Chapter 19 Chapter Eighteen

Leslie.Slote was depressed and bored, so he had to have a full meal to relieve his boredom. The Swiss food was too rich and the Swiss wine was too much. After eating and drinking enough, he dragged his heavy steps back to the legation .He turned up his collar, bowed his head, braving the wind and rain, and almost bumped into Auggie who had just walked out of the embassy building.Fan.Winanger. "Watch out, buddy." "Oh." "Please don't take offense at what I said when we met yesterday." "No wonder." "Okay. If you go any further--it'll be a big joke--it might be worse."

Sloot threw away his wet coat and hat in the office, grabbed the phone, and handed it to Selma.Asher hung up the phone.A sleepy voice came from the microphone. "Hello? Which one?" "Oh—Dr. Asher, I'm Leslie. Sloter." "Oh." There was a pause. "You want to talk to my daughter? My daughter isn't home." "Never mind. Thank you." "My daughter will be back at six. Want her to call you back?" "Call her when she's free." He got to work, burrowing through the pile of papers at half his usual speed.The clock struck six and the phone rang. "Hello? I'm Thelma. Asher."

"Have you time to talk, Thelma?" "Of course. Is there anything I can do for you?" The tone of the voice is blunt and cold, and you know it when you hear it. "Oh, I'd love to ring up that English girl I saw at your house last time." "You mean Nancy. Britton? She lives at Garffin's, 19 Tyrone Street. Would you like Nancy's number?" "Excuse me. I'm sorry to trouble you." "No trouble. Wait a minute—oh, there it is. Nancy's number is 68215." "Thank you very much." "Good-bye, then, Mr. Slote."

He was stuffing papers into his briefcase in frustration when the phone rang again.Hear her voice panting, elated. "Oh, Leslie? I'm calling the payphone from the corner garage." "Thelma, that priest I saw at your house—" "Father Martin? How is he?" "I've got to talk to him. Don't let your father know, and I can't call him at the vicar's house." "Oh, I see, is that the case?" The childish voice became lively. "I'll have to call you back later." "I'm going back to the apartment. The number is—"

"No, just wait and don't go." Half an hour later, she called again. "Corner of Field and Boulevard. Do you know that place?" "Of course I do." "Wait there. I'll pick you up in my car." As soon as he arrived at the intersection of the busy boulevard, the gray Fiat sports car sped up, and the door swung open. "Nancy Britton, you're pretending," Thelma cried, with a distracted smile. "Jump in the car." "Oh, I have to find something to say." He slammed the car door.Smelling the leather smell of the seat and the scent of her body, he couldn't help but recall the embarrassment they had when they went out to play together last night. "Did your father stand beside you just now?"

"That's not it," she shifted into gear, and the car started off. "I'm not very familiar with Father Martin, but I drove up to him just now. He gave me some strange instructions. I can only send you halfway. He said you must not involve me again. .I've never been through anything like this before. It's like a movie." Sloter laughed.She added, "Don't laugh, seriously. Is it dangerous?" "No." "Does this have anything to do with what he said about the Jews?" "Don't ask." "My father knew we were together that night."

"How do you know?" "He asked me. I can't lie to him. I didn't listen to him, and I see you again." "Which one is he against me?" "Oh, Leslie, stop talking nonsense." "I'm serious. His attitude baffles me." "Don't you think I'm funny?" She drove the car quickly into a dark alley and asked him suddenly. "Extremely funny." "I think you're funny. I'm engaged. We're a religious family. What is it about my father's attitude that you don't understand?" After listening to this series of crisp and clear words, Sloter seemed to hear Na Tali.Jastrow's voice, as in the old days, pressed him into silence.

Thelma stopped the car in front of a hillside with rows of houses, and there was a street lamp nearby, under which two bulging children were playing "build a house". "Here is where I parted you. You walked up to the top of the hill, turned left, and walked along the park until you came to a stone rectory with a wooden garden door in the stone wall. People knock on the door." "Selma, don't we see each other again?" "No." Those round, tender eyes gleamed under a red shawl.Natalie often wrapped herself in a shawl like this to keep out the cold.It looked the same way—awake, downcast, tense from a desperate effort to control himself.He couldn't help his heart pounding, and once again felt that he had found Natalie's shadow in her and regretted it.She took his hand and squeezed it tightly with cold fingers. "Take care of it. Goodbye."

