Herman Wouk - The Winds Of War

by The Winds Of War(Lit)

  Pleading her bad condition, she would take her uncle along and so get e)tit permits. Once in Switzerland, they would by book or by crook stay there until they obtained passage to the United States. Aaron Jastrow had a publisher in Zurich, and she knew Bunky Thurston had been transferred there from Lisbon. Once she thought of it, the idea seemed brilliant.

  To her delight, Aaron after some argument agreed to play his part.

  He would leave his travelling library, his luggage, and all his work papers at the hotel; everything except the typed book itself, which he would carry in one small valise with his clothing. If challenged, he would say he intended to work on the inky interlineated pages during the brief Zurich visit. If the Italians did not want Jastrow to leave for good-something Natalie now half-suspected-such a casual departure might deceive them.

  The Atlantic Charter broadcast had given Jastrow, too, a flicker of concern; that was why he consented.

  The dodge worked like a charm. Natalie booked passage to Zurich and got the exit permits. A week later she and Dr. Jastrow flew to Switzerland. Everything was in order, except that he did not have formal permission from the Swiss, as she did, to stay for ten days.

  The document issued to him simply stated that he was accompanying an invalid for her safety enroute. When Natalie telephoned Bunky Thurston in Zurich about this, he said they had better leave it on that basis, and not push their luck further. He could take care of Aaron once they arrived.

  The Zurich terminal was startling with its bustle, its clean glitter, its open shops crammed with splendid clothing, watches, porcelain, and jewelry, its heaped boxes of chocolates, exquisite pastries, and fresh fruits.

  Natalie ate a big yellow pear as she walked to Thurston's car, uttering little moans of delight.

  'Ah, this pear. This pear! My God," she said, "what a filthy thing Fascism is. What a foul idiocy war is! Europe's a rich continent. Why do the bloody fools lay it waste time after time? The Swis are the only smart Europeans."

  "Yes, the Swiss are smart," Thurston sighed, stroking the enormous mustache, which was as sleek and perfect as ever. The rest of his face had paled and aged as though he were ill. "How's your submariner?"

  '"Who knows? Dashing around the Pacific. Have you ever witnessed a crazier wedding?" Natalie turned to Jastrow, her eyes all at once gone from dulled suffering to the old bright puckish gleam. "Bunky signed the marriage document. Do you like Zurich better than Lisbon, Bunky?"

  "I don't like to think of eighty million Germans seething just beyond the Alps. But at least they're nice high Alps.-Here we are, the red Citroen.-The tragic refugee thing goes on here too, Natalie, but less visibly, less acutely. In Lisbon it was just too horrible."

  Aaron Jastrow said as they drove down the highway, 'Will they -,end our passports to you at the consulate?"

  "Maybe you'll just pick them up when you go back." 'But we're not going back, darling," Natalie said. "Aaron, give me your handkerchief, my face is all pear juice. I wish I could bathe in pear juice."

  "It's my only handkerchief," Jastrow said.

  Thurston pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and passed it to her. 'What do you mean, you're not going back?"

  "My uncle and I intend to hop the first train, plane, or goat cart out of here, so long as it heads for the good old USA. I couldn't tell you that over the telephone, Bunky, obviously. But it's the whole point of this trip."

  "Natalie, it won't work."

  "Why on earth not?"

  "Aaron got through Swiss immigration on my parole. I must return him there. He has no transit visa."

  After a silence Dr. Jastrow said from the back seat, in a low sad voice, "I thought it was going too easily."

  "Bunky, wild horses can't get me back to Rome," Natalie said cheerfully. 'I won't have my baby there. That's that. You have to figure out some way to clear Aaron, too. He's here now. His passport is good as gold. I know you can solve this."

  Thurston ran a careful hand over the mustache as he drove.

  "Well, you've caught me unawares. Give me a little time."

  "I've got ten days," Natalie said.

  "There aren't too many ways to travel out of Zurich now," said Thurston. "I'll look into this a bit."

  He left them outside Dr. Herman Wundt's office, which was in an old four-story house decked with flower-filled window boxes, and took their suitcases off to the hotel. Jastrow dozed in an anteroom while Wundt examined Natalie.

  After asking a few questions and noting the answers on a card, the bald freckled doctor, a gnome not as tall as her uncle, with big ears and darting little brown eyes, probed, palpated, took specimens, and submitted Natalie to the usual indignities, and a couple of new painful ones with strange implements, all the while smiling and chatting in French. She lay on the table panting and exhausted under a sheet her face sweating, all her lower body in an ache. The breeze brought a delicious scent of sweet peas from the window boxes.

  "Very well, take a little rest."

  She heard him washing his hands. He returned with a notebook and sat beside her.

  "You're as strong as a horse, and you're carrying that baby perfectly."

  "I had three bleeding episodes."

  "Yes. You mentioned that. When was the last one?"

  "Let's see. A month ago. Maybe a little more."

  "Well, you can wait around a day or so for the result of the smear, and the urine test, and so forth. I'm almost sure they'll be negative, and Dr.

  Carona will deliver a fine baby for you. I know him well. He's the best man in Rome."

