The Sons of Adam (67 page)

Bard and Tom exchanged glances. Since that first year or two of whirlwind deal-making following Tom’s oil strike, Rebecca had become ever less involved in the details of his business. For one thing, the accounting challenge was simply too vast now to be handled by her working at home. For another thing, the thrill had gone out of it. Professional accountants had taken over. Rebecca had other outlets for her energy now.

‘You see, I’m running a foundation called the American-Jewish Resettlement Society,’ she continued. ‘So far we’ve brought seven thousand refugees across from Germany. We’ve found them houses, schools for their children, and jobs. The work we do is wonderful and Norgaard Petroleum is our biggest contributor. By far our biggest. The trouble is, there are still hundreds of thousands of Jews in Germany, not to mention millions more in Poland, Lithuania and in all the countries that Hitler threatens. These are Jews who need us, Jews who may yet die without us. The more we can get out, the more we can save. Tom would be happy to give us money, only Norgaard doesn’t have it. That’s why I’m asking.’ Rebecca controlled her voice closely, careful to keep her emotion out of it.

Bard glanced at Tom again, but Tom’s face didn’t tell him what to do. He was on his own.

‘It’s been tough times, I guess,’ he said.

‘Well now, that’s what Tom says when I ask him. But it’s not what Standard Oil says when it announces its results to stockholders. It’s not what Union Oil says. It’s not what Texaco says.’

‘Yeah, it’s kind of a more local thing.’

‘Now that’d be a fine answer, except whenever you say it – you or Tom, that is – you never quite look at me straight. That’s what makes me wonder.’

A moth flickered inside one of the glass candle-shades. Rebecca lifted the glass with her napkin and released the moth. She was wearing a sleek black evening dress imported from Paris. Bard thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

He looked challengingly at Tom. ‘Maybe you ought to ask Tom again and have him look at you straight.’

Bard and Rebecca both stared at Tom. He tweaked his plate of meatballs and mashed potato closer to him and curled his arm round it in his old gesture of defensiveness. He felt ganged up on.

‘Darling?’ said Rebecca.

‘Aw … We’ve been having a bit of a ruckus with one of our competitors. Outfit name of Blackwater.’

‘And what would happen if you stopped your ruckus?’

Tom was silent.

‘Lyman, what would happen if you stopped your ruckus?’

Rebecca looked straight at Bard. He couldn’t hold her gaze, but he couldn’t lie to her either. Hell, he was on her side in this, anyways. Looking fiercely down at his plate, he said, ‘If we stopped the ruckus, then we’d begin to make a little money and the other fellows would begin to make a little money and we’d all make a little money.’

Rebecca smiled brilliantly. She dropped her napkin on the table.

‘Well, now, how about we stop the ruckus?’

Rebecca was staring straight at Bard when she said this, but both men knew she was talking directly to Tom.

‘It’s not so simple,’ he said. ‘The other guys are in this too.’

‘Lyman?’ said Rebecca.

Lyman had a desperate urge to spit, but couldn’t do so with Rebecca there. Instead, he scratched the back of his head furiously and reddened. He said, ‘He’s right. The other guys are in this too. But if we stopped – hell, Rebecca, they’d have to stop. They’re a stock market outfit, see? Board of directors. Regular accounts. Management would have to stop. If they didn’t they’d be out on their as – – out on their backsides.’

Rebecca nodded. ‘I see. That sounds fairly simple. Tomek?’

And Tom knew that Lyman was right. That Rebecca was right. He could choose. He could continue to punish Alanto. Or he could give up his ancient grudge. But he’d never cried surrender as a child. He was determined not to now. He sat motionless and silent.

Bard was about to say something, in an attempt to argue him round, but Rebecca held up a finger.

‘Let him answer.’

It was Tom’s choice. He’d have to make it for himself.

Tom sat and tried to find the ancient heart of his grudge: the images of prison camp that had caused his anger to burn strong and steady through two decades and more. He tried to call to mind his more recent causes for bitterness, the endless painful wounds his precious Norgaard had sustained in recent years.

But he failed.

Instead, an entirely unexpected image sprang to his mind, a memory he hadn’t had for years. He remembered a cold spring in Hetterscheidt. He remembered a stomach jammed full of wind and emptiness. He remembered a guard shouting to him across the frozen yard. He remembered walking slowly over and the miraculous gift placed in his astounded hands: goose fat, jam, a bag of sugar. He remembered the moment as if it had been yesterday. And the guard had been Jewish. Silver-haired, elderly, and Jewish.

For almost two minutes, Tom tried to speak. If he had spoken, he didn’t even know what he’d have said. There was a lump in his throat and the honest-to-God truth of it was that, just like that time twenty-two years before, he was once again close to tears.

Eventually Rebecca broke the silence. ‘We’re not saying you have to go all the way. Maybe just ease up a little.’

The silence continued, but Tom knew what he wanted to say. The past was the past. Anger and compassion faced each other and for the first time compassion stood the taller.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Ease up a little. Why not?’

