Winds of War (136 page)

“I sure will, Kip.”

“And say, you give my love to Rhoda, too. Will you? Of all the Navy wives I knew, she was the prettiest and the best - excepting my Kate, naturally.”

“I’ll tell her you said that, Kip,” Pug replied, chilled by Tollever’s use of the past tense about himself.

“Good hunting with the
California
, Pug.” Tollever stood watching as the car left, a white straight mark in the warm night.

The Clipper took off from Guam at dawn.

Chapter 59

On the day that Victor Henry left Manila, the Japanese embassy in Rome gave an unexpected party for Japanese and American newspaper correspondents. The purpose seemed to be a show of cordiality to counteract all the war talk. A
New York Times
man asked Natalie to come along. She had never before left her baby in the evening; none of her clothes fitted her; and she did not like the man much. But she accepted, and hastily got a seamstress to let out her largest dress. On leaving the hotel she gave to a motherly chambermaid an enormous list of written instructions for bathing and feeding him, which made the woman smile. The rumors of war in the Pacific were eating away Natalie’s nerves, and she hoped to learn something concrete at the party.

She came back with a strange tale. Among the American guests had been Herb Rose, a film distributor who maintained his office in Rome. Herb had somewhat enlivened the cold, stiff, pointless party by speaking Japanese; it turned out that he had managed a similar office in Tokyo. Herb was a tall good-looking California Jew, who used the best Roman tailors, conversed easily in Italian, and seemed a most urbane man until he started talking English. Then he sounded all show business: wise-cracking, sharp, and a bit crude.

This Herb Rose, who was booked to leave for Lisbon on the same plane as Natalie and her uncle, had approached her at the party and walked her off to a corner. In a few quiet nervous sentences, he had told her to go to Saint Peter’s with her uncle the following morning at nine o’clock, and stand near Michelangelo’s
Pietà
statue. They would be offered a chance to get out of Italy fast, he said, via Palestine. War between America and Japan was coming in days or hours, Herb believed; he was departing that way himself and forgoing the Lisbon plane ticket. He would tell her no more. He begged her to drop the subject and not to discuss it inside the walls of the hotel. When she returned from the party she recounted all this to her uncle, while walking on the Via Veneto in a cold drizzle. Aaron’s reaction was skeptical, but he agreed that they had better go to Saint Peter’s.

He was in a testy mood next morning. He liked to rise at dawn and work till eleven. Sleep put an edge on his mind, he claimed, that lasted only a few hours, and to spend a morning on such a farfetched errand was a great waste. Also, the chill damp in the unheated hotel had given him a fresh cold. Hands jammed in his overcoat pockets, blue muffler wound around his neck, head drooping in a rain-stiffened old gray felt hat, he walked draggily beside his niece down the Via Veneto to the taxi stand, like a child being marched to school. “Palestine!” he grumbled. “Why, that’s a more dangerous place than Italy.”

“Not according to Herb. He says the thing is to get out of here at once, by hook or by crook. Herb thinks the whole world will be at war practically overnight, and then we’ll never get out.”

“But Herbert’s leaving illegally, isn’t he? His exit visa is for Lisbon, not Palestine. Now
that’s
risky. When you’re in a touch-and-go situation like this, the first principle is not to give the authorities the slightest excuse” – Jastrow waved a stiff admonitory finger - “to act against you. Obey orders, keep your papers straight, your head down, your spirits up, and your money in cash. That is our old race wisdom. And above all, stay within the law.” He sneezed several times, and wiped his nose and eyes. “I have always abominated the weather of Rome. I think this is a wild goose chase. Palestine! You’d be getting even further from Byron, and I from civilization. It’s a hellhole, Natalie, a desert full of flies, Arabs, and disease. Angry Arabs, who periodically riot and murder. I planned a trip there when I was writing the Paul book. But I cancelled out once I’d made a few inquiries. I went to Greece instead.”

There was a long queue at the taxi stand, and few taxis; they did not reach Saint Peter’s until after nine. As they hurried out of the sunshine into the cathedral, the temperature dropped several degrees. Jastrow sneezed, wound the muffler tighter around his neck, and turned up his collar. Saint Peter’s was quiet, almost empty, and very gloomy. Here and there black-shawled women prayed by pale flickering candles, groups of schoolchildren followed vergers, and tourist parties listened to guides, but these were all lost in the grand expanse.

