“Don’t be dramatic, Johannes.”
“Are you forgetting that your status depends on mine?”
“You mean being the wife of a baron?”
“I don’t notice that his presence is any hardship.”
“Just awkward,” she said. “Just one of those ridiculous situations.”
“I don’t notice-” he began again, but she didn’t let him finish.
“What makes you think your beggar is going to give you whatever you want because I go to bed with him?”
“I’m not interested in your methods, Renette.”
“Of course not,” she said. Of course not. Only results. Then she had to smile. She wasn’t much different from him. When he had sent for her, kept her with him and given her the things her family had long been without, she hadn’t cared what the cost of the luxury was. And she hadn’t cared when Kator found it expedient that she should marry the Baron von Lohe; and she hadn’t cared that she and the Baron were just a showpiece together. There were other men. One would have done, she knew, but she hadn’t found him. So there would be others.
“His name is Jesso,” Kator said. “Jack Jesso.” Then he explained what made Jesso important, that Renette had to get it out of him, whether Jesso was bluffing or whether he really knew what Snell had known.
“When do you want me to start?”
“Tonight.”
“Shall I tell Helmut?”
“Suit yourself,” Kator said, and left the room.
Chapter Twelve
They sat in the dining room with the high ceiling lost in the dark because there were only the yellow wall lights over the buffet and the two candelabra on the table. They all sat in their seats being formal with knife and fork and a sip of wine now and then. Kator sat looking at von Lohe and Jesso sat looking at Renette. He had a good view
Renette might have been alone at the table or she might have been in the middle of a cluster of men, all looking at her. She sat unconcerned, just there, the way a magnet is unconcerned.
She wore a dress like a second skin, long-sleeved and naked on top. There was a very fine chain around her neck with a pearl that rolled a little each time she breathed. It lay off center on her bare skin and kept rolling there.
Hofer wasn’t serving. Hofer carved and poured wine. Two stripe-vested servants did the work and Hofer just hovered.
They sat around as phony as people in an ad. Like a whisky ad showing how only the very best people drink only the very best whisky. Jesso sipped wine the way they all did and thought of whisky, even the very worst whisky. He wasn’t nervous. He never drank whisky when he was nervous, but a raw drink right then would have helped.
Kator was talking to the Baron. “Any progress this afternoon?”
Von Lohe swallowed and answered as if he had just waked up. “Yes, Johannes. Oh, yes. We must discuss it. After dinner.”
“Not business, Johannes.” Renette gave him a smile with a question in it. “We must think of our guest.” She nodded at Jesso, moving her head at him in a gesture that was beautifully done. Jesso wished she would do it again.
“By all means,” said Kator, and he moved his head too. It was more like a muscled python making another slow loop before the kill. “Even though Mr. Jesso might be too polite to object,” Kator was saying, “we should perhaps discuss business at some other time.”
Nobody waited for Jesso to say anything, because Kator was dabbing at his mouth, which meant he wasn’t through yet.
“On the other hand, as an American, Mr. Jesso might find talk about business a very fitting topic after a meal. In fact,” said Kator, “his business acumen might be-“
“You mean talk about the Zimmer matter?” Von Lohe sounded surprised.
“Of course not,” said Renette. “Johannes was only teasing. And besides, Mr. Jesso hasn’t given his view yet. It should be his decision how we spend the evening.”
She had a thought there. And the way she smiled at him, Jesso had a moment’s crazy thought that she might even listen.
“Of course,” said Kator. “There must be topics just as universal as business. Eh, Jesso?”
Jesso could think of one.
“I can think of one,” said Helmut, and he raised his glass. “To love!” He saluted Renette, drank some wine, and looked pleased with his conversation.
“Of course.” Kator leaned back, dabbing at his mouth.
“I should like to hear Mr. Jesso on the topic of love. Had you thought of the same thing, Mr. Jesso?”
“What thing?”
“Love, Mr. Jesso.”
“I was thinking of women,” he said.
Right then Renette became all hostess, telling Hofer to serve the coffee in the music room, and then she got up.
They all sat around her in the music room and Helmut said we must have that piano tuned. Renette nodded, and Jesso drank coffee. Kator didn’t talk for a while, but then he started to toy with an unlit cigar, and when Renette was through with her sentence about Helmut’s Turkish cigarettes he got up and made a small bow.
“Forgive me, Renette, but Helmut and I must discuss a few matters. We may rejoin you later.”
So Jesso and Renette stayed alone. The music room wasn’t large, but the chandelier and the silk on the wall made it all very cold. So did the grand piano. It was large and black and the lid was down.
“Do you play, Mr. Jesso?”
“No. Never did.”
“I don’t either,” she said, and she smiled as if she were relieved. “I don’t like to play the piano and I don’t like to talk business.”
“If you got any other universal subjects-” but she laughed again and he didn’t have to finish.
“No,” she said. “But I’m glad they’re gone.”
The way that room was lit up and all silk, grand piano, and glass-topped tables, there was nothing warm about it. But Jesso didn’t notice it any more. She leaned over to place her cup on a table and Jesso watched the small pearl swing free. Then it lay there again, rolling a little on the curved skin.
“You needn’t look so glum about it,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“My pearl.”
“I’m not glum, Mrs.-Frau-”
“Frau Baronin, if you want to be formal, Mrs. von Lohe if you’re just polite. Are you polite, Mr. Jesso?”
“Like the next fellow.”
“Oh, no. Not like Johannes or my husband. That’s why I’m glad they left.”
They looked at each other. She looked back at Jesso as if she were never afraid.
“Who’s Kator?” he said, because he wanted to know.
“He married us. He is my brother.”
Her brother. She sat still, letting him look at her. He tried to find in her some similarity to Kator. He thought perhaps the eyes, but then that was gone too because all he saw was Renette, breathing there with that goddamn pearl winking at him.
“You don’t like him at all,” she said.
“Who cares?”
“I do, in a way.”
Jesso sat still. It was like the moment before a jump.
“Why?” he said.
“I don’t want him to get in the way.” After she said “way,” her mouth was still open, just parted, and nothing was in the way when the moment before the jump was gone and Jesso held her as if he had always been holding her.
She had given back the kiss but she hadn’t moved. Jesso sat up again. Her eyes were as they had been before, just looking at him, and then she put her hands where the dress ended on top and pulled it up. She did that while she said, “He didn’t get in the way,” and it sounded wrong. It made the gesture with the dress almost public, and it made Kator more present.
Now he wanted her more. Now he wanted her because she was there and not there, because he had started but had hardly started at all. And Renette looked to him as if she had waited a thousand years and all that kept him back was the puzzle of what waiting meant to her; whether waiting was an indifferent habit or whether it meant that the wait had grown like a fever and was searing her now, close to the end…