One Clear Call I Page 4

  Exactly the way it would have been in the smoking-room of the club! Lanny could imagine the smile on the banker’s face and the twinkle in his eyes. Otto knew perfectly well that he was being kidded, and he was giving change in the same currency. Lanny added to his amusement by remarking, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! My father bought some of those bonds.”

  “Well, Lanny,” was the reply, “they will always be good for wallpaper. I used to have a friend who had covered one wall of his rumpus room with souvenirs of his wrong guesses. It turned out that he had to spoil the job by peeling one of the documents off the wall. It was mining stock, and it paid the cost of the whole house. Tell your father to hold on to his bonds, because Fascism may come back—someday we may find that we need it in our own business.”

  XIV

  Enough of banter! The P.A. had a serious purpose in mind. “Listen, Otto,” he said in a different voice. “I’m not blaming you. I know that many of our greatest thinkers were sure Il Duce had solved the problem of labor unions once and for all; I know that Nicholas Miraculous, almighty president of Columbia University, told the world it was so, and turned the university into one of Mussolini’s transmission belts. But now our country is at war with the rascal, and you have a chance to do a patriotic service.”

  “What can that be, Lanny?”

  “I’d like to talk with somebody who knows the insides of Italian affairs as they stand at the moment.”

  “Santissima Vergine! Do you suppose I keep Italian statesmen on ice?”

  “I don’t know how you do it, Otto, and you don’t seem to want to tell me. See if you can’t find me some Italian who has recently come over. The American armies are going into Italy, and they will need help there.”

  A pause, and Lanny waited patiently for this strange psychic machinery to grind. Suddenly Otto spoke again, and with no mockery in his tone. “There is a man here who was young when he died; he is dark, smooth-shaven, an intellectual; handsome fellow. He says you tried to help him.”

  “What did I do?”

  “He was murdered, and you tried to tell the world about it. He is very grateful.”

  “That must be Matteotti. Can he speak directly to me?”

  “He says he will try, but his English is not good.”

  Lanny replied in Italian, “My Italian is not good either, but I understand it. You must know that a martyr does not die in vain. The name of Giacomo Matteotti is known not merely in Italy, but also to liberal-minded people throughout the world. They have learned that the cowardly Mussolini ordered your murder because he dared not face the exposure of his regime that you were making in the Chamber of Deputies. The world understands that you spoke for democratic Socialism, the hope of all enlightened elements in Western Europe now.”

  A grave man’s voice replied through the lips of the entranced woman. “The proof of Mussolini’s guilt exists. It is in a memorial of Filippo Filipelli, who was editor of the Fascist newspaper, Corriere Italiano, and the man who provided the assassin Dumini with the car in which I was carried away. That memorial has been suppressed for nineteen years. You should try to get a copy of it. My son Matteo will help you.”

  “I cannot take the chance of meeting members of the underground at present. What I need is the names of those in power who are ready to break with the tyrant.”

  “Galeazzo Ciano is a scoundrel, but he sees that his father-in-law’s days are numbered, and he will seek to save his own skin. One of the men who carried Mussolini’s orders to Dumini is Giovanni Contarelli, and he is one you should meet. He was then Parliamentary Secretary of the Fascist party and served his master well, but now he knows that his idol is about to tumble.”

  Lanny repeated these Italian names as he wrote them down: Filippo Filipelli, Galeazzo Ciano, Dumini, Contarelli. Then he asked, “Are there others?”

  The voice replied, “Cesare Rossi, head of the Press Bureau, and Aldo Finzi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior, also prepared memorials concerning Mussolini’s guilt. It is necessary to be careful in dealing with these men. They are like weathercocks which turn quickly, according to the shifting of the wind.”

  “I shall know about that wind,” replied the P.A. There came a sigh from his wife, and he knew what that meant. She began to groan as if she were having a nightmare; then she opened her eyes and blinked once or twice. The trance was over. She asked, “What happened?”

