Eichmann nodded and briefly giggled. “Yes, yes, providing you get the results before the war is over. By the way, is your family here with you in Rome?”
“No, they’re at home.”
“And where is home?”
“Stuttgart.”
“And how many kids do you have?”
“Four.”
“Boys? Girls?”
“Three boys. One girl.”
“Girls are so sweet. I have three boys. No luck on girls.” Eichmann sighed and produced the forefinger. “I try once a week, no matter what, to get home to the kids. Even if it’s only for an hour, once a week religiously I must see the kids. Even General Heydrich respected that, and he was a goddamn hard boss.” Eichmann sighed again. “I suppose you’re as fond of your kids as I am.” Every time Eichmann said “kids” he managed to edge the word with freezing menace.
“I love my children,” said Beck, trying to control his voice, “but I don’t get to see them once a week, or even once a month.”
Eichmann’s face took on a drawn, faraway look. “Enough, Dr. Beck. Let’s talk straight. Can Reichsführer Himmler expect a progress report fairly soon on those one hundred eighteen Jews? You’ll have all their documents by courier tomorrow.”
“I’ll do my best.”
With a wide friendly grin, Eichmann said, “I’m glad that I came here and we thrashed it out. This Jastrow business is not ‘kosher.’ “ Eichmann repeated the Jewish word with rude amusement. “Not ‘kosher,’ Dr. Beck. When you walk in shit, it sticks to your shoes. So tell the old Yid to make his broadcast quick. Then let the OVRA put him and his niece away with the other Yids.”
“But they have a guarantee of safe conduct back to America, as part of the journalist exchange.”
“How can that be? All the American journalists have already left Italy. Anyway, he’s no journalist, he writes books.”
“I delayed their departure myself. It’s a temporary thing, we tied it to a mess in Brazil which sooner or later is bound to clear up.”
The lieutenant colonel’s narrow face brightened into a jolly smile. “Well, but you did manage that delay! See? When you want to be, you’re a live wire. So do a job now for the Führer.”
Eichmann accepted another glass of brandy. As Werner Beck walked out with him to the entrance of the embassy, they exchanged banalities about the way the war was going. The colonel’s walk was rather bowlegged in the varnished black boots; and as he creaked and clicked along on the marble floor, he was very much the preoccupied civil servant again. At the door he turned and saluted. “You have a big responsibility here, Dr. Beck, so good luck. Heil Hitler.”
The greeting and the outstretched arm gesture were in almost total disuse around the embassy. Both came rustily to Beck. “Heil Hitler,” he said.
The black figure clumped down the steps, frightening away into the flowering shrubbery two peacocks that had the run of the embassy grounds. Beck hurried to his office and called Siena.
By mere chance, Natalie’s hand was resting on the telephone when it rang. She stood by Jastrow’s desk, holding the baby on her arm. Mrs. Castelnuovo, with Miriam clinging to her skirt, was admiring the Madonna and child over the mantel; and the little girl kept looking from the painted baby to the live one, as though wondering why the wrong one had the halo. Dr. Beck came on the line, gay and high-spirited. “Good morning, Mrs. Henry! I hope you’re theeling well. Is Dr. Jastrow fere?” Beck had this odd speech defect of mixing up his is and th’s in moments of excitement or tension. Natalie had noticed it first when a highway patrol car had stopped the Mercedes on the drive from Naples to Rome.
“I’ll call him, Dr. Beck.” She went out to the terrace, where Jastrow was writing in the sunshine.
“Werner? Of course. Does he sound cheerful?”
“Oh, merry as could be.”
“Well! Maybe it’s news of our release.” Laboriously he got out of the lounge chair, and began hobbling toward the house. “Why, bless me, both my legs are numb! I’m tottering like Methuselah.”
Natalie took Miriam and Anna to her bedchamber, where the pink satin hangings and bedspread were getting threadbare with age, and the painted cherubs on the ceiling, what with the decay of the plaster, looked somewhat leprous and perspiring. She laid Louis in his crib, but he promptly pulled himself to his feet with tiny fists clenched on the rail. The women sat chatting while Miriam played with him.
