“Nobody gets hurt.” Not wanting to go further, coaxing her back.
“Someone you meet at a party. Why not her?”
“Is that what it feels like to you?”
She looked at him for a second, her eyes opening wider, then pulled him closer, leaning her head into his.
“Make love to me,” she said, her voice quick and raspy.
He glanced over the side of the pool. “The chaise,” he said, kissing her.
“Yes, on the chaise,” she said, amused. “Like an odalisque.” She took his hand, urgent again, leading him up the shallow steps, shivering a little as the breeze touched them.
He held her to him, his body a blanket, then lay down next to her.
“Now you seduce me,” she said.
“You have to want me to,” he said, stroking her. “That’s how it works.”
She pulled herself up, her wet hair falling on him, then took his penis into her, straddling him. She closed her eyes, just feeling him there for a second, then slowly sat up, moving just a little, looking down on him. “This time we don’t have to hurry.”
This time it was slow enough to feel everything, every part, until they came again, gasping, and then fell back together, not talking, just breathing. Ben could see the city lights in the distance, hear the palm fronds overhead clicking in the soft air, the sound of paradise.
After a while it turned cooler, and he went over to the changing cabana and brought back two robes. She wrapped herself in one and reached for a cigarette pack on the table, then crunched it up.
“There are more in the house,” she said. “Can I get you anything? A drink?”
He shook his head, then raised the back of the chaise to sit upright. He watched her go in, a blur of white through half-closed eyes, and leaned back, smelling the night flowers. A light went on in the house. In a minute, he knew, his body would start to go limp and he’d drift, the animal languor that came after sex. Everything else could wait until tomorrow-what had happened, what it would mean. Now there was just this.
“Ben.” She was back at the door, her body tense, voice nervous. She waved him toward her, as if she were afraid of being overheard.
He crossed the patio, tilting his head in a question.
“Somebody’s been in the house,” she said, keeping her voice low.
“What?”
“In the office. Things were different. Moved. I could tell.” She put her hand on his arm. “Maybe they’re still here.” Her eyes darting, upset.
“You’re sure? You didn’t lock the doors?”
“Of course I locked the doors. This one, too,” she said, nodding to the patio door. “Sometimes Iris forgets.”
He looked down at the door handle. No scratches or chipped paint, but an easy lock, he guessed, for someone who knew how.
“What if they’re still here, ” she said, gripping his arm tighter.
“Calm down. There’s no one here.” He thought of them on the bed, grunting, someone watching-but they would have felt that, sensed anyone’s presence, wouldn’t they? “I’ll walk through.” He flicked on a light. “Is anything missing?”
“I don’t know. I just went to the study, for cigarettes.”
“What was moved?”
“Little things. On the desk.”
“Maybe Iris-”
“No. It didn’t seem right. I could feel it.”
“Another feeling?”
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said, almost snapping. “Someone was here. In the house.” She clutched the top of her robe tighter, her voice rising a pitch.
“All right, I’ll look. Where do you keep your valuables?”
She looked at him blankly.
“Jewels,” he said. “Cash.”
“Jewels? Just the pearls-in the bedroom.”
But the bedroom was untouched, except for the bed, the spread twisted and still damp from sex. Nobody had taken anything from the bureau drawer, the velvet box with earrings and a clip. There was still money under the handkerchiefs.
He went through the rest of the house, turning on lights, Liesl close to him, still anxious, fear bobbing just beneath the surface. Not just an intruder, a more general violation.
“Ever have any trouble before?” Ben said.
“No, it was safe. I was safe here.”
“You’re still safe,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “Stop.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said, not really hearing him. “Every knock. Always looking back. I thought it was different here.”
“Liesl, nothing’s missing. So, just in here?” he said, turning in to the study.
She nodded. “The desk. Somebody went through the desk.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s different. Look at the blotter-see the one end out? To look under. See for yourself. You know his drawers.”
She picked up the cigarettes, lighting one now, her hand shaking, then stood watching him go through the drawer. Everything seemed the same. Until the second drawer, the folders of personal papers. The police accident report, jammed at the end, not where he’d put it.
“What?” she said, seeing him hesitate.
“Something’s out of place.”
He went through the envelope, flipping through the photos.
“Everything’s here. Probably where I put it, just looked different.”
“No, you noticed.”
“Liesl, why would someone break into the house and not take money-anything-just go through a desk?”
“His desk.”
“All right, his desk.”
She inhaled smoke, then folded her arms across her chest, holding herself in. “It’s what you said. I didn’t believe you. Why would anybody do that? I thought it was just your way of-” She broke off, hearing herself, racing. “But it’s true, isn’t it? Maybe I always knew it. That he wouldn’t. I didn’t want to be afraid. And now they’re in my house. Somebody killed him and they’re still not finished. What do they want?”
“I don’t know,” he said, coming over to her.
“Maybe they think I have it-whatever they want.”
“They didn’t go through your things. Just his.”
“I can’t stay here. Listening. Any noise. I’ll go to my father’s.”
He took her by the shoulders, as if he were holding her down before she could fly away.
“I’m here. You’re just nervous, that’s all. I’ll be right next to you. All night.”
“Oh, next to me, and what will Iris think?” An automatic response.
He smiled at her. “The worst, probably.”
“How can you joke?”
“I’ll check the doors. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise.” He kissed her forehead. “If you’re worried about the house, I’ll talk to somebody. Make it safe.”
“Who?”
“Guy I met. He’d know.”
She dropped her head to his chest. “When is it going to be over? The phone rings-your husband’s in-when was that? And it’s still not over. What did he do? Go with Rosemary? And he’s dead for that? It’s crazy. And now you. What am I doing? His brother.” She raised her head. “Maybe that’s crazy, too. My lover.”
“Say that again,” he said, brushing her hair.
She looked away. “Oh, that doesn’t make it any better.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense. It happens. We wanted it to.” He paused. “We seduced each other.”
“So nothing makes sense.”
“What happened to him. We have to make sense of that.” He touched her hair again. “Just that.”
Liesl’s father’s birthday went exactly as predicted. Dieter read a long prepared toast, then Ostermann stood up for his own prepared thank-you. The others were more spontaneous, but none of them brief. “The Conscience of Germany,” a glib phrase from Time, had now become a kind of honorary title, his own von. The toasts ran to form: the books, the humanitarian concerns, the early courage in speaking out, all noted before and repeated now, familiar as myth.
The dinner itself followed a prescribed pattern. It had been called for late afternoon, a throwback to the curfew days when aliens had to be home by eight, and the food, according to Liesl, was unvarying- steaming bowls of chicken soup with liver dumplings, boiled beef with horseradish, potatoes, and red cabbage, followed finally by Salka’s chocolate cake, a menu that seemed designed to weigh people down in their chairs for the toasts. Later, after the brandies, there would be coffee and mohn cookies, more winter food as the California sun poured through the window.