The Other Side of Midnight (22 page)

“Get out and show your identification!”

General Scheider opened the rear window, leaned his head out and said, raspingly: “General Scheider. What the hell’s going on here?”

The lieutenant snapped to attention.

“Excuse me, General. I did not know it was your car.”

The General’s eyes flicked over the roadblock. “What’s this all about?”

“We have orders to inspect every vehicle leaving Paris, Herr General. Every exit from the city is blocked.”

The General turned to Noelle. “The damned Gestapo. I’m sorry,
liebchen.”

Noelle could feel the color drain from her face, and she was grateful for the darkness of the car. When she spoke, her voice was steady.

“It’s not important,” she said.

She thought of the cargo in the trunk. If her plan
had worked, Israel Katz was in there, and in a moment he would be caught. And so would she.

The German lieutenant turned to the chauffeur.

“Open the luggage compartment, please.”

“There’s nothing in there but luggage,” the captain protested. “I put it in myself.”

“I’m sorry, Captain. My orders are clear. Every vehicle out of Paris is to be inspected. Open it.”

Muttering under his breath, the driver opened his door and started to get out. Noelle’s mind was racing furiously. She had to find a way to stop them, without arousing their suspicions. The driver was out of the car. Time had run out. Noelle stole a quick look at General Scheider’s face. His eyes were narrowed and his lips were tight with anger. She turned to him and said guilelessly, “Shall we get out, Hans? Will they be searching us?” She could feel his body tense with fury.

“Wait!” The General’s voice was like the crack of a whip. “Get back in the car,” he ordered his driver. He turned to the lieutenant and his voice was filled with rage. “You tell whoever gave you your orders that they do not apply to generals of the German Army. I do not take orders from lieutenants. Get that roadblock out of my way.”

The hapless lieutenant stared at the General’s furious face, clicked his heels to attention and said, “Yes, General Scheider.” He signaled the driver of the truck blocking the road and the truck lumbered off to the side.

“Drive on,” General Scheider commanded.

And the car sped away into the night.

Slowly Noelle let her body relax into the seat, feeling the tension draining out of her. The crisis was past. She wished that she knew whether Israel Katz was in the trunk of the car. And if he was alive.

General Scheider turned to Noelle and she could feel the anger that was still seething in him.

“I apologize,” he said, wearily. “This is a strange war. Sometimes it is necessary to remind the Gestapo
that wars are run by armies.”

Noelle smiled up at him and put her arm through his. “And armies are run by generals.”

“Exactly,” he agreed. “Armies are run by generals. I am going to have to teach Colonel Mueller a lesson.”

Ten minutes after General Scheider’s car had left the roadblock, a phone call came in from Gestapo Headquarters, alerting them to be on the lookout for the car.

“It has already passed through,” the lieutenant reported, a feeling of foreboding flooding through him. A moment later he was speaking with Colonel Mueller.

“How long ago?” the Gestapo officer asked softly.

“Ten minutes.”

“Did you search his car?”

The lieutenant felt his bowels turn to water. “No, sir. The General would not permit—”

“Scheiss!
Which way was he headed?”

The lieutenant swallowed. When he spoke again, it was in the hopeless voice of a man who knew that his future was finished.

“I am not certain,” he replied. “This is a large crossroad here. He could have been going inland to Rouen or to the sea, to Le Havre.”

“I want you to present yourself to Gestapo Headquarters at nine
A
.
M
. tomorrow. My office.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant responded.

Savagely Colonel Mueller rang off. He turned to the two men at his side and said, “Le Havre. Get my car. We’re going cockroach-hunting!”

The road to Le Havre winds along the Seine, through the beautiful Seine Valley with its rich hills and fertile farms. It was a clear, starlit night and the farmhouses in the distance were pools of light, like oases in the darkness.

In the comfortable back seat of the limousine Noelle and General Scheider talked. He told her about his wife and his children and how difficult marriage was
for an army officer. Noelle listened sympathetically and told him how difficult a romantic life was for an actress. Each was aware that the conversation was a game, both of them keeping the talk on a superficial level that would give away no insights. Noelle did not for a moment underestimate the intelligence of the man sitting beside her, and she fully understood how dangerous was the adventure in which she was engaged. She knew that General Scheider was too clever to believe that she had suddenly found him irresistible, that he must suspect that she was after something. What Noelle was counting on was that she would be able to outmaneuver him in the game they were playing. The General touched only briefly on the war, but he said something that she remembered long afterward.