"Who?" He knocked on the thick round wooden door, and a woman who answered the door asked. "I'm Mr. Sloot." The door creaked open.An ugly dwarf walked ahead and led him toward a bay window lit in a dark orange light, and he saw the priest seated at a candle-lit table; Slote entered the room, Father Martin stood up, pointed to the food set beside him and invited him to take a seat. "Welcome! Come eat with me." He lifted the lid of a large soup bowl. "This is tripe braised in red." "What a pity," said Slote, glancing down at the steaming bowl of pungent sauce-colored stuff.He had eaten tripe once in his life and thought it was like chewing rubber, so he listed it as a disgusting food such as octopus that should not be eaten. "I have already eaten."

"Well then," said Father Martin, pouring wine from a clay jug, as they took their seats, "try this." "Thank you--oh! That's a very good wine." "Oh?" The priest looked happy. "It's made by my brother himself in the vineyards of his hometown near Würzburg." Father Martin said no more, but ate the whole loaf methodically and quietly.He broke the bread into pieces and ate the tripe on a plate with the sauce.Every time he broke a piece of bread, his gestures and flushed face showed his satisfaction with the color and aroma of the bread.He kept filling his and Sloter's glasses.A round face, thick lips, and a serene expression that was almost silly. The pudgy housekeeper was a middle-aged woman with a bushy mouth of hair. She was wearing a long black dress that dragged to the floor. Yellow cheese and a loaf of bread.