  “Otto came,” was the reply, “but he just kidded me. Said that my father should use his Italian Fascist bonds to paper the walls of his rumpus room.”

  “What an epitome of the spirit of our time!” exclaimed the literary lady. “I believe I shall put that into a book.”

  She went to bed, but lay awake, and while he slept she went into the next room and sat at her desk. In the morning she put a paper into his hand, saying, “I wrote a poem. Read it when you have the leisure.”

  He took the leisure at once and read:

  The world lies like a stone upon my heart

  With all its urgencies and vast despair;

  The world from which so soon I may depart,

  Not knowing when I go, or where.

  2

  Do Well the Duty

  I

  Laurel drove her husband out to Port Washington on Long Island. He was being flown in a big Douglas, known as a C-54. It had a crew of six and was supposed to carry a score of passengers, but there were only half a dozen and the rest of the load was mail sacks, covered with canvas and laced in position with ropes, like a spider web. The P.A. had a seat upholstered in snakeskin, the latest thing in elegance. Laurel saved her tears until after the plane was up in the air; then she dried them and drove the car back to New York.

  As for the P.A., he read the Italian material he had brought along. The sea beneath him appeared as smooth as a sheet of glass, and the white clouds were close and cool-appearing. Once there was excitement—they were passing a convoy, and the passengers gazed out upon tiny-seeming vessels, scattered in regular rows like a newly planted vineyard. The plane dropped a smoke flare as a recognition signal, and took the precaution to give the convoy a wide berth, for freshly trained crews manning anti-aircraft guns were apt to shoot first and inquire afterward.

  The first call was Bermuda, which had been a tourist paradise and now was a busy naval and air base, taken over from the British. A couple of hours stop and they were off to the Azores, where the British had charge of the job of hunting submarines and escorting convoys. The farms were tiny, and from above had as many colors as a crazy quilt, the border stitches being fences of piled-up stones. Coming down, Lanny could see brown, barefooted peasants cultivating their toy plots with bullocks. The houses were of volcanic rock, plastered with adobe, resembling those he had seen in the valley of the Rio Grande. Centuries ago Texas and the Azores had been part of the great Spanish Empire.

  The same plane but with a new crew carried him on the next leg of the journey, to Marrakech in French Morocco. This oasis in a desert land had been made into an airport for American bombers, which now flew the Atlantic without a stop. Lanny had been here just after the Casablanca Conference, and had spent a night in a sumptuous villa along with Roosevelt and Churchill. Now he was to have a night in the town, and he was pleased, because his mother and stepfather were at the Hotel Mamounia.

  II

  Beauty Budd had never thought that she could face the ordeal of having her sixtieth birthday. But somehow, when it came, it was like any other day; she had avoided mentioning it, and nobody but her husband knew about it, and it didn’t bother him because he was a religious mystic who had learned that time was only a form of thought, and his thought was that it didn’t matter. His hair had become snow-white and made a nice combination with his rosy complexion and bland and benign countenance.

  Beauty had never been much for the outdoor life, not even on the French Riviera where she had spent most of her days. She considered the sun an enemy of a peach complexion, and when she went out to cut r
oses for her dinner table it had always been with a big straw hat and a white veil. For years she had had her reward and been able to justify her name with only the normal amount of cosmetics. But now the wrinkles had gathered, and she had given up counting them; skin enamel and other devices did no good, and, besides, it was becoming impossible to get the stuff at any price. There was nothing for poor Beauty to do but turn to God, according to her husband’s advice.

  Now came her only son, with whom she was well pleased. Only terror kept her from gossiping about his wonderfulness, his ability to meet the great ones of the earth in whatever land he visited, even in wartime. He had warned her with the utmost seriousness that talk might cost him his life; so all she could say was, “My son is one of the most celebrated art experts. The museums accept his authority, and some of our greatest millionaires employ him to purchase paintings for them.” She was free to pile that on as thick as she pleased; she might name the Taft collection, and the Winstead collection, and the Vernon collection of Moorish mosaics and doorways and fountains for ablutions. Everybody knew him in Marrakech and points northeast, and hopes would rise among the owners of cultural treasures.