“The British are a strange race,” he said. “In peacetime, they are impossible to manage, but in a crisis they are magnificent. The only time a British sailor is truly happy is when his ship is sinking.”

They reached Le Havre in the small hours of the morning on their way to the village of Etratat.

“May we stop for a bite to eat?” Noelle asked. “I’m starved.”

General Scheider nodded. “Of course, if you wish.” He raised his voice. “Look for an all-night restaurant.”

“I’m sure there’s one by the pier,” Noelle suggested. The captain obediently swung the car toward the waterfront. He stopped the car at the water’s edge, where several cargo ships were tied to the pier. A block away a sign said, “Bistro.”

The captain opened the door and Noelle got out, followed by General Scheider.

“It’s probably open all night for the dock workers,” Noelle said. She heard the sound of a motor and turned around. A cargo-loading forklift had driven up and stopped near the limousine. Two men wearing coveralls and long, visored caps that concealed their faces got out of the machine. One of the men looked hard at Noelle, then took out a tool kit and began to tighten
the forklift. Noelle felt the muscles in her stomach constrict. She took General Scheider’s arm and they started toward the restaurant. Noelle looked back at the chauffeur sitting behind the wheel.

“Wouldn’t he like some coffee?” Noelle asked.

“He will stay with the car,” the General said.

Noelle stared at him. The chauffeur must
not
stay with the car or everything would be ruined. Yet Noelle dared not insist.

They walked on toward the café over the rough, uneven cobblestones. Suddenly, as she took a step, her ankle turned and Noelle fell, letting out a sharp cry of pain. General Scheider reached out and vainly tried to grab her before her body hit the cobblestones.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

The chauffeur, seeing what had happened, moved from behind the wheel of the car and started hurrying toward them.

“I’m so sorry,” Noelle said. “I—I turned my ankle. It feels like it’s broken.”

General Scheider ran his hand expertly over her ankle. “There is no swelling. It is probably just a sprain. Can you stand on it?”

“I—I don’t know,” Noelle said.

The chauffeur reached her side and the two men lifted her to her feet. Noelle took a step and the ankle gave way under her.

“I’m sorry,” she moaned. “If I could just sit down.”

“Help me get her in there,” General Scheider said, indicating the café.

With the two men supporting her on either side, they walked into the restaurant. As she walked through the door, Noelle risked a quick look back at the car. The two dock workers were at the trunk of the limousine.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go straight on to the Etratat?” the General was asking.

“No, believe me, I’ll be fine,” Noelle replied.

The proprietor led them to a corner table, and the two men eased Noelle into a chair.

“Are you in much pain?” General Scheider asked.

“A bit,” Noelle replied. She put her hand on his. “Don’t worry. I won’t let this spoil anything for you, Hans.”

At the moment Noelle and General Hans Scheider were sitting in the café, Colonel Mueller and two of his men were speeding into the city limits of Le Havre. The local captain of police had been roused from his sleep and was waiting for the Gestapo men in front of the police station. “A gendarme has located the General’s car,” he said. “It is parked down by the waterfront.”

A gleam of satisfaction came into Colonel Mueller’s face. “Take me there,” he commanded.

Five minutes later, the Gestapo automobile with Colonel Mueller, his two men and the police captain raced up beside General Scheider’s automobile on the pier. The men got out and surrounded the car. At that moment General Scheider, Noelle and the chauffeur were starting to leave the bistro. The chauffeur was the first to notice the men at the car. He started hurrying toward them.

“What’s happening?” Noelle asked, and even as she spoke she recognized the figure of Colonel Mueller in the distance and felt a cold chill go through her.

“I don’t know,” General Scheider said. He started toward the limousine with long strides, Noelle limping after him.

“What are you doing here?” General Scheider asked Colonel Mueller as he reached the car.

“I am sorry to disturb your holiday,” Colonel Mueller replied curtly. “I would like to inspect the trunk of your car, General.”

“There is nothing but luggage in there.”

Noelle reached the group. She noticed that the forklift had gone. The General and the Gestapo men were glaring at each other.

“I must insist, General. I have reason to believe that
a wanted enemy of the Third Reich is hiding in there and that your guest is his accomplice.”

General Scheider stared at him for a long moment, then turned to study Noelle.

“I don’t know what “he’s talking about,” she said firmly.

The General’s eyes traveled down to her ankle, then he made a decision and turned to his chauffeur. “Open it.”

“Yes, General.”

All eyes were riveted on the trunk as the chauffeur reached for the handle and turned it. Noelle felt suddenly faint. Slowly the lid opened.

The trunk was empty.