Natalie was growing very fond of Anna Castelnuovo. Mere snobbish self-isolation, she realized, had deprived her of this warm bright companion in all her long Italian exile. What a waste! Neither she nor Aaron had imagined that the few shadowy Sienese Jews might be worth bothering with. No doubt because Dr. Castelnuovo had sensed this, he had not told her he was Jewish.
Aaron looked in. “Natalie, he’s coming by overnight train for lunch tomorrow. He has letters for us from America. Also — so he hinted — great news he can’t discuss by phone.” Jastrow’s wrinkled face was animated by hope. “So talk to Maria about the lunch, my dear, and tell her I’d like some tea and a little compote on the terrace now.”
When Louis fell asleep in his rump-to-ceiling pose, Natalie strolled with Anna Castelnuovo and her daughter to the bus stop. They sat in the rickety wooden shed talking on and on, until the ancient bus wound smokily into sight, far up among the green vineyards along the ridge. Anna said, “Well, I hope your news will be truly good. It’s so curious that a German official should be your benefactor.”
“Yes, it’s decidedly curious.” They exchanged looks of wry skepticism.
The bus went off”, and she walked back to the villa feeling very much alone.
When Dr. Beck arrived next day, he at once gave two letters to Natalie, and one to Dr. Jastrow. They were waiting for him on the terrace. “Don’t be polite, please. Go ahead and read your mail.” Smiling benignly, he sat on a bench in the sun while they ripped at the envelopes.
“The Arch of Constantine! It arrived safely!” Jastrow burst out. “Werner, you must tell Father Spanelli and Ambassador Titman. Natalie, just listen to this, from Ned Duncan. ‘We can never thank the Vatican enough…. The Arch of Constantine is your best book yet… a permanent contribution to popular understanding of both Judaism and Christianity—’ I declare, what a satisfying description!’… Of classic stature…certain book club selection…brilliant panorama of decadent Rome…honored to publish such a fresh and seminal work…’ Well, well, well! Isn’t that capital news, Natalie?”
“That is good news,” said Dr. Beck, “but not all the good news.”
Natalie looked up alertly from State’s discouraging letter. The German and Italian red tape over the Brazil affair seemed endless, he wrote; it would all work out, but he could no longer guess when. She passed this letter to Beck, who after a glance handed it back with a shrug and a smile. He looked very pale and his eyes were bloodshot, but his manner was jocose. “Yes, yes, but all that is quite out of date. May we have lunch? Otherwise we’ve so much to discuss, we may forget to eat.”
Natalie was skimming a piece of microfilmed V-mail from Byron, poorly printed and scarcely readable, which had fallen out of the three-page scrawl from her mother. Nothing really new in either letter; Byron was writing from Australia in a lonesome mood, and her mother was complaining about the coldest Miami Beach spring in years, and fretting about Natalie’s detention. She jumped up. “Lunch is only a soufflé and a salad, Dr. Beck.”
“Ah, I didn’t expect your veal coup to be repeated.”
“But at any rate,” Jastrow said, “we’ll share the last of Berenson’s coffee.”
After lunch Beck asked Natalie’s permission to light a heavy black cigar. With his first puff he leaned back, sighed, and gestured toward the open window. “Well, Dr. Jastrow, won’t you be sorry to leave this view behind?”
“Are we leaving it?”
“That’s why I’ve come.”
He talked for a long while. His pace and tone were leisurely, with frequent long
cigars puffs, yet he began mixing up his rs and th’s. The official Italian radio, he disclosed, wanted to put Dr. Jastrow on the air! The shortwave section was planning talks by famous enemy aliens, to project abroad an image of intellectual tolerance in Fascist Italy. Speakers would have carte blanche. The plan called for big names: Bernard Berenson, George Santayana, and of course Aaron Jastrow. The OVRA had just come through with a written commitment to Beck that Jastrow, his niece, and the baby would leave for Switzerland directly after the broadcast. So this development was proving a quick solution of the departure snarl. If Jastrow would simply come to Rome with Mrs. Henry and her infant, and record a leisurely two-hour interview — or four half-hour broadcasts, whichever he preferred — the Brazil business would be set aside. Beck would arrange in advance three exit visas, and tickets on the Rome-Zurich plane. They would not even have to return to Siena! And the sooner this happened, the better. Rome Radio was very hot on the idea.
