War and Remembrance (189 page)

God in Heaven, I wish all this brutalizing would end.

Pamela, did you hear Roosevelt’s Yalta report to the Congress on the radio? It scared me. He kept wandering and slurring as though he were sick or drunk. He apologized for speaking seated, and talked about “all this iron on my legs.” I have never before heard him refer to his paralysis. The one thing that can go wrong in the war now is his death or disability — well, here’s General Fitzgerald. Chow down. I didn’t mean to get off on war and politics, and now there’s no time for the love stuff, is there? You know that I adore you. I thought my life was finished after Midway. In a way it was, as you yourself saw. I was an ambulatory fighting corpse. I’m alive again, or I will be when we embrace as man and wife. See you in Washington!

Much love stuff,

Pug

H
APPIER than she had ever believed she could be, but very edgy, Pamela kept looking out of the open window for the moving van. The blooming magnolia in front of the old apartment house perfumed the air clear up to the third floor. in a schoolyard across the windy sunny avenue, blossoming
cherry trees were showering petals past the Stars and Stripes briskly flapping on a jonquil-bordered flagpole. Washington in springtime, again; but this time, what a difference!

She still felt half in a dream. To be back in this rich untouched beautiful city, among these well-dressed, well-fed bustling Americans; to be buying in shops crammed with fine clothes, feasting in restaurants on meats and fruits not seen in London for years; and not drifting in her poor father’s wake, not fearing the collapse of England, not gnawed by guilt or grief or melancholy, but getting ready for marriage to Victor Henry! Colonel Peters’s apartment, with its broad rooms and masculine furnishings (except for the frilly pink and gold boudoir, a tart’s delight), still chilled her a bit. It was so big and so much a stranger’s, with nothing in it of Pug. But today that would change.

The van came. Two sweating men grunted in with trunks, filing cabinets, packing boxes, suitcases, and cartons — more, and more, and more. The living room filled up. When Rhoda arrived, Pamela was relieved. She had been dreading handling Pug’s things with his ex-wife; a sticky business, she had thought. But it had been damned sensible, after all, to accept Rhoda’s offer of help with this jumble. Mrs. Harrison Peters was cheery as a robin in an Eastery sort of outfit, pastel colors, big silk hat with veil, matching gloves and shoes. She was on her way to a tea, she said, a church benefit. She had brought a typed list of Pug’s belongings several pages long. Every container was numbered, and the list described what each held. “Don’t bother to open numbers seven, eight, and nine, dear. Books. No matter how you arrange them, he’ll
GROWL
. Then, let’s see, numbers three and four are winter civilian stuff — suits, sweaters, overcoats, and such. They’re mothballed. Air them in September and have them.cleaned, and they’ll be fine. Better stash all that stuff in the spare room for now. Where is it?”

Surprised, Pamela blurted, “Don’t you know?”

“I’ve never been here before. Young man, we’ll have some of these things moved, please.”

Rhoda took charge, ordering the men to shift containers about and open those that were nailed or roped up. Once they left she produced keys to the trunks and suitcases, and pitched in on the unpacking of Pug’s clothes, chattering about how he liked his shirts done, the dry cleaner he used, and so on. Her affectionate proprietary manner and tone about Pug, a bit like a mother packing off a grown-up son on a long trip, deeply disconcerted Pamela. Passing her hand fondly over his suits as she hung them up one by one, Rhoda told where they had been made, which he favored, which he seldom put on. Twice she mentioned that his waist measurement was the same as it had been on their wedding day. She lined up his shoes in Peters’s shoe cupboard with care. “You’ll
ALWAYS
have to put the shoe trees in, honey. He wants his shoes to look just so, but will he take five seconds to put in the
trees? Never. Not him. Away from the Navy, dear, he’s a bit of an absent-minded
PROFESSOR,
you’ll find. Last thing you’d expect of Pug Henry, hey?”

“Rhoda, I really think I can do the rest of this. I’m frightfully grateful —”

“Oh? Well then, there’s still number fifteen. Let’s get at that. It’s hard, you know, to split the herring down the
BACKBONE,
as you might say. There are some things Pug and I really share. One of us will have to end up without them. It can’t be helped. Pictures, mementos, that sort of thing. I’ve made a selection. Pug can have anything I’ve kept back. I’ll take anything he doesn’t want. Can’t be fairer than that, can I?” Rhoda gave her a bright smile.