“Someone has stolen our luggage!” exclaimed the chauffeur.

Colonel Mueller’s face was mottled with fury. “He got away!”

“Who got away?” demanded the General.

“Le Cafard,”
raged Colonel Mueller. “A Jew named Israel Katz. He was smuggled out of Paris in the trunk of this car.”

“That’s impossible,” General Scheider retorted. “That trunk was tightly closed. He would have suffocated.”

Colonel Mueller studied the trunk for a moment, then turned to one of his men. “Get inside.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

Obediently the man crawled into the trunk. Colonel Mueller slammed the lid tightly shut and looked at his watch. For the next four minutes, they stood there in silence, each engrossed in his own thoughts. Finally after what seemed an eternity to Noelle, Colonel Mueller opened the lid of the trunk. The man inside was unconscious. General Scheider turned to Colonel Mueller, a contemptuous expression on his face. “If anyone was riding in that trunk,” the General declared, “they removed his corpse. Is there anything else I can do for you, Colonel?”

The Gestapo officer shook his head, seething with rage and frustration. General Scheider turned to his chauffeur. “Let’s go.” He helped Noelle into the car, and they drove toward Etratat, leaving the knot of men fading away into the distance.

Colonel Kurt Mueller instituted an immediate search of the waterfront, but it was not until late the following afternoon that an empty oxygen tank was found in a barrel in a corner of an unused warehouse. An African freighter had set sail for Capetown out of Le Havre the night before but it was now somewhere on the high seas. The missing luggage turned up a few days later in the lost-and-found department of the Gare du Nord in Paris.

As for Noelle and General Scheider, they spent the weekend in Etratat and returned to Paris late Monday afternoon in time for Noelle to do her evening performance.

Catherine had quit her job with William Fraser the morning after she had married Larry. Fraser asked her to have lunch with him the day she returned to Washington. He looked drawn and haggard and suddenly older. Catherine had felt a pang of compassion for him, but that was all. She was sitting opposite a tall, nice-looking stranger for whom she felt affection, but it was impossible now to imagine that she had ever contemplated marrying him. Fraser gave her a wan smile.

“So you’re a married lady,” he said.

“The most married lady in the world.”

“It must have happened rather suddenly. I—I wish I’d had a chance to compete.”

“
I
didn’t even have a chance,” Catherine said honestly. “It just—happened.”

“Larry’s quite a fellow.”

“Yes.”

“Catherine”—Fraser hesitated—“you don’t really know much about Larry, do you?”

Catherine felt her back stiffening.

“I know I love him, Bill,” she said evenly, “and I know that he loves me. That’s a pretty good beginning, isn’t it?”

He sat there frowning, silent, debating with himself. “Catherine—”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

“Of what?” she asked.

Fraser spoke slowly, feeling his way carefully over a
minefield of words. “Larry’s—different.”

“How?” she asked, refusing to help him.

“I mean, he’s not like most men.” He saw the look on her face. “Oh, hell,” he said. “Don’t pay any attention to me.” He managed a faint grin. “You’ve probably read the biography Aesop did on me. The fox and the sour grapes.”

Catherine took his hand affectionately. “I’ll never forget you, Bill. I hope we can remain friends.”

“I hope so too,” Fraser said. “Are you sure you won’t stay on at the office?”

“Larry wants me to quit. He’s old-fashioned. He believes that husbands should support their wives.”

“If you ever change your mind,” Fraser said, “let me know.” The rest of the luncheon was concerned with office affairs and a discussion of who would take Catherine’s place. She knew she would miss Bill Fraser very much. She supposed that the first man to seduce a girl would always hold a special place in that girl’s life, but Bill had meant something to her beyond that. He was a dear man and a good friend. Catherine was disturbed by his attitude toward Larry. It was as though Bill had started to warn her about something and then stopped because he was afraid of spoiling her happiness. Or was it as he had said, just a case of sour grapes? Bill Fraser was not a small man or a jealous man. He would surely want her to be happy. And yet Catherine was sure he had tried to tell her something. Somewhere in the back of her mind was a vague foreboding. But an hour later when she met Larry and he smiled at her, everything went out of her head but the ecstasy of being married to this incredible, joyful, human being.

Larry was more fun to be with than anyone Catherine had ever known. Each day was an adventure, a holiday. They drove out to the country every weekend and stayed at small inns and explored county fairs. They went to Lake Placid and rode the huge toboggan
slide and to Montauk where they went boating and fishing. Catherine was terrified of the water because she had never learned to swim, but Larry told her not to worry about it, and with him she felt safe.

