They made their way to his place, where they spent the rest of the day, into the night. At one point she waited in the bed while, still naked, he went into the other room. When he returned, he was wearing a bathrobe and carrying two tumblers, each with a couple of inches of amber liquid.
Rising to lean against the headboard, she pulled the sheet to her shoulders.
“Bourbon,” he said.
Taking the glass, she asked, “Do you drink too much?”
“No,” he replied. “I don’t do anything too much.” He joined her on the bed again, although still robed, and on top of the sheets.
“Too bad,” she said.
“I’ve always thought so. What about you?”
“I walk alone too much.”
“Perhaps I can help with that.”
She sipped the bourbon.
He sensed her allergy to the future tense, and understood it. He, too, had allowed himself to think of his small room as confining time, the brackets on a present moment that would last forever. The silence that came over them now carried implications that were new, and unwelcome. Was the spell broken?
Perhaps he had been the one to crack the enchantment by leaving the room, if only to fetch the booze. In the bathroom, seeing his robe on the hook, he had donned it without thinking, just as, at the sight of him wrapped in the robe when he reappeared, she had automatically pulled the bedclothes up to cover herself.
“You can walk with me to the river,” she said at last. She placed the glass on the bedside table.
“You can stay here,” he said. “We can sleep.”
“I could never sleep, David.”
“I was wrong before. That’s what I do too much of . . . sleeping alone.”
“Going to bed with someone is one thing,” she said with forced levity. “But staying through the night, that is something else. As you know, I have been with a man, but I have never slept with one.”
“In that case, may I be your first?”
“You ask politely. It doesn’t bother you . . . ?”
“The other man?”
“Yes.”
“I trust you. I trust the choices you must make.”
Marguerite shook her head. “I don’t.”
“I understand that,” he said. “But you should.”
She stared at him, and a kind of wonder showed on her face as she registered afresh his simple goodness. Oddly, that worked against him. She shook her head slowly. “There is just a wide, deep . . . something between us. You say ‘void’?”
“Gulf? Chasm?”
“Yes. Far too much separating us. You are good. This was very good of you, receiving me.”
“But it’s impossible?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I told you.”
“Because you are damned.”
“Yes.”
“But didn’t you hear what I told you?”
“You told me that you love me, and I answered you with all that I have to give. But it is not enough.”
“I told you that you are the farthest thing from damned. We came together as lovers, caught up in each other, finally, without really choosing it. Perhaps the emotion of having said farewell to Jocko . . . It was chosen for us. Isn’t that how it felt?”
“Yes, which makes the point.”
“But now, Marguerite, in this aftermath . . . you French have a word for it . . .”
“Tristesse.”
“Yes. Exactly. Between a man and a woman, this is the most important time. Not passion, but calm. If you allowed yourself to know me, you would see a man incapable of giving himself to what is damned.”
“You have given yourself to the death camps.”
“The death camps, for all their horror, are what make you and me know that we are alive. That first day, your passionate demand for what life requires. You would not be refused. You wanted milk for children. You demanded it. Why? L’chaim! You know that word?”
She nodded and whispered, “Life.”
“Marguerite, it’s what I saw in you. And what I love in you. Your deep, unquenched life. Out of which you act so bravely.”
“I am a killer.”
“For life. If you killed, Marguerite, it was for life.”
“But I told you also . . . I am not finished with killing. There is the chasm.”
Warburg said quietly, “‘For wheresoever you go, I will go. Wheresoever you stay, I will stay.’”
When Marguerite turned her face to him, her eyes spilled over. She attempted a smile, but it would not come. “I thought that was what the woman said.”
“But she said it to a woman, so perhaps I am half permitted . . .”
