Winds of War (112 page)

Jastrow at last was eager to go home. He had finished the first draft of his book on Constantine; he yearned to show it to his publisher, and then finish up the revisions in the Harvard Library’s Byzantine section. The Vatican Library was better, of course, and he had made charming friends there. But as shortages multiplied, Rome was getting drearier. Hitler’s triumphs in the Soviet Union were sending earthquake tremors through Italy and sinking the Italians in gloom. There was no real gladness even in the Fascist press, but rather some traces of alarm at these giant strides of the Führer over the last unsubdued reaches of Europe.

At any price, even in the best restaurants, Roman food was bad now, and getting worse. The heavy chalky bread was quite inedible; the new brown spaghetti tasted like mud; each month the cheese grew more rubbery; the cooking and salad oils left a loathsome aftertaste; and a bottle of decent table wine was hard to come by. Natalie obtained proper milk occasionally at the embassy; Italian expectant mothers had to drink the same blue slimy fluid that sad shrugging waiters served with the fake coffee.

So Dr. Jastrow was ready to go; but he was not scared. He had read so much history that the events of the hour seemed a banal repetition of old times. He had delayed and delayed leaving Italy, almost welcoming the difficulties with his papers, because in his heart he had thought the war was going to end soon. Even if the villain with the moustache (as he loved to call Hitler) won, it might not matter so much, providing the Nazis did not march into Italy. And why should they invade a grovelling satellite?

Germany might well be the new Byzantium, he liked to say over wine: a stable well-run tyranny, geared to run a thousand years, just as Hitler boasted. Byzantium had lasted almost that long, waxing and waning through the centuries as rivals grew strong or weak, pushing its borders out and shrinking them back much like Germany; but always hanging on, and often triumphing with its military advantages of tyranny, centrality, and interior lines. A nation’s history was formed by its geography, as another villainous tyrant, Napoleon, had long ago pointed out; and autocracy was the form of government most congenial to Europe anyway. As a Jew, Jastrow of course detested Hitler. But as a philosophical historian, he could place him, and even give him good marks for willpower and political skill. He quite disbelieved the atrocity stories; warmed-over British propaganda, he said, which he still remembered well from the last war.

Natalie, however, was getting scared. Ever since Finland’s entry into the war had stopped the freighter from sailing, she had sought another way out. They were still quite free to go. But now she had to deal with the Italian railroads, airlines, and emigration offices. Altogether, they made a soft fuzzy paralyzing snarl. The thought of confinement far from home, of feeding a newborn infant the rations of pinched Italy, began to alarm her as nothing had before. President Roosevelt was intervening more and more openly in the Atlantic; a sudden declaration of war by Hitler would undoubtedly drag along Mussolini, and she and her uncle would be interned as enemy aliens!

The worst stumbling block at this stage was a thing called an exit permit. Formerly it had given her no trouble at all. The yellow card stamped in purple cost a few lire, and could be purchased as soon as one had ship, train, or air tickets to show. But now an application caused hemming, hawing, and mighty searchings of bureaucratic hearts. Once, after several disappointments, Natalie did get hold of two plane seats to Lisbon, and rushed them to the emigration office. An official took the tickets and the passports from her, telling her to come back in four days.

On her return, the same stout and amiable official, breathing clouds of garlic, handed the passports back to her with a sigh. The military had requisitioned the two places on the airplane. The exit permits were therefore not granted he said, but in due course the fare money would be refunded.

The very next day she heard the first exultant BBC broadcast about the meeting in Newfoundland. The entry of the United States into the war sounded like an accomplished fact. Out of sheer despair she at once concocted a reckless scheme. She would play the card most likely to touch the Italian heart: her pregnancy. She was really having intermittent bleeding. The Americans she knew were sarcastic and skeptical about Roman doctors. They had told her of an obstetrician in Zurich, one Dr. Wundt, the best man outside the Nazi reach in Europe. She decided to request permission from Swiss authorities for a short medical visit: two weeks, ten days, whatever she could get. Pleading her bad condition, she would take her uncle along and so get exit permits. Once in Switzerland, they would by hook 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 en route. 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 fruit. 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 Swiss are the only smart Europeans.”

“Yes, the Swiss are smart,” Thurston sighed, stroking the enormous moustache, 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 send 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, 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 moustache 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 at 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 gentleman 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 ashtray, 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 you - pregnancy 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 back 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.