“Get the Henkel Trocken,” Harry said. “It’s lovely when it’s cold.” We bought six bottles and were off again.
“You know, Harry,” I told him, “if you didn’t drink so much, you’d make some girl a great catch.”
“Oh, I don’t drink so very much, you know,” he protested. “I’m what you call a cheap date. Three or four glasses of wine and everyone can have their way with me.”
“I see.”
“By the way, what do you think of our filmmaker, Wolfgang Scherer?”
“I’ve never even seen anything he’s done.”
“Neither have I,” he said and we laughed.
“Do you think he slept with Tupelo?” I broke in.
“Who? Wolfgang? Oh, no. She’s keeping him for advancement, nothing more. He loves to film her. I suppose she’s what you’d call his muse. Together they make enormous amounts of money.”
“Must be tough. Daisy says they always write about him in the papers. He gets great reviews.”
Harry contented himself with his earlobe. “Oh, that’s because the Germans love all that wicked self-abasement.” Then he added, “I rather think they pay him so much attention because she’s in his films. As much as the other way around.”
We were silent. “What do you think of her?” he said while his old Jaguar percolated in the rain at the red light in front of the Hertie department store.
“The Hungarian rhapsody?”
“Yes. Do you like her? And I think she’s from Estonia. She only learned her English in a classroom in St. Petersburg.”
I said nothing.
He gave me a quick, suspicious look. “You’re not jealous?”
“How can I be jealous? She’s old enough to be my, well, sister.”
“Atta girl. Don’t let her know. She’ll eat you for supper.”
I heard myself saying, “She actually grabbed me in the bathroom at the party. She—” I stopped. “And then she warned me.”
“Did she? I’m surprised. You must frighten her. That’s good, of course.”
“It was kind of horrifying.” Then, “She’s terribly sexy, isn’t she. Kind of like a sexual predator. A sadistic one.” I went on, not caring.
“She can tell you like him.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“My dear. You turn vermillion at the sight of him.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Not to everyone. But Chartreuse sees it. He doesn’t like it, either. His eyes dart about like a jealous cat. It’s pitiful.”
“Oh, Chartreuse! He’s not my boyfriend.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He seems the type one imagines cuts one’s throat for the luggage.”
“Tch. He’s not like that at all.”
“All right. I’m sure I don’t know what type he is.” He smacked his cheek in a drama of frustration. “And there’s something I haven’t told you.”
“What?”
“Well, you’re not to mention it.”
“All right. Honor bright. What’s up?”
“Someone stole Tupelo’s green pearls.”
A lift of something ran through me. “Who told you that?”
“She did.”
Of course I thought of Chartreuse. I remembered the silver forks. “So, why shouldn’t I breathe a word?”
“Maybe she just reported them stolen to get the insurance money. I don’t know. But she did report it to the police. She asked me not to tell anyone. Not to be paranoid but sometimes I think it might do us all good to take a break from Munich.”
“Yes, well. Look, Harry, it’s easy for you to say just up and leave. You’ve got pots of money.”
“I could always lend you some.”
“No. Thank you, but no. I just never know how long I’m going to be making any. In this business you never do know.”
“Such an affectation, Claire. Acting like a Goody Two-shoes when we all know you are as devious as the next.”
I looked out the window at the pouring rain and the blurring lights, trying not to think of what I’d done. I cranked open the window so he wouldn’t see my face. Had Tupelo confided in him? No, of course not. If a clear conscience has the strength of ten men then a guilty one certainly weakens you. I was nervous as a cat. But his news was sinking in. “So you really think there’s a thief? And I’m sure you think it’s Chartreuse.”
“No. No, you’re right. I’m sure he’s nothing quite so dashing. Don’t jewel thieves plan rather glamorous crimes?”
“I don’t know. I wonder why they didn’t interrogate me? I would make a wonderful suspect.”