It was 28 July 1939.

Alan blinked himself awake. Jackson, the butler, was twitching back the curtains. Lottie, who always looked at her most peaceful and serene when sleeping, burrowed her face into her pillow and muttered something inaudible.

‘Jackson?’ said Alan in surprise.

‘Sir?’

‘Is Adderley not well?’

Adderley was Alan’s valet and it was always he who woke Alan, not Jackson.

‘He’s perfectly well, sir … There’s news today, I thought you would wish to have. I thought it better to bring it myself.’

‘Yes?’

‘Not good news, I’m afraid.’

Alan sat up. A sudden foreboding seized his heart. ‘Just a moment.’ Alan jumped out of bed and pulled on the dressing gown that Jackson held ready. ‘We’ll go next door.’ They moved through to Alan’s dressing room, where a cup of tea was already steaming on the bedside table along with a couple of slices of brown bread, cut very thin. Alan noted his servant’s tactful forethought with approval. He sat down heavily on the bed. ‘It’s Hitler, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir. In the small hours of this morning, German troops crossed into Poland. The news on the radio is still a little confused, but it appears to be a full-scale invasion. I believe the Poles have little chance of resistance.’

‘None at all.’

‘Should I prepare you a bath, sir?’

‘To hell with baths, Jackson.’

‘Yes, sir … If I may ask, do you believe that Chamberlain will feel obliged to declare war?’

Jackson looked directly at Alan, and Alan looked squarely back again. In that moment, both men knew that another war would bring about a permanent change in the positions of servant and master. Well, and if so, it would be no bad thing, thought Alan.

With a tiny smile, he replied, ‘Declare war, Jackson? I should bloody well hope so.’

Jackson picked a speck of fluff from Alan’s dressing table with a tiny frown. ‘Yes, sir. And I should bloody well hope so too.’

Chamberlain hesitated one day, then acted.

Speaking on behalf of his country, he told Hitler to cease hostilities or face war. Hitler listened to the warning and ignored it. At midday on 3 September, for the second time in a quarter of a century, Great Britain declared war on Germany.

The effect on Alan was electric.

For those two days – from getting the news early on the morning of 1 September to the British declaration of war two days later – he hardly slept. He listened to the wireless whenever there was news, turning the dial down again as soon as the bulletin finished. He bought every edition of every paper. If he ate at all, he ate standing up, pacing around, hardly remembering to chew.

And why?

He could hardly say. Of course, the entire country, the entire world, wanted to know if war was coming. But Alan was all but certain that it was. So why? Why couldn’t he eat or sleep? Why the restlessness? Why his addiction to news?

He had things to worry about, of course. His son, Tommy, was almost fifteen. If the war lasted three years or more, then, almost certainly, the youngster would be heading out to fight. Then there was the risk of bombing, the risk to Alanto, the terrible risk that England might lose. What then for Britain? What then for Alan and his family?

All this troubled him hugely, of course. But the real reason for his agitation was something deeper, something older, something connected with his own terrible experience of war. He couldn’t have put into words precisely what he felt but, in any case, what was certain was this.

Upon hearing Chamberlain, in sombre tones, announce that Britain was at war again, Alan’s agitation lifted at once. In a state of complete calm, complete certainty, he did three things.

The first was to enter the Alanto offices and issue instructions that nothing was to be done in any part of the company that might harm the strategic interests of any British ally or friend. What he meant was: end the conflict with Norgaard. Prices were to be raised. Competing installations were to be closed or moved. The conflict was to end overnight, utterly and for ever.

The second thing he did was to call on his father-in-law, Egham Dunlop, for the last fifteen years the Chairman of Alanto Oil. The meeting was a short one, but significant. Alan tendered his resignation. ‘And in view of the international situation, Chairman, I must ask that my resignation be accepted with immediate effect.’ Dunlop, not usually the warmest man in the world, grasped his son-in-law’s hand, thanked him for everything, and allowed him to go.

And the final thing he did that day was to write a letter. It was three pages long and took four drafts. When finally satisfied, Alan summoned a clerk and gave instructions for the letter to be hand-delivered without delay. The address on the envelope read:

The Prime Minister,

10 Downing Street,

London SW1.

Alan was forty-six years old. Twenty-five years earlier, another European war had devastated his life; snatched the best friend he’d ever had or would ever have; had killed or wounded far, far too many of the men he’d served with. A second war seemed like the very worst nightmare of history, resurrected and magnified.

But there was a difference.

Unlike the Great War of Tom and Alan’s youth, this one would be a war of tanks and planes, Jeeps and bombers, baggage trucks and armoured cars. It would be a fast war, a mobile war.

An oil war.

Fire burst on the horizon: red, yellow and brilliant titanium white. The air shuddered and crashed. Some of the explosions were so violent, it almost felt as though the ground itself was shaking.

Tom watched white-faced, white-lipped, as the air caught fire.