"Taste the cheese," said the priest. "Include what you like to eat." "Thank you, I'm sure it suits my appetite." At this moment, Slote devoured it hungrily.The cheese, fresh bread, wine are all delicious. Father Martin let out a sigh of satisfaction, and wiped his mouth after eating most of the cheese. "Let's go get some fresh air now." The wind was blowing outside, rattling the bare branches of some tall old trees in the garden. "What's your business?" The voice became serious and anxious. "I can't talk in a house, not even my own." "It's about the document I got at the movie theater. Did you see it?" "No." "I've got to find out if it's real." "It is said that this document is absolutely reliable and does not require proof." Everyone was silent, only the sound of two people stepping on the gravel road. "Jacob Asher knows about this?" "have no idea." "Did he arrange for us to meet at his house?" "He didn't arrange it." "Shall I tell you what happened on my side?" "Ok" Slote took him to meet the Minister and Van.Huainange talked about it, and he also talked about the minutes of the meeting.The priest gasped and murmured strangely.The wind was blowing, making the trees rattle, and they were pacing up and down in the garden. "Terrible. Terrible! But when it comes to reliability, Mr. Sloter, people just don't believe it. This attitude is like a stone wall. Aren't you bumping your head against it now?" He was slow, stern, and He uttered a word in pain, while grabbing Sloter's elbow, pointing a stubby finger at his face. "Just don't believe it! This attitude is nothing new to me. I've seen people dying. I've heard people confessing. I've heard of cheated husbands, of sons in battle Missing parents have said it, heard people who have been cheated and bankrupt. It is only human to refuse to believe it. Anyone who cannot mentally understand a terrible fact, or refuses to face it, turns his head Go, as if the fact could be magically rendered obsolete by a firm disbelief. That's what you're doing now." "Father Martin, our envoy is a shrewd and strong-willed man. If I can give you the hard facts, he won't shy away." "What hard facts? Mr. Sloot, what kind of proof does your minister need to admit it? He just refuses to believe it. What's the point of arguing? Let me persuade someone from the German legation to meet him face to face." Do you know how dangerous it is? Bern is full of snares laid by the German secret police. This may have killed the man. And what do you get? Your minister suspects that he saw a forged document. Is that so? Wouldn't he simply suspect that the person talking to him was also a liar?" "I recognize the man from the German Legation. You'd better tell your man that all the adventures so far have been in vain. Tell him that the Americans say the document has 'suspicious contents and unknown origin.'" The priest let go of his arms, opened the garden door, and looked out. "Goodbye. Walk straight over the park and there's a taxi stand outside William Tell's." "Aren't you helping me anymore?" "Mr. Sloot, I have asked the archbishop of my diocese to transfer me from Berne." The priest's voice trembled violently. "You mustn't come to me again. You Americans really don't understand Europe. For God's sake, don't involve the Ashers in it." A few days later, August.Fan.Winanger poked his head into Slote's office. "Hey, I just had a long, animated conversation with a friend of yours. He wants to greet you." "Okay. Who is it?" "Jacob. Dr. Asher." Dr. Ascher, in a black narrow-brimmed hat and a black suit that hung loose over his sunken shoulders, looked like a patient who has been forced out of a hospital bed in an emergency.But his handshake was surprisingly strong. "Okay, I'll let you two lovesick birds stay together, sure you have a lot of things to discuss." Fan.Huaifuge happily made a gesture. "I'm only here for a moment, and I beg you to join us," said Asher. Fan.Winanger shook a finger at him, and replied in a monotonous voice. "Ah, one. Two are companions, three, three—three are in groups." He smiled, blinked, and danced away. Dr. Ascher sat in a chair that Sloot had offered him. "Thank you. We're leaving for America sooner than expected. Next Thursday, actually. This has involved the hasty execution of several complicated international contracts. That's why I've come to see Mr. Van Winanger." "He helped you?" "Oh, yes." Dr. Ascher couldn't make out the meaning of the eyes shot from under the thick gray eyebrows. "Helps a lot. All right!" Asher stared sternly at Slote, eyes sunken into two hideous black holes. "I seldom ask anyone for mercy. I don't know you very well, sir, but I've come to ask you for it." "Please tell me!" Sloter replied. "From now on, we have eight days to go. If my daughter Thelma calls you during this period, I beg you not to see her." In front of him, he couldn't help feeling guilty and timid. "Is this request difficult?" "Dr. Asher, I happen to be too busy with work to see her anyway." Dr. Asher held out his hand in pain. "Have a nice time in America," Sloter said. Asher shook his head. "I spent sixteen years in Berne before I felt at ease. Now I'm going to Baltimore, a place I'm not familiar with at all, and I'm seventy-three years old. But it's Selma that matters. Although girls sometimes Difficult to do, but she's a good girl with talent. As my son is an old bachelor, her life's business is my only life's business. Good-bye, sir." Slote went back to work.At the legation he was tasked with dealing with the French Vichy government.Despite the ongoing war, Switzerland, the United States and occupied France are negotiating a treaty to continue trilateral trade.The Germans let this go, too, for practical reasons.However, this matter is difficult to deal with, and the documents have piled up.Sloter was finishing his speech for a meeting that afternoon when the phone rang. "Leslie. Mr. Sloot?" The other party's voice was old and high, full of British accent. "I'm Tolliver. Britten. We met at Asher's." "Yes, yes. How are you?" "Excellent. Didn't we have a great conversation that night? Ah, you know what, Winston. Churchill is broadcasting tonight, ah, my daughter Nancy and I would like to invite you to our house for dinner--but Some home-cooked vegetables, but Nancy's cooking is not bad. We can listen to Churchill together. Discuss new developments." "That would be a great honour," said Sloter, thinking that nothing could be more tedious than such an invitation. "It's a pity I have to go all night, almost all night." The other party no longer hums and hahas. "Mr. Sloot, you can't do it if you don't come." Sloter heard a professional stern tone in the aged voice, and it was a hint.After all, this person is a staff member of the British Foreign Service. "I'm really sorry to have been invited by you again and again." "No. 19 Terrence Street, Garffin Apartments, No. 3A. About seven