Argh... I'm still not comfortable with this. It seems like a wall of text, sorry. But there are hints listed all through to what's going on around the world. Sorry, but I'm probably at the end of my editing and it's just -- here it is.
Império Novo
“Hello, Old Friend,” came the greeting, from the dapper young man who came around from behind the desk, assisted by a fine mahogany cane.
Paolo de Sousa advanced toward Aristedes Caldeira with a pronounced limp, but extended his hand with the grace of someone very accustomed to welcoming guests despite his handicap.
Grinning widely, Ari shook hands with his former co-pilot. “It’s great to see you again, Paolo! How have you been?”
“I’ve been great! I can’t get my tans in the jungle anymore,” he said, referring to their many months in African or East Indian stations, “but I make up for it on the beach, or the golf course!” Paolo pointed to a trophy he had won – a golden golfer in backswing. Then he said, "Oh! You'll enjoy this..." He struck a stable stance, and raised his cane up so Ari could see it. The fine wood carving showed the head of a cheetah - a Chita.
"Oh, very nice, my friend!" They smiled at each other with the warmth of long friendship, refined in fire. Ari stared out the enormous window behind Paolo’s stately desk. The entire wall was a window, and from the top floor, 16 stories up, the vista of the Rio Tejo, spreading out before Lisbon, was magnificent.
“I’m TAP’s (Transportes Aereos Portugueses) executive vice president for operations. I make sure all the planes get where they’re going, and all our people, and all our clients… So you see.” He gave a toothy grin.
“That’s extraordinary, Paolo! I’m happy for you!”
“See! I got the jump on you, getting an early discharge, like I did! It helped that nearly every able body was already in service. People like me – people with command experience – were in high demand.”
“Well, good for you!” Still staring out the window, Ari shook his head. “Honestly, you saw all the action. Not much happened after Canberra, anyway. We flew a few sorties in Scotland, but there were too many RAF planes – soon enough, they sent us where we couldn’t hurt ourselves.”
“I’m glad you stayed safe.” Pensively, he added, “You know I really enjoyed those early days. And while we were in the thick of it, I didn’t have much time to think about it. But I was glad to get out. Looking back, I realized I hardly understood the danger we were all in. Of course, I knew we could get killed… But I rarely stopped to think what that really meant.”
“You always had your faith,” Ari said. “You never seemed to worry too much about what would happen. Just another chapter to your story, you said.”
“True. But I have always really enjoyed living! And I would have missed that!” He slapped Ari on the back in good humor. “What are you talking about, ‘my faith?’ You pray all the time.”
Ari chuffed a laugh. “Only when we’re in danger, or otherwise in need. I pray when I want something.” He glanced at his friend. “You pray like you know God is there – I’ve always envied you, that.”
“Well, I hope we’ll have plenty of time to talk more about that,” Paolo said, cryptically.
Missing the hook, Ari simply added, “I hope so too.”
Bridging from that, Ari asked about his wife and young family, pointing to a picture on the desk. They chatted for a while, catching up, but not as if they’d been out of contact for two years.
“Oh! Let me show you what we’re going to be flying, starting next month! I’m so excited about this…” He handed Ari a postcard with the image of a Lockheed Constellation on it.
After a moment, Ari whistled. “Oh, that’s sharp!” He fixed his eye sideways at his friend. “You know, I happen to be out of a job at the moment. I don’t suppose….”
“But of course!” Paolo grabbed Ari and hugged his shoulders to him. “Except…”
Briefly ecstatic, and now momentarily chastened, Ari led on, “Except….”
“Except I would want something in exchange.” Paolo nodded firmly at the floor without explaining.
Ari practically shook with anxiety, waiting for Paolo to get on with it. He was clearly drawing this out.
Paolo gestured to a large map on the wall, showing TAP’s worldwide network of air routes. “I need you to be my eyes and ears out there. I want you to be my Inspector General. You would fly the Constellations, of course – they will be on all our major routes. But you would go where I need you, and you would help me problem solve – see where things aren’t running right, and let me know. How’s that sound?”
Ari chuffed out his breath. “I’d be honored, Paolo. What an opportunity!”
“You would be an executive, and your pay would be substantial – perhaps as much as 200 mil réis a year ($8,000).” He smiled, toothily, as his friend’s eyebrows rose. Paolo knew it was at least twice what he was making as a colonel and military attaché. “Plus you’ll get stock in the company, and some other benefits.”
Ari was speechless.
“See,
you think you wanted to see me to talk about old times, but I had a plan, see…” He waggled his finger in the air, significantly. “I want to offer you a job more than you want to ask for one!” Paolo chuckled.
