Winds of War (121 page)

Leslie Slote made introductions. Captain Henry said in slow Russian, with a bad American accent, “Sir, I will tell this story to my grandchildren.”

Raising a thick eyebrow, Stalin said in a low pleasant voice, “Yes? Do you have any?”

“Two boys.”

“And your children? Do you have sons?” The dictator appeared diverted by Victor Henry’s slow, carefully drilled, mechanical speech.

“I have two, Mr. Chairman. My older son flies for the Navy. My younger one is in a submarine.”

Stalin looked at Victor Henry through cigarette smoke with vague interest.

Pug said, “Forgive my poor Russian. I had Russian playmates once. But that was long ago.”

“Where did you have Russian playmates?”

“I was born near the Russian River, in California. Some of those early families still remain there.”

Stalin smiled a real smile, showing tobacco stained teeth. “Ah, yes, yes. Fort Ross. Not many people know that we Russians settled California before you did. Maybe it’s time we claimed California back.”

“They say your policy is to fight on one front at a time, Comrade Chairman -”

With a smiling grunt, Stalin said, “
Ha! Ochen horosho!
” (“Very good”), struck Henry lightly on his shoulder, and walked on.

“Now what the hell was all that about California, Pug?” The admiral had been listening with a baffled look. “By thunder, you’ve really picked up that lingo.”

Victor Henry recounted the chat, and the admiral laughed out loud. “By God, write down every word of that, Pug. You hear? I intend to put it in my report. One fighting front at a time! Well done.”

“I must compliment you,” Slote said. “You spoke with presence of mind, and he enjoyed it.”

“He puts you at your ease,” Pug said. “I knew I was murdering the grammar, but he never let on. Did you see his hands? Beautifully manicured.”

“Say, I didn’t notice that,” said the admiral. “How about that, Slote? Lots of us decadent capitalists don’t bother with manicures, but the Head Red does. Makes you stop and think, hey?”

Slote hadn’t noticed the manicure, and was vexed at having missed the detail.

Soon the large company was moving again, this time into a stupendous banquet hall of white marble, red tapestries, and shiny parquet, where silver, gold, and glass glittered on the white cloths of many tables set amid green stone columns. One table on a dais stretched the length of the room, perhaps a hundred feet; the others stood perpendicular to the dais. Light flooded from the myriad frosted globes of two gigantic baroque gilt chandeliers, hanging from a high ceiling of vermilion and gold. More light blazed on the walls, in ornate gold sconces.

“Wow!” Pug said.

Leslie Slote stared around at the walls and ceiling. “It’s the Catherine the Great Room. I’ve seen it in paintings. There’s her crest, in those big medallions. She got some French or Italian architect in to gut this part of the palace, I believe, and do it over. It was her throne room.”

“Well, if this is their style of living, by God,” said the admiral, “they’ll make a Communist of me yet.”

“I wouldn’t be too surprised,” Slote replied, “if this is the first time the room has been used since the revolution.”

The menu, printed in Russian and English on thick creamy paper with a hammer and sickle gold crest, listed fish, soups, game, fowls, and roast meats, down the entire long page. Attendants began to bring the courses, while more attendants stood around with bottles of wine and vodka, springing to pour. The splendid great room, the massive array of brilliantly set tables, the multicolored uniforms of generals and admirals of three countries, the line of powerful men on the dais, with Stalin at a sharp focus even here, chatting left and right with Beaverbrook and Harriman, the lavish service, the river of wine, the gobs of caviar, the parade of rich fat foods on Czarist gold plate - all this overwhelmed Victor Henry with a reassuring sense of Russian resources, Russian strength, Russian largesse, Russian hospitality, and Russian self-confidence.

Slote had a different reaction. No doubt the Communist leaders were enjoying themselves and being hospitable, but in this vulgar outpouring, this choke of luxury, he sensed a note of crude Slav irony. Silent, unspoken, yet almost thunderous, was this message - “
Very well, you of the West, these are the things that seem to make you happy, opulence and pleasure sweated out of others. See how well we do it too, if we choose! See how our old Russian regime did it, before we kicked them out! Can you match them? Tomorrow we’ll go back to the simple life we prefer, but since you come from the decadent West, first, let’s all get drunk together and gorge and swill. We Russians know how to live as well as you, and for the fun of it, we’ll even go you one better tonight. Let’s see who slides under the table first.
VASHE ZDOROVYE!”

