Elizabeth said: “If you try to force me, I shall refuse to go on board the airplane. I think you’ll find that the airline will not permit you to carry me aboard kicking and screaming.”
How clever Elizabeth had been, Margaret thought. She had caught Father at a vulnerable moment. He could not take her aboard by force, and he could not stay behind to deal with the problem because the authorities were about to put him under arrest as a Fascist.
But Father was not beaten yet. He now realized she was serious. He put down his spoon. “What on earth do you suppose you would do if you stayed behind?” he said scathingly. “Join the army, as your feeble-minded sister proposed to do?”
Margaret flushed with anger at being called feeble-minded, but she bit her tongue and said nothing, waiting for Elizabeth to crush him.
Elizabeth said: “I shall go to Germany.”
For a moment Father was shocked into silence.
Mother said: “Darling, don’t you think you’re taking all this too far?”
Percy spoke in an accurate imitation of Father. “This is what happens when girls are allowed to discuss politics,” he said pompously. “I blame that Marie Stopes—”
“Shut up, Percy,” said Margaret, digging him in the ribs.
They were silent while the waiter cleared away their untouched soup. She’s done it, Margaret thought; she actually had the guts to come out and say it. Now will she get away with it?
Margaret could see that Father was already disconcerted. It had been easy for him to scorn Margaret for wanting to stay behind and fight against the Fascists, but it was harder to deride Elizabeth, because she was on his side.
However, a little moral doubt never troubled him for long, and when the waiter went away he said: “I absolutely forbid it.” His tone was conclusive, as if that ended the discussion.
Margaret looked at Elizabeth. How would she respond? He wasn’t even bothering to argue with her.
With surprising gentleness, Elizabeth said: “I’m afraid you can’t forbid it, Father dear. I’m twenty-one years old and I can do what I please.”
“Not while you’re dependent on me,” he said.
“Then I may have to do without your support,” she said. “I have a small income of my own.”
Father drank some hock very quickly and said: “I shan’t permit it, and that’s that.”
It sounded hollow. Margaret began to believe that Elizabeth might really get away with it. She did not know whether to feel delighted at the prospect of Elizabeth defeating Father, or revolted that her sister was going to join the Nazis.
They were served Dover sole. Only Percy ate. Elizabeth was pale with fright, but there was a look of determination about her mouth. Margaret could not help admiring her fortitude, even though she despised her mission.
Percy said: “If you’re not coming to America, why did you get on the train?”
“I’ve booked passage on a ship from Southampton.”
“You can’t get a ship to Germany from this country,” Father said triumphantly.
Margaret was appalled. Of course you couldn’t. Had Elizabeth slipped up? Would her entire plan founder on this detail?
Elizabeth was unruffled. “I’m taking a ship to Lisbon,” she said calmly. “I’ve wired money to a bank there and I have a reservation at an hotel.”
“You deceitful child!” Father said furiously. His voice was loud, and a man at the next table looked around.
Elizabeth went on as if he had not spoken. “Once I’m there I’ll be able to find a ship going to Germany.”
Mother said: “And then?”
“I have friends in Berlin, Mother—you know that.”
Mother sighed. “Yes, dear.” She looked very sad, and Margaret realized she had now accepted that Elizabeth would go.
Father said loudly: “I have friends in Berlin, too.”
Several people at adjoining tables looked up, and Mother said: “Hush, dear. We can all hear you just fine.”
Father went on more quietly: “I have friends in Berlin who will send you packing the moment you arrive.”
Margaret’s hand went to her mouth. Of course, Father could get the Germans to expel Elizabeth: in a Fascist country the government could do anything. Would Elizabeth’s escape end with some wretched bureaucrat in a passport control booth shaking his head woodenly and refusing her an entry permit?
“They won’t do that,” said Elizabeth.
“We shall see,” said Father, and to Margaret’s ear he sounded unsure of himself.
“They’ll welcome me, Father,” Elizabeth said, and the note of weariness in her voice somehow made her sound more convincing. “They’ll send out a press release to tell the world that I’ve escaped from England and joined their side, just the way the wretched British newspapers publicize the defection of prominent German Jews.”
Percy said: “I hope they don’t find out about Grandma Fishbein.”
Elizabeth was armored against Father’s attack, but Percy’s cruel humor slipped under her guard. “Shut up, you horrible boy!” she said, and she began to cry.
Once again the waiter took away their untouched plates. The next course was lamb cutlets with vegetables. The waiter poured wine. Mother took a sip, a rare sign that she was upset.
Father began to eat, attacking the meat with his knife and fork and chewing furiously. Margaret studied his angry face, and was surprised to detect a trace of bewilderment beneath the mask of rage. It was odd to see him shaken: his arrogance normally weathered every crisis. Studying his expression, she began to realize that his whole world was falling apart. This war was the end of his hopes: he had wanted the British people to embrace Fascism under his leadership, but instead they had declared war on Fascism and exiled him.
In truth they had rejected him in the mid-thirties, but until now he had been able to turn a blind eye to that, and pretend to himself that one day they would come to him in their hour of need. That was why he was so awful, she supposed: he was living a lie. His crusading zeal had developed into obsessive mania, his confidence had degenerated into bluster, and having failed to become the dictator of Britain, he had been reduced to tyrannizing his children. But he could no longer ignore the truth. He was leaving his country, and—Margaret now realized—he might never be allowed to return.
On top of all that, at the moment when his political hopes were unmistakably turning to dust, his children were rebelling, too. Percy was pretending to be Jewish, Margaret had tried to run away, and now even Elizabeth, his one remaining follower, was defying him.
Margaret had thought she would be grateful for any crack in his armor, but in fact she felt uneasy. His unvarying despotism had been a constant in her life, and she was disconcerted by the thought that he might crumble. Like an oppressed nation faced with the prospect of revolution, she felt suddenly insecure.
She tried to eat something, but she could hardly swallow. Mother pushed a tomato around her plate for a while, then put down her fork and said: “Is there a boy you like in Berlin, Elizabeth?”
“No,” Elizabeth said. Margaret believed her but, all the same, Mother’s question had been perceptive. Margaret knew that the appeal of Germany to Elizabeth was not purely ideological. There was something about the tall blond soldiers, in their immaculate uniforms and gleaming jackboots, that thrilled Elizabeth at a deeper level. And whereas in London society, Elizabeth was thought of as a rather plain, ordinary girl from an eccentric family, in Berlin she would be something special: an English aristocrat, the daughter of a pioneering Fascist, a foreigner who admired German Nazism. Her defection at the outbreak of war would make her famous there: she would be lionized. She would probably fall in love with a young officer, or an up-and-coming party official, and they would marry and have blond children who would grow up speaking German.
Mother said: “What you’re doing is so dangerous, dear. Father and I are only worried about your safety.”
Margaret wondered whether Father really was concerned for Elizabeth’s safety. Mother was, certainly; but Father was angry mainly at being disobeyed. Perhaps underneath his fury there was also a vestige of tenderness. He had not always been harsh: Margaret could remember moments of kindliness, and even fun, in the old days. The