  "Dr. Wundt, unless I go back to the States, I'd rather stay and have the baby here. I don't want to return to Rome."

  "So? Why?"

  "Because of the war. If the United States becomes involved, I'll find myself on enemy soil with a newborn baby."

  "You say your husband is an American naval officer, in the Pacific Ocean?"

  "Yes.

  "You're too far away from him."

  Natalie sadly laughed. 'I agree, but that's done now."

  "What kind of name is that-Henry?"

  "Oh, I guess it's Scotch. Scotch-English."

  "And your maiden name is Jastrow, you said? Is that Scotch-English too?"

  "It's Polish." After a pause, as the little brown eyes stared at her, she added, "Polish-Jewish."

  "And that gentlemen outside, your uncle? Is he Polish-Jewish?"

  "He's a famous American writer."

  "Really? How exciting. Is he a Polish Jew?"

  "He was born in Poland."

  "You can get dressed now. Then come into the other room, please."

  Dr. Wundt sat hunched in a swivel chair in his tiny office, smoking a cigar. The smoke wreathed up over wrinkled yellow diplomas on the walls, and a dusty engraving of the wounded lion of Lucerne. He rested the cigar in an onyx tray, pressed his fingertips together, and put them to his mouth.

  The brown-patched old face stared blankly at her.

  'Mrs. Henry, in the past few years-I have to be frank with youpregnancy has been used and abused to death here to solve passport difficulties. The immigration authorities have become very hard. I am an alien myself, and my license can easily be revoked. Do I make myself clear?"

  "But I'm having no passport difficulties," Natalie replied calmly.

  "None at all. Do you think I can safely travel back to the United States?

  that's all I want to know.The doctor hunched his shoulders, pursed his lips, and cocked his head like a bright dog, his eyes never leaving her. 'By what means of transportation?"

  "Airplane, I suppose."

  "What was Dr. Carona's opinion?"

  'I didn't ask him. Despite what you say, I don't have much confidence in him. That's why I want to stay here if I can't fly home."

  The old doctor's eyes sparked and he spread his hands. "And that's precisely where I can't help you. The authorities will demand from me a written certificate that you're unable to travel. Otherwise they won't extend your stay.
You're quite able to fly back to Rome.

  About flying to the United States"-he cocked his head again-'that is bound to be a rough long journey."

  Natalie kept an unruffled manner. "You mean I might lose the baby?"

  "Not necessarily, but an expectant mother with a first baby should avoid such a strain. Your pregnancy history already is not one hundred percent."

  "Then why make me go back to Rome? The milk and the food are abominable. I don't like the doctor there. He mishandled my bleeding."

  With a cold edge in his voice, the little doctor said, "Mrs.

  Henry, a flight to Rome is no problem for you, nothing to justify an extension of your stay. I'm very sorry. The authorities will ask me about your health, not about Roman milk or Dr. Carona." He flipped open an appointment book and peered into it. "I will see you tomorrow at a quarter past five, and we will discuss your tests," At dinner with Thurston and her uncle that night, Natalie was quite blithe. The buoyant excitement of being out of Rome, and in a city at peace, overbore Wundt's Sourness; and she was cheered by the examination results. She was "strong as a horse," the infant was kicking lustily inside her, and they had escaped from Fascist Italy. The rest would work out, she thought, especially since Thurston seemed in an optimistic mood. She decided not to quiz him, but let him talk when he was ready.

  Meantime her common ground with him was Leslie Slote. She told droll anecdotes of her wretched Paris flat: the tiny stairwell elevator in which Slote got stuck and slept all one night, her Algerian landlord's efforts to keep her from cooking, the one-eyed homosexual sculptor on the floor above who pestered Slote to pose for him. Aaron Jastrow had not heard these yarns of young love on the Left Bank. What with the richly satisfying dinner, the fine wine, and the view from the open-air terrace restaurant of Zurich ablaze with lights, his spirits also rose. He accepted a cigar from Thurston, though he had a bad cough.

  "My lord. Havana!" Dr. Jastrow rolled the smoke on his tongue.

  "This takes me back ten years to the commons room. How gracious and easy and pleasant life seemed! Yet all the time the villain with the mustache was piling up his tanks and his cannon. Ah, me. You're very merry, Natalie."

  'I know. The wine, no doubt, and the lights. The lights! Bunky, electric light is the strongest enchantment there is. Live in a blackout for a few months and you'll see! You know what Zurich reminds me of? Luna Park in Coney Island, when I was a little girl. You walked in a blaze of lights, millions and millions of yellow bulbs.

  The lights were more exciting than the rides and games.

  Switzerland's amazing, isn't it? A little dry diving bell of freedom in an ocean of horror. What an experience! I'll never forget this."

  "You can understand why the Swiss have to be very, very careful," Thurston said. "Otherwise they'd be swamped with refugees."

  Natalie and her uncle sobered at that last word, listening for what he would say next.

