Authors: Howard Fast
She had listened to the arguments and persuasions of the Limogets as she had listened to the arguments and persuasions of others. If at times she was bored, boredom was something she had learned to cope with. This time, however, she was not bored.
Claude and Camille Limoget arrived at precisely five o'clock, which they had learned was the proper American cocktail hour. They brought a bottle of wine, downed a glass apiece, munched on Barbara's crackers and cheese, made the proper inquiries about her health and state of mind, and then came directly to the point.
"We understand," Claude said, "that you plan to return to America in two weeks."
"Yes. I've overstayed my leave."
"Of course. Yet Paris has been a happy as well as an unhappy experience."
"That's true, Claude. Some of each."
"Barbara," he said very seriously, "we are coming to you to ask you to change your plans. We would like you to put off your departure to America and go to Berlin instead."
She smiled. "You can't be serious."
"Very serious. Let me explain the reasons for this request."
"No," Barbara said firmly. "Whatever you have in mind, I don't want to hear about it. I regard what is happening in Germany, in Berlin, with loathing and with horror and disgust. Nothing you have to say could persuade me to go there, now or ever."
"Will you only listen?"
"No. I am going home. I have been away almost five years. I am totally heartsick for home. You're French. You ought to understand that."
"We do understand it," Camille said. "But isn't it unreasonable to refuse to listen? You're not a person of weak character. We've spent too many hours trying to convince you of things you absolutely refuse to accept, and I'm sure we haven't convinced you. But at least you listened."
Barbara sighed. "Very well, I'll listen."
"That's all we're asking," Camille said. "I insisted on that with Claude. We would simply put the facts to you, and then you could say yes or no."
"You know we're communists," Claude said. "We've made no secret of that."
"Indeed you haven't." Barbara was forced to smile. There were times when she almost liked the Limogets.
"All right. Now, over the past few years, there have been many discussions in Party circles concerning the question of Nazi Germany. In the beginning, German comrades participated in these discussions—comrades who had escaped from Germany, a few others who moved back and forth. These few became fewer, and finally all our contacts with Germany were broken. At this moment, we don't even know whether the Party exists in Germany, and the way events are moving, it is desperately necessary that we know, not only for ourselves but for the whole world—"
"Oh, no," Barbara interrupted. "You can stop right there. I am not a communist. I don't think I am even a communist sympathizer."
"You said you'd hear us out," Camille reminded her.
"All right. Go on."
"I want to say right here that we have no intention of placing you in a position of danger. Other measures are being undertaken to make contact in Germany. This is a singular case, for which you are ideally suited. No, please wait"—as Barbara began to stop him—"please, listen to me. There is a Professor Wolfgang Schmidt, who teaches philosophy at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. He is one of those who espoused the Nazi theories of the master race. He has published two books on the subject, and his writing has been warmly received by the Hitler gang. Nevertheless, we have reason to believe that this man, who was once secretly a Party member, still remains a communist and uses his present role as a cover. If that is the case, he may have contacts, there may be some sort of organization that can be reached and helped."
Barbara shook her head hopelessly. "You are quite mad."
"I don't think we are. Barbara, we are not asking you to try to establish that contact; others will do that. We only ask that you see this Professor Schmidt, that you talk to him as what you are, an American correspondent, that you get a sense of the man and of what his deepest beliefs are. This is something you can do quite legitimately —and if you are able to give us a sound estimate, then the next man we send will not be going to his death. He won't be walking into a trap."
"You mean I am to spring the trap for him."
Camille Limoget's round, pretty little face took on an expression of pain, as if Barbara's remark had cut to her soul. Her wide blue eyes became moist, and Barbara reflected that she was indeed the most unlikely communist.
"We loved Marcel," she whispered. "We love you. What a thing to say!"
"I'm sorry," Barbara apologized. "I shouldn't have said that. But I am not going to Berlin. You know, you and Claude and your friends—you've told me a dozen times how you feel about everything that's happening today. But you never asked me how I feel. Of course, I understand that American women are not supposed to have much sense—"
"That's not fair," Camille protested. "We never stopped you from speaking. You were always quiet, listening."
"True," she responded, not feeling that this was the best moment to remind Camille that to get a word in during one of their discussions was virtually impossible. "Then it's my fault. Let me tell you what I feel, in just a few words. I feel that men who fight wars share a common insanity, and that men who kill, for whatever reason, for whatever justification, are also insane. I have listened to the theories and rationalizations and accusations for hours, but I still feel just that way. I loved a man who was like a part of me, and he died senselessly, for no reason and no cause." She sought for more words, and then felt that what she had said encompassed the whole matter. "That's the way I feel," she said.
Camille bit her lower lip and pouted. Claude studied Barbara thoughtfully, and for a little while the three of them sat there in silence.
Finally, Claude said, "Marcel was my friend. I don't like to parade my emotions, but I sat down and cried when I heard that he was dead."
Barbara nodded.
"It wasn't an accident. The Nazis killed him. They have killed thousands, and they will kill thousands more."
"And Stalin?" Barbara asked tiredly. "He kills no one?"
"It doesn't change what happened in Spain and what is happening in Germany."
"And will I change that if I go to Germany? Can anyone change it?"
"I don't know," Claude said quietly. "We try. If we don't try, there's not much worth living for, is there?"
Again they sat in silence, and at last Claude said, "I don't blame you if you're afraid. I'd be afraid."
