And what would happen then? They couldn’t very well do worse than escort him to the frontier, as Generalissimo Balbo’s men had done in Rome nearly ten years ago. But here was the thing to give Lanny pause: if the Kommandant was a really virtuous Nazi, he might go back to his camp and make it impossible for Lanny to corrupt any weakling among his men, by the simple method of taking Freddi Robin and beating him to death and cremating the body.
"I must think of something better," said the grown-up playboy.
BOOK SIX
Blood Hath Been Shed
25. Grasping at air
I
CHRISTMAS was coming; and Irma had been away from her darling for more than three months. It was unthinkable to stay longer. What was Lanny accomplishing? What was he hoping to accomplish? Göring was just playing with him. He was trying to get something out of them, and for nothing. He was keeping them quiet, sealing their lips. Not that Irma minded so very much having her husband’s lips sealed. If only he wouldn’t worry, and fill his mind with horrors so that he started in his sleep!
The Detaze show was over, and a happy development had come. One of the great museums in Dresden had asked to have the paintings for a while; they would treat them in a distinguished way, putting them in a separate room. The art lovers of that Luxusstadt would come and admire them, inquiries would be made, and it would be a good thing both from the point of view of art and of money. Zoltan would be coming and going, and inquiring purchasers could be referred to him. Much better than having the pictures stuck away in a storeroom on a private estate!
Beauty and Parsifal were going to London, on account of the strangest development you could imagine. Lady Caillard had sent a dear friend of hers all the way to Munich to persuade the American couple to come again as her guests, on account of a presentiment which had seized her; she was going very soon to rejoin her beloved "Vinnie" in the spirit world, and she wanted Beauty’s dear man of love to be in her home at that time to close her eyes and take charge of her funeral which was to be like none other in modern times, a thing of joy and not of mourning. The guests were to wear white, and there would be happy music and feasting, all under the sign of "V.B.X"—Vinnie, Birdie, and a Kiss. "Perhaps she will send us some word about Freddi," said Beauty; and then—a horrid thought: "Perhaps she will leave us some of her money."
The museum in Dresden was attending to the pictures, so Jerry Pendleton was free. Irma and Lanny took him with them through a pass in those snow-covered mountains which make for Munich a setting like a drop curtain. They crossed the narrow belt which the Versailles Diktat had left to Austria, and through the Brenner pass which had been included in Italy’s share of the loot. There Mussolini’s Blackshirts were busily engaged in making Aryans into Mediterraneans by the agency of rubber truncheons and dogwhips. It made bad blood between Fascismo and its newborn offspring in the north. Dr. Goebbels’s well-subsidized agitators were working everywhere in Austria, and not a few of them were in Italian dungeons. Optimistic young Pinks looked forward to seeing the Fascists and the Nazis devour each other like the two Kilkenny cats.
Home sweet home seemed ever so humble when you had been dwelling and visiting in palaces; but roses were in bloom beside its gates, and down the drive came racing a treasure without price, a tiny creature in a little blue dress, with dark brown hair streaming and dark brown eyes shining—she had been told two days ago that mother and father were on the way, and had been prattling about them and asking questions ever since. She was more than halfway through her fourth year, and it is astounding how fast they grow; you come back after three or four months and a new being confronts you; you cannot restrain your cries of delight, and a watchful expert has to check your ardors, lest you promote the evil quality of self-consciousness. Irma Barnes, who had been brought up in a play-world herself, had a hard time realizing that a child is more than a plaything for two delighted parents. Irma Barnes, who had always had her own way, had to learn to submit to discipline in the name of that very dogmatic new science of "child study."
Yes, indeed; for even a twenty-three-million-dollar baby has to learn to use her hands, and how shall she learn if someone does everything for her and never lets her make any effort? How will she learn discipline if she always has her own way, and if she gets the idea that she is the center of attention, more important than any of those with whom she has to deal? The severe Miss Severne persisted in the notion that her professional authority must be respected; and likewise the conscientious Miss Addington, no longer needed as Marceline’s governess, but staying on as half-pensioner, half-friend of the family until she would take charge of Frances. Those two Church-of-England ladies had been conspiring together, and enlisted Lanny’s help against a doting mother, two rival grandmothers, and a Provencal cook and major domo—to say nothing of Santa Claus.
II
A merry Christmas, yet not too much so, for over the household hangs the shadow of sorrow; nobody can forget those two bereaved Jewish women and the grief that is in their hearts. Rahel and Mama try their best to restrain themselves, and not to inflict their suffering upon their friends; but everybody knows what they are thinking about. Really, it would be less sad if Freddi were dead and buried, for then at least they would be sure he wasn’t suffering. But this way the worst is possible, and it haunts them; they stay by themselves in the Lodge, their lost one always in the back of their minds and most of the time in the front. They are touchingly grateful for everything that has been done for them, but there is one thing more they have to ask; their looks ask it even when their lips are silent. Oh, Lanny, oh, Irma, emit you think of something to do for poor Freddi?
Hansi and Bess are in the Middle West, giving concerts several times every week. They have cabled money after the first concert, so Mama and Rahel no longer have to use Irma’s money to buy their food. They have offered to rent a little place for themselves, but Beauty has said No, why should they—it would be very unkind. Irma says the same; but in her heart she cannot stifle the thought that she would like it better if they did. She feels a thunder-cloud hanging over the place, and wants so much to get Lanny from under it. She is worried about what is going on in his mind, and doesn’t see why she should give up all social life because of a tragedy they are powerless to avert. Irma wants to give parties, real parties, of the sort which make a social impression; she will put up the money and Beauty and Feathers will do the work—both of them happy to do so, because they believe in parties, because parties are what set you apart from the common herd which cannot give them, at least not with elegance and chic.
Then, too, there is the question of two little tots. They are together nearly all the time, and this cannot be prevented; they clamor for it, take it for granted, and the science of child study is on their side. Impossible to bring up any child properly alone, because the child is a gregarious creature; so the textbooks agree. If little Johannes were not available it would be necessary to go out and get some fisherboy, Provencal, or Ligurian or what not. There isn’t the slightest fault that Irma can find with the tiny Robin; he is a dream of brunette loveliness, he is gentle and sweet like his father, but he is a Jew, and Irma cannot be reconciled to the idea that her darling Frances should be more interested in him than in any other human being, not excepting herself. Of course, they are such tiny things, it seems absurd to worry; but the books and the experts agree that this is the age when indelible impressions are made, and is it wise to let an Aryan girl-child get fixed in her mind that the Semitic type is the most romantic, the most fascinating in the world? Irma imagines some blind and tragic compulsion developing out of that, later on in life.