Marie sat down beside her husband but would not have a drink. She was still trying to lose another five pounds. It was absurd that she should wait for him, since they would both have to go home in their separate cars, but she preferred to do so. The manager brought the ham and herring wrapped in heavy moistureproof paper bearing the name ‘Wally’s Deli’ and a card that said, ‘We are sorry you cannot join us but please call again soon-Wally.’
Max toyed with the parcels. He was pleased that his wife had asked him to get these items. He had worried lest once again the meal was going to be vichyssoise followed by quenelles, purged vegetables and a Bavarian cream. And his wife was not the only one obsessed with these new food-processing machines. Nearly every dinner party they went to nowadays served machine-mashed baby food. Max detested it.
‘Will you write the name cards, Max darling? I always get the spellings wrong.’
‘And what line of business are you in, Mr Stuart?’
Boyd Stuart was sitting next to his hostess but Max Breslow interrupted a conversation about the gasoline shortage to answer down the length of the table, ‘Mr Stuart is considering putting some of his company’s money into a film I’m making.’
There was a silence and then Marie Breslow offered second helpings of her lemon mousse round the table. Max Breslow’s response was a fixed smile of displeasure. Sometimes he wondered whether his wife enjoyed provoking him.
‘Mr Stein was actually there,’ announced Max Breslow suddenly in the silence. He nodded to where Charles Stein was upending a large cut-glass bowl of mousse and scraping the last of it on to his plate.
‘Actually where?’ said the bearded man sitting opposite Stuart. He was a psychiatrist who lived-together with his wife, who taught the art of relaxing to east Los Angeles delinquents-in a split-level town house almost next door to the Breslows.
‘Merkers, Thuringia… a place in Germany. I’m making a film about it.’
‘Oh, that place,’ said the bearded man. ‘Would you think me rude if I poured myself a little more of that German wine? You must be the last people in Westlake holding out against the Californian whites.’
Max Breslow smiled but made no comment.
Stuart said, ‘I’m interested to hear that you were at Merkers, Mr Stein. Did you go into the mine itself?’
‘The place where the treasure was found,’ explained Mrs Breslow to the psychiatrist’s wife.
‘Can’t say I did,’ said Stein. ‘More’s the pity. I would have liked to get my hands on some of that stuff they found in there.’
Charles Stein was too large for the delicate little dining chairs, too large in fact for the dining room with its frail antique dresser and tiny side tables. He sat with his belly resting against the table edge, having finished a large second portion of lemon mousse after emptying the final dregs of the cream jug on to it. Now he had turned his attention to the basket of dark bread and biscuits which accompanied the cheese platter. He selected a slice of pumpernickel and spread it with butter before biting a corner from it.
‘Mr Stein was a friend of the man who first wrote the story,’ explained Max Breslow. ‘He’s going to be a wonderful help to the scriptwriter.’
‘Chuck,’ said Stein. ‘Everyone calls me Chuck.’ He rocked back on the rear legs of the antique dining-room chair. Mrs Breslow watched in open-mouthed horror.
‘You were there?’ persisted Stuart.
‘I was with a quartermaster trucking battalion,’ said Stein. Leaning forward with his knife poised, he chopped a segment of Camembert cheese and popped it into his mouth. ‘Our people moved some of the stuff out of the mine.’ His words were distorted by the cheese in his mouth.
‘Have you been able to contact many people who were there?’ Stuart asked Max Breslow.
‘There are not so many of them left,’ said Breslow. ‘It’s a long time ago and men have died, are sick, have forgotten or wish to forget.’
‘Is it so long?’ said Stuart.
‘Most of the soldiers involved were rear-echelon personnel,’ said Stein, struggling to cut through the rind of the Stilton. ‘The fighting troops were youngsters and in peak physical condition, but the average age of the men in the support units was much higher, and we got the physical rejects too.’
‘From what I heard,’ said Stuart, ‘there was not only gold in the mine. There were paintings, rare books and secret documents too.’
Stein pushed the rest of the cheese and pumpernickel into his mouth so that he could reach forward with both hands to move the vase of carefully arranged flowers. Now Stuart had a clear view of the fat man. He had the sort of figure with which no tailor could cope. Already his white linen suit had become rumpled and creased, and there were gravy stains on his lapel.
‘Rare books,’ said Stein. He nodded. ‘Rare German army material, secret government archives… Nazi stuff and personal documents concerning Hitler himself.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I handled some of it and I saw the inventory sheets. I was an orderly room clerk, They used our mimeograph machine to duplicate the records. One of the sergeants-a man named Vanelli-made an extra copy and kept it as a souvenir.’
‘That sounds interesting,’ said Stuart. ‘Have you kept in touch with Vanelli?’
‘I know where he is,’ said Stein looking Stuart straight in the eyes.
‘I’d like to meet him,’ said Stuart.
‘I doubt that it could be arranged.’
‘Enough film talk,’ said Mrs Breslow, bringing in a large pot of coffee. ‘Let’s all sit on the soft seats, shall we?’ Again she watched Stein tilt back on one of her fragile dining chairs.
‘I’ll tell you this,’ said Stein, not taking his eyes off Stuart, ‘there was stuff in that mine that would destroy Winston Churchill’s reputation overnight.’ His voice was strident and seemed unnaturally loud in the small room.
The bearded psychiatrist turned so that his good ear, rather than his slightly deaf one, was towards Stein and cupped it so that he could hear better. ‘What was that about Winston Churchill?’ he said with mild interest.
‘Rumours, Charles. Rumours,’ Max Breslow told Stein with studied calm. He handed Stein a large glass and took the stopper from a brandy decanter. Stein watched while the brandy poured.
‘Rumours perhaps,’ agreed Stern, slowly and grudgingly like a peevish child.
‘Come and sit in the lounge,’ Max Breslow urged in a warm voice that expressed his pleasure at Stein’s reply.
Everyone at the table got to their feet. The psychiatrist’s wife was the first one into the large lounge that overlooked the man-made lake. At the dock of each house a small boat was tied, humming quietly as it recharged its batteries at the power line. No internal combustion engines were permitted to pollute the water. On the far side of the lake, the residents and guests of other houses gestured and reacted, inside the yellow-lit, plate-glass boxes, a dozen doll’s house dramas reflected in the dark water.
The psychiatrist’s wife spread her arms wide apart and whirled around fast enough to make her long Pucci silk dress float. “That was a divine meal, Marie-Louise.’ She was one of the very few people, apart from Max, who called her Marie-Louise. ‘Have you ever tasted such delicious poulet au champagne, Mr Stein?’
‘No,’ said Stein, ‘I never have.’
‘You are so kind,’ said Mrs Breslow. To what extent her neighbour was trying to demonstrate her psychological skills she could not tell, but she was grateful for her help in smoothing over what could have become an embarrassing scene between Mr Stein and the young