surprised and thankful. Bill grinned and clapped their father on the back. But Martha felt her heart sink. She too felt homesick for America from time to time, and she had become thoroughly sick and tired of the oppressive Third Reich, but she could not help the resistance from Chicago. And how would her romance with Boris survive if they were an ocean apart? She already sensed his interest in marriage dwindling, and he was only in Warsaw.
Well, Martha thought, that’s it for dallying. They had until March to resolve things once and for all. Perhaps the thought of losing her forever would finally prompt Boris to propose.
“Why March?” asked Bill. “Why not now?”
“President Roosevelt asked me to stay on until spring to give him time to find the right man to succeed me. I also want to tie up some loose ends to smooth the transition.” He hesitated, wincing. “Also, if I left any sooner, it would give the impression that my rivals and critics, American and German alike, had succeeded in their efforts to have me removed.”
Martha nodded. The appearance that he had been abruptly fired would humiliate her father. A few more months at his post was a small price to pay for his dignity.
In the days that followed, Martha’s father resumed his duties with a new resolve to serve, as President Roosevelt had charged him to do more than four years before, as a steadfast example of American liberalism against fascism. To Martha, it seemed an increasingly futile task. She sensed dangerous forces at work in Germany, strengthening every day, driving the whole world toward an abyss. Although people like her father, the Harnacks, and her friends in the international press corps perceived the gaping emptiness ahead, no one with the power to act seemed willing or able to stop the inexorable rush into the darkness.
Then, on the afternoon of November 23, Martha was reading in the library when she heard her mother cry out. Racing to see what was the matter, she found her parents at the top of the grand staircase, her father home early from the embassy, pale and haggard, her mother taking his arm and guiding him to a chair. “What is it?” Martha asked, hurrying over.
“I’ve been relieved of my duties,” her father said, his voice strangely flat and distant.
“No, you resigned,” said Martha, bewildered. “You and the president agreed.”
Her father reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a folded telegram. Wordlessly he passed it to her, and although it was marked “Strictly Confidential,” Martha opened it. “It’s from Secretary Hull,” she told her mother. “‘Much as the President regrets any personal inconvenience which may be occasioned to you, he desires me to request that you arrange to leave Berlin if possible by December 15 and in any event not later than Christmas, because of the complications with which you are familiar and which threaten to increase.’ Complications? What is he talking about?”
Her father shook his head and held out his hand for the telegram. “I’ll protest, of course. I’ll remind Hull of my agreement with President Roosevelt. But I doubt it will do any good.”
“Unbelievable,” fumed Martha. “After all you’ve done for your country—”
“Perhaps it’s for the best,” her mother interrupted. “Now we can go home, where you want to be anyway. You can continue to recover your health and finish your book.”
“But important work remains to be done here.”
“Other men can do it,” she replied sharply, but then her voice softened. “Decide what is best and what you want most, dear, and I’ll be content.”
But other men had already decided for him. His protests went unheeded, and he realized that the forces arrayed against him were stronger and greater in number than he had suspected. Reconciling himself to the inevitable, he booked passage home.
He could not yet step down from his post, however, and when word of his imminent departure spread, he was inundated with invitations to dinners and luncheons with sympathetic ambassadors from other nations. Diplomats urgently sought his intervention on various matters while he still had the power to help them. Universities requested campus lectures, events that caused a greater stir of anticipation than they would have only a few months before, since he was now free to speak his mind without fear of repercussions. Privately Martha and Bill called it their father’s farewell tour, hiding their disgust that this show of approval had come too late to save his job.