passengers dragged her away.
After a couple of hours of troubled sleep at the hotel, Commander Henry put on a freshly pressed uniform, with shoes gleaming like black mirrors, and walked to the embassy. Under a low gray sky, in the rows of tables and chairs along the Via Veneto, only a few people were braving the December chill. The gasoline shortage had almost emptied the broad boulevard of traffic. Like Berlin, this capital city exuded penury and gloom.
Captain Kirkwood had left for the day. His yeoman handed Pug a long lumpy envelope. Two small objects clattered to the desk when he ripped it open: silver eagles on pins, the collar insignia of a captain.
Captain William Kirkwood presents his compliments to
P.S. You’re out of uniform. Four stripes, please.
Clipped to the note was a strip of gold braid, and the Alnav letter listing newly selected captains, on which
The yeoman’s refreshing, freckled American face wore a wide grin. “Congratulations, Cap’n.”
“Thank you. Did my son call?”
“Yes, suh. He’s coming to dinner. That’s all arranged. Ah’ve got fresh coffee going, suh, if you’d like a cup in the cap’n’s office.”
“That’ll be fine.”
Sitting in the attache’s swivel chair, Pug drank one cup after another of the rich Navy brew, delightful after months of the German ersatz stuff. He ranged on the desk before him the eagles, the Alnav, the strip of gold braid. His seamed pale face looked calm, almost bored, as he swung the chair idly, contemplating the tokens of his new rank; but he was stirred, exalted, and above all relieved.
He had long been dreading that the selection board, on this first round, might pass him over. Execs of battleships and cruisers, squadron commanders of submarines and destroyers, insiders in BuShips and BuOrd, could well crowd out an attache. The big hurdle of the race for flag rank was early promotion to captain. The few officers who became admirals had to make captain on the wing. This early promotion, this small dry irrevocable statistic in the record, was his guerdon for a quarter of a century of getting things done. It was his first promotion in ten years, and it was the crucial one.
He wished he could share this cheering news at once with his restless wife. Perhaps when he got back to Berlin they could throw a wingding, he thought, for embassy people, correspondents, and friendly foreign attaches, and lighten the gloom lying heavy in the Jew’s mansion in Grunewald.
Natalie Jastrow popped back into his mind, displacing even the promotion. Since the chance encounter, he kept thinking of her. In those few minutes he had sensed the powerful, perhaps unbreakable, bond between his son and the girl. Yet how could that be? Young women like Natalie Jastrow, if they went outside their natural age bracket, tended to marry a man almost his own age rather than to reach down and cradle-snatch a stripling like Byron. Natalie was more mature and accomplished than Janice, who was marrying Byron’s older brother. It was mismatch enough for these reasons, and made him wonder about her sense and stability, but the Jewish problem loomed above all.
Victor Henry was no bigot, in his own best judgment. His narrowly bounded life had brought him into very little contact with Jews. He was an arid realist and the whole thing spelled trouble. If he were to have half-Jewish grandchildren, well, with such a mother they would probably be handsome and bright. But he thought his son was not man enough to handle the complications and might never be. The coolness and courage he had displayed in Warsaw were fine traits for an athletic or military career, but in daily life they meant little, compared to ambition, industry, and common sense.
“Mr. Gianelli is here, sir.” The yeoman’s voice spoke through the squawk box.
“Very well.” Victor Henry swept up the tokens and put them in a trouser pocket, not nearly as happy as he had once thought promotion to captain would make him.
The San Francisco banker had changed to an elegant double-breasted gray suit with bold chalk stripes and out-size British lapels. The interior of his green Rolls Royce smelled of a strong cologne. “I trust you enjoyed your nap as much as I did mine,” he said, lighting a very long cigar. All his gestures had the repose, and all of the details of his person — manicure, rings, shirt, tie — the sleekness, of secure wealth. Withal, he appeared stimulated and slightly nervous. “Now, I’ve already spoken to the foreign minister. You’ve met Count Ciano? Pug shook his head. “I’ve known him well for many years. He’s definitely coming to the reception, and from there will take me to the Palazzo Venezia. Now, what about you? What are your instructions?”