Vashe zdorovye
! Toasts kept flaring up. Anybody apparently had the license to stand, hammer at a glass with his knife for attention, and bawl a toast. Men would leave their seats and cross the room to clink glasses when a toast complimented or pleased them. Stalin kept trotting here and there, glass in hand. It was all marvellously interesting to Slote, but it was rushing by too fast, and he was missing too much, interpreting between the American admiral and the short fat Russian admiral who had tried to keep their Navy codes. Sweat shining on his bright red face, the old Russian kept groaning, as he tossed down vodka and wine, that he was a very sick man, had not much time to live, and might as well enjoy himself. The American admiral said at one point, “What the hell, Slote, tell him he looks a lot better than I do, he looks fine.”

“Ah, but you see, tell him I am like the capitalistic system,” groaned the little admiral. “Healthy on the outside, rotten inside.”

Slote enjoyed translating this remark; but most of the admirals’ talk was vague maundering about their families.

He envied Victor Henry, quietly observing the scene and using all the tricks not to drink much. Slote’s ears began to hurt from the shouting of the two admirals over the rising noise of the feast. He was trying to eat a succulent roast quail in sour cream, served with a fine cold Crimean white wine, but the sharpening exchange kept him too busy. Why, the Russian insisted, why wouldn’t the mighty American Navy at least convoy Lend-Lease goods to England? Were they afraid of a few tin-plated U-boats? It was idiotic - his slamming fist made glasses jump –
idiotic
to manufacture war goods and ship them out just as target practice for Hitler’s torpedoes.

“Tell him we’ll be convoying any day,” snapped the American, “but unless he loosens up with some harbor data and operation signals, hell will freeze over before we convoy to Murmansk.”

The old Russian glared at the old American as Slote translated. Both officers gulped glasses of vodka and stopped talking. This respite allowed Slote to look around at the banquet, which was becoming very convivial indeed, with several heads down on tables and one bald Russian general staggering out, held up at the elbows by two attendants. The cessation of the shouts in his ears enabled him to hear another noise: muffled harsh thumps in an irregular pattern.
Ba bromp! Bromp, bromp!
His stomach suddenly felt cold. His eyes met Victor Henry’s.

“Gunfire,” he started to say, but the word stuck in his throat. He coughed. “Gunfire. Air raid.”

Henry nodded. “I’ll bet they have the heaviest A.A. in the world right on these grounds. Listen to that, through all those thick walls! Unreconstructed hell’s breaking loose.”

“The Germans would do very well,” Slote said with a little laugh, “if they scored a bomb hit here tonight.”

The thump of the guns came louder and thicker, and some banqueters were glancing uneasily at the walls. The old Russian admiral, slumped in his seat, scarlet face resting on his chest, was shooting ill-natured glances at the Americans. Now he pushed himself to his feet, clinked furiously at a water glass until he got some attention, then held up a brimming glass of yellow vodka. “If you please! I am sitting with representatives of the United States Navy, the most powerful Navy in the world. These brave men must be very unhappy that while all humanity is in mortal danger their ships ride at anchor gathering barnacles” - he turned to the American admiral with a sarcastic grin - “so I drink to the day when this strong Navy will get in the scrap and help destroy the Hitlerite rats, the common enemy of mankind.”

The toast left a silence. Slote translated it in a low rapid mutter. Military and civilian Russians at nearby tables shook their heads and exchanged troubled looks. The old man dropped heavily in his seat, glaring around with self-satisfaction.

The American admiral’s voice shook as he said to Slote, “If I reply you’ll have an international incident on your hands.”

Victor Henry said at once, “Admiral, shall I give it a try, with my lousy Russian?”

“It’s all yours, Pug.”