“My friend, I could hardly have imagined! Thank you! Bless you!” He was shaking Paolo’s free hand vigorously, enough that his friend had a moment of bad balance and almost faltered. “I… It’s more than I could possibly have expected.”
Laughing, Paolo waved him off. “Your friendship and leadership over the years has been a blessing to me – I can hardly refuse to repay what you’ve given to me over the years.” He waved to some chairs, and a small table set with crystal glasses and a brandy magnum. “Let’s sit, and talk over old times. Will you drink with me?”
“Whenever would I not?”
They sat, and Paolo shared out the brandy. They toasted to Ari’s new job – and Paolo’s – and then settled down into recapping. “What has been keeping you busy?”
“Well, I’ve just been discharged from the service after a little more than a year as military attaché to the US Army Air Force.”
“I thought I’d heard something about that. How’s Washington these days?” Parenthetically, he added, “It’s not one of our hubs, so I’ve never been there – we fly into New York City.”
“Washington is hot and stifling in the summer, bone-chilling cold in winter. Not like anyplace I’ve been before.” Ari took a sip of his brandy. “Most of the people are nice,” he said. “Unless they’re one of those who hate what we did in the war. And then there’s no recovering the situation. Passions still run high with some. Most of them never cared.”
“They’ve got a new president!” Paolo grinned. “That’s almost…. unheard of, yes?” They both laughed.
“Dewey should be an interesting change of pace. The two of you bear a striking resemblance, by the way,” Ari glanced with humor at his friend, cradling a snifter in the chair opposite.
Paolo laughed. “So I’ve been told! Er… ‘The little man on the wedding cake?’” Such a comparison had been made to Dewey, with his pencil-thin moustache and slicked back hair. “How did all that happen? It kind of stunned the world, but I guess you know that. FDR was like ‘Grandpa America!’” They laughed.
"I got to watch the election, and change of power unfold,” said Ari, glancing off into the distance at the trees and buildings. “It’s not like replacing a figure like Hitler or Stalin… Or even Carmona. They have a full-fledged democracy there – not like how we vote here. It’s wild, and raucous! But there’s something I find refreshing about it.” He fingered his drink for a moment. “They never see a leader – even Roosevelt – as a permanent fixture. They feel strongly that their vote matters… and so they think very carefully about who they’re going to support.”
“But what thoughts led them to dump Roosevelt? I thought that would never happen.”
“It started off with our 1940 campaign in the West Indies. The Americans…” He glanced at Paolo. “That’s what they call themselves, regardless of how many other countries are American. They got to watch the war in practically their home waters. It was a very new thing to see European armies fighting just a few miles from the states. While no one really felt like it was their war – they’d had their fill of ‘saving the Europeans’ bacon,’ as they say, in the last war. But the president who was watching with them seemed powerless – like a foreign policy neophyte, which is what the Republicans always said about him in the first place.
“Ironically,” Ari said, “Roosevelt had tried drumming up support for Britain against Germany during most of the war, but the people just weren’t having it. The speed of our victories confirmed many people in thinking that they were glad they weren’t messed up in that. FDR – that’s what they called him – never gained any traction when trying to bring the country to support Britain. Not that the Americans really liked the Germans. It’s just that most of the nearby combat was driven by us, and they didn’t have so bad a feeling about the Portuguese in their ‘backyard’ – another Americanism – as opposed to the Germans. I guess we won that public relations battle, eh?” They both smiled.
“Then,” Ari went on, “when Britain fell, the Americans felt like it was too late to intervene anyway. By the time we and the Germans got to Canada, they simply wanted to ‘get it over with.’ Not their war. Not their concern. The war was over before they had a reason to really personify it, or feel like they might have a reason to get involved.”
“You mean the refugee problem?”
Ari nodded. “When the Germans came to Canada, the Jews of Canada fled into the United States. That caused two rather opposite effects. One, many of the Americans developed a tremendous sympathy for them, which caused a very strong sentiment against the Germans,” he said. “But then there’s the Bund.”
“The Bund?” Paolo asked.
“That’s the other part of it. The Bund, apparently, was an insignificant pro-German, pro-Nazi movement, before the war. They grew steadily, but slightly, as the war went on. They might have influenced American foreign policy some, but not a lot. It was just natural that, as the Germans – and the Portuguese – seemed like the wave of the future, fascism grew somewhat in the American mind. But that kind of thing just isn’t very ‘American’ – the whole idea is foreign, and that’s how most Americans treated it.
“But now,” he continued, “there are all these Jews coming into the country. And a lot of Americans don’t particularly like strangers flooding in. They call it ‘Nativism.’ That, more than anything, has driven up membership in the Bund.”
Paolo nodded his head, confirming he was following.