  This time Lanny could only stay overnight. He was bound for Algiers, and beyond that he would not say. He had dumped his printed matter about Italy into the sea, and Beauty could not get any clues from his baggage—even if she had had a chance to peek into it. They sat up most of the night while she plied him with questions about families and friends. How was his wife, and how were they getting along? Lanny said they were doing fine, and that Beauty’s judgment had been vindicated. She swallowed that, as she had swallowed all compliments all her life—most of them had been true, and why should she bother to sort them out? The fact was, she had accepted Laurel Creston only in the last extreme, after trying one heiress after another as bait for the most eligible of men. She had given up gracefully at the end, and now, since they had a baby, the matter was settled.

  How was the baby? Had his blond hair changed color? No, it hadn’t. Were his eyes still blue? No, they were brown now, like those of Lanny and his mother. Had he spoken any word yet? Had he made any effort to get up on his feet? And so on and on, as you might expect from a grandmother who was being kept by a cruel war four thousand miles away from the most precious of her possessions.

  And then Robbie Budd, and his family in Newcastle, Connecticut. Several years had passed since Beauty had seen Lanny’s father; but Lanny had talked with him over the phone just before flying and reported that all was well. Budd-Erling was turning out the fastest pursuit plane in the world, and doing it wholesale now; the planes had helped to win the battle in Tunisia and were doing a job over Sicily that you could hear about every hour or two over the French radio. Beauty did not fail to listen, because it was a question of when she would be free to return to her home in Juan-les-Pins.

  Did Lanny think that little bit of heaven was going to be blasted into ruins? Lanny didn’t think so, at least not soon. That was as far as he would go, and he warned her not to repeat even that much to anybody. In the present situation of the Armed Forces his words meant that the next destination must be Sicily. Beauty complained that other people talked so much more freely than her son. He answered, “Those who talk freely don’t know what they are talking about.”

  In the morning there was Marcel, child of Lanny’s half-sister Marceline. He had an Italian father, and looked it, with lovely dark eyes and hair. In Florida, not long ago, listening to an overseas broadcast, Lanny had heard this father, a major in the Italian Army in Tunisia, referred to as a war prisoner. He told Beauty about it, and they agreed in hoping that the bad egg whom Marceline had divorced would be put away for a long period. The child, nearly five, had taken this splendid hotel for his playground, making friends equally with guests and staff. His mother was in Germany, and he had pretty well forgotten her; he knew Uncle Lanny better, and was grieved because this delightful person couldn’t stay and teach him dancing steps.

  Beauty Budd knew better than to ask where her son was going, or on what errand. She was one more woman who had to be left behind—not to weep, because that was bad for the complexion, but to fear and if possible learn to pray. She was the daughter of a Baptist preacher, but hadn’t liked his way of praying and had got away from it at the earliest possible moment. Now she had to learn all over again from her husband, who had an entirely different lingo and technique. Parsifal Dingle didn’t believe there was any hell, or that you had to be totally immersed in water to have your sins washed away. He believed that all the religions had one God, even when they didn’t know it; also that that God was in you, even when you didn’t know it. Parsifal occupied himself with loving everybody, even when they didn’t desire it and gave few signs of deserving it. This was an interesting experiment and gave evidence of success, particularly unexpected in a city made up of Moorish fanatics, French soldiers and traders, wealthy idlers, poverty-stricken refugees, and international spies.

  III

  A new plane took the P.A. to Algiers, and no questions asked. This white city on the hilly slopes of a beautiful bay had become one of Lanny Budd’s numerous homes; he had spent months here off and on, helping to prepare the way for the landing of the American troops. He had made many friends, real or pretended; and some of them were now in jail, and some were in the French Army, and others were scattered to new posts of duty. Lanny reported to Robert Murphy, diplomatic representative of the American government to the government of French North Africa—which meant the whole of France, since Hitler had put the Vichy crowd out of business. F.D.R. had said, “You won’t need any word from me. The less there is in writing the better.” Lanny repeated these words to Murphy, and Murphy raised no objection, for the two had worked together and shared their secrets.