“My least favorite among Italian cathedrals,” said Jastrow. “The Empire State Building of the Renaissance, intended to overpower and stupefy. Well, but there’s the
Pietà
, and that
is
lovely.”

They walked to the statue. A German female guide stood beside it, earnestly lecturing to a dozen or so camera-bearing Teutons, most of whom were reading guidebooks as she talked instead of looking at the
Pietà
, as though to make sure the woman was giving them full value.

“Ah, but what a lovely work this is after all, Natalie,” Jastrow said, as the Germans moved on, “this poor dead adolescent Christ, draped on the knees of a Madonna hardly older than himself. Both of them are so soft, so fluid, so young in flesh! How did he do it with stone? Of course it’s not the Moses, is it? Nothing touches that. We must go and look at the Moses again before we leave Rome. Don’t let me forget.”

“Would you call that a Jew’s Jesus, Dr. Jastrow?” said a voice in German. The man who spoke was of medium height, rather stout, about thirty, wearing an old tweed jacket over a red sweater, with a Leica dangling from his neck. He had been in the group with the guide and he was lingering behind. He took a book from under his arm, an old British edition of
A Jew’s Jesus
in a tattered dust jacket. With a grin he showed Jastrow the author’s photograph on the back.

“Please,” said Jastrow, peering curiously at the man. “That picture gives me the horrors. I’ve since disintegrated beyond recognition.”

“Obviously not, since I recognized you from it. I’m Avram Rabinovitz. Mrs. Henry, how do you do?” He spoke clear English now, in an unfamiliar, somewhat harsh accent. Natalie nervously nodded at him. He went on, “I’m glad you’ve come. I asked Mr. Rose what other American Jews were left in Rome. It was a great surprise to learn that Dr. Aaron Jastrow was here.”

“Where did you pick up that copy?” Jastrow’s tone was arch. Any hint of admiration warmed him.

“Here in a secondhand store for foreign books. I’d read the work long ago. It’s outstanding. Come, let’s walk around the cathedral, shall we? I’ve never seen it. I’m sailing from Naples on the flood tide tomorrow at four. Are you coming?”

“You’re sailing? Are you a ship’s captain?” Natalie asked.

The man momentarily smiled, but looked serious again as he spoke, and rather formidable. His pudgy face was Slavic rather than Semitic, with clever narrow eyes and thick curly fair hair growing low on his forehead. “Not exactly. I have chartered the vessel. This won’t be a Cunard voyage. The ship is an old one, and it’s small, and it’s been transporting hides, fats, horses, and such things along the Mediterranean coast. So the smell is interesting. But it’ll take us there.”

Natalie said, “How long a voyage will it be?”

“Well, that depends. The quota for the year was used up long ago, so the way may be roundabout.”

“What quota?” Jastrow said.

The question seemed to surprise Rabinovitz. “Why, the British allow only a very small number of Jews into Palestine every year, Professor, so as not to get the Arabs too angry. Didn’t you know that? So it creates a problem. I want to be frank about that. Depending on the current situation, we may sail straight to Palestine anyway, or we may go to Turkey, and then proceed overland – Syria, Lebanon, and through the mountains into the Galilee.”

“You’re talking about an illegal entry, then.” Jastrow sounded severe.

“If it can be illegal for a Jew to go home, yes. We don’t think so. In any case, there’s no choice for my passengers. They’re refugees from the Germans, and all other countries have barred the doors to them, including your United States. They can’t just lie down and die.”

“That isn’t our situation,” Jastrow said, “and what you’re proposing is unsafe.”

“Professor, you’re not safe here.”

“What organization are you with? And what would you charge?”

“My organization? That’s a long story. We move Jews out of Europe. As for paying - well, one can talk about that. You can ask Mr. Rose. That’s secondary, though we can always use money. I came to Rome in fact for money. That’s how I met Mr. Rose.”

“And once we get to Palestine - then what?”

Rabinovitz gave him a warm, agreeable look. “Well, why not just stay? We would be honored to have a great Jewish historian among us.”

Natalie put in, “I have a two-month-old infant.”

“Yes, so Mr. Rose said.”

“Could a small baby make that trip?”

Halting at the main altar, Rabinovitz stared in admiration at the twisted pillars. “This cathedral is so rich and beautiful. It’s overwhelming, isn’t it? Such a gigantic human effort, just to honor one poor Jew executed by the Romans. And now this building dominates all Rome. I guess we should feel flattered.” He looked straight in Natalie’s eyes in a forceful way. “Well, Mrs. Henry, haven’t you heard the stories coming from Poland and Russia? Maybe you should take some risk to get your baby out of Europe.”