Warburg reached across her to set his whiskey down on the table. Then, as he had in the cemetery, he put his two hands at her face and looked directly at her. Tears were coursing down her cheeks, but she found it possible to return his unrelenting gaze. “I meant everything I said to you before,” he said. “But when I say it this time, it is different. What I am expressing to you is not longing or the fulfillment of a dream. You are not the figment of my desire. I am not your haunting stranger. This is the harsh moment of our difficulty. You are the real woman beside me, and I hear what you are telling me. We know that we are different. We know that obstacles remain. Obstacles that perhaps for others would be impossible. A chasm, too far, too deep. But not for us. Do you hear? Not for us. I love you, Marguerite. And I say that understanding very well that you cannot say it in return to me.”
“If I could . . .” She was sobbing.
He put his finger gently to her lips. “I will wait for you. Do you hear me?”
She nodded and fell against him, clinging to him.
She was correct about not sleeping. And she was right about his walking her to the river. It was deep into the night, and the streets were deserted. Walking along, they held hands, as if they were young. When they came to the bridge that would take her across the Tiber, she stopped him. He wanted to continue with her, but she put her hand firmly on his chest. He nodded and said, “But remember, ‘Wheresoever you go . . .’”
She replied, “‘And your people will be my people.’” She kissed him good night. And he let her go.
Clutching his robes, Father Lehmann ran up to the third-floor apartment, desperate to find his mother, to see that she was all right. When he burst in on her, she was seated at her embroidery table, the floor-to-ceiling window open behind, the soft breeze wafting the gauzy curtain at her side. She was garbed, as usual in the morning, in her plain black silk kimono, formal wear in Japan, but for Lehmann’s mother, with its ample sleeves and loose fit, a lounging dress. That she began her days covered from neck to foot in black had become a joke between them, as if she, too, had given herself to the Church. As always, though, she was wearing typical Argentine footwear, rope and canvas espadrilles, and there was nothing nun-like in the long black braid of hair that curled on her shoulder like a pet, nor in the yellow dahlia pinned by her ear. At the sight of her agitated son, anxiety came instantly into her face. She was a woman ever on the lookout for unhappy news.
The news had come to Lehmann from the woman with whom, as he would now forever think of her, he had fallen from grace. Even in just having confronted the great deceiver, what had amazed him most was that, in some unplumbed depth, he was not surprised. If he had foolishly trusted her, he had never trusted the situation they created together. He’d known from the start that it would somehow end badly. How badly he never imagined.
He had arrived at their hotel room that morning exquisitely on edge with anticipation—he loved their early trysts. The tension of the previous days at the Casa dello Spirito Santo had jangled his nerves, and he was longing to unburden himself to her, ask her advice—but mostly to climb inside her, to fuck. She had been fully clothed, though, sitting at the round, scarred table, smoking a cigarette. She was wearing her blue uniform and the beret with its cross. On the table was a pack of cigarettes. One hand
held her cigarette, the other was in her lap, hidden.
“Sit with me, mein Bonbon,” she said.
It took a moment for him to adjust; this was something new. Dressed. Normally whoever was first to arrive waited under the sheets. He took the second chair, opposite. “Even covered, you are beautiful. I had forgotten that.” He smiled, trusting that she would as well. But her expression did not change.
She leaned toward him. “I have been concerned for you,” she said. “It has been days. Why haven’t I seen you?”
“There has been trouble. The enemies of Croatia have shown themselves. There are Chetniks here in Rome, agents of the Bolsheviks. They are after Pavelic. So far they have been thwarted.”
“But Vukas has not returned to Spirito Santo. The SVC limousine returned, but he was not in it.”
Lehmann stared at her. “How do you know this?”
“I know it,” she said, the totality of her answer.
Lehmann could not think what to say. She was frightening him.
“My darling,” she said finally, “I want you to tell me where Vukas is.”
“How do you know his name?” There was fear in him, yes, but also urgency.
“I know it.” Once more, her abrupt, unprecedented authority. “Where is he?”
Instead of answering, Lehmann stood. He knew at once what this change in her meant. This week’s mystery at the Casa had been: Who is the traitor? He saw: The traitor is me, myself! Seized by the threat she posed, he lunged, to shake her, to choke her. The deceitful bitch.
