by Bodie Thoene
“Why do I always feel this way when I see you? Like I’m fifteen or something?” Mac eyed her with the expression of a sorrowful puppy.
He needed a haircut. He needed someone to look after him like a mother. He was not the navy type. Hadn’t he told her that he spent his first, second, and third transatlantic crossings with his head in a bucket?
“You’ll do fine,” she replied, as if he had already expressed his concern about unending weeks on one of Mr. Churchill’s big boats.
“We’re always saying good-bye, aren’t we, Jo?”
“That’s the problem all right. Hello and good-bye. I should be flattered, I guess. That you want to see me before you sail away.”
He grinned sheepishly. “That’s not why I called you.”
“Leave me with my illusions, will you?”
“I can’t. I saw Bill Cooper in Luxembourg. You remember Coop?”
“Of course. How are things in Berlin?”
“Dull as here unless you’re on the Führer’s bad list. But Coop has had some contact with a friend of a friend of yours. The priest in Warsaw?”
Suddenly charged with energy, Josie knocked Mac’s wineglass over, splashing red Bordeaux on his tunic. “Oh no! Mac! Your new clothes!”
He gaped down at the mess and dabbed at it with his napkin. “That’s all right. It needed something to break it in.” He snapped his fingers at a passing waiter and ordered soda water for the stain and water for Josie. “As I was saying. Cooper. The priest sent a message through a German Wehrmacht officer. More than a message really.” Tapping his temple, Mac said, “I carried it up here to avoid having it pinched by the Gestapo in Luxembourg or the French Anastasie. Then I wrote it all down for you.”
He pulled an envelope out of his tunic and placed it between the salt and pepper shakers. “There’s this kid. A little Jewish kid. A baby, actually. The Polish priest sent him out of Warsaw with this German major. Coop says he’s not a Nazi. A really nice guy, Coop says. So this major has the kid. The priest says you’re supposed to go get him.”
“Get him? Where?”
“The Reich. Treves.”
“In the middle of a war?”
“Not much of a war, Jo; you have to admit. Anyway, it’s all there in the envelope. The date. The time. The place. All figured out. Neutral American newslady crosses the border in Luxembourg. Picks up kid and scrams back. Happens all the time, doesn’t it?”
She picked up the envelope and stared thoughtfully at it. “If the priest says it can be done, I suppose it’s that simple.”
Mac’s moody look returned. “Your Frenchman should be able to help you with the papers. Great for cutting through the red tape, these colonels.”
“My Frenchman?”
“Don’t play coy, Jo. I know, okay? The guys in the pressroom at the Continental are taking bets on whether you marry the guy.”
“And how did you bet, Mac?”
“I didn’t. See, Jo, there’s this girl I met in Warsaw. . . .”
“Oh!” Josie said suddenly.
“And there’s a possibility of a job in London. . . . Murphy told me about a position with TENS.” He put his hand to the bruise on his cheek. “I’ve been thinking about living a life with a little less edge to it. I admit it.” He paused. Then, “You love this Frenchman?”
“I . . . I’m not sure. Maybe.”
They ordered and ate their meals in silence. The clatter of dishes and the murmur of other conversations went unnoticed.
The dining room in the Adlon Hotel at No. 1 Unter den Linden in Berlin was full of eminent Wehrmacht officers and Nazi Party officials. Even though they outranked everyone else in the room, Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich occupied an undistinguished table in a corner.
Himmler was fussing over a plate of noodles in a bland cream sauce, taking tiny bites and frowning at the plate. “This has too much garlic,” he remarked to Heydrich.
Heydrich was halfway through a heaping mound of a fragrantly spicy stew. “How unfortunate, Herr Reichsführer,” he consoled. “Why don’t you try what I’m having? It’s excellent.”
The slimly handsome Heydrich was baiting his boss, and he knew it. Himmler had such a delicate stomach that the sight of blood from an underdone steak upset him. It was a dangerous game to play with the mousy little man who was the second most powerful figure in the Reich, but it helped Heydrich’s ego. Working for a former fertilizer salesman was tough on Heydrich’s opinion of himself.
