The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

by Herman Wouk

He asked her about Aaron Jastrow’s situation. Natalie said the impact of the note from the Secretary of State’s office had somehow been frittered away. The fact that Jastrow’s lapsed passport showed a questionable naturalization had fogged his case. Van Winaker, the young consul in Florence, had dawdled for almost a month, promising action and never getting around to it; then he had fallen ill and gone for a cure in France, and several more weeks had slipped by. Now Van Winaker was corresponding with the Department on how to deal with the matter. She had his firm promise that, one way or another, he would work it out. The worst of it was, she declared, that Aaron himself really was in no hurry to leave his villa, now that it seemed just a matter of unravelling a little more red tape. He half welcomed every new delay, though he went through the motions of being vexed. This was what was defeating her. He would not fight, would not put any pressure on the consul to settle the thing. He was writing serenely away at his Constantine book, keeping to all his little routines and rituals, drinking coffee in the lemon house, taking his walks at sunset, rising before dawn to sit blanketed on the terrace and watch the sun come up. He believed that the Battle of Britain had decided the war, that Hitler had made his bid and failed, and that a negotiated peace would soon emerge.