“To consider myself your aide as long as you’re in Italy and Germany, sir, and to make myself useful in any way you desire.”
“Do you understand Italian?”
“Poorly, to say the least. I can grope through a newspaper if I have to.”
“That’s a pity.” The banker smoked his cigar with calm relish, his drooping eyes sizing up Victor Henry. “Still, the President said there might be value in having you along at both interviews, if these heads of state will stand for it. Just another pair of eyes and ears. At Karinhall, of course, I can ask that you interpret for me. My German’s a bit weak. I think we’ll have to feel our way as we go. This whole errand is unusual and there’s no protocol for it. Ordinarily I’d be accompanied by our ambassador.”
“Suppose I just come along, then, as though it’s the natural thing, unless they stop me?”
The banker’s eyes closed for several seconds, then he nodded and opened them. “Ah, here’s the Forum. You’ve been in Rome before? We’re passing the Arch of Constantine. A lot of old history here! I suppose envoys came to Rome in those days on errands just as strange.”
Pug said, “This reception now, is it at your apartment?”
“Oh no, I keep just a very small flat off the Via Veneto. My uncle and two cousins are bankers here. It is at their town house, and the reception is for me. Let us just see how this goes. If, when we’re with Ciano, I touch my lapel so, you’ll excuse yourself. Otherwise come along, in the way you suggest.”
These arrangements proved needless because Mussolini himself dropped in on the party. About half an hour after the arrival of the Americans, a commotion started up at the doorway of the enormous marble-columned room, and Il Duce came walking bouncily in. He was not expected, judging by the excitement and confusion among the guests. Even Ciano, resplendent in green, white, and gold uniform, seemed taken aback. Mussolini was a surprisingly small man, shorter than Pug, dressed in a wrinkled tweed jacket, dark trousers, a sweater, and brown- and-white saddle shoes. It struck Pug at once that with this casual apparel Mussolini was underlining — perhaps for its eventual effect on the Germans — his contempt for Roosevelt’s informal messenger. Mussolini went to the buffet table, ate fruit, drank tea, and chatted jauntily with guests who crowded around. He moved through the room with a teacup, talking to one person and another. He glanced once at Luigi Gianelli as he passed close by, but otherwise he ignored the two Americans. In this setting Mussolini hardly resembled the chin-jutting imperial bully with the demonic glare. His prominent eyes had an Italian softness, his smile was wide, ironical, very worldly, and it seemed to Victor Henry that here was a smart little fellow who had gotten himself into the saddle and loved it, but whose bellicosity was a comedy. There was no comparing him with the ferocious Hitler.
Mussolini left the room while Pug was clumsily making talk with the banker’s aunt, a bejewelled, painted crone with a haughty manner, a peppermint breath and almost no hearing. Seeing the banker beckon to him and walk off after Ciano, Pug excused himself and followed. The three men went through tall carved wooden doors into a princely high-ceilinged library, lined with volumes bound in gold-stamped brown, scarlet or blue leather. Tall windows looked out over the city, which appeared so different from blacked-out Berlin, with electric lights twinkling and blazing in long crisscrossing lines and scattered clusters. Mussolini with a regal gesture invited them to sit. The banker came to the sofa beside him, while Ciano and Victor Henry faced them in armchairs. Mussolini coldly stared at Henry and turned the stare to Gianelli.
The look at once changed Pug’s impression of the Italian leader, and gave him a forcible sense that he was out of his depth and under suspicion. He felt junior and shaky, an ensign who had blundered into flag country. Ciano had given him no such feeling, and still didn’t, sitting there gorgeous and wary, the son-in-law waiting for the powerful old man to talk. At this close range Pug could see how white Mussolini’s fringe of hair was, how deep the
