War and Remembrance (47 page)

“Oh, I can see what you mean.” The long livid face relaxed. Eichmann said in a humorous familiar tone, “He’s just the sort of backward old fart to make trouble for us, isn’t he? Well, the Foreign Minister himself will put him in the picture. That’ll squelch him, I assure you, and he’ll be quiet as a mouse. He won’t say ‘boo’ to Ribbentrop.” Eichmann emitted a pleased sigh,
and waved the forefinger, “f 11 tell you this, you can look for a very positive effect on your career once you pull this off. Old fellow, do you happen to have a spot of brandy in the office? I drove two hundred kilometers this morning, and I’ve had no breakfast.”

Producing a bottle and two glasses, Werner Beck did some fast thinking while he poured. He must not even seem to assent; otherwise, when he failed to deliver, disaster could befall him. The Italians would not budge on the Jews; of that he was all but sure. They might round them up in camps, treat them roughly, and so forth; but handing them over for deportation — no. As they clinked glasses and drank, he said, “Well, I’ll try. But the Italians will have the last word. I can’t help that. Nobody can, unless we occupy Italy.”

“So? You can’t help it.” Brusquely, as to a barman, Eichmann held out his empty glass. Beck refilled it. The lieutenant colonel drank again, and folded his hands in his lap. “I now request from you,” he said, “an explanation of the Jastrow case.”

“The Jastrow case?” Beck stammered.

“You’ve sequestered in Siena, Herr Dr. Beck, a stateless Jew named Aaron Jastrow, aged sixty-five, a prominent author from the U.S.A., with a niece and her infant. You have visited them. You have written to them. You have telephoned them. Yes?”

In handling Jastrow Beck had of course repeatedly used his Gestapo contacts. He realized that this must be Eichmann’s source. He had been open and aboveboard, and there was nothing to fear. The lieutenant colonel had simply startled him with his abrupt change of front and uncanny recall of detail. Eichmann was now sitting up straight, wrinkling his whole face in suspicion, the embodiment of a malevolent secret police officer.

As nonchalantly as he could, Beck explained what he had in mind for Aaron Jastrow.

Shaking a cigarette from a pack and slipping it in his mouth, Eichmann said, “But Dr. Beck, this is all very puzzling. You mention the poet Ezra Pound, and his shortwave broadcasts for Rome Radio. That’s fine stuff, very fine. The Propaganda Ministry records and uses the broadcasts. But the poet Ezra Pound is a rarity, a very sophisticated American anti-Semite. He gives it in the ass to the Jewish bankers and to Roosevelt more than our own shortwave does. How can you compare this Jastrow person to him? Jastrow’s a full-blooded Jew.”

“Ezra Pound’s talks are no good for American audiences. Please take my word for that. I know the United States. He must be regarded there as a traitor or a lunatic. What I plan for Jastrow —”

“We know you studied in the United States. We also know that Jastrow was your teacher.”

Feeling that he was getting nowhere — that his conception was beyond
the SS mentality — Beck yet had to plow on. What he hoped for, he said, was a farseeing, forgiving, Olympian broadcast, or series of broadcasts, picturing the Germans and Japanese as deprived and misunderstood proud peoples, the Allies as fat cats clutching riches gained by armed force, and the whole war as a useless bloodletting that should be settled at once by a “sharing of the hegemony.” This brilliant phrase was Jastrow’s own. Coming from a prominent Jewish author it would have great impact in America to weaken the war effort and encourage a peace movement. Perhaps other high-level alien intellectuals like Santayana and Berenson would follow Jastrow’s example.

Eichmann looked unconvinced. Santayana’s name clearly meant nothing to him. At “Berenson” his eyes sharpened. “Berenson? There’s a smart millionaire Jew. Berenson has a lot of protection. Well, all right. When will this Jastrow make his first broadcast?”

“That’s not definite yet.” Under Eichmann’s hard surprised gaze he added, “It’s a question of persuading him, which takes time.”

The lieutenant colonel gently smiled. “Really? Why should it? Persuading a Jew is simple.”

“To be effective, this has to be done of his own free will.”

“But Jews will do anything that you want them to do, of their own free will. Still, I believe I understand you now. He is your old teacher, a fine man. You have a soft spot in your heart for him. You don’t want to upset or frighten him. It isn’t that you’re coddling or protecting a Jew —” Eichmann happily smiled, and waved the schoolteacher’s forefinger — “it isn’t that, but rather that you think you’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Hm?”

Dr. Beck began to feel cornered. The man had a streak of the actor, and his changing moods and manners were hard to deal with. Yet he was jusf
an SS lieutenant colonel,
Beck told himself, whatever his role with Jews. He, Beck, must not let himself be bullied into an untenable commitment. His reply was as light and confident as he could make it. “I’m sure that my approach is correct and will get the right results.”

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.