Herman Wouk: The Winds of War

But heading home after a day’s work, he never knew ahead of time whether he would encounter Rhoda the charmer or Rhoda the crab. At a crucial moment like this, it could make a great difference. In her down moods, her judgments were snappish and often silly.

Coming into the house, he heard her singing in the glassed-in heated porch off the living room where they usually had drinks before dinner. He found her arranging tall stalks of orange gladiolus in an oxblood vase from Manila. She was wearing a beige silky dress cinched in by a black patent-leather belt with a large silver buckle. Her dark hair fell in waves behind her ears; this was a fashion in 1939 even for mature women. Her welcoming glance was affectionate and gay. Just to see her so made him feel better, and this had been going on all his life.

“Oh, HI there. Why on EARTH didn’t you warn me Kip Tollever was coming? He sent these, and LUCKILY he called too. I was slopping around this house like a SCRUBWOMAN.” Rhoda in casual talk used the swooping high notes of smart Washington women. She had a dulcet, rather husky voice, and these zoomed words of hers gave what she said enormous emphasis and some illusion of sparkle. “He said he might be slightly late. Let’s have a short one, Pug, okay? The fixings are all there. I’m PARCHED.”

Henry walked to the wheeled bar and began to mix martinis. “I asked Kip to stop by so I could talk to him. It’s not a social visit.”

“Oh? Am I supposed to make myself scarce?” She gave him a sweet smile.

“No, no.”

“Good. I like Kip. Why, I was flabbergasted to hear his voice. I thought he was still stuck in Berlin.”

“He’s been detached.”

“So he told me. Who relieved him, do you know?”

“Nobody has. The assistant attaché for air took over temporarily.” Victor Henry handed her a cocktail. He sank in a brown wicker armchair, put his feet up on the ottoman, and drank, gloom enveloping him again.

Rhoda was used to her husband’s silences. She had taken in his bad humor at a glance. Victor Henry held himself very straight except in moments of trial and tension. Then he tended to fall into a crouch, as though he were still playing football. He had entered the room hunched, and even in the armchair, with his feet up, his shoulders were bent. Dark straight hair hung down his forehead. At forty-nine, he had almost no gray hairs, and his charcoal slacks, brown sports jacket, and red bow tie were clothes for a younger man. It was his small vanity, when not in uniform, to dress youthfully; an athletic body helped him carry it off. Rhoda saw in the lines around his greenish brown eyes that he was tired and deeply worried. Possibly from long years of peering out to sea, Henry’s eyes were permanently marked with what looked like laugh lines. Strangers mistook him for a genial man.

“Got a dividend there?” he said at last.

She poured the watery drink for him.

“Thanks. Say, incidentally, you know that memorandum on the battleships that I wrote?”

“Oh, yes. Was there a backlash? You were concerned, I know.”

“I got called down to the CNO’s office.”

“My God. To see Preble?”

“Preble himself. I hadn’t seen him since the old days on the California . He’s gotten fat.”

Henry told her about his talk with the Chief of Naval operations. Rhoda’s face took on a hard, sullen, puzzled look. “Oh, I see. That’s why you asked Kip over.”

“Exactly. What do you think about my taking this attaché job?”

“Since when do you have any choice?”

“He gave me the impression that I did. That if I didn’t want it, I’d go to a battlewagon next, as an exec.”

“Good Lord, Pug, that’s more like it!”

“You’d prefer that I go back to sea?”

“I’d prefer? What difference has that ever made?”

“All the same, I’d like to hear what you’d prefer.”

Rhoda hesitated, sizing him up with a slanted glance. “Well — naturally I’d adore going to Germany. It would be much more fun for me than sitting here alone while you steam around Hawaii in the New Mexico or whatever. It’s the loveliest country in Europe. The people are so friendly. German was my major, you know, aeons ago.”

“I know,” Victor Henry said, smiling, if faintly and wryly, for the first time since arriving home. “You were very good at German.” Some of the early hot moments of their honeymoon had occurred while they stumbled through Heine’s love poetry aloud together.

Rhoda returned an arch glance redolent of married sex. “Well, all right, you. All I mean is, if you must leave Washington — I suppose the Nazis are kind of ugly and ridiculous. But Madge Knudsen went there for the Olympics. She keeps saying it’s still wonderful, and so cheap, with those tourist marks they give you.”

“Yes, no doubt we’d have a gay whirl. The question is, Rhoda, whether this isn’t a total disaster. Two shore assignments in a row, you understand, at this stage—”

“Oh, Pug, you’ll get your four stripes. I know you will. And you’ll get your battleship command too, in due course. My God, with your gunnery pennants, your letter of commendation — Pug, suppose CNO’s right? Maybe a war is about to pop over there. Then it would be in important job, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s just sales talk.” Pug got up and helped himself to cheese. “He says the President wants top men in Berlin now as military attachés. Well, okay, I’ll believe that. He also says it won’t hurt my career. That’s what I can’t believe. First thing any selection board looks for — or will ever look for — in a man’s record is blue water, and lots of it.”

“Pug, are you sure Kip won’t stay to dinner? There’s plenty of food. Warren’s going to New York.”

“No, Kip’s on his way to a party at the German embassy. And why the hell is Warren going to New York? He’s been home all of three days.”

“Ask him,” Rhoda said.

The slam of the front door and the quick firm steps were unmistakable Warren sounds. He entered the porch greeting them with a wave of two squash rackets in a fist. “Hi.”

In an old gray sweater and slacks, his tanned lean face glowing from the exercise, his hair tousled, a cigarette slanting from his thin mouth, he looked much like the lad who, on graduating from the Academy, had vanished from their lives. Pug was still not used to the way Warren had filled out on shipboard food. The boyish weediness was changing into a tall solid look. A sprinkle of premature gray in his dark hair had startled his parents on his return. Victor Henry envied Warren the deep sunburn which bespoke a destroyer bridge, tennis, green Oahu hills, and above all, duty at sea thousands of miles from Constitution Avenue. He said, “You’re off to New York, I hear.”

“Yes, Dad. Is that okay? My exec just blew into town. We’re going up there to see some shows. He’s a real Idaho farmer. Never been to New York.”

Commander Henry made a grouchy sound. It was no bad thing for Warren to be friendly with his executive officer. What bothered the father was thoughts of a woman who might be waiting in New York. A top student at the Academy, Warren had almost ruined his record with excessive frenching-out. He had ended with a bad back attributed by himself to a wrestling injury; by other reports, to an escapade involving an older woman and a midnight car crash. The parents had never raised the topic of the woman, partly from bashfulness — they were both prudish churchgoers, ill at ease with such a topic — and partly from a strong sense that they would get nowhere with Warren.

The door chimes rang. A gray-headed houseman in a white coat passed through the living room. Rhoda stood up, touching her hair and sliding slim hands over her silk-clad hips. “Remember Kip Tollever, Warren? That’s probably Kip.”