But she stopped him by slapping the table, bang! With a swift movement she had brought her hidden hand up from her lap, and though the sharp noise had been of metal hitting wood, he saw that her hand was concealed inside a black drawstring bag. The bag was just large enough, he realized, to contain a weapon, a Beretta pistol around which her fingers would be closed. She could kill him on the spot. He all but collapsed, shrank back, stifled a whimper.
It was the reaction she knew would come. In so many ways he had exposed his perfect cowardice to her. “You will tell me where Vukas is, or you can be certain that the Aussenweg fraternity will learn that you have been their enemy. And you know what they will do.”
“My mother. They will harm my mother.”
“No. They will kill her. Where is Vukas?”
Lehmann did not hesitate. “In one of the other Croatian or Franciscan foundations, a monastery, a college, here in Rome.”
“Which one?”
“I do not know. Why would I know?”
“I believe you. But I want you to learn where he is. Tell the Croatians that you are under orders from the Aussenweg operators in Vienna—Germans who must know of Vukas, his condition, his whereabouts, where his authority stands with the Crusade. You explain: for the Germans to continue trusting the Croatian network after the debacle on Via Cassia, they must know. The Croatians will tell you. Write it down—where Vukas is! Leave the message for me in the donation box at the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. You will do this by dusk tonight. Do you understand?”
“Tonight, impossible. I must visit each foundation personally, to make the inquiry seem normal.”
Marguerite saw that. “Tomorrow night, then. The donation box at Santa Maria. Dusk.”
Across Lehmann’s face fell an expression of such pathetic helplessness that she almost pitied him. “Vukas is nothing to you,” she said. “He is important to me.”
“You are Chetnik.”
Without hesitating, Marguerite said, “Yes. I am Chetnik. Get me Vukas and I will spare you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I do not expect you to do this for me. Do it for your mother.”
Marguerite stood. Only now did she withdraw her hand from her bag. He shrank halfway back again, but then he saw that her hand held not the Beretta pistol he’d imagined but a small object, which she placed on the table. His gold lighter. She had no weapon.
Before she closed the door, she looked back. “Goodbye, Father.”
After a moment, Lehmann reached for the lighter, picked it up, traced the Christ symbol with his finger. From now on, this golden object would be a relic of his humiliation.
His mother, with her embroidery hook suspended in midair, was waiting for him to speak. He crossed the room and closed the tall windows beside her, as if for privacy. He spoke in Spanish. “Mother, you must instruct Maria to ready your bags. And her own. We are traveling tomorrow.” From his inside pocket he withdrew a pair of leather passport folders and placed them on her table. “One for you, one for Maria.”
She opened the top folder and found a passport stamped with a coat of arms—an eagle atop an open crown, flanked by columns, the Pillars of Hercules. She recognized the seal and the words beneath, Estado Español. “Spain?”
“Yes. It’s where we are going.”
“But our plans have always been for Mainz, to return home, our beautiful villa overlooking the Rhine.”
We can’t go to Mainz! he wanted to scream. Mainz is ruined for us! Germany is ruined for us! Germans were now his enemy. Any number of Germans would slice his throat open for what he had done, his mortal sin. I have betrayed the sacred trust, Mother. I have betrayed you. The very thought of declaring himself to her was enough to make him nearly vomit. He covered his mouth. Never, never must you know!
His mother flipped the passport open and saw a photo of herself, familiar if not particularly fetching. But the name on the page opposite—Carmela del Socorro. She looked up at her son. “What is this?”
“Mother, you know the situation. The time has come for us to move.”
“But the Holy See protects us. The Holy Father safeguards us. Archbishop Graz shields us.”
“No more. We are exposed here.” The Holy Father now protects those who would kill us. Graz would hand us over.
“Who is this Carmela—?”