Heydrich stopped eating to smile broadly at a pair of Fräuleins seated across the room who were openly studying him with interest. Heydrich’s womanizing was another activity of which Himmler did not approve.
“What progress have you to report in the Lewinski matter?” Himmler asked. It was clear he knew exactly how to burst his aide’s self-satisfaction.
“We’re working on it, Herr Reichsführer,” Heydrich pledged, turning his attention back to his meal. As head of the main office of Reich security, Heydrich was under pressure to get results, and he knew it. “We are pursuing contacts at all the universities where Lewinski is known to have connections: Oxford, Princeton, Stanford. Even the Sorbonne in Paris, although that is most unlikely.”
“Does it seem that this investigation is rather slow to produce results?” Himmler said, squaring his sloping shoulders. The SS Reichsführer also knew how to needle an opponent.
“I assure you, Herr Reichsführer, that we are proceeding with the utmost gründlichkeit,” Heydrich said. “Thorough in every detail.”
“If the secret of Enigma should get out . . .”
“Let me reassure you. Since the code setting changes every day, and the method of establishing the new settings is quite secure, the most that is at risk is that a mind like Lewinski’s might unravel one day’s code . . . but certainly too slowly to be harmful.” Heydrich gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “But let me say, Herr Reichsführer, so that you will not lose a moment of sleep over the matter, that we are closing in on the fugitive even as we speak.”
Himmler paused to polish his already spotlessly clean spectacles, then put them back on his pinched, narrowly placed eyes before replying. “That is most comforting. For your sake, I hope you succeed quite soon.”
It was an amazing thing when Madame Rose rolled her eyes toward the sky and said, “With God all things are possible.”
Jerome soon discovered that Madame Rose did not mean that she should sit quietly at No. 5 Rue de la Huchette and wait for God to do some impossible thing. On the contrary, this meant that she went to work at impossible tasks and simply expected that because she was well acquainted with the Almighty, those things would become possible to accomplish.
This seemed to be true.
Was the orphanage low on potatoes? low on funds? low on beds as twenty new children arrived?
Madame Rose had a Scripture promise for every emergency. These promises were drawn upon and recited back to heaven regularly. “Lord, You have promised to care for the widows and the orphans . . . therefore, we need potatoes. A few plump chickens thrown in for good measure would be kindly appreciated. . . .” Then she would go out to Buci in search of potatoes and chickens. Always she would get what was needed and a little more besides.
She expected miracles each day. Jerome suspected that the miracles were the result of a very strong personality. When he said as much to Madame Rose, she laughed and said that if it was so, Jerome should thank God for giving her such a personality.
There was no way to argue with her without feeling confused.
Enough of this, Jerome thought. If Madame Rose believed that with God all things were possible, he decided that he must ask her to ask God if it would be possible for Jerome and Marie to get in to see Uncle Jambonneau at the hospital.
Madame Rose went alone the first time. Carrying Papillon in a paper sack, she walked to the hospital on a Sunday afternoon to visit Uncle Jambonneau.
She came back very cheerful and brought a note that the old man ha
d dictated.
Dearest Nephew Jerome and Niece Marie,
Madame Rose has told me what a terrible thing Madame Hilaire has done by throwing you off the Garlic and stealing it. However, I, your dear uncle Jambonneau, am certain that you are both better off with Madame Rose than with Madame Hilaire, who has a voice like a cannon and a personality like a crazed anteater. . . .
Jerome knew that Uncle Jambonneau had mentioned the anteater because it was Jerome’s least favorite creature at the zoo. Always sucking helpless ants out of their houses. Terrible. Jerome had experienced nightmares about anteaters sucking him out of the porthole of the Garlic, so it was appropriate to call Madame Hilaire an anteater.
The note continued:
Please take care of my little dog. I have missed his little whiskers at my ear. I miss you both also. Be good children and obey Madame Rose.
