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

by Herman Wouk

“Well, there goes our little secret, sweetheart. Kissing and smooching under glass! What’s happened to me? This whole thing is a plain brute attraction between two people isolated together too long.” She leaped to her feet and pulled at his hand. “But I love you. I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it. Oh, that son of a bitch Giuseppe! Come, let’s get back to the rock pile. We must.”

“What is it, Natalie?” “It’s my father. I may have to leave.”

“Good God, Aaron! Do you expect me to tell Byron Henry I’m going to marry Slote, just to make him stay with you?”

“I’d like to meet that girl.” The father suddenly strode toward her, so fast that Byron had to take a running step or two to catch up. There was no stopping him. They came and faced Natalie, who remained seated, hands clasped in her lap.

“I’ve got a seat on the Thursday Clipper out of Lisbon. I hope I don’t get bumped.” “You shouldn’t. Things are quiet now. But you’re well out of this continent. Good-bye.”

His yeoman handed Pug a long lumpy envelope. Two small objects clattered to the desk when he ripped it open: silver eagles on pins, the collar insignia of a captain.

He ranged on the desk before him the eagles, the Alnav, the strip of gold braid. His seamed pale face looked calm, almost bored, as he swung the chair idly, contemplating the tokens of his new rank; but he was stirred, exalted, and above all relieved.

It was his first promotion in ten years, and it was the crucial one.

About half an hour after the arrival of the Americans, a commotion started up at the doorway of the enormous marble-columned room, and II Duce came walking bouncily in. He was not expected, judging by the excitement and confusion among the guests.

In this setting Mussolini hardly resembled the chin-jutting imperial bully with the demonic glare. His prominent eyes had an Italian softness, his smile was wide, ironical, very worldly, and it seemed to Victor Henry that here was a smart little fellow who had gotten himself into the saddle and loved it, but whose bellicosity was a comedy. There was no comparing him with the ferocious Hitler.

Mussolini coldly stared at Henry and turned the stare to Gianelli. The look at once changed Pug’s impression of the Italian leader, and gave him a forcible sense that he was out of his depth and under suspicion.

“Briny, if the British really took that shellacking off Montevideo, we won’t stay out much longer. We can’t let the Germans close the Atlantic. That’s 1917 again. Why don’t you put in for sub school? It won’t start till May. By then Jastrow’ll be back in the States, if he isn’t simpleminded.”

“Don’t miss Warren’s wedding.” “I’ll try not to. Gosh, won’t that be something, if this family finally gets together again?” “That’s why I want you there. It’ll be the last time in God knows how many years. Good-bye.”

Pug Henry gave his son a gloomy half-smile through the cab window and walked off to the train. And still not a word more had passed between them about the Jewish girl.

21

Everything was an aggravating mess, the fall weather in Berlin stank, life stank, she was bored, German efficiency was a fiction, nobody understood how to do anything right, and there was no service and no honesty anymore. She had “her pain,” an untreatable affliction that during previous slumps had showed up in an arm and in her back, and now was behind an ear. She feared cancer, but it didn’t really matter because everything good was all finished anyway. Rhoda had always come out of these sags before, and then could be contritely sweet. Pug had hoped when he suddenly left Berlin for Rome that he would find her better when he got back. She was worse.

After a minute of cold staring at his wife, he said, “Are you well?” “I’m bored to death, otherwise I’m fine, why?” “Have you been taking the iron pills?” “Yes, but I don’t need pills. What I need is a little fun. Maybe I should go on a bender.”

Also, when Rhoda learned of Pug’s promotion she came out of her blues as though by shock. Not another peep did she utter about Karinhall. She proceeded to give him the honeymoon treatment, and they had a happy week or so.

Karinhall looked like a federal penitentiary built in the style of a hunting lodge.

In the vaulted banquet room, amid a dazzling crush of uniformed Nazis and their white-shouldered women—some lovely, some grossly fat, all brilliantly gowned and heavily gemmed—Adolf Hitler was playing with the little Göring girl.

The happy, excited crowd of eminent Germans were laughing, cooing, clapping hands, their eyes shining at their Leader in his plain field-gray coat and black trousers as he held the beautiful white-clad child in his arms, talking to her, teasing her with a cake. Göring and his statuesque wife, both ablaze in operatic finery and jewelry, the man more showy than the woman, stood near, beaming with soft affectionate pride.

And to Pug Henry, also, there was something appealing about Hitler: his shy smile acknowledging the applause, the jocular reluctance with which he handed the girl to her ecstatic mother, his wistful shrug as he slapped Göring’s back, like any bachelor congratulating a luckier man. At this moment Hitler had a naïve, almost mushy charm.

By chance, Victor Henry had just written a short report on Stöller and knew a lot about him. Stöller’s bank was the chief conduit by which Göring was amassing his riches. Stöller’s specialty was acquiring Objekte, the term in German business jargon for Jewish-owned companies forced to the wall.

In the queer Germany of 1939, which Victor Henry was just beginning to understand, there was much stress on legality in looting the Jews. Outright confiscation or violence were rare. New codes of law dating from 1936 simply made it hard for them to do business; and month by month rulings came out making it ever harder. Jewish firms couldn’t get import or export licenses or raw materials. Their use of railroads and shipping was restricted. Conditions kept tightening until they had no course but to sell out. A market flourished in such Objekte, with many alert upper-class Germans bidding eagerly against each other. Wolf Stöller’s technique was to find and unite all the buyers interested in an Objekt, and to make a single very low offer. The owners had the choice of taking it or going bankrupt. Stöller’s group then divided up the firm in shares. Through Göring, Stöller had access to the Gestapo’s records, and was usually first on the scent of a major Jewish firm buckling to its knees. The big prizes Göring bought up himself—metal, banking, textiles—or took a large participation. Stöller’s bank got its broker’s fees and also its own participations in the Objekte.

