Jack 1939 by Francine Mathews Read Free Book Online

then. About that thesis research of yours . . . Sam and I were just saying that we think the level of
foreign interest
in your work has shot up.”
    Jack’s fingers tightened on the black earpiece. “Is that so, Mr. President?”
    “I want you to cable Sam if you need to talk things over. Your theories, for instance, or anything interesting you may find. Sam could be a great help.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. President.”
    “Better yet, Jack, take down this telephone number. Do you have a pencil?”
    Jack fished frantically in his breast pocket.
Fuck.
He could never find anything when he needed it. He gestured wildly at the hotel operator, and she whipped a pencil out of her hair. The wood felt warm in his palm.
    Roosevelt was dictating already. Jack scribbled numbers on the cuff of his dress shirt, hoping he’d got them right.
    “That rings at my bedside. Call any time you’d like to chat. Just try to remember the time difference between Europe and Washington, all right?”
    “I certainly will, Mr. President.”
    “And Jack?”
    “Yes, sir?”
    There was the slightest of pauses. “Take care of yourself, son. The Atlantic’s rough this time of year.”

FIVE. A HERO OF THE LAST WAR
    JACK CAUGHT HIS TRAIN NORTH. There was a man he needed to see.
    Bruce Hopper’s office was in the Old Yard, but he was rarely there—too busy giving lectures to undergraduates or radio interviews on the Fascist threat. Jack tracked him that morning to a quiet bay in Widener Library. Hopper had commandeered an entire oak table, littered with books and papers in Cyrillic. He glanced up as Jack’s thin shadow fell over him. Then he tossed aside his pen and eased back in his hard chair.
    “Cheers,
mon
brave
.”
    It was Hopper’s classic greeting, reserved for the select group of souls he respected. As a freshman Jack had thought
mon brave
must be easier than attempting to remember a thousand names—but he learned quickly it was a prize to be won. He hadn’t earned it until this year.
    Hopper had flown aerial combat missions in France during the last war and all the Harvard men secretly idolized him. He’d won the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor and some other decorations he didn’t bother to mention; he’d been hurt badly in one crash, but lived to fly another day. When the war was over he’d stuck around Europe, studying at the Sorbonne and Oxford with the rest of the generation they called Lost. He didn’t even look like a Government professor. His neat figure was pared down, stripped for action, ready for a fight.
    Jack loved Hopper. He loved his stories of bumming around Burma and the Middle East during the twenties, stringing for newspapers. He loved listening in the lamplight of Hopper’s seminar while he talked of samovars and cold and the hidden viciousness of Moscow, where he’d lived until the Crash of ’29 put an end to his fellowship money. Hopper had come back to Harvard and settled down to teach. There was a Mrs. Hopper now. But in moments of abstraction, Jack saw how the professor’s eyes searched the sky unconsciously for airplanes, the slightest hope of combat.
    He shook Hopper’s outstretched hand.
    “Thought you’d sailed.”
    “I’ve still got two weeks.”
    “Then what the hell are you doing here? There must be a girl you could chase.”
    “I saw Roosevelt,” Jack said quietly. “He told me he talked to you.”
    Hopper grunted. “So he did,
mon brave
. I’ve never had a telephone call from a president before. It caused quite a sensation. The switchboard operators chatter. Nothing in the Yard is private. Now the Dean wants to know when I’m leaving for Washington and what I possibly think I could add to FDR’s Brain Trust. I told him Roosevelt couldn’t care less about me. Shall we walk?”
    * * *
    THEY PULLED UP THEIR COLLARS against the wet cold of a Cambridge February and strolled down to where the crew shells were putting out into the Charles.
    “What did he