Your beloved uncle Jambonneau
The next week Jerome and Marie followed Madame Rose to the back door of the hospital. She waited until Rodrigo, the Spanish laundry deliveryman, arrived with a white canvas cart heaped with towels.
Madame Rose knew everyone on the Left Bank who did laundry because she had taken in washing for so long herself. She and her sister were very good friends with Rodrigo. She told him about Uncle Jambonneau and then about Marie and Jerome.
Rodrigo emptied the canvas cart, and Jerome and Marie got in. Towels were piled on their heads. Madame Rose gave Rodrigo the room number and said she would meet him there in five minutes.
In this way the impossible was accomplished. Jerome and Marie were trundled up the freight elevator to the floor where Uncle Jambonneau shared a ward with twelve old men. Madame Rose drew a curtain around the bed, and Marie and Jerome popped out of the towels like cabaret performers out of a cake.
Rodrigo stood guard. The other old men in the ward said they heard the voices of children. Madame Rose opened the window, peered out, and said, “You certainly do! Spring is in the air!”
Five minutes only. There were hugs and whispers, and Jerome told Uncle Jambonneau about Henri and the horse of the French hero with the wooden legs. Marie let him touch her glasses, and he said that it was a very fine thing to be able to see. He was very pleased for her.
Uncle Jambonneau stated that Madame Rose was a very well-connected woman. She knew some very important personages who were able to achieve impossible and wonderful things.
Jerome agreed that this was true.
27
Much about War
As a pleasure cruise, travel on the Altmark left much to be desired. Under any other circumstances, this observation would have been feeble humor at best, but to the prisoners in the hold of the German freighter, it was uproariously funny.
Trevor Galway spent the better part of each day dreaming up ways to keep up the men’s morale. Over two months had passed since his capture. The steady northward progress since the brief glimpse of the battle involving the Graf Spee meant that the chances for rescue were decreasing. If the prison ship was not intercepted soon, she would be inside protected German waters and would have accomplished her purpose.
For the past two weeks the prisoners had lived with increasing cold. From the roasting tropical conditions of their capture, many of the men now suffered the opposite agony in the unheated hold. Perversely, the Germans had finally decided that the captives needed more fresh air, and they left the hatch ajar just enough to admit a frigid draft.
Now the crowded conditions were a blessing, without which some of the sailors would have frozen to death. As it was, the cramped space they had formerly complained about was now warmed solely by the packed bodies.
Trevor had worked out a shuffling spiral of motion. The activity kept the men moving and their blood circulating. It also made sure that everyone got a fair turn at being near the center and warmed on all sides.
But even this effort lasted only so long. Eventually they became too tired to do anything but sleep, though the men had nothing but their thin and ragged clothes with which to cover up. In their exhausted hours, the sailors kept up unconscious movement, like a herd of sheep in a snowstorm. One would worm his way into the center of the pile of sleeping bodies, only to find himself rooted aside again later and shivering against an icy steel bulkhead.
It was during one of these semiawake sleep periods that the forward motion of the freighter slowed and then stopped. “Do you think we’re in Germany?” Dooley asked. “Even a nice warm prison camp would be better.”
“Shhh,” Trevor warned. “Listen!”
There were shouts from alongside the Altmark, answered by replies from her deck. Trevor could barely make out the exchange. “George,” Trevor hissed, “wake up and translate this.”
“One of them is speaking Norwegian,” Daly replied. “Wait—now he switched to German. That one is demanding to come aboard and search . . . something about neutrality.”
“Everybody up!” Trevor shouted. “Make all the noise you can! There are Norwegian officers alongside. It can only mean that we’re inside their territorial waters. Bang on the walls! Yell your heads off! Do anything you can think of to make noise!”
Norway was officially one of the neutral nations. As such, she was entitled to see that the ships of the belligerents passing through her national zone carried no arms or other war material. The prohibition included prisoners of war. If the British could make their presence known, the Norwegian could demand their release.