Barbara didn't deny it. There was a cold knot in the pit of her stomach when mentally she placed herself in Germany. Her strength and independence did not come from a lack of sensitivity. For years now, day after day, she had read the newspaper reports of life in Nazi Germany, not to mention the books on the subject that filled the French bookstalls. In her mind, it had become the place of ultimate horror, a gigantic and grotesque nightmare that had grown like a fetid mushroom out of the heart of Europe.
"But, you see," Claude went on softly, "there is really no one but yourself we could turn to. You are not political. You never have been. You have no organizational connections, yet we trust you. When I told you Professor Schmidt's name, I put his life in your hands. We know you."
"And you know a hundred others," Barbara said unhappily.
"Not really. Consider. You're an American, and the Nazis are cultivating America with every bit of sleazy propaganda they can contrive. You "are a correspondent, so you have a legitimate reason to go there and to interview. There is nothing on you in the Gestapo files. You are also the daughter of one of the great, wealthy families of America. You can't imagine what kind of clout that will give you there. Barbara, I would die before I would ask you to step into a dangerous game. This isn't dangerous. Nasty, perhaps. Any sewer is nasty and stinks to hell. On the other hand, you're a writer, and this can be an experience well worth having. There's profit along with the loss. And you might just be saving the lives of a good many decent people."
"I think I'd like a cup of coffee," Barbara said. "Will you join me?"
They shook their heads and sat in silence while she brewed the coffee. She had stopped thinking, stopped building protests within herself. She felt a dead, heavy weight inside of her, a kind of hopelessness. She was like a boat without a rudder, without an anchor. Everything and everyone went in and out of her life—her father, her mother, her brother, Dominick Salone, Marcel Duboise, Bernie Cohen. She suddenly felt an intense longing for the big, slow-moving, slow-speaking man, for his judgment, for his advice.
She drank the coffee strong and black. "It's American coffee," she explained. "I'm an addict. It comes of living alone. You turn either to drink or coffee."
"I grew up with chicory," Camille said, smiling. "You lose your taste for the real thing." She was relaxed, gentle. The argument was over. Barbara had never particularly liked her before. She liked her now.
"If I were to go," Barbara said, "and I am not committing myself to anything—but if I were crazy enough to do this, what makes you think that I could find out anything worth finding out about this Professor Schmidt? I'm no great judge of character. I can't ask him outright."
Claude shrugged. "I have faith in you."
"I wish I did."
"Can we take you to dinner?" Camille asked.
"No. No, I want to think about this whole thing. I have to think it through, and it's better if I'm by myself."
There were no more arguments, no more persuasion, and awhile later, Camille and Claude left. Barbara took the wineglasses and her cup and saucer into the kitchen, washed them, and then decided that the floor of the kitchen was quite dirty. Why hadn't she noticed that before? She got a pail of suds and a brush and scrubbed the kitchen floor, obtaining a good deal of satisfaction out of the physical act of doing something. Then she took a bath, luxuriating in the steaming hot water. It was nine o'clock by the time she dried herself, combed her hair, and slipped into a robe, and now she felt ravenously hungry. She had a piece of
chevre
and some bread that she warmed in the oven, and she sat in the kitchen, stuffing herself with cheese and hot, golden-crusted bread and drinking what was left of the coffee. Afterward, she would recall that there were no interior discussions with herself during this time, no profound thoughts to weigh, one against the other. At half past nine, with the last crust of bread in her hand, she picked up the telephone and asked for the overseas operator. She then put through a person-to-person call to Frank Bradley, the editor of
Manhattan Magazine.
It was well after ten when the telephone rang and the operator informed her that she had her party in New York.
It was a good connection. Bradley's voice boomed out at
her.
"I hear you quite well, Frank. You don't have to shout."
"Girl, you've become famous and you're deserting us. When are you arriving? Why didn't you call me collect?"
"Because I'm rich, and I'm not arriving. I've decided to look the beast in the eyes. What would you say to a few 'Letters from Berlin'?"
"I love you."
"You know they censor everything. I'm no great political commentator."
"Just write about the weather, the women, the food— anything you want. Or make notes and write the stuff in Paris."
"How many words?"
"As many as you want. I love you."
"I know that. You said it before."
"How long will you stay?"
"I have no idea, Frank."
"Now don't get into trouble. Three publishers have been bugging me about doing your letters in a book. But I'm holding off until you get back. So just don't get mixed up in anything and write me something immortal."
"What publishers?"
"That can wait. Now look, Barbara, I don't want you to stick your neck out, and I know how you feel about those bastards, but if you could get an interview with Hitler or Ribbentrop or Himmler, or any one of those lice, it would be worth its weight in gold."
"Frank, you're crazy."
"Like a fox, I am. You're a beautiful woman, and that counts. Look, if it comes your way, grab it. If it doesn't, I still love you."
Dan observed his son Joseph occasionally with awe, frequently with admiration, and always with wonder that this tall, long-limbed creature, with the strange mixture of the Occident and the Orient written on his snub-nosed, serious face, could be a product of his loins. A few months past, a chain lift had snapped at the boatyard, and the raw link had gashed Dan's arm from elbow to shoulder, not deeply, but nevertheless leaving a long, painful cut. They had bandaged it crudely out of a first aid kit, but when Dan got home, Joe—there on a day off—regarded it with disgust, removed the bandage, cleaned the wound, put it together with what he called plaster butterflies, and then rebandaged it. Half a year in medical school had not made him a doctor, but in Dan's mind he was a repository of medical knowledge.