  The consul smoothed his mustache with both palms. "Don't forget there are more than four million Jews caught in Hitler's Europe. And in all of Switzerland there are only four million people. So the Swiss have become almost as sticky about Jews as our own State Department, but with infinitely more reason. They've got sixteen thousand square miles of land, much of it bare rock and snow. We've got three and a half million square miles. Compare population densities, and we're a vast empty wilderness.

  We're supposed to be the land of the free, the haven of outcasts.

  The Swiss make no such claim. Who should be taking in the Jews?

  Yet they are doing it, but carefully, and within limits. Moreover the Swiss depend on the Germans for fuel, for iron, for all trade, in and out. They're in a closed ring. They're free only as long as it suits the Nazis. I can't take a high moral tone with the Swiss authorities about you. As an American official, I'm in a hell of a lousy position for moral tone."

  Jastrow said, "One can see that."

  "Nothing's been decided in your case, you understand," the consul said. "I've just been making inquiries. A favorable solution is possible.

  Natalie, could you endure a long train trip?"

  "I'm not sure. Why?"

  "The only airline operating from Zurich to Lisbon now is Lufthansa."

  Natalie felt a pang of alarm, but her tone was matter-of-fact. "I see.

  What about that Spanish flight?"

  "You were misinformed. It shut down back in May. Lufthansa flies once a week, starting from Berlin and making every stop in betweenMarseilles, Barcelona, Madrid. It's a rotten flight. I've taken it going the other way. It's usually crowded with hotshots.

  Do you want to separate from your uncle and try Lufthansa? Your passport doesn't say you're Jewish. You're Mrs. Byron Henry. Even the Germans have some tenderness for pregnant women. But, of course, for twenty hours or so you'd be in Nazi hands."

  "What's the alternative?"

  "Train via Lyons, Nimes, and Perpignan, sliding down the French coast, crossing the Pyrenees to Barcelona, and then, heaven help you, clear across Spain and Portugal to Lisbon. Mountains, tunnels, awful roadbeds, and God knows how many breakdowns, delays, and changes, with a long stretch through Vichy France. Maybe three, maybe six days enroute."

  Natalie said, "I don't think I should risk that."

  'I wouldn't mind trying Lufthansa," said Jastrow in a far-off voice, rolling the cigar in his fingers. "I still don't believe, I truly don't, that the Germans would molest me."

  Thurston shook his head. "Dr. Jastrow, she's the wife of a Gentile naval officer. I think she'd be all right. Don't you go on Lufthansa!"

  "What I have to decide, then," Natalie said, "is whether I chance Lufthansa alone, or take the train with Aaron."

  'You don't have to decide anything yet. I'm telling you some of the things to think about."

  Natalie and her uncle killed the next day looking in shopwindows, buying clothes, eating cream cakes, drinking real coffee, riding around in cabs, and luxuriating in the rich freedom of Switzerland, only a few hours by air from brown melancholy Rome. Toward evening she saw Dr.

  Wundt again. With a sad shrug, he told her that all her tests were negative.

  'That's all right. I may be able to stay, anyway," she said. "My consul's looking into it."

  "Ah, so?" the little doctor's face brightened. "Perfect!

  Nothing would please me more. Let me book your lying-in right away, Mrs. Henry. The hospitals are crowded."

  "I'll let you know in a day or two."

  "Excellent."

  In the morning she found a white hotel envelope slipped under the door: Hi. Things are cooking. Meet me at the lake front, both of you, four o'clock, at Zurich Pure Boats. Bunky.

  When they arrived at the dock, the consul had already hired an open boat with an outboard motor, and was sitting in it, waiting.

  Without a word he helped them in, started the engine, and went puttering off from the shore. About a mile out he killed the motor, and they couldd hear a German waltz thumping brassily over the blue water from the band of an approaching excursion steamer.

  "Irve got quite a report for you," Thurston said, and Natalie's hart leaped at his happy grin. "I thought we'd better be by ourselves while we talk it out" 'Is it all arranged?" Jastrow said, with an eagerness that struck his niece as childish.

  Thurston smoothed a palm over his mustache. "Well, we're not in bad shape." The consul's eyes twinkled at Natalie. 'Say, I've been on the telephone and teletype to Rome. Your Byron outdid his Lisbon feat, didn't he? Talking to President Roosevelt about your uncle's passport!

  What sheer nerve! Sight unseen, nobody in Rome likes him." 'I can imagine."

  "Yes, but your uncle's file carries a big 'presidential' flag on it now, and that's just fine. Now, Natalie, you're set. I've put you on the waiting list at Lufthansa. The next two flights are booked, but you've got a reservation on the third. Immigration will extend your stay till then." 'But by then I'll be in my eighth month-' Holding up a hand, Thurston said, "Lufthansa is sure
you'll get out sooner. Maybe next week. There are always cancellations, and you're high on the list, because of your pregnancy."

  'What about Aaron?"

  "Well, that's a different story."

  "She's the important one," Jastrow said dramatically, 'and what happens to me couldn't matter less. I've lived my life." "Hold on, hold on." Thurston smiled. 'Good lord, Dr. Jastrow! Everything's all right. You just can't stay on in Switzerland with her. That's out of the question. But you're set, too. Rome's in a big boil about you now.