“No,” Harry went on, “Chartreuse is more interested in his joint and his meal and his pleasure. In the here and now. See what I mean? He’d far more likely be the slash-the-purse-strings-when-no-one’s-looking sort of fellow. Then over the fence with the goods, if you see my point. I’m sure he values being part of the gang at Isolde’s more than acquiring a string of pearls that would bring the police straight to him the minute he tried to see how much they’d fetch. He’s a damned slippery bloke but he’s strictly small-time, if you ask me. He hasn’t a farthing. Of course he loves to gad about with you. Makes him look the man about town, being seen with a model.”
“It’s not like I’m rich, Harry. I’m more like an indentured servant.”
“You’re young and thin and American. That’s all one needs these days.”
I yawned with fatigue.
“Cranky?” He looked at me from the side.
“I guess I am.” I shivered. “I’m cold and damp.”
“I do hope Vladimir isn’t there when we get back. For someone who’s left his wife, he’s hanging about an awful lot.”
“I like Vladimir.”
“Oh, yes, I know. The great artist. Everyone likes Vladimir,” he muttered sourly.
“Is it just that it makes it so damned inconvenient to flirt when he’s there?”
“On the contrary. That never stops Isolde. She flirts more because she thinks it will make him jealous. It never does, though. Malheureusement. No, it’s not his presence I despise but his absence I require. I just like the pretense of being the man of the house. You know, feet on the sofa, the Times strewn about. Even the kiddies grow rather accustomed to me.”
“It’s just Isolde who treats you so badly, then.”
“Yes, actually. Well, I’m pigeon-toed,” Harry said with distaste, as if that explained it.
I imagined it must be difficult for an aesthete to be so physically repugnant. “I wanted to see the world,” I said, smiling at him. “Now at least I’ve met my first full-blown masochist.”
“Claire,” he touched my nose, “you’re a nice sort of girl. But I’m certain that Catholic school in Queens you attended was seething with masochists.”
I thought of my old Christ the King, that ugly modern building set in the midst of the cemetery with its acres of rolling hills and ornate gravestones. The Daughters of Wisdom, outfitted like Dutch cleansers in those days, gliding through the polished hallways. There was nothing masochistic about any of them. If anything, they’d egged us on to be liberated, useful women.
“Oh, and Schatz,” he interrupted my thoughts, “don’t bother too much about Blacky.”
I tried not to look too attentive. “Why not?”
“Well. You might do well to consider it a schoolgirl crush. You don’t even know him. I can’t help feeling you have no chance. Oh, don’t look like that. You know what I mean.”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Well, his family, for one thing. They’d never allow him to marry someone of your … er …”
“Class?”
“Social caliber.”
“Jesus, Harry. You talk as if we’re living in the Victorian era.”
“Things don’t change much over the centuries when it comes to land acquisition, my dear. And that’s what marriage within that family is about. Tupelo
’s money could refurbish many an exhibitable ancestral chamber for that bled-out clan.”
“A plastic surgeon isn’t exactly a low-income job.”
Harry made a face. “Running off to Vietnam and donating a year of your life to broken soldiers isn’t exactly building an empire. It holds you back. Er … financially, I mean. Pop in that lighter, would you! Bloody social democrats. Meanwhile others are furthering their careers. What he makes is chicken feed compared to what she pulls in.”
“I never said I want to marry him, Harry. I only want him for illicit sex.”
I almost laughed out loud at Harry’s shocked expression. He recovered quickly enough, though. He said, “Well, that’s good, then, because he’s asked her to marry him.”
I’d just turned to reach for the plaid horse blanket from the backseat and that jealous place inside me shrieked with protest. I bit my lip and wrapped the blanket around me like a shawl. Back and forth went the windshield wipers, back and forth.
“I wanted to break it to you gently.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“Well, I didn’t want you to hear upstairs … in front of that lot.”
“Oh. I see. Thanks for that, Harry.” I tried to smile.
The lighter popped out. He put a cigarette into an ivory carved holder and lit it.
“Harry!” I recovered enough to say. “Such an affectation.” I couldn’t resist.