Having said all this, Beck sat back, relaxed and smiling. “Well, Prothessor? How does it strike you?”
“Dear me, I confess I’m bewildered. Would they want me to discuss something in my field of work, like Constantine?”
“Oh, no, no. Absolutely out of the question! They want a philosophical view of the war, simply showing that all the right is not on one side. Remember what you said in this very room, Dr. Jastrow, on the occasion of our famous veal dinner? That would precisely fill the bill.”
“Oh, but Werner, I’d had far too much wine that night. I couldn’t rail against my own country like that on enemy shortwave. You can see that.”
Pursing his lips around the cigar, Beck cocked his head. “Professor, you’re creating difficulties, aren’t you? You’re a genius in the use of words, and in the subtle elaboration of ideas. You have a great original vision of this world catastrophe, a remarkable God’s-eye view of the whole tragic panorama. That theme of ‘sharing the hegemony’ is perfect. Once you put your mind to it, the words would come easily. I’m sure you’d not only please Rome Radio, but impress your own countrymen as well. And to state matters bluntly, you’d get out of Italy at once.”
Jastrow turned to his niece. “Well?”
“Well, you and Ezra Pound,” said Natalie.
An unpleasant expression flashed across Beck’s jowly face. “Comparisons are odious, Mrs. Henry.”
“What about Berenson and Santayana?” Jastrow asked. “Have they agreed to this?”
Beck took a long puff at the cigar. “The Italian radio people consider you the key personality. Santayana is very old, and as you know he lives up in the clouds, with his theory of essences and all that philosophical mumbo-jumbo. He’ll just mystify people. Still, a great name. Berenson, well, Berenson’s whimsical and very independent. Rome Radio feels they’ll get Berenson once you agree. He thinks very highly of you.”
“Then neither of them knows about this yet,” Natalie said.
Reluctantly Beck shook his head.
“No, no, no!” Jastrow suddenly rapped out. “I can’t possibly become bracketed with Ezra Pound. His critical writings are undeniably brilliant. He has an original mind, though his verse is willfully obscure. The few times we’ve met I’ve found him an untidy, overbearing egotist, but that’s neither here nor there. The thing is, I’ve heard his broadcasts, Werner. His attacks on the Jews are worse than anything even on your Berlin broadcasts, and his wild ravings about Roosevelt and the gold standard are simple treason. After the war he’ll be hanged or shut up in an insane asylum. I can’t imagine what’s gotten into him, but I’d rather rot here in Siena than become another Ezra Pound.”
With a curl of his lips, and a total confusion of f’s and th’s, Beck retorted, “But there’s also the question of Mrs. Henry and her baby ‘rotting here.’ And there’s the more serious question of how long you can stay on in Siena.” He pulled out a gold pocket watch. “I’ve made a long trip to put this before you. I didn’t expect a rejection out of hand. I thought I had earned your confidence.”
Natalie interjected, “What’s the question about our staying in Siena?”
Deliberately crushing out the cigar, grinding it on the ashtray, Beck replied, “Why, the OVRA pressure never lets up on me, Mrs. Henry. You realize that you belong in a concentration camp with the rest of the alien Jews. I was reminded of this very pointedly, when the broadcasting idea came up, and —”
“But I can’t fathom this!” Jastrow expostulated, his flecked little hands shaking on the table before him. “We’re guaranteed eventual passage to Switzerland! Aren’t we? Even Leslie Slote’s new letter affirms that. How can Rome Radio blackmail me into wrecking my reputation? Just be firm, Werner. Tell them to put it out of their minds. I won’t consider it.”
Beck rolled his bloodshot eyes at Natalie. “That, I must tell you, is a grave statement, Professor.”
“Nevertheless, that’s my answer,” cried Jastrow, his excitement mounting, “and it’s final.”
An auto horn sounded outside.
“Dr. Beck, are you expecting a taxi?” Natalie folded her napkin on the table. Her tone was low and calm. Her face seemed all bones and eyes.
“Yes.”
“Let me walk out with you. No, Aaron, don’t you come.”
“Werner, if I seem obstinate, I’m sorry.” Jastrow stood up and held out an unsteady hand to Dr. Beck, “Martin Luther once put it well. Ich kann nicht anders.