Leslie Slote reached to touch Henry’s arm. “See here, the other Russians didn’t like what he said, either – just a drop of vodka too much –”

“Okay.” Victor Henry rose, glass in hand. The subdued talk in the room faded down. The whumping of the anti-aircraft guns sounded louder, and glasses vibrated and tinkled with the concussions. The men at the head table, including Stalin, fastened intent eyes on the American. Henry brought out his response in slow, stumbling painful phrases in bad grammar:

“My chief tells me to respond for the United States Navy. It is true we are not fighting. I drink first to the wise peace policy of Marshal Stalin, who did not lead your country into the great war before you were attacked, and so gained time to prepare.” Slote was startled by the barbed aptness of the retort. “
The wise peace policy of Comrade Stalin
” was the Communist cliché for Stalin’s deal with Hitler. Henry went on, with groping pauses for words that left tense silence in the vast hall: “That is the policy of our President. If we are attacked we will fight. I hope as well as your people are fighting. Now as for,” he stopped to ask Slote for the Russian word - “
barnacles
. Any barnacles that get on our ships nowadays are barnacles that can swim very fast. Our ships are on the move. We don’t announce everything we do. Secrecy is another wise policy of both our countries. But let’s not keep so many secrets from each other that we can’t work together.

“Now, our Navy needs some” - again Henry asked Slote for a word - “some harbor data, weather codes, and so forth from you. We need them before we leave. Since this is a farewell banquet, I also drink to some fast action. Finally, I was a naval attaché in Berlin. I have now travelled from Hitler’s chancellery to the inside of the Kremlin. That is something Hitler will never do, and above all I drink to that.”

There was loud applause, a general raising of glasses, and shouts of “Your health! Fast action!” Slote reached up to stop Pug from drinking and pointed. Josef Stalin, glass in hand, was leaving his seat.

“Holy smoke, what’s the etiquette on this?” Henry said.

“I don’t know,” Slote said. “Don’t drink yet. By God, Captain Henry, that was rising to an occasion.”

Pug strode toward Stalin, with Slote hurrying behind him. The dictator said with an amiable grin, as they met near the dais and clinked glasses amid smiles and hand-clapping, “I thank you for that fine toast, and in response, you can keep California.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” Pug said and they both drank. “That’s a good start, and can you do anything else for us?”

“Certainly. Fast action,” said Stalin, linking his arm in Pug’s. They were so close that Pug caught an odor of fish on Stalin’s breath. “American style. We Russians can sometimes do it too.” He walked toward the two admirals, and the old red-faced Russian stumbled to his feet and stood very erect. Stalin spoke to him in low rapid sentences. Slote, behind Victor Henry, caught only a few words, but the pop-eyed look of the admiral and Stalin’s tones were self-translating. The dictator turned to Victor Henry, beaming again. “Well, it is arranged about the weather codes and so forth. Tell your chief that we Russians do not intentionally embarrass our guests. Tell him I feel the American Navy will do historic things in this struggle, and will rule the ocean when peace comes.”

As Slote quickly translated, Admiral Standley stood, his thin withered lips quivering, and grasped the dictator’s hand. Stalin went back to the head table. The incident seemed to stay in his mind, because when he rose to make the last toast of the evening, to President Roosevelt, he returned to the theme. The interpreter was Oumansky, the ambassador to the United States, whose well-cut blue suit marked him off from the other Russians. His English was extremely smooth. “Comrade Stalin says President Roosevelt has the very difficult task of leading a country which is nonbelligerent, yet wants to do all it can to help the two great democracies of Europe in their fight against Fascism. Comrade Stalin says” - Oumansky paused and looked all around the wide room, in a silence no longer marred by gunfire - “
may God help him in his most difficult task
.”

This religious phrase brought a surprised stillness, then a surge of all the banqueters, glasses in hand, to their feet cheering, drinking, and applauding. Harriman heartily shook Stalin’s hand; the plethoric little Russian admiral grasped the hands of Slote, Henry, and Standley; and all over the room the banquet dissolved in great handshaking, backslapping, and embracing.

But the evening was not over. The Russians marched their guests through more empty splendid rooms to a movie theatre with about fifty soft low armchairs, each with a small table where attendants served cakes, fruits, sweets, and champagne. Here they showed a war movie and then a long musical, and Slote did something he would never have believed possible: in the heart of the Kremlin, he fell asleep. A swelling of finale music woke him seconds before the lights came on. He saw others starting awake in the glare, furtively rubbing their eyes. Stalin walked out springily with Beaverbrook and Harriman, both of whom had red eyes and suffering expressions. In a grand hall, under a vast painting of a battle in snow, he shook hands with all the guests, one by one.