“The stupid thing,” Ari said with some animation, “is that the refugees from Canada aren’t even equal to the population of Jews who were in the US all along. The Jews were never forced out of Canada, or imprisoned, or not allowed to have jobs. The Canadians’ approach to German pressure with regard to the Jews was much like Portugal’s – ‘don’t tell us how to run our country, or treat our people.’ But some Americans reacted to this small flow of refugees anyway.”
“So…” Paolo was thinking through the political ramifications. “So these feelings elevated Dewey into office?”
“And you’d think that, wouldn’t you? But no – I could talk to one guy who hates Roosevelt, and another who thinks the world is headed to Hell without him, and either is just as likely as another to betray some mostly hidden sentiment. It’s not widespread – not that I can tell – but the people you’d least expect will spurt out something to that effect. So, there’s a mixture of feelings. One group is more likely to be anti-German, and the other group more likely to be pro-German. But the big thing now is the communists.”
“Of course, that would be expected, with the Soviet invasion, wouldn’t it?” Paolo referred to the Soviet invasion of Persia and Afghanistan in the year after the fall of the United Kingdom. Without the British Army as a check on their ambitions, the tanks rolled, and suddenly the Russians had new freshwater ports, and lots more oilfields. The effect was to make the world, almost as a whole, forget about Germany and Portugal, and regard the USSR as the new threat to world peace.
“I’d say it was Persia that put Dewey in office in place of Roosevelt. FDR was seen as trying to make excuses for the Soviets – ‘What’s one country, compared to all that Germany and Portugal took?’ And a suddenly energized American people felt like he was out of touch. Dewey struck the right anti-communist tone.”
“Now…” Paolo furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure I catch what’s so silly about what Roosevelt said. It does seem like Russia’s invasion is minor, compared to ours.”
“You’re right. But even though we’re not in the Axis anymore, Portugal did the same. Suddenly, we were right beside Hitler in condemning Soviet aggression, and insisting that they should be allowed to go no further.”
“But Portugal has always been anti-communist,” Paolo offered.
“So have the Americans. For the most part. There was a surge in communist sentiment during the Great Depression, but not enough to have much political impact. The way I understand the American mind, they saw Hitler as just another dictator – someone with just a different take on politics than them, and hardly to be a surprise. After all, it’s those warlike Germans again.” They both laughed. “But Stalin, and the communist system, seems antithetical to what America stands for. So, yes, they fear Stalin a lot more than they feared Hitler – not until the invasion, but once they had an excuse, they were mad to stop him.”
“Well,” Paolo said. “I’m glad for Dewey’s concentration on the economy, and getting the workforce employed again. We may need America’s industry up to speed, soon. Depending what happens with the Soviets.”
Ari nodded. “Yes. Do you think Portugal will get dragged in, if it turns into a hot war again?”
Paolo gave a shrug. “I don’t see us joining the Axis alliance again. And that’s the most likely war – them versus the Russians. But Persia is close to our interests in Transjordan, and India. And we hold a lot of the world’s oil supplies, which will be at a premium, should another world war start. We’re likely to be involved, whether we like it or not. What about the US? Do you think Dewey is likely to align with Germany against Russia?”
“Align is too strong a word. But, same as you say with Portugal – they may not be able to avoid war. I don’t think the Americans would stand for an alliance with Germany any more than with the USSR. But I think Dewey will – already has, in many ways – put the United States’ industrial power up against the Soviets’, and will even pledge US military power if it seems to be needed. Already, the US Navy has taken over the role of world policeman that the Royal Navy used to have. The US has new bases in many places around the world – every country that either fears the Russians, or has joined the pact against them, is willing to do what they can.”
“Does that include the US? It seems like they’re very wedded to not being bothered.”
“And that’s why it’s always a question,” Ari said. “I don’t sense they’re ready to go to war for any reason now – short of being attacked – but more and more Americans seem to think the communists have to be stopped. What that means, I don’t know. I think right now they’d rather the Germans take them on. Do you think Hitler will really attack them?” Ari threw the ball back into Paolo’s court.
“He says not,” Paolo related. “But no one believes him. Most people think it’s a matter of which side strikes first. And I keep hearing talk about one side or another having some secret weapon based on atomic power.” He sighed. “Or both.”
“Hmm…” Ari temporized. “That came up in a conversation I was party to, in Washington. But one quickly nudged the other and he reconsidered discussion of such topics in front of a Portuguese attaché.” He gave a wry smile. “It’s hard getting away from that connection with Germany, even if Portugal has left the Axis alliance.”
“Hmm…” was all Paolo had to say. Neither of them had been very comfortable with the arrangement with Germany, and were glad to be rid of the association. “Might be good if Portugal could get its hands on such a weapon, to defend ourselves from the Soviets. Or… from someone else.”