  “Italy?” said the genial careerman. “That’s a pretty tough assignment!”

  “I know,” replied Lanny, “but I have some connections there from the old days.” He didn’t hint what they were, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell Bob Murphy or anybody else that he had been into Germany and spent a night in Hitler’s headquarters. The last the diplomat had seen of the P.A., he had sent his car to convey Lanny to the Maison Blanche airfield in Algiers. Lanny had departed in an English “recce” plane for Cairo, and neither the plane nor the pilot had been seen again. How Lanny had escaped and got back to Washington was a mystery, and Murphy would have listened to the story gladly; but Lanny didn’t see fit to tell it, and the tactful diplomat forbore to ask.

  He answered questions about various persons. Lanny’s old-time friend, Raoul Palma, was no doubt working for the OSS. Murphy had no idea where, and Lanny wouldn’t try to find out, because Raoul had no connections in Italy. The same thing was true of Jerry Pendleton, once Lanny’s tutor. Captain Denis de Bruyne was in the new French Army, somewhere in Tunisia, and had taken part in the fighting. Lanny didn’t try to meet any of his other friends in Algiers, for he wished to avoid talk about his destination. As for Murphy, he was up to his ears in the squabbles of the various groups of French politicians. A preposterous situation, with General Giraud running the French Army and General de Gaulle running the government and using the French newsreels to attack his commander-in-chief. Robert Murphy could hardly have helped feeling uncomfortable if a perambulating art expert had been going about asking questions as to the situation, which dated back through several centuries of French history. The son of an Irish-American railroad sectionhand surely had but slight responsibility for it. Lanny asked no questions.

  IV

  From the familiar Maison Blanche airport a bombing plane made room for a mysterious American traveler and the small suitcase in which he carried his toothbrush and comb, handkerchiefs, socks, and a change of underwear. The only papers he carried were the passport in his pocket and a couple of Nazi pamphlets in his suitcase. Lanny wasn’t going co pose as a German in Italy, but he was going to look and talk like one, and let the man in the street, l’uomo qualunque, take h
im for that. He didn’t know just how the Germans mutilated Italian, but he knew the consonants over which they stumbled in English, and it seemed safe to assume that they would have the same trouble in another language; Lanny would say ja and nein on occasions, sprinkle in a Donnerwetter and an um Gottes Willen, and assume that the average cab driver, café waiter, and policeman in Rome would dislike him heartily but be afraid to express his feelings.

  The trip to the port of Bizerte took less than an hour. First the Italians and then the Germans had seized it, and both had built fine airfields and had had no time to wreck them. Now a steady stream of planes was pouring in, the bombers flying all the way from America with only one stop at Marrakech, and the smaller planes being landed from carriers and ships at Casablanca. The field was as busy as the deck of a carrier in action. Each plane circled until it was ordered in, and the moment it came to a stop it was rushed off the field and another came gliding down. There was an incessant hum of high-up fighters guarding the base from German raiders; but these came rarely now, having learned the rate of exchange. “Three for one,” said the field officer of whom Lanny asked this question.

  The arriving passenger was met by an alert young Naval Intelligence man. An order had come through, and he put Lanny into a jeep and proceeded to brief him even while they were driving. What precisely did Mr. Budd want? When Mr. Budd said he wanted to be deposited dry-shod on the black volcanic sands of the beach resort of Ostia, the officer said that would be too risky a journey in a PT (patrol torpedo boat). The PT’s were making such runs, of course, but they got shot up by planes, and the Navy didn’t want to take risks with a VIP (very important person). The job would better be done by a sub. Lanny asked if there was one handy, and he was told they didn’t often come into port; they were refueled at sea, and when one did come in it took time to refit and supply it.