"That does sound good," Peggy said. An airplane factory opening up in Omaha?-she thought it was Omaha. That sounded strange. Maybe FDR had decided the United States did need to be ready for trouble, just in case. Maybe he'd persuaded Congress that that might be a pretty decent idea. Having met war face-to-face, Peggy thought you had to be a jackass not to see it was a good idea. But when you were talking about Congressmen…
Lucinda continued, "And Mr. Jenkins is waiting for you. Go right on upstairs to his office." She chuckled. "Maybe you won't come around here all the time in a while. Maybe you'll be on your way home."
"Home." It sounded like a dream to Peggy-a receding dream, one she couldn't remember so well as she wished she could. She headed for the stairs, trying to drum up optimism inside herself, to believe she wasn't just going through the motions one more time. It wasn't easy. Nothing had been easy since German shells started falling on Marianske Lazne.
CONSTANTINE JENKINS-UNDERSECRETARY: gold-filled Roman-looking letters on a black nameplate on a door. At the moment, it was a closed door. Peggy fumed. It shouldn't have been. She was right on time, and Lucinda had said the undersecretary was ready. Peggy'd always been one to grab the bull by the horns. She knocked briskly.
The door opened. Constantine Jenkins looked out at her: mid-thirties, tall, thin, pale, almost handsome "Oh, yes," he said, his voice low and well-mannered. If he wasn't a queer, Peggy'd never seen one. "Give me five minutes, please. Something's come up."
Those five minutes stretched to fifteen. Peggy was ready to snarl, maybe to bite. Then the door opened again. Out came a short, trim, graying man with four gold stripes on the sleeves of his uniform. The naval attache gave her a brusque nod and a murmured "Sorry about that," then hurried down the corridor.
"Come on in," Jenkins said.
Still a little irked-maybe more than a little-Peggy went on in. "What was that all about?" she snapped.
"Business I had to take care of," he answered, which told her exactly nothing. He held out a package of Chesterfields-they came from the States through Sweden and Switzerland, in diplomatic pouches. "Cigarette?"
"Oh, God, yes!" If anything could fix Peggy's mood in a hurry, real tobacco could. What you were able to buy in Germany got lousier by the day. She let him light the coffin nail for her-he had exquisite manners. Smooth, flavorful smoke filled her lungs. "Wow!" she said. "You put up with Junos for a while, you forget what the real stuff is like. And Junos are pretty good, at least next to the other German brands."
"So I've heard," he said coolly. With those diplomatic pouches, he didn't have to pollute his lungs with German tobacco, or whatever it was. After he got a Chesterfield of his own going, he asked, "What can I do for you today?"
"Tell me how to get to Stockholm or Geneva or Lisbon or anywhere else that'll let me get back to America," Peggy answered.
He sighed out smoke. "I'm sorry. I wish I could. Believe me, you aren't the only American who wants to be somewhere else." He paused. "I wouldn't recommend Lisbon, not when you have to cross Spain to get there."
"Okay. The hell with Lisbon. How about Copenhagen? Oslo? Athens, even, for crying out loud? Jesus, I'd take Belgrade right now. Anywhere but here!" Peggy said.
Jenkins spread well-manicured hands. "Difficult to arrange for anyone. More difficult for you, because you haven't so much as tried to hide how you feel about the Nazis."
"Wouldn't that make them want to get rid of me?" she demanded.
"Not when they fear what you'll say once you get to a neutral country," the undersecretary replied.
Peggy took a last angry puff on the Chesterfield and stubbed it out in a glass ashtray on Jenkins' desk. German officials had told her the same thing. She'd made them all kinds of promises. They hadn't believed her. Maybe they weren't so dumb as she wished they were.
"As it happens," Jenkins said, "I have two tickets for the opera tonight. My, ah, friend has come down sick. Would you care to go with me?"
She looked at him in surprise. Maybe he wasn't so queer as all that. No-she would have bet dollars to acorns his "friend" was a pointer, not a setter. And he was at least ten years younger than she was, probably fifteen. He couldn't be after getting her into bed. Even if he was, she was sure she could take care of herself. "Thanks!" she said. "Thanks very much. I would like that."
"Good enough," he said. "I'll come by your hotel about six, then. We can get some supper before the performance. It's Wagner."
"Surprise!" Peggy said. They both chuckled. Wagner was Hitler's favorite, of course. And what point to being Fuhrer if you couldn't get your favorites up on stage? Hitler could, and he did.
Only after Peggy left the embassy did she realize the opera invitation had also let Constantine Jenkins get her out of his hair much faster than he would have otherwise. He might be a fairy, but he knew something about diplomacy.
She put on a blue silk gown that did nice things for her figure and played up her eyes. It was the fanciest one she had with her, which meant it was also the one she'd worn least. Jenkins showed up in the lobby at a quarter to six, looking dashing in black tie. Not even the blandness of a German dinner took the edge off things. Peggy drank schnapps to make sure nothing would. She was pleasantly buzzed when they walked over to the Staatsoper.
Berlin lay almost as far north as Edmonton, Alberta. You didn't think about that most of the time, but you did when you saw how long light lingered as spring neared summer. Even so, it would be dark when they came out. Getting back in the blackout might not be much fun.
The tickets were for the front row of the first balcony. Peggy peered down into the orchestra section as Nazi big wigs and their ladies took their seats. Jenkins handed her chromed opera glasses. "Goebbels and Goring are here," he said. "I don't see the Fuhrer tonight."
Peggy wasn't disappointed. She did wonder about security. If someone up here pulled out a submachine gun instead of opera glasses… But nobody did.
Then the lights dimmed. The opera was Tannhauser. It was early Wagner. It had raised a sensation when it was new, but it hadn't been new for a long time. It didn't beat you over the head with rocks, the way the later stuff did. So Peggy would have said, anyhow. A real Wagner lover might have had a different opinion-as if she cared.
She poured down champagne during intermission. That let her applaud more than she would have otherwise when the performance ended. The singers aimed their bows at the Party Bonzen, not the galleries. They knew who buttered their bread-not that anybody in Germany saw much butter these days.
"So how are we going to find the hotel?" she asked as she and Constantine Jenkins walked out into pitch blackness. Some Germans wore lapel buttons coated with phosphorescent paint so people wouldn't bump into them in the dark. She wished she had one.
"Here." Jenkins also went without. He took her hand, finding it unerringly despite the lack of light. "Stick with me. I'll get you home."
Damned if he didn't. Maybe he was part cat, to see in the dark, or part bloodhound, to sniff his way back. Getting back to the hotel so easily seemed worth celebrating with a drink in the bar. One drink in the bar became two. Two became several. When Peggy went up to the room at last, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should go up with her. He was a good deal steadier on his feet than she was on hers.
And when she woke up the next morning with him beside her smiling, she wondered what the hell she'd gone and done. She didn't wonder long, not when all she had on was her birthday suit. She sure wondered what she'd do next, though.
Chapter 7
Down roared the Stuka. The sirens in the landing-gear legs screamed. French troops scattered. Hans-Ulrich Rudel saw them through a red haze of acceleration, but see them he did. His thumb came down on the firing button. The forward machine gun hammered. A few of the running Frenchmen fell.