Beck stiffly bowed, and went out after Natalie. On the terrace, she said, “He’ll do it.”
“He’ll do what? The broadcasting?”
“Yes. He’ll do it.”
“Mrs. Henry, his resistance was very strong.” Beck’s eyes were hard, questing, anxious.
From behind the gate came the cracked wheeze of the horn again.
“I know him well. These explosive reactions pass. I set him off by mentioning Pound, f m terribly sorry. When does Rome Radio want him?”
“That’s not definite,” Beck said eagerly, “but what I must imperatively have from him at once is a letter consenting to make the broadcasts. That will get the hounds off my back, and start the wheels turning — the wheels of your release, Mrs. Henry.”
“You’ll have the letter by the end of the week.”
They were at the open gate, where a large old touring car was waiting. Beck said in harsh harried tones, “I’d raffer bring fee letter back to Rome now. Fat would take a vast load oth my mind. I’d even postpone my return.”
“I can’t press him when he’s in this mood. I promise you the letter will come.”
He stared at her, and with a decisive flourish held out his hand. “I must count on your good sense, then.”
“You can count on my concern for my baby.”
“The greatest pleasure for me,” said Beck, pausing with his hand on the taxicab door, “will be to see you all off to Zurich. I’ll be waiting anxiously for that letter.”
She hurried back into the villa. Jastrow still sat at the dining table, wineglass in hand, staring out at the cathedral. With a hangdog look at her, he said in a voice that still trembled, “I just couldn’t help it, Natalie. The proposal is outrageous. Werner can’t think like an American.”
“Indeed he can’t. But you shouldn’t have turned him down flat, Aaron. You’ll have to equivocate and stall.”
“Possibly. But I’ll never make the broadcasts he’s asking for. Never! He took my perverse half-serious tirade over the veal far too literally. There’s a German for you! You had provoked me, I’d drunk a lot, and anyway I relish arguing on the wrong side. You know that. Of course I loathe the Axis dictatorships. I exiled myself to save money and live quietly. Clearly it was the mistake of my life. No matter how badly the State Department has mistreated me, I love the United States. I will not go on the air for the Axis, to disgrace my scholarship and mark myself a traitor.” The old man lifted his bearded chin, and a stony look settled on his face. “They can kill me, but I won’t do it.”
Alarmed, and thrilled too, Natali
e said, “Then we’re in danger.”
“That may be, and you had better consult Dr. Castelnuovo about his escape plans, after all.”
“What!”
“Making a dash for it seems farfetched, but it may come to that, my dear.” Pouring a glass of wine, Jastrow spoke with cheery vigor. “Rabinovitz is a very able man. This young doctor seems a resolute sort. It’s best to be prepared. Chances are our release will come through meantime, but I can’t say I like Werner Beck’s new tune.”
“Christ almighty, Aaron, this is a change.”
Jastrow rested his head wearily on a hand. “I didn’t bargain for adventuring in my old age, but the one important thing is to get you and Louis out safely, isn’t it? I shall have this wine and take my nap Please draft up a letter to Werner, dear, agreeing in principle, and apologizing for my outburst. Say I’m commencing now to lay out four broadcasts. Be terribly vague about a completion date, for I shall be weaving Penelope’s cloth, you know. Then you had better go and talk to that young doctor. The OVRA may well be watching him, so it’s best you make it look like an office visit. Take the baby.”
Dumbly Natalie nodded. She went to the library to draft the letter, feeling — half with terror, half with relief— that the lead had in an eyeblink passed from her to her uncle, and that she and her baby were now in the dark rapids.
26
JUNE flowers are springing up all over Auschwitz. Even in the muddy heavily trodden camp sectors, in nooks between the blockhouses missed by the wooden clogs of the prisoners, the flowers peep out.
The Auschwitz Interest Area of the SS spreads over some forty square kilometers of greenery and woodland, at the confluence of the Sola and the Vistula, where the Vistula begins its long meander north to Warsaw and the Baltic Sea. Everywhere inside the high barbed-wire fences of this huge enclave, spaced with signs in German and Polish warning of instant death to trespassers, wildflowers make bright splashes, except where construction crews are churning the marshy grassland into brown muck and putting up blockhouses. Berel Jastrow is working in one of these crews.