o'clock." That night, Sloter saw a car parked in front of a bleak apartment building in a run-down part of Bern and wondered if there might be another one like Selma in Bern.Ascher's gray Fiat sports car.Here comes the question: can't he go upstairs and have a look now that he's promised Selma's father?He made a quick calculation in his mind with sophistry, and went upstairs two steps at a time.Thelma hadn't called him anyway.Nor was he sure whether she was in Britten House.People sincerely invited him to dinner, and he accepted.In a word, to hell with that worried old Jewish father!Although Slote was going to take it easy, Thelma.Ascher must have left Bern a virgin. She wore a dirty blue blouse, more or less homely, and her hair was fastened carelessly with bobby pins.She looked tired and sullen, and she greeted him with no frivolity;While she and the English girl were busy in the kitchen, Britton poured strong whiskey in a musty little study full of old books and magazines. "Fortunately, the wine is brewed from plants, how about it? If it is distilled from some animal carcasses, then I have to abandon all the vegetarian principles I follow. Hehe." Sloter felt that Britten's joke At least I've said it a thousand times, and I've laughed a thousand times with such a silly smile. The old man was eager to talk about Singapore.He said that once the Japanese landed in Malaya, the obvious strategy was to fight and retreat to lure the enemy deep, retreating south to within range of Singapore's heavy artillery fire.Although the news during this period has been depressing, but the turning point is bound to come, and it is in sight.Vinnie apparently has some amazing news about Singapore to announce tonight. "Just won't believe it," thought Slote, what a startling example there was!Even the BBC has publicly revealed that Singapore is falling to the enemy.But the optimism in Britton's raspy voice was entirely genuine. The meal was tense and very shabby.Four people crammed into a small table.The rare vegetarian sausages and stews served by my daughter were bland things.Thelma ate little, did not lift her eyes up, and her face was tense and elongated.They were eating a dessert of very pungent stewed rhubarb stalks when Churchill's melodious voice began to come over the shortwave radio.For a long time in his sombre discourse there was no mention of Singapore.Britton winked and gestured reassuringly, assuring Slote that everything was as he had expected.The good news is about to be revealed. Churchill paused, he could hear him changing his breath. Having said that, I have some sad news.Singapore is lost.The powerful fortress of the British Empire, faced with an insurmountable advantage, persisted for a long time, and finally gave up with honor, so as to prevent the common people in the place from continuing to suffer senseless massacres... There was a wry smile on the old man's wrinkled face, his face was getting redder and redder, and a pair of teary eyes were shining strangely.They were silent until they heard the end of the speech: ... so let us go on, through the wind and the wave. Britton reached out tremblingly to turn off the radio. "Wow! This time I was wrong." "Oh, the British Empire is over," said the daughter with sour satisfaction. "Dad, it's about time we all got to face it. Especially Vinny. What a corny romantic!" "Exactly! The night has come. A new world order has been formed." Britton's voice was exactly like Churchill's, and it sounded like a strange, shrill echoer. "The Huns will join hands with the Mongols. The Slavs, born serfs, will serve their new masters. Christianity and Humanism are dead dogmas. The millennium night of technical ignorance has come. Alas, we Britons I've fought a bad battle at last. I'm done with my life. I pity you young men." He looked so visibly distraught that Thelma and Sloter took their leave immediately."Is the fall of Singapore really that bad?" she said from the stairs. "Oh, it means the end of the world to him. It may mean the end of the British Empire. There's still going to be war." When she reached the street, she grabbed his hand, fingers interlocking fingers. "Get in my car." She drove onto a busy boulevard, parked beside the sidewalk, and left the motor on. "Father Martin asked me to send you a message. His exact words were this; 'Arrangement has been made. Waiting for a visitor at your apartment at six o'clock on Sunday evening.'" Startled, Sloter said, "I thought he didn't want you involved." "He came over to my house last night. Papa told him we were leaving next Thursday. I figured he'd think I was a safe messenger, since I was leaving soon." "It's a pity that you have to go against your father's will." "Is Nancy's crappy meal off-putting?" “The meal was well worth it.” She looked straight at him and turned off the motor. "I think you've had a hand with this girl Natalie." "It did happen. I didn't tell you earlier." "Not much. You're very diplomatic. Did you think it might happen to me?" "I never dreamed of that." "Why not? I thought I looked like her. How was I different? Unattractive?" "That's absurd to talk about: Thelma. Thank you for your message." "I can't forgive my father for going to you. What a shame!" "He shouldn't have told you." "I got it out of him. We all had a little chatter. Oh, you're right, it's absurd. Good-bye." She started the motor and held out a hand. "My God, Thelma, your blood is not compatible, and your hands are always cold." "No one talks about it, but you keep mentioning it. Come on—how do you say that in English? 'If you don't do it, you don't stop.'" She leaned towards him and kissed him hard on the mouth.A warm current made Slote's heart tremble.She lowered her voice and whispered, "Okay! Since you think I'm still so alluring, remember me a little bit. I'll always remember you." "I will always remember you, too." She shook her head. "No, you won't. You've had so many adventures! You'll have more! I've only had one adventure, my little one. I hope you get Natalie back. She's happier with you than with that guy in the Navy."—Thelma's expression was faintly mischievous—"That is, if she must marry a heathen." Sloot opened the car door. "Leslie, I don't know what you're up to with Father Martin," cried Thelma, "but be careful! I've never seen a man more frightened." No one came to Sloter's apartment on Sunday night.On Monday morning, he had a copy of Zürich's "Daily" on his desk. On the first page, the entire top page contained photos of the Japanese victory in Singapore, reposted by the German press service: Surrender ceremony, British troops sitting in groups of captives Dirt in camp, festivities in Tokyo, and more.The report on Father Martin was so short that Sloter almost missed it, but it was at the bottom of the front page.The truck driver claims his brakes failed and is now in custody for questioning.The priest died, crushed to death.