“Certainly not,” said Pamela, and to turn the conversation she added, “Look, something is bothering me. Did you say you’d never been here before?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, dear, before I married Hack I wouldn’t have
DREAMED
of coming to his bachelor lair. Caesar’s wife, and all that. And afterward, well —” Rhoda’s mouth twisted to one side, and she suddenly looked coarser, older, and very cynical — “I decided I really wanted no part of his memories here. Do I have to draw you a
PICTURE?”

At the brief uncomfortable meeting in a lawyer’s office for signing documents about the house and the apartment — which Pamela had attended at Pug’s lawyer’s request, and at which Rhoda had offered to help with this move — Rhoda’s face had flashed that look just once; when Peters had overridden a remark of hers in an offhand contemptuous way.

“No, I guess not.”

“All right. So let’s just dig into number fifteen, shall we? Look here.”

Rhoda pulled out and showed her photograph albums of the children, of houses the Henrys had lived in, of picnics, dances, banquets, of ships in which Pug had served, where Rhoda posed with him in sunlight at a gun mount, or on a bridge, or walking the deck, or with the commanding officer. There were framed pictures of the couple — young, not so young, middle-aged, but always close, familiar, happy; Pug’s usual pose was a half-admiring, half-amused look at Rhoda, the look of a loving husband aware of his wife’s foibles and crazy about her. Pamela felt as never before that she herself was a young interloper at the tail end of Victor Henry’s life; that whomever he lived with and called his wife, his center of gravity was forever fixed in this woman.

“Now take this, for instance,” Rhoda said, laying the leather-bound Warren album on top of a box and turning the pages. “I had a hard time deciding about
THIS
one, I can tell you. Naturally I never thought of making
two of these. Maybe Pug finds it painful. I don’t know. I love it. I made it for him, but he never uttered a single word about it.” Rhoda glanced at Pamela with hard shiny eyes. “You’ll find him tough to figure out sometimes. Or have you already?” She carefully closed the album. “Well, there it is, anyway. Pug can have it if he wants it.”

“Rhoda,” Pamela said with difficulty, “I don’t think he’d want you to give up such things, and —”

“Oh, there’s more, plenty more. I’ve got my share. You accumulate
LOTS
in thirty years. You don’t have to tell me
ANYTHING
about what I’ve given up, honey. So let’s have a look around at Hack’s den of
INIQUITY,
shall we? And then I’ll be on my merry way. Do you have a decent kitchen?”

“Immense,” Pamela said hurriedly. “It’s through here.”

“I’ll bet you found it
FILTHY
.”

“Well, I did have to scrape and scrub some.” Pamela nervously laughed. “Bachelors, you know.”

“Men, dear. Still, there’s a difference between Army and Navy. I’ve found that out.” Showing Rhoda through the place, Pamela tried to slip past the closed door of the pink and gold room, but Rhoda opened it and walked in. “Oh,
GAWD
. Whorehouse modern.”

“It is a bit giddy, isn’t it?”

“It’s
ABOMINABLE
. Why didn’t you make Hack redecorate and refurnish it?”

“Oh, it’s simpler just to close it off. I don’t need it.”

One entire wall consisted of sliding mirrors that covered a long closet. The two women stood side by side, looking into the mirror, and addressing each other’s images: Rhoda smartly dressed for springtime, Pamela in a plain blouse and straight skirt. Pamela looked like her daughter.

I don’t need it
was a trivial remark, or Pamela meant it so. But Rhoda failed to answer. Their eyes met in the mirror. A silence lengthened. The words gained portentousness second by second, and tactlessness, too. In Pug’s room there was only a double bed. The innocent statement swelled into something like this, and true enough:
I’ll sleep with Pug, and live in that room with him. There are closets enough for both of us. I dont want a separate room. I love him too much. I want to stay near him.

Rhoda’s mouth twisted far to one side. The eyes of her image, cynical and sad, wandered from Pamela’s face to the garish room. “I guess you don’t. Hack and I are finding separate rooms pretty handy, but then I’m getting on, aren’t I? Well, what else is on the tour?”