Pug had more or less shut his mind to the Jewish problem, so as to focus on the military judgments which were his job. Jews had become all but invisible in Berlin, except in their special shopping hours, when, pallid and harried, they briefly filled the stores and then again faded from sight.

Pug felt a qualm when Wolf Stöller with a cultured bow offered his hand, but of course he took it; and soon there they sat eating together and toasting each other in Moselle, Riesling, and champagne.

Victor Henry glanced at his wristwatch. The Führer had spent an hour and ten minutes with them, and so far as Henry knew, President Roosevelt’s question remained unanswered.

Göring and Ribbentrop looked at each other. The fat man said, “President Roosevelt has his reply. The Führer sees no hope in the Welles mission, but in his unending quest for a just peace he will not reject it.”

“In informing your President of this meeting, tell him that I said the Führer will not refuse to receive Welles, but sees no hope in it—and neither do I—unless the British and the French drop their war aim of removing the Führer. That is no more possible than it is to move Mont Blanc. If they persist in it, the result will be a frightful battle in the West, ending in a total German victory after the death of millions.”

For better or worse, the Allies still have the choice of knuckling under to Hitler or beating the Germans. They had the same choice in 1936, when beating the Germans would have been a cinch. Nothing has changed, except that the Germans may now be invincible.

22

“Is it your position,” the actor said earnestly, “that the Jewish question really has no bearing on America’s entry into the war?” “I didn’t say that. Americans do react sharply to injustice and suffering.” The smirk reappeared on the three faces, and Knopfmann said, “And your Negroes in the South?” Pug paused, “It’s bad, but it’s improving, and we don’t put them behind barbed wire.”

“The American Jews will make the greatest possible mistake, Victor, to drag in the United States. Lacouture is their friend, if they’ll only listen to him. You know what the Führer said in his January speech—if they start another world war, that will be the end of them. He was in deadly earnest, I assure you.” Aware that he was butting a stone wall, but unable to let these things pass, Pug said, “Peace or war isn’t up to the Jews. And you grossly misunderstand Lacouture.”

At Abendruh, the Henrys had almost forgotten that there was a war on, if a dormant one, and that serious shortages existed. For Wolf Stöller there were no shortages.

“Captain Henry?” “Who are you?” “Rosenthal. You are living in my house.” They were near a corner, and in the glow of the blue streetlight Pug saw that the Jew had lost a lot of weight; the skin of his face hung in folds, and his nose seemed far more prominent. He was stooped over, and his confident bearing had given way to a whipped and sickly look. It was a shocking change. Holding out his hand, Pug said, “Oh, yes. Hello.”

Pug had also heard vague stories of the “resettlement” of the Berlin Jews, a wholesale shipping-off to newly formed Polish ghettos, where conditions were, according to the reports you chose to believe, either moderately bad or fantastically horrible. It was disturbing to talk to a man actually menaced with this dark misty fate.

If I have been of any service to the Navy in my entire career, the only recompense I now ask, and beg, is a transfer to sea duty.

Pug— Your report is really grand, and gives me a helpful picture. Hitler is a strange one, isn’t he? Everybody’s reaction is a little different. I’m delighted that you are where you are, and I have told CNO that. He says you want to return briefly in May for a wedding. That will be arranged. Be sure to drop in on me when you can spare a moment. FDR

23

New Year’s Eve Midnight

Briny dear— I can’t think of a better way to start 1940 than by writing to you.

My father is terrified of Hitler. He thinks he’s a sort of devil who’s going to conquer the world and murder all the Jews.

SLOTE: You can’t intend to marry him. It would be the greatest possible mistake. I say this as a friend, and somebody who knows you better than anyone else. ME: I told Byron that too. I said it would be ridiculous for me to marry him, and gave him all the reasons. SLOTE: Well, then, what on earth have you in mind? ME: I’m just reporting a fact to you. I haven’t anything in mind.

I said you see things too simply, but on one point you were just plain right. Aaron should leave that stupid house, let it fall down and rot, and come back to this wonderful land to live out his days. His move there was stupid. His remaining there is imbecilic. If you can convince him of it—and I’m writing him a letter too—I’d feel a lot better about your coming back. But don’t just abandon him, sweetheart. Not yet. Wait till my plans jell a bit.

I adore you. Natalie

Popular songs were sweetly stabbing her: songs about women infatuated with worthless men, whining cowboy laments about absent sweethearts. It was as though she had developed a craving for penny candy. She was ashamed of gratifying her fancy, but she couldn’t get enough of these songs. She bought records and played them over and over. If Byron Henry wrote stupid letters, too bad. All judgments fell away before her remembrance of his eyes and his mouth and his arms, her delight at contemplating a few ill-written sentences because they came from his hand.

Natalie darling:

Nobody has to tell me how good the United States is, compared to Europe. I’m so homesick at this point, I could die.

What it boils down to so far for me is that Hitler is, after all, the soul of present-day Germany—which is self-evident when you’re there; that the Germans can’t be allowed to rule Europe because they have some kind of mass mental distortion, despite their brilliance, and can’t even rule themselves; and that when they try for mastery, somebody’s got to beat the living daylights out of them or you’ll have barbarism triumphant.

Getting A.J. out of here seems to be a bit of a project, after all. There was a minor technical foul-up in his naturalization, way, way back. I don’t know the details, but he never bothered to correct it. The new consul general in Rome is a sort of prissy bureaucrat, and he’s creating difficulties. All this will straighten out, of course—they’ve said as much in Rome—but it’s taking time.