“Friendly fellow,” Ginzburg said, watching the farmer’s face. “The sturdy peasant, the backbone of Europe.” He turned to Langhof. “How far to the railway station?”
“Only a few kilometers,” Langhof said. “But what I was saying. You know, about the Camp, about watching those people. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Perhaps a nice soufflé,” Ginzburg said with a wink.
“Please don’t joke,” Langhof pleaded.
Ginzburg turned back to face the road. “So serious, Doctor,” he said. “It’s not good for the heart.” He looked at Langhof. “Have you ever been to London?”
“No,” Langhof said dully.
“Beautiful city. Lots of nightclubs, that sort of thing. Plenty of places for a comedian to try out new material.”
Langhof pressed the accelerator. “I’m trying to learn something,” he said, “about this place.”
“Perhaps there’s nothing to learn. Have you ever thought of that?” Ginzburg asked. He took a deep breath. “It happened. It’s still happening. No need to chase your tail endlessly about it.”
Langhof shook his head despairingly. “I don’t believe you mean that.”
“I’m tired of talk,” Ginzburg said. “By the time you talk about something, it has already happened, so what’s the point?”
Langhof pulled a packet of cigarettes from his coat and offered them to Ginzburg.
Ginzburg withdrew a single cigarette and put it in his mouth.
“Take the pack,” Langhof said.
Ginzburg laughed. “The pack? Don’t be so charitable, Doctor. I probably have more cigarettes in my room than you do.”
Langhof returned the pack to his pocket.
“Don’t treat me like your personal object of guilt, Langhof,” Ginzburg said. “I don’t like that. In fact, I loathe it. Your problem is with yourself, not me.” He lit the cigarette and took in a long draw. “What are we picking up in the village, anyway?”
“General medical supplies,” Langhof replied.
“Do you know what kind?”
Langhof shrugged. “Antibiotics. Aspirin.”
Ginzburg grinned. “Phenol?”
Langhof’s lips tightened. “Yes.”
Ginzburg blew a shaft of white smoke into the rushing air. “You’re depending upon the Allies, aren’t you?”
Langhof looked at him. “For what?”
“To get you out of the Camp.”
Langhof nodded. “Of course. Aren’t you?”
Ginzburg flicked the cigarette from his fingers. “The Camp is a rumor mill. We hear that Paris is in flames, that there is nothing still standing in London. What is left of Europe, I wonder?”
Langhof swerved to avoid a large puddle of icy water. “How long did you live in London?”
“Only a few months. A brief engagement at a small club in South Kensington.”
“Did you like it there?”
“The audiences are dull,” Ginzburg said. “Too much warm beer and tasteless food. They have the worst food in the world. Everything tastes like gruel.”
“You prefer Paris?” Langhof asked.
Ginzburg smiled. “I was almost married in Paris.” He turned to Langhof and winked again. “I may have relatives there.”
“Really?” Langhof asked. “Uncles, aunts?”
The corners of Ginzburg’s mouth crinkled mischievously. “No,” he said, “but perhaps a little boy or girl with a rather odd sense of humor.”
They arrived in the village a few moments later. The train was puffing at the station, white steam billowing from the engine.
“You won’t try to escape, will you?” Langhof asked almost playfully, as he stepped from the jeep.
“To where, Doctor?”
Langhof nodded and walked into the station. He returned with a large package and dropped it behind the front seat.
Ginzburg glanced at the box. “Well, I suppose we’ve done our assignment for the day,” he said.
Langhof shrugged and pulled himself in behind the wheel. “I wish it could have taken longer.”
“It was a pleasant excursion,” Ginzburg said.
Langhof started the engine, backed the jeep slowly into the road, and began to drive back toward the Camp.
After they had left the village, Ginzburg shifted around and looked back at it in the distance. “Pretty in the snow,” he said.
“Yes.”
Ginzburg continued to watch the village. “I’ve played a few little towns like that,” he said. He turned to face the road. “The worst ones are in Switzerland. The Swiss always make a bad audience for a comedian.”
Langhof continued to watch the road. “No sense of humor?”
Ginzburg glanced at Langhof. “None whatever. There’s a saying in the trade. ‘The Swiss only laugh for comedians who hand out money.’”
Langhof smiled slightly. “Well, I’m not much better. I never had much of a sense of humor.”
“It’s something you’re born with,” Ginzburg said. “You either have it or you don’t.”
“Were you always … well … a comic?”
“It’s the only thing I ever wanted to be,” Ginzburg said. “It’s quite an honored profession, you know, being a fool. Shakespeare loved us, of course, and Chaucer was a comic to the bone.”
Langhof buttoned the top button of his overcoat. “It’s getting colder.”
Ginzburg did not seem to notice. “It’s an aphrodisiac, you know.”
Langhof glanced at him. “What? Comedy?”
“Laughter,” Ginzburg said. “Really, it is. Get a woman laughing, and you’re halfway there.”
“Perhaps that explains my lack of success in that area,” Langhof said, trying to bring a certain lightness to his voice.
“Haven’t had much of a love life, Doctor?” Ginzburg asked.
Langhof shook his head. “Not much, I’m afraid.”
“Have you missed it?”
Langhof nodded. “Yes, I think I have.”
“Too bad,” Ginzburg said airily. He tossed his head to the right and watched the landscape flow past.
“I suppose you’ve always been covered with women,” Langhof said after a moment.
“Up to the eyebrows.”
“That must have been pleasant for you,” Langhof said and, to his surprise, felt a small jolt of envy.
“Very pleasant, as you might imagine,” Ginzburg said.
“Always kept them laughing, I suppose.”
“At least until they were naked,” Ginzburg said, “then I gave them what they wanted.”
“And I can guess what that was.”
“Not sex alone, if that’s what you mean, Doctor,” Ginzburg said.
“Really? What, then?”
Ginzburg turned toward Langhof. “Well, just to be taken seriously,” he said, “just to be taken very seriously for one moment in their lives.”
“That’s all?” Langhof said, smiling. “I should be able to master that.”
“Perhaps,” Ginzburg said. He suddenly seemed indifferent to the whole question.
For a long time they rode in silence. Ginzburg watched the snow-covered countryside with an expression of almost childlike longing, while Langhof allowed his mind to toy with ideas of miraculous escape.
“I once heard Piaf sing,” Ginzburg said finally. “My God, it was the saddest voice.”
“That woman in Paris,” Langhof said. “The one you almost married. What was she like?”
Ginzburg scratched his chin. “She was a teacher.”
“In the university?”
“Nothing so exalted. Just a public school teacher. An American, as a matter of fact.”
“Did you meet her in Paris?”
“Yes.”
“Where? I mean, under what circumstances?”
Ginzburg looked closely at Langhof. “Does it matter, Doctor?”
“I was just curious.”
Ginzburg turned back toward the road. “She saw my act at one of those little cabarets. She was a tourist, that’s all. She came back to tell me how much she enjoyed it.”