“Ernst wants to get his hands on the place.”
Zep looked amused. “What’s wrong? Worried he’ll catch a dose in one of his own brothels?”
Lentsch shook his head. “Not here. The Villa. I came over with him on his plane.”
Zep nodded. Lentsch wasn’t surprised. Zep knew most things. Underneath his bonhomie lay a still and watchful mind, poised to strike without a moment’s warning, though what aroused Zep to this action Lentsch found hard to determine: duty, irritation, boredom? Or was it simply the need to devour—like a man’s need for regular sex? Certainly Zep’s appearance after dispatching one of his victims was almost post-coital; happier, fresher, more relaxed. If anyone could deny Ernst his goal it would be him.
“He made a point of telling me,” Lentsch went on. “If we don’t find room for him, he’ll try and get rid of us. And if that doesn’t work he’ll concrete the place over. Just to ruin it.”
Zep seemed unconcerned.
“Well, why don’t we accommodate him?” he suggested. “We could always get rid of Bohde. Ernst can’t be any worse than him.”
Lentsch disagreed.
“I’m not so sure,” he argued. “Bohde maybe a bore, but he’s quiet enough.”
Zep snorted in derision, but Lentsch was not to be put off. “We don’t know what Ernst might get up to,” he insisted. “Isn’t there any dirt on him you could dredge up? Stop him in his tracks.”
Zep ignored him and looked around the room. Molly was introducing Veronica to the artillery officer, holding his arm while she accepted a light for her cigarette. Zep’s face hardened for an instant, and then he asked the first thing that came into his head, simply to regain the momentum of conversation.
“Good flight?”
Lentsch shrugged his shoulders, but, remembering the landing, said, “Teil me. Are you aware that civilians are trying to undermine the safety of the airport?”
Zep grinned. “You mean the runway?”
Lentsch nodded. “Ernst muttered some nonsense about grass growing overnight.”
Zep nodded. “The groundsmen have been cutting the grass extra close so the wheels find it hard to grip. So we’ve had…” He banged his hands together.
Lentsch was worried.
“Shouldn’t something be done about it? That’s exactly the sort of thing Ernst would report back like a shot.”
Zep shook his hand.
“I let them cut it like that when nothing important is coming in. We have lengthened the runway anyway. That way they think they are doing something for their country. They keep their self-respect and in all other matters regarding the airport do as they’re told. That way everyone is happy.”
Lentsch was unconvinced. “But surely it might encourage them to do something worse.”
Zep disagreed. “Never. They know what would happen if they did.” He sliced his throat. “The lot of them.” He banged his glass down. “Come on, Gerhard. Tomorrow we think of how to put a spoke in Ernst’s wheel and other matters. Tonight we drink and make love.”
They had finally got back to the Villa at eleven o’clock. Albert was in the drawing room standing guard over the food—two rhubarb pies, a plate of corned beef sandwiches, three cold chickens and a bowl of baked potatoes with a jar of gooseberry jam by their side. Before the girls trooped off to the billiard room to change, they had all crowded round stuffing themselves as fast as they could. Lentsch went up to his room to fetch his round of cheese. As he came down the stairs he saw Veronica slip one of the potatoes into her handbag. Encouraged by her success she leant in and grabbed a chicken leg. Stepping back she raised the meat to her mouth before letting it fall. As her hand moved to close the clasp, she turned suddenly to where Lentsch stood, watching.
“Whoops,” she said. “Greasy fingers.” She picked it out. “You want?”
Lentsch put his cheese down on a small table and took it from her without a word. Perfume rose off her like tar in a heat haze. He held the leg out to her half-open mouth. Leaning forward, she bit and wrenched and chewed as he held it firm, and then, defiantly, bit again. Her lips were wet and fat and without guile.
“Here,” he said, handing her the cheese. “Before the others get to it,” and he turned, so that he would not know, one way or the other, what she might do with it.
Out in the hall again he picked up the phone and gave the operator Isobel’s number. He let it ring for a minute or more. There was still no reply. Bohde came down the stairs smelling of hair oil.
“Girlfriend flown the coop?” Bohde asked in malicious innocence.
Lentsch changed the subject.
“What was all that about, back at the Casino,” he asked, “with all those nurses Mueller brought?”
“Ah.” Bohde gathered himself up. “It’s to do with my research.”
“Research?”
“I am making a study of the German breast. In art and life. I have asked them if I may not take certain measurements. They are not only nurses, you know. They were all in the League of Girls.”
“And they’ve agreed?”
Bohde nodded.
“As young Germans with a healthy outdoor look on life, they understand the purpose behind my project. It is nothing to do”—he raised his eyebrows as if he had found some pornographic postcards hidden under Lentsch’s bed—“with smut. It will all be carried out under proper conditions. I have promised them that when applying the tape measure I will wear gloves. Warmed beforehand, of course.”
“Of course.” Lentsch couldn’t stop himself from smiling.
Bohde retreated a step to gain height.
“I knew you would poke fan, Gerhard,” he shrilled. “Which is why my findings will not be carried out here. Major Ernst has very kindly lent me the use of his garden. It is very private there. He is lending me some of his foreigns for comparison, too.”
Lentsch felt a sudden chili in the air.
“Ernst? What’s Ernst got to do with it?”
Bohde’s smile was the epitome of complacency. “He is as committed to the protection of the German form as I am. He was one of the key speakers in the Naked and Education Congress of ‘38. Together we hope…” He faltered.
“Yes?”
“To further the cause of Naturism. This…” he swung his arms out, “could be its home.”
Lentsch was appalled. Ernst had got one foot in the house already.
“I didn’t know you two were so well acquainted,” he said coldly.
“We have much in common. This afternoon he came back specially to chair an illustrated discussion on communal nudity and the pubescent male child.” Bohde thrust himself forward again. “The genitals,” he said, patting the front of his trousers, “once they become hidden under woollens and such, find it difficult to distinguish between that…” he nodded in the direction of the drawing room, “and the correct thing.”
“What’s wrong with the women here?” Lentsch protested. “There’re all white, Anglo-Saxon.”
Bohde looked at him smugly.
“But they are not German, Major, and therefore, whatever their ‘credentials’, they cannot be of the same quality. If this is true of art and music, which it certainly is, it must be true of life itself. You should come to one of our lectures. They’re really most instructive.” He sidled past into the drawing room.
It was one o’clock now and the party showed no signs of flagging. Veronica wore plain pink flannelettes while Molly was dressed in a pair of purple silk pyjamas tucked into a spare pair of Zep’s riding boots. Bohde lay in an armchair with one eye open, watching Wedel dance with one of the few nurses who, despite Zep’s strictures, was still dressed in her uniform. Of Isobel there was no sign. Lentsch sat disconsolately on the sofa, his head swimming with an evening’s drink and music he had not played to her. He turned to Veronica. He wasn’t sure what he wanted now. Hilde Hildebrand’s voice came on the gramophone, her low confessional soaring into that empty space of helplessness. Liebe Ist Ein Geheimnis. Love is a Secret.