The men stamped their feet, banged tin cans together, yelled obscenities, and even sang snatches of songs. “How can they not hear this?” Dooley wondered aloud.
From overhead came a shrill, whining sound, joined by the thump of an engine, then another engine noise and a long, drawn-out squeak. The air filled with what sounded like a thousand out-of-tune violins scraping and sawing.
Trevor groaned. “It’s the cargo winches. They’ve started up all the engines to drown us out.”
The Altmark shuddered into motion again, carrying its discordant noise away from the Norwegian patrol boats. A short time later the hatch was uncovered, and Captain Thun appeared with several armed guards. There was a clatter in the darkened hold as tin cans dropped to the decking. “I have been too lenient,” he said. “Stricter measures are now required. You, Mr. Galway, and you and you.” Thun pointed his flashlight at twenty of the prisoners who had been standing closest to Trevor or who were caught still holding things to make noise. “All of you, come out of there.”
“What are you going to do with us?” Trevor demanded.
“New accommodations,” Thun said without humor. “Hellhole.”
It was an American story: Two aging American ladies in Paris taking in a load of kids and a lot of laundry. Human interest. Just the sort of thing that could spice up the back page of American’s newspapers during the “Bore War.”
It would make ordinary U.S. citizens feel better about themselves: “Read this here, Bertha. Us Amer’cans ain’t isolated-whatevers after all! Amer’ca’s still got heart, don’ it? That’s Amer’cans like us over there takin’ care of them waifs! Just so long as they don’ bring the filthy little things back here!”
It was the sort of story that would be quoted in Congress. Senator Borah and the rest of the anti-foreign-devil mob were dedicated to keeping immigration to a trickle: “It is noble American volunteers over there in that Paris slum! Proof of the grrr-eatness of the American spirit. But the average American citizen does not want more refugees coming to our great nation and bringing their slums to our grrr-eat shores. We’ve got trouble enough!”
Paris AP chief Frank Blake assigned the story to Josie. Who else? Nobody else on staff could stand to write bleeding-heart material. Too depressing. But Josephine Marlow? She actually felt this stuff—was moved by it! Every day she frowned at the blank sheet of paper in her Olivetti and grieved over what she was about to write, as if she was that Robert Frost guy or that Steinbeck troublemaker. She pondered internal questions and agonized over content: Would
the story make a difference? Was she capturing the essence of it? the heart of the people?
Frank Blake always let the literary drama play out. He smiled and thanked her when she presented her piece, then told her to go take a break. In less than one minute, starting from the bottom up, he cut the article in half and wired it to the States. That was good clean journalism: heart surgery with a red pencil as a scalpel. Slice it up. Toss out the heart. She never knew the difference. No doubt it would be cut in half again and altered by every editor in the syndicate. Let the little woman have her illusions. She was really just a high school literature teacher, after all.
This was the cynically reasoned scenario that brought Josie to her next assignment.
It was cold, but a few of the bookstalls were open on Quai des Grands Augustins. Josie was early for her appointment with Rose and Betsy Smith, so she browsed from stall to stall in search of a copy of Paradise Lost for herself.
It was not easy these days to pick up English volumes on the quai. There were no more English-speaking tourists, and the average British soldier who came to Paris on leave was not interested in reading. But there were lots of tinted postcards of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and etchings of the bridges across the Seine looking toward the cathedral from Pavilion de Flore. The troops of the British Expeditionary Force purchased such things and sent them home by the bagful: Hullo, Mum. Wish you were here!
Of course they were quite content that their mums were on the other side of the Channel so they could sow their wild oats. The German troops did not seem so youthful as the British, nor as old as the French. That fact was worrisome when Josie stopped to consider it.
Six young BEF soldiers browsed the open-air stalls this afternoon. They stopped at the booth of Monsieur Lemoine, who was a veteran of the last war and had the empty sleeve of his coat pinned neatly to the shoulder. The soldiers did not notice the bookseller. They could not look at such a withered old man and imagine that he had once been in an army himself.