Larry was loving and attentive and appeared to be remarkably unaware of the attraction he held for other women. Catherine seemed to be all that he wanted. On their honeymoon Larry had come across a little silver bird in an antique shop and Catherine had liked it so much that he had found a crystal bird for her and it had become the start of a collection. On a Saturday night they drove to Maryland to celebrate their third-month anniversary and had dinner at the same little restaurant.

The next day, Sunday, December 7, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese.

America’s declaration of war against Japan came the following day at 1:32
P
.
M
., less than twenty-four hours after the Japanese attack. On Monday while Larry was at Andrews Air Base, Catherine, unable to bear being alone in the apartment, took a taxi to the Capitol Building to see what was happening. Knots of people pressed around a dozen portable radio sets scattered through the crowd that lined the sidewalks of the Capitol Plaza. Catherine watched as the Presidential caravan raced up the drive and stopped at the south entrance to the Capitol. She was close enough to see the limousine door open and President Roosevelt disembark, assisted by two aides. Dozens of policemen stood at every corner, alert for trouble. The mood of the crowd seemed to Catherine to be mainly outrage, like a lynch mob eager to get into action.

Five minutes after President Roosevelt entered the Capitol, his voice came over the radio, as he addressed the Joint Session of Congress. His voice was strong and firm, filled with angry determination.

“America will remember this onslaught…Righteous
might will win…We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us, God.”

Fifteen minutes after Roosevelt had entered the Capitol, House Joint Resolution 254 was passed, declaring war on Japan. It was passed unanimously except for Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who voted against the declaration of war, so the final vote was 388 to 1. President Roosevelt’s speech had taken exactly ten minutes—the shortest war message ever delivered to an American Congress.

The crowd outside cheered, a full-throated roar of approval, anger and a promise of vengeance. America was finally on the move.

Catherine studied the men and women standing near her. The faces of the men were filled with the same look of exhilaration that she had seen on Larry’s face the day before, as though they all belonged to the same secret club whose members felt that war was an exciting sport. Even the women seemed caught up by the spontaneous enthusiasm that swept through the crowd. But Catherine wondered how they would feel when their men were gone and the women stood alone waiting for news of their husbands and sons. Slowly Catherine turned and walked back toward the apartment. On the corner she saw soldiers with fixed bayonets.

Soon, she thought, the whole country would be in uniform.

It happened even faster than Catherine had anticipated. Almost overnight Washington was transformed into a world of a citizen army in khaki.

The air was filled with an electric, contagious excitement. It was as though peace were a lethargy, a miasma that filled mankind with a sense of ennui, and it was only war that could stimulate man to the full exhilaration of life.

Larry was spending sixteen to eighteen hours at the Air Base, and he often remained there overnight. He
told Catherine that the situation at Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field was much worse than the people had been led to believe. The sneak attack had been devastatingly successful. For all practical purposes America’s Navy and a good part of its Air Corps had been destroyed.

“Are you saying that we could lose this war?” Catherine asked, shocked.

Larry looked at her thoughtfully. “It depends on how fast we can get ready,” he replied. “Everyone thinks of the Japanese as funny little men with weak eyes. That’s horseshit. They’re tough, and they’re not afraid to die. We’re soft.”

In the months that followed it seemed that nothing could stop the Japanese. The daily headlines screamed out their successes: They were attacking Wake…softening up the Philippine Islands for invasion…landing in Guam…in Borneo…in Hong Kong. General MacArthur declared Manila an open city, and the trapped American troops in the Philippines surrendered.

One day in April, Larry telephoned Catherine from the Base and asked her to meet him downtown for dinner at the Willard Hotel to celebrate.

“Celebrate what?” Catherine asked.

“I’ll tell you tonight,” Larry replied. There was a note of high excitement in his voice.

When Catherine hung up, she was filled with a dread premonition. She tried to think of all the possible reasons that Larry would have to celebrate, but it always came back to the same thing and she did not think she would have the strength to face it.

At five o’clock that afternoon Catherine was fully dressed, sitting on her bed staring into the dressing-room mirror.

I must be wrong,
she thought.
Maybe he’s been promoted. That’s what we’re celebrating. Or he’s had
some good news about the war.
Catherine told herself this but she did not believe it. She studied herself in the mirror, trying to be objective. While she would not give Ingrid Bergman any sleepless nights, she was, she decided dispassionately, attractive. Her figure was good, full of provocative curves.
You’re intelligent, cheerful, courteous, kind and a sex pot,
she told herself.
Why would any normal red-blooded male be dying to leave you so that he could go off to war and try to get himself killed?

