“Yes, but make me a martini first.” He obeyed, and she saluted him before taking her first sip. “Here’s to new wars.”
Steve was puzzled. What on earth could have happened? Could she have heard he actually was going to Europe as part of Marshall’s entourage? That was why he had dropped by, to inform her. He didn’t know how she would take the information. Would the fact of his leaving upset her or would she be proud of him?
Natalie put her glass down. “The FBI was around today. They see Communists and other undesirables everywhere.”
He was incredulous. “You?”
“No, at least not seriously. They did question me to reconfirm what they already knew about my past life in Russia and my citizenship. I don’t think I am considered a subversive. But they may label my mother as an undesirable and deport her. God only knows where they would send her. Certainly not to Russia.”
“What on earth for?”
Natalie laughed harshly. “Because she was too frank a few years ago when applying for American citizenship. Remember when I told you she sold herself for food and passage to the United States? Well, a few years ago some sanctimonious fool at immigration labeled her a prostitute and rejected her application for citizenship. I knew she had been turned down, but never wondered why. Stupid me. Today they came and informed her that the combination of Russian citizenship and a record as an admitted whore was too much for the puritans in our government and would she mind leaving the country. It didn’t matter that she’d married an American who, unfortunately, died and isn’t around to defend her. My stepfather certainly never thought of her as a whore and he knew full well how she got to America. I’ve spent most of the day trying to straighten out that mess.”
“Any success?”
She took a deep breath and swallowed the rest of her drink. He took the glass and started to mix another. “I think so. Unfortunately, we won’t know for several weeks. Not everyone who works for the government is an idiot- just most of them.” The irony that both of them were on the government payroll did not escape them.
“That’s awful,” he said, handing her the drink and taking a seat across from her. Steve had never met her mother but Natalie had told him a great deal about her. It wasn’t fair that someone who had suffered so much should be called upon to suffer again.
“And things are terrible at work,” she continued. “Once again the iron hand of J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI stormtroopers is at work. They are going through our personnel files and talking to anyone who ever belonged to a left-wing organization, even though some of those so-called memberships might have occurred years or even a decade or more ago, and at a time when the Russian Revolution was thought of as a part of the liberation of oppressed peoples.”
Or even more recently, Steve thought, since, up until a little while ago, the Soviet Union and the man Roosevelt referred to as “Uncle Joe” were our allies. He knew of the activities of the FBI, but he was not aware they were so extensive or so oppressive. On the other hand, it made sense to him that State would be so heavily investigated. They were the first line of contact with other governments and privy to so many federal secrets.
“What is happening to the ones they suspect?”
“Nothing officially,” she answered. “Apparently they are under orders not to arrest anyone without real proof, but they are making life miserable for people who are now under dark clouds of suspicion. Some zealous, perhaps fearful, administrators have placed a few people on administrative leaves of absence until they are cleared. A couple of people have had the misfortune of being both homosexual and leftist, and they are in real trouble. It’s sad. You are legally innocent, but still guilty of something until they prove otherwise.”
With that off her chest, she smiled warmly at him. “Now, what caused you to come rushing over here and burst through the door I was so distressed that I foolishly forgot to lock?”
“Well, General Marshall is going to Europe to meet with all the big shots and he is taking some of his staff. He decided he needed some people who knew about the Soviet Union and Joe Stalin in particular, so I, as I suspected might happen, am going along.”
Her eyes misted over. “I know you’re thrilled, but I will worry about you. I’ve already lost one man to war and I don’t want to lose a second one.”
“Don’t worry. I can’t imagine General Marshall getting anywhere near the front lines. More likely, we’ll be holed up in some fancy hotel in London or Paris, roughing it with the elite.”
“Don’t count on it,” she said. “Things have a strange way of working out just like we don’t expect. The gentleman whose robe you wore that first night was a navy pilot, and, like all pilots, he thought he was immortal. He flew a torpedo plane off Midway Island and was shot down. So were all the torpedo planes. I heard through the grapevine that it was because they were lousy, slow planes and the Japs had fast and good ones. You may have no intention of getting caught up in the war, but events have a way of controlling us, don’t they?”
“True,” he said. “In real life, I should be at Notre Dame grading papers from students who don’t even know how to even spell Communist. Instead, I’m going to Europe and may meet heads of state and other people who are making history and not teaching it. In a way, it doesn’t make sense. Here I am jumping up and down like a little kid going on an adventure, and I am actually going into a war area where thousands of people are getting killed and wounded each day.”
“Like you said, it doesn’t make sense, but then, it doesn’t have to. When do you go?”
“Later tonight. I’ve packed and my bags are in the car.”
Her eyes twinkled. “And you presumed to come here and impress me with your departing-warrior routine? You probably thought you could dazzle me out of my clothes and I would drag you off to my bed and let you work your evil way with me? Is that what you had in mind?”
He grinned. “Frankly, yes.”
Natalie stood and swallowed the rest of her drink. “Well, my fearless scholar-warrior, I would have been horribly angry if you had thought otherwise.” She took his hand and pulled him to a standing position. “You are going to remember the next few hours for the rest of your life.” Which, she thought with a trace of sadness, I hope is a very, very long one.
“gretel, let me see your baby.”
Elisabeth Wolf framed the request as gently as possible. The tormented wraith in front of her clutched the lifeless bundle to her bosom and looked about in terror. The woman was about Lis’s age but looked decades older.
“It’s all right,” Elisabeth soothed. As Logan watched, she continued to gentle the frightened young woman. Finally, the woman started to sob. After a moment, she handed the bundle to Elisabeth with a shy smile and started to walk away.
“Where’s she going?” Jack asked.
“Back to the others. She’s finally accepted the fact that the baby is dead.”
“And she can walk away from it?”
Elisabeth opened the cloth wrappings and looked on the bluish and distorted face of the dead infant. “It isn’t hers.”
“What?”
Elisabeth covered the tiny face. “I heard her story from one of her friends. She found it a few days ago. I guess the real mother had been killed. Gretel hoped that her having a baby to care for would keep the Russians from hurting her. It didn’t work.”
“Oh God.” Logan had been hearing more and more stories of the unspeakable atrocities the Russians were inflicting on the German women in revenge for the equally barbaric treatment of Russian women by the Nazis.
“Oh God is right. She was probably raped many times in the last couple of weeks. Sometimes more than once by the same man, but more likely she was just passed around or periodically singled out. Every Russian knows at least two German words, frau komm. When a Russian calls you like that you have no choice but to comply if you have any hope of living through it. Gretel was once fairly attractive. I think she’s younger than I am.”
“How did the baby die?”
Elisabeth looked again at the lifeless bundle in her arms. “According to one of the other women who came in with her, some Russian pig stomped on it and killed it because it started crying while he was having his way