Unharmed, he said, “Not at all. Affectation is when someone of a lower class pretends to be upper.”
“Ah,” I said, “like me.”
“Darling. If the shoe fits …”
I was taken aback. Then I assured him meanly, “By the way, engaged is not married. So don’t worry your pretty little head. I’ve got just as much chance with him as you have of getting Isolde.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. Once they divorce, Isolde will no longer be the countess, will she?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Vladimir who’s the count. She’s only noble by marriage.”
“I thought Isolde was an aristocrat.”
“Isolde? Isolde’s people were hops brewers.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“But she went to boarding school in England and all that.”
Harry laughed. “Oh, she was there all right. When the hops crop failed several years in a row, her mother worked as a cook at a posh girls’ boarding school. She took Isolde with her.”
“She did say the other girls gave her hell. No wonder.”
“Yes.”
“Gee.” I remembered the other side of her, the schlepper. “That explains a lot. But don’t let on that I know, okay?” I said. “She’d hate that.”
“Oh, yes.” Harry continued. “And,” he grimaced fiercely, “your precious Vladimir has made it so if they divorce, she loses not only her title, but the children as well.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“But he’s the one who wants the divorce.”
“I know,” he said pleasantly. “It’s so unfair. So don’t go thinking your horrible artist friend Vladimir is so wonderful. Because he’s not.” He studied me in the dark. “Artists are not always good people, as you seem to think. Remarkable, yes. Good? Not always. So,” he raised one eyebrow in the fogged-up mirror, “I do have a chance, you see. I might not look it, but in my part of the world I’m actually considered quite a catch.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said.
He said, “You realize, of course, there’s a sadist on every street corner. It’s the good masochist who’s hard to find.”
On that note we ferried home.
Luckily, no one had parked in his spot. We slid into the teeming lamplight. Harry put his hat on—Harry always wore a noticeable hat—and we ran through the rain to the house. With a little less bounce than before, we climbed the first flight and returned to Frau Zwekl’s apartment. I’m often mildly flippant in my retorts, but the truth is, everything Harry had said about Blacky had hurt me and my words were only meant to cover it up. One thing, I was determined not to blush in Blacky’s presence anymore. I wouldn’t even sit near him, I decided. The hell with both of them.
When we went in, they stopped talking when they saw me and I thought, Oh, they’ve been discussing me. “What’s up?” I said, shifting the cumbersome bottles and handing them over.
“Have a seat,” Chartreuse said, his eyes feverish.
“Let me just go change,” I began, for I was sopping wet, but, “No,” they all said at once. “No!”
Isolde pushed me into a chair. She was wearing her aubergine linen dress. There was something frenzied in her voice. Herr Kleiderschrank was there, hunched over. I got the feeling there was something wrong. Suddenly I went icy cold. It was like when my brother was killed and no one would tell me. They looked at me and still no one said a word. “My parents!” I cried and stood up, grabbing hold of Wolfgang’s little arms. They felt like a child’s broken arms, dangling and clammy.
“No, no, nothing like that.”
Over Wolfgang’s shoulder I saw that someone else was here. A man in a suit. He stood speaking confidentially to Blacky in the corner near the kitchen. They held on to their teacups.
“She was like a mother to me,” Herr Kleiderschrank was sobbing at the kitchen table, trying to make a scene. I realized this was about Frau Zwekl. Of course Herr Kleiderschrank was lying. Frau Zwekl despised him and had told me so, vehemently, every chance she got. Daisy, unable to be still a moment longer, cried out, “Guess who Frau Zwekl left all her money to?”
“Herr Kleiderschrank,” I finished for her, for why else would the lawyer be here.
“You,” said Isolde.
“Me?” I touched my chest.
“You!” cried Herr Kleiderschrank from the kitchen. There was narrow-eyed accusation in that “you.”
“There must be some mistake,” I said.