At seven o’clock Catherine walked into the dining room of the Willard Hotel. Larry had not arrived yet, and the maître d’ escorted her to a table. She said no she would not have a drink, then nervously changed her mind and ordered a martini.

When the waiter brought it and Catherine started to pick it up, she found that her hands were shaking. She looked up and saw Larry moving toward her. He threaded his way between the tables, acknowledging greetings along the way. He carried with him that incredible vitality, that aura that made every eye turn in his direction. Catherine watched him, remembering the day he had come to her table at the MGM commissary in Hollywood. She realized how little she had known him then, and she wondered how well she knew him now. He reached the table and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Sorry I’m late, Cathy,” he apologized. “The Base has been a madhouse all day.” He sat down, greeted the captain by name and ordered a martini. If he noticed that Catherine was drinking, he made no comment.

Catherine’s mind was screaming out:
Tell me your surprise. Tell me what we’re celebrating.
But she said nothing. There was an old Hungarian proverb: “Only a fool rushes bad news.” She took another sip of her martini. Well maybe it wasn’t an old Hungarian proverb. Maybe it was a new Catherine Douglas proverb
designed to be worn over thin skins for protection. Maybe the martini was making her a little drunk. If her premonition was right, before this night was over she was going to get very drunk. But looking at Larry now, his face filled with love, Catherine knew that she had to be wrong. Larry could not bear to leave her any more than she could bear to leave him. She had been building up a nightmare out of whole cloth. From the happy expression on his face she knew that he had some really good news to tell her.

Larry was leaning toward her, smiling his boyish smile, taking her hand in his.

“You’ll never guess what’s happened, Cathy. I’m going overseas.”

It was as though a filmy curtain descended, giving everything an unreal, hazy look. Larry was sitting next to her, his lips moving, but his face was going in and out of focus and Catherine could not hear any words. She looked over his shoulder and the walls of the restaurant were moving together and receding. She watched, fascinated.

“Catherine!” Larry was shaking her arm and slowly her eyes focused on him and everything came back to normal. “Are you all right?”

Catherine nodded, swallowed and said, shakily, “Great. Good news always does that to me.”

“You understand that I have to do this, don’t you?”

“Yes, I understand.”
The truth is, I wouldn’t understand if I lived to be a million years old, my darling. But if I told you that, you’d hate me, wouldn’t you? Who needs a nagging wife? Heroes’ wives should send their men off smiling.

Larry was watching, concerned. “You’re crying.”

“I am not,” Catherine said indignantly and found to her horror that she was. “I—I just have to get used to the idea.”

“They’re giving me my own squadron,” Larry said.

“Are they really?” Catherine tried to pump pride
into her voice. His own squadron. When he was a small boy, he probably had had his own set of trains to play with. And now that he was a tall boy, they had given him his own squadron to play with. And these were real toys, guaranteed to get shot down and bleed and die. “I’d like another drink,” she said.

“Of course.”

“When—when will you have to leave?”

“Not until next month.”

He made it sound as though he were eager to get away. It was terrifying, feeling the whole fabric of her marriage being torn apart. On the bandstand a singer was crooning, “A trip to the moon on gossamer wings…”
Gossamer,
she thought.
That’s what my marriage is made of: gossamer.
That Cole Porter knew everything.

“We’ll have plenty of time before I leave,” Larry was saying.

Plenty of time for what?
Catherine wondered bitterly.
Plenty of time to raise a family, to take our children skiing in Vermont, to grow old together?

“What would you like to do tonight?” Larry asked.

I’d like to go down to the County Hospital and have one of your toes removed. Or have one of your ear drums pierced.
Aloud, Catherine said, “Let’s go home and make love.” And there was a fierce, desperate urgency in her.

The next four weeks melted away. The clocks raced forward in a Kafka-ish nightmare that turned days into hours and hours into minutes, and then incredibly it was Larry’s last day. Catherine drove him to the airport. He was talkative and happy and gay and she was somber and quiet and miserable. The last few minutes became a kaleidoscope of reporting in…a hurried good-bye kiss…Larry entering the plane that was to take him away from her…a last farewell wave. Catherine stood on the field watching his plane dwindle
to a small speck in the sky and finally disappear. She stood there for an hour, and finally when it got dark she turned and drove back into town to her empty apartment.

In the first year following the attack on Pearl Harbor, ten great sea and air battles were fought against the Japanese. The Allies won only three, but two of them were decisive: Midway and the Battle of Guadalcanal.