Back in the living room, she looked out of the window and said, “You face south. That’s cheerful. What a fine magnolia tree! These older apartment houses are the best. Isn’t that schoolyard noisy? Of course it’s after hours now.”

“I haven’t noticed.”

“Why is their flag at half-mast, do you suppose?”

“Is it? So it is. It wasn’t half an hour ago.”

“Are you sure of that?” Wrinkling her brows, Rhoda said, “Something about the war, maybe.”

Pamela said, “I’ll turn on the radio.”

It warmed up gibbering a Lucky Strike commercial. Pamela turned the dial.

“…
and Chief Justice Stone is now on the way to the White House,”
said an announcer’s smooth voice, in professional dramatic tones troubled with real emotion,
“to administer the oath of office to Vice President Harry Truman. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt is flying to Warm Springs, Georgia
—”

“God save us, it’s the
PRESIDENT,”
Rhoda exclaimed. She threw a hand to her forehead, knocking her hat askew.

The news was scanty. He had suddenly died of a stroke at his vacation home in Georgia. That was all. The announcer talked on and on about reactions in Washington. Rhoda gestured at Pamela to shut it off. She dropped in an armchair, staring. “Franklin Roosevelt
DEAD!
Why, it’s like the end of the world.” She spoke very hoarsely. “I knew him. I sat beside him at dinner at the White House. What an utter
CHARMER
he was! Do you know what he said to me? I’ll never forget it as long as I live. He said,
’Not many men deserve a wife as beautiful as you, Rhoda, but Pug does.’
Those were his words. Just being
NICE,
you know. But he certainly looked at me as though he
MEANT
it. Dead! Roosevelt! What about the war? Truman’s a
NOBODY
. Oh, what a nightmare!”

“It’s ghastly,” Pamela said, her mind racing across world strategy to discern whether this might delay Pug’s return to Washington.

“Hack said he left some booze here,” Rhoda said.

“There’s lots.”

“Well, you know what? The hell with that tea. Give me a good drink of straight Scotch, will you, dear? Then I’ll just go home.”

Pamela was pouring the drink in the kitchen when she heard sobs. She hurried back into the living room. Rhoda sat amid the empty boxes and crates and trunks, streaming tears, her hat crooked, with the Warren album open on her lap. “It’s the end of the world,” she moaned. “It’s the end.”

* * *

(from “Hitler as Military Leader” by Armin von Roon)
Brief Joy

On 12 April when the news of Roosevelt’s death came, I was out inspecting Berlin’s defenses, mainly to ascertain for Speer how far along the demolition preparations were. Returning to the bunker, I could hear the sounds of rejoicing echo up the long stairs. I walked in on a celebration complete with champagne, cakes, dancing, music, and happy toasts. Amidst all the joy and wassail Hitler sat smiling around in a dazed benign way, holding his left hand with his right to still the trembling. Goebbels himself deigned to greet me, hobbling up and waving a newspaper. “Only cheerful faces here tonight, my good General! It’s the big turnabout at last. The mad dog has croaked.”

That was the tenor of the party. Here was the break Germany was waiting for, the “miracle of the House of Brandenburg” all over again, the deliverance of Frederick the Great by the Russian empress’s death, 1945 version. This was quite a success for the astrologers. They had been predicting a grand deliverance in mid-April.

Of course the Russians under Zhukov were massing along the Oder, at one point only thirty-five miles from the bunker; and Eisenhower was marching to the Elbe; and southward the Anglo-Americans were breaking apart our lines in Italy; and another great Russian force under Konev was grinding through the Balkans to race Zhukov and the Americans to Berlin; and the skies over the city were raining bombs day and night. Our war production had virtually ceased. Our forces everywhere were running out of ammunition and gasoline. Millions of refugees from east and west were clogging the roads, bringing Wehrmacht movements to a standstill. Trains were being shunted here and there by the SS, blocking up the railroad system. But in the atmosphere of the cement molehole under the Chancellery, what did all that matter? It had become a place of dreams and fantasies. Any
excuse for optimism was inflated into a “big turnabout,” though nothing ever equalled the brief glee over Roosevelt’s death.