Get myself a shotgun?”
“What for? To put Bozey out of his misery?”
“To get him to marry her, was my idea.”
Janice laughed, and hugged his arm. “There’s nothing doing between those two, honey.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Not a chance. That’s quite a gal, your little sister.”
“Jesus Christ, yes. The Red Flame of Manhattan. That’s a hell of a note. And I wrote my folks I was going to visit her. Now what do I say?”
“You just write your parents that everything’s peachy with her. Because it is.”
They walked with heads bent, the snow whirling on the wind into their faces.
“Why are you so quiet?” said Janice. “Don’t worry about your sister. Really, you don’t have to.”
“I’m thinking how this war’s blown our family apart. I mean, we used to scatter here and there,” Warren said.
“We’re a service family and we’re used to that, but it’s different now. I don’t feel there’s a base any more. And we’re all changing. I don’t know if we’ll ever pull back together again.”
“Sooner or later all families change and scatter,” said Janice Lacouture, “and out of the pieces new families start up. That’s how it goes, and a very lovely arrangement it is, too.” She put her face to his for a moment, and snowflakes fell on the two warm cheeks.
“The imperialist struggle for foreign markets,” said Warren. “Jehosephat! I hope she’s rid of that one by the time Dad gets back. Otherwise he’ll lay waste to Radio City.”
Chapter 19
“BYRON!”
Dr. Jastrow gasped out the name and stared. He sat as usual on the terrace, the blue blanket over his legs, the gray shawl around his shoulders, the writing board and yellow pad on his lap. A cold breeze blowing across the valley from Siena fluttered Jastrow’s pages. In the translucent air the red-walled town, with its black-and-white striped cathedral atop the vineyard-checkered hills, looked hauntingly like the medieval Siena in old frescoes.
“Hello, A.J.”
“Dear me, Byron! I declare I’ll be a week recovering from the start you’ve given me! We were talking about you only at breakfast. We were both absolutely certain you’d be in the States by now.”
“She’s here?”
“Of course. She’s up in the library.”
“Sir, will you excuse me?”
“Yes, go ahead, let me collect myself — oh, and Byron, tell Maria I’d like some strong tea right away.”
Byron took the center hall steps three at a time and walked into the library. She stood at the desk in a gray sweater, a black skirt, pale and wide-eyed. “It is, by God! It
“It’s me.”
“Why the devil did you come back?”
“I have to make a living.”
“You’re an imbecile. Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”
“Well, I thought I’d better just come.”
She approached him, stretched out a hand uncertainly, and put it to his face. The long fingers felt dry and cold. “Anyway, you look rested. You seem to have put on some weight.” She backed off awkwardly and abruptly. “I owe you an apology. I was feeling beastly that day in Konigsberg, and if I was rude to you, I’m sorry.” She walked away from him and sank into her desk chair. “Well, we can use you here, but surprises like this are never pleasant. Don’t you know that yet?” As though he had returned from an errand in town, she resumed clattering at the typewriter.
That was all his welcome. Jastrow put him back to work, and within a few days the old routines were restored. It was as though the Polish experience had never occurred, as though neither of them had left the hilltop. The traces of the war in these quiet hills were few. Only sporadic shortages of gasoline created any difficulty. The Milan and Florence newspapers that reached them played down the war. Even on the BBC broadcasts there was little combat news. The Russian attack on Finland seemed as remote as a Chinese earthquake.
Because the buses had become unreliable, Dr. Jastrow gave Byron a lodging on the third floor of the villa: a cramped little maid’s room with cracking plaster walls, and a stained ceiling that leaked in hard rains. Natalie lived directly below Byron in a second-floor bedroom looking out on Siena. Her peculiar manner to him persisted. At mealtimes, and generally in Jastrow’s presence, she was distantly cordial. In the library she was almost uncivil, working away in long silences, and giving terse cool answers to questions. Byron had a modest opinion of himself and his attractions, and he took his treatment as probably his due, though he missed the comradeship of their days in Poland and wondered why she never talked about them. He thought he had probably annoyed her by following her here. He was with her again, and that was why he had come; so, for all the brusque treatment, he was as content as a dog reunited with an irritable master.
When Byron arrived in Siena, the Constantine book was on the shelf for the moment, in favor of an expanded magazine article, “The Last Palio,” In describing the race, Jastrow had evoked a gloom-filled image of Europe plunging again toward war. A piece startling in its foresight, it had arrived on the editor’s desk on the first of September, the day of the invasion. The magazine printed it, and Jastrow’s publisher cabled him a frantic request to work it up into a short book, preferably containing a note of optimism (however slight) on the outcome of the war. The cable mentioned a large advance against royalties. This was the task in hand.
In this brief book, Jastrow was striking an Olympian, farseeing, forgiving note. The Germans would probably