Aaron Jastrow said benignly, “One hears all kinds of stories in wartime.”

“Mr. Rabinovitz, we’re leaving in less than two weeks,” Natalie said. “We have all our tickets, all our documents. We were at tremendous pains to get them. We’re flying home.”

Rabinovitz put a hand to his face and his head swayed.

“Are you all right?” Natalie touched his arm.

He uncovered a knotted brow, and smiled painfully. “I have a headache, but that is all right. Look, Mr. Herbert Rose had an airplane ticket too, and he’s coming to Naples with me. If you join us, you’ll be welcome. What more can I say?”

“Even if we did want to consider this drastic move, we couldn’t get our exit visas changed,” Jastrow said.

“Nobody will have an exit visa. You will just come aboard to pay a visit. The ship will leave, and you will forget to go ashore.”

“If one thing went wrong, we’d never get out of Italy,” Jastrow persisted, “until the war ended.”

Rabinovitz glanced at his watch. “Let’s be honest. I’m not sure you will get out anyway, Dr. Jastrow. Mr. Rose told me about the difficulties you’ve been having. I don’t think they’re accidental. I’m afraid you’re what some people call a ‘blue chip’” – he used the American slang haltingly - “and that’s your real problem. The Italians can trade you someday for a lot of ‘white chips,’ so something can always go wrong at the last minute when it’s time to leave. Well, meeting you was a great honor. If you come along we’ll talk some more. I have many questions about your book. Your Jesus had very little to do with this, did he?” He swung both his hands around at the cathedral.

“He’s a Jew’s Jesus,” said Jastrow. “That was my point.”

“Then tell me one thing,” said Rabinovitz. “These Europeans worship a poor murdered Jew, the young Talmud scholar you wrote about so well - to them he’s the Lord God - and yet they go right on murdering Jews. How does a historian explain that?”

In a comfortable, ironic, classroom tone, most incongruous in the circumstances, Jastrow replied, “Well, you must remember they’re still mostly Norse and Latin pagans at heart. They’ve always chafed under their Jewish Lord’s Talmudic morals, and possibly they take out their irritation on his coreligionists.”

“Now that explanation hadn’t occurred to me,” Rabinovitz said. “It’s a theory you should write up. Well, let us leave it this way. You want to think it over, I’m sure. Mr. Rose will telephone you tonight at six o’clock and ask you whether you want the tickets for the opera. Tell him yes or no, and that will be that.”

“Good,” Natalie said. “We’re deeply grateful to you.”

“For what? My job is moving Jews to Palestine. Is your baby a girl or a boy?”

“Boy. But he’s only half-Jewish.”

With his crafty grin, and an abrupt handwave of farewell, Rabinovitz said, “Never mind, we’ll take him. We need boys,” and he walked rapidly away. As his plump figure merged into a tourist group leaving Saint Peter’s, Natalie and her uncle looked at each other in puzzlement.

It’s freezing in here,” said Dr. Jastrow, “and very depressing. Let’s go outside.”

They strolled in the sunshine of the great piazza for a while, talking the thing over. Aaron tended to dismiss the idea out of hand, but Natalie wanted to give it thought and perhaps discuss it with Rose. The fact that he was going troubled her. Jastrow pointed out that Rose was not as secure as they were. If war should break out between the United States and Italy - and that was the threat in the Japanese crisis - they had the ambassador’s promise of seats on the diplomatic train, with the newspaper correspondents and the embassy staff. Rose had no such assurance. Earlier in the year, the embassy had given him warning after warning to leave. He had chosen to stay at his own risk, and now he had to face the consequences. If he wanted to chance an illegal exit, that did not mean they needed to.

At the hotel, Natalie found the baby awake and fretful. He seemed a frail small creature indeed to expose to a sea voyage uncertain even in its destination, let alone its legalities; a voyage in a crowded old tub - no doubt with marginal food, water, sanitation, and medical service - that might lead to a rough trip through mountains; the goal, a primitive and unstable land. One look at her baby, in fact, settled Natalie’s mind.

Rose called promptly at six. “Well, do you want the opera tickets?” His voice on the telephone was friendly and, it seemed, anxious.