“Oh, there’s no mistake.” The man in the suit came hurrying forward. “She’s left the lot to you.” His accent was Swiss. He opened a book and was about to show me the columns of figures and sums that would change my life.
“It can’t be,” I said, somehow inexplicably crushed, disappointed, for here was my camera and my new career as a photographer to be discussed and instead … but I ought to be delighted. I said, “I still think it can’t be. Are you sure? I mean, the name’s right and all?”
“Jawohl,” said the suit. “If you are Claire Breslinsky.”
“I am,” I said. “Did she leave me a note?”
“No. I’m afraid there was none. Just the will. To whom and how much.”
“But I hardly knew Frau Zwekl. Oh, I feel so bad.”
“I don’t think that’s the way she had hoped you would feel,” Blacky said, his kind eyes searching for some joy in mine.
“No,” I smiled at him, “of course not. I just mean I feel bad that I never did something nice for her.” My eyes filled with tears.
“Still,” Chartreuse leered, “she must have liked you, eh?”
“Yes,” I said. “She did give me something once,” I remembered. “A cloth.” I could hardly speak.
“Not quite the same but never mind,” Harry said.
“Well, it was a hand-embroidered handkerchief,” I said, “with a bird on it. A bird, a heart, and a tulip. A special bird. She’d embroidered it herself when she was young. The heart stands for love and the tulips for faith, hope, and charity. I have it upstairs,” I went rattling on. “I wash it in the sink so it won’t come unraveled in the machine.”
“A lucky bird, that was.” Daisy elbowed Chartreuse in the ribs.
“That’s it,” I said. I had kissed Frau Zwekl on the cheek. She’d felt brittle as parchment. But her eyes had shone with memory and were still wet and beady with life. “The Distelfink it was called! That’s what she said. The bird of luck.”
“Thistle finch.” Isolde translated the name of the bird, for she was ou
r linguist.
“Ah, the goldfinch.” Harry put his finger in the air. They quarreled over the more correct translation.
We were, all of us, stunned. Upstairs, I could hear the parrots squawking their outrage. Light at night was unacceptable to them unless they, too, were in on the party. Even in my confusion I noticed Tupelo looking bitter, as though something had been taken rather than given.
“Put up the heat, Isolde,” Chartreuse, Frau Zwekl’s chenille bedspread cloaked about him, complained. “It’s freezing in this place!”
“Yes, I thought it was supposed to be spring,” Wolfgang said.
“It’s the cold from the Alps,” the lawyer explained, “it followed me here from Zurich.”
But I had stopped listening.
“Get her a drink,” Chartreuse suggested. “She might pass out.”
Daisy moved to get the Sekt we’d brought in and more glasses, for there was no alcohol left and no one had wanted to go upstairs and fetch more. They’d all wanted to see my face when they told me. Terrified of missing even a beat, Daisy returned in a minute. Isolde popped open the bottle. Blacky, concerned, poured a water glass half full with it and gave it to me. His lovely hand grazed mine and I felt it there as I drank. I felt it like the golden liquid, glorious, and a moment too sweet.
Wolfgang had picked up his camera and was filming me. They all were watching me.
“What am I going to do?” I said. But I already knew. I could send money home, it occurred to me with a thrill. Pay off the rest of Michael’s funeral. Buy them a new boiler. And—I took hold of the arm of the chair—I could go on this trip they had planned!
I looked to Isolde, posed there on the green velvet fainting couch. She sat with Reiner and Chartreuse. They’d been playing Ciao Sepp but the cards lay abandoned now before them. She rubbed her thumb with her forefinger as she watched me, waiting to see what I would do. There was something new in her expression; some unearned respect I didn’t know what to do with.
“Hang it all.” Harry laughed. He sat on the hassock and held on to his knees. His penny mouth spread wide and his roomy bottom squashed. He was glad for me. But I thought then and I remembered often afterward that he seemed to be in the throes of despair. When great good fortune falls into your lap, the expressions of everyone else remain with you, like separate packages, to be opened and reopened later, explaining the past.
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