“I’m so very glad to see you! “I’d be unhappy if you didn’t,” Canidy said. She hugged him tightly. He was surprised at the depth of his own emotion at seeing her again. “Help Tom and me with the groceries,” she said.
“And then we’ll sit on the porch and have some of Chesly’s Scotch and bring each other up to date.” She’ll want to know about Jimmy, Canidy thought. And obviously, I am expected to tell her as little as possible.
Well, fuck that, she’s no German spy. I’ll tell her as much as I can.
She meant it about drinking Chesly’s Scotch. The bottle she produced was older than Canidy. And she asked him about himself and what he was going to be doing while he was at Summer Place, but fortunately she steered away from asking about Jimmy. This was not an indication of lack of interest in him. It was rather because she was a great lady whose sense of duty forbade asking questions. “I met Jimmy when he flew into Washington,” Canidy said. “I don’t think you’re supposed to talk about him, are you, Dick?” she said.
“He has apparently been running around in the jungles of Bataan,” Canidy went on.
“I’m sure he has malaria, and he told me he had a tapeworm named Clarence,” Canidy said. “Oh, my!” she said.
“Chesly had one years ago and had a terrible time passing it.”
“He was thirty pounds underweight,” Canidy went on, “and he’s going to have to have some serious dental work.”
“What of his attitude?” she asked. She means, Is he out of his mind?
“The President had him to dinner, after that business with the newsreel cameras,” Canidy said, and went on to tell her what Jim Whittaker had done to demonstrate what a three-eighths ration was. “Even under the circumstances, that was extremely rude to Franklin and Eleanor,” Barbara Whittaker said. “Well, please don’t apologize for him,” Canidy said.
“If you do, they’ll know who told you about this.” She waved her hand to show him she understood, then asked, “Is that why he’s been hospitalized? Why I can’t see him?”
“I think he’s hospitalized because he needs hospitalization,” Canidy said, hoping she would believe it. “It said in the newspapers that he carried a letter from Douglas MacArthur to the President,” she said.
“And General Marshall was there for dinner. Do you know how much Marshall and Douglas MacArthur loathe each other?”
“I’ve heard,” Canidy admitted. “Does that have anything to do with Jimmy’s hospitalization? “I don’t know,” Canidy said after a moment.
“I just don’t know.” She thought that over. “Chesly and Franklin Roosevelt were not the best of friends,” she said.
“But I am unable to believe that Franklin would-” “Colonel Donovan said he was going to find out what he could,” Canidy said.
“I think the thing to do is wait for him to do that.” She leaned over and patted first his knee and then his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
“I’m sure you shouldn’t have told me any of this, but I’m glad you did.”
“Just make sure Colonel Donovan doesn’t find out,” Canidy said. “He won’t,” she said. She stood up.
“When I heard you were coming,” she said, “I had Commander Nadine moved out of your old room. He didn’t like it much, but I told him you were an old friend of the family. Now I’m sorry I said that.”
“Excuse me?” Canidy asked, confused. “I should have said you were family, period,” she said. She looked down and met his eyes.
“We generally have a cocktail at half past six, and then dinner around seven. If you can’t make it until then, you know where to find the refrigerator.”
“Thank you.”
“Welcome home, Dick,” she said, and then she walked off the porch.
TWO I 2745 Lake shore Drive Chicago, Illinois April 21, 1942
Despite Brandon Chambers’s assurance to Chandler H. Bitter that he would have a report on Ed Bitter’s condition from one of his war correspondents in India within a matter of days, the first amplification of what had happened came to Chandler in the morning mad two weeks after the radiogram from General Chennauh. The envelope was cheap brownish paper, and the letter itself appeared to have been typed on mimeograph paper on a battered portable.