“She is you, Mother!” Lehmann banged his hand on her table, knocking the embroidery hoop and its taut fabric to the floor. He had so raised his voice that the servant, Maria, appeared at the door. His mother burst into tears.
She put her hand out, and Maria was immediately there to supply a silk square, with which the Señora covered her face, yet amplifying her sobs instead of stifling them. Lehmann backed away from his mother, horrified. He had not caused her to cry since being a headstrong adolescent. One impulse was to get on his knees and plead for forgiveness, but another, the stronger—because rooted in terror, not guilt—was to move forward with the plan. He turned to the intimidated servant. “Maria, we are traveling tomorrow. You must prepare things. I will come back later. Mother—” Lehmann approached to kiss her, but she faced away, wailing.
Lehmann descended the villa’s wide staircase more rapidly than he’d come up. He dashed into the street, where his car and driver were waiting. He threw himself into the right rear seat. “Vada! Vada!” he said. For a terrible instant he thought that he, too, would break down in sobs, completing his humiliation, exposing him to the peasant contempt of the Italian chauffeur.
Lehmann looked at the back of the man’s head as he shifted gears, pulling the stately auto smoothly into the flow of traffic. How long did Lehmann stare—the considerable tilt of the chauffeur’s hat, the hair too short at his collar, the broader shoulders, the ears flat to the head instead of protruding—before realizing that the man was not his driver? Lehmann’s eyes went to the rearview mirror, where the man’s were waiting. “Good day, Father,” the man said in English, then smiled.
The clean, white American teeth. The trimmed mustache. The bright blue eyes.
“Good God,” Lehmann said, “General Mates.” The priest looked wildly around. “Here?” Coming up on the right was Santa Maria dell’Anima, the German church—Archbishop Graz!
“Relax, Father. No one will take notice. We chauffeurs are invisible. The windows are sealed. We could be in one of your confessional booths.” They whizzed by the church, yet Lehmann remained pressed back into th
e corner of his seat.
The car broke free of the congestion, turning onto the broad Via della Vetrina, heading north, gunning it, taking full advantage of the car’s legal immunity. Even at speed, the American’s eyes were as much on Lehmann, through the mirror, as on the road.
“Look at me.”
Lehmann met the eyes of his handler.
Mates said, “Your having it both ways is over. From now on you are taking orders only from me. What happened on the Via Cassia was too close. What if they had reached the Crusader meeting at Regina Angelorum? You think we snatched Pavelic out of the brig in Salzburg to lose him in Rome? Lose him to bumbling assassins? You think I’m risking the others we’ve lined up?”
“The others are Himmler’s men, of no interest to the assassins,” Lehmann explained. “The assassins on the Via Cassia were Chetniks. The Yugoslavs. They wanted Pavelic. They wanted Vukas. They care nothing for Germans. It was Tito’s Bolsheviks on the Via Cassia.”
“You are stupider than you look, Father. They were Jews.”
“Juden!”
“And the Jews know all about you, you dumb shit.” The general’s eyes bounced back and forth, from the traffic to Lehmann in the mirror. “They have the names of the Croatian sheep you are shepherding. They have the names of the Aussenweg bigshots you are expecting. They know the Road Out runs through the Vatican. They know about the gold. They know about Argentina. Our entire scheme is at risk. And all of this Jew knowledge has to have come through you. You’re the only one besides me with the whole picture.”
“Do they know about you?” Lehmann asked desperately. “If the Jews knew that Americans are partners in this, perhaps they would—”
“You think the Jews want to join me in saving Krauts we can use against Reds? Hell, Jews are Reds.” Mates downshifted to take a curve, like a Grand Prix racer. He had bombed up an incline, into the verdant isolation of Monteverde, a neglected hillside park. “As for your American partners, you dumb prick, my government is on record as wanting these bastards at the war crimes tribunal. You and I are off the record, Padre. Capiche?”
Warburg in Rome Page 32
