such things, but the hell with it, doesn’t this put you way out front, Dad?”
Captain Kirkwood said, “He’s been out front all along. That’s what this means.”
“All it takes now is one false move,” said Pug dryly, shaking his head, “one piece of bad luck, one mislaid dispatch, one helmsman doping off on the midwatch. You’re out front till you retire.”
“What’s your situation, by the way, Byron?” Kirkwood said.
The young man hesitated.
“He’s ROTC,” Pug quickly said. “He’s got a yen for submarines. By the way, Briny, the New London sub school is doubling the enrollment in May and accepting reserves that can pass the physical.”
Kirkwood smiled, examining Byron with a shade of curiosity. “Now’s the time to get in on the ground floor, Byron. How’re your eyes? Got twenty-twenty vision?”
“My eyes are okay, but I have this job to do here.”
“What sort of job?”
“Historical research.”
Kirkwood’s face wrinkled.
Pug said, “He’s working for a famous author, Aaron Jastrow. You know, the one who wrote
“Oh, Jastrow, yes. That fellow up in Siena. I had lunch with him at the embassy once. Brilliant fellow. Having some trouble getting back home, isn’t he?”
Byron said, “He isn’t having trouble, sir, he just doesn’t want to leave.”
Kirkwood rubbed his chin. “Are you sure? Seems to me that’s why he was in Rome. There’s a foul-up in his papers. He was born in Russia or Lithuania or somewhere, and — whatever it is, I guess something can be worked out. Taught at Yale, didn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, he ought to make tracks while he can. Those Germans are just over the Alps. Not to mention old Benito’s anti-Jew laws.”
Victor Henry was returning to Berlin that night by train, accompanying the banker. He said nothing about his mission in Rome to Kirkwood or his son, and they did not ask. After dinner Byron rode to the railroad station in the taxi with him, in a prolonged silence. Natalie Jastrow was a heavy invisible presence in the cab, and neither one would start the topic. Pug said as they drove into the brilliantly lit empty square before the terminal, “Briny, if the British really took that shellacking off Montevideo, we won’t stay out much longer. We can’t let the Germans close the Atlantic. That’s 1917 again. Why don’t you put in for sub school? It won’t start till May. By then Jastrow’ll be back in the States, if he isn’t simpleminded.”
“May’s a long way off.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue.” Pug got out of the cab. “Write to your mother a little more often. She’s not happy.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“Don’t miss Warren’s wedding.”
“I’ll try not to. Gosh, won’t that be something, if this family finally gets together again?”
“That’s why I want you there. It’ll be the last time in God knows how many years. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye. Listen, I’m real proud you made captain, Dad.”
Pug Henry gave his son a gloomy half-smile through the cab window and walked off to the train. And still not a word more had passed between them about the Jewish girl.
Chapter 21
So irascibly did Rhoda Henry greet her husband on his return that he began to think something might be wrong with her.
He had left her in a nervous slump. Everything was an aggravating mess, the fall weather in Berlin stank, life stank, she was bored, German efficiency was a fiction, nobody understood how to do anything right, and there was no service and no honesty anymore. She had “her pain,” an untreatable affliction that during previous slumps showed up in an arm and in her back and now was behind an ear. She feared cancer, but it didn’t really matter because everything good was all finished anyway. Rhoda had always come out of these sags before, and then could be contritely sweet. Pug had hoped when he suddenly left Berlin for Rome that he would find her better when he got back. She was worse.
She wanted to go with him to Karinhall. In his absence, an invitation engraved in gold on creamy thick stationery, addressed to Commander Victor Henry, had been delivered by a Luftwaffe staff officer. Pug hadn’t been home ten minutes when she brought it out wanting to know why she hadn’t been invited too. If he went to the Gorings’ party at Karinhall and left her behind, she said, she could never face anybody in Berlin again.
Pug could not disclose that he was going along for state purposes, as a flunkey to an international financier. He couldn’t take her into the snow-covered garden to soothe her with hints of this; it was almost midnight, and she was wearing a cloudy blue negligee, in which indeed she looked very pretty.
“Listen, Rhoda, take my word for it that there are security reasons for all this.”
“Ha. Security reasons. That old chestnut, whenever you want to do anything your way.”
“I’d rather have you along. You know that.”
“Prove it. Call the protocol officer at the air ministry tomorrow. Or if you’re too bashful, I will.”
Pug was conducting this conversation in the library while glancing through piled-up mail. He put down the letters. After a minute of cold staring at his wife, he said, “Are you well?”
“I’m bored to death, otherwise I’m fine, why?”
“Have you been taking the iron pills?”
“Yes, but I don’t need pills. What I need is a little fun. Maybe I should go on a bender.”
“You’re not calling the air ministry! I hope that’s understood.”
Rhoda made a mutinous noise, and sat pouting.
“Hullo. Here’s a letter from that Kirby fellow. What’s he got to say for himself?”
“Read it. It’s as dull as he is. All about how glad he is to be home, and how good the skiing is around Denver, and how much he enjoyed our hospitality. Three pages of nothing.”
Pug tossed the letter unread on the routine pile.
“Honestly, you’re a riot, you’re so predictable, Pug. For twenty-five years whenever you’ve come home you’ve gone straight for the mail. What are you expecting, a letter from a lost love?”
He laughed, and shoved the letters aside. “Right you are. Let’s have a drink. Let’s have a couple of drinks. You look wonderful.”
“I do not. That goddamned hairdresser baked my hair into shredded wheat again. I’m tired. I’ve been waiting up to talk to you. You were two hours late.”
“There was trouble at the passport office.”
“I know. Well, I’m going to bed. Nothing to talk about since Karinhall is out. I even bought a sensational dress. I was going to show it to you, but to hell with it. I’ll send it back.”
“Keep it. You might just find a use for it pretty soon.”
“Oh? Expect to be invited to the Gorings’ again?” She went out without staying for an answer.
Pug prepared a couple of highballs to toast the news of his promotion. When he got upstairs, her light was out — an old unpleasant marital signal. He wanted very much to spend the night with his wife. Moreover, he had been saving the story of his encounter with Natalie Jastrow for their bedroom talk. He drank both highballs himself, and slept on the sofa in the library.
The next day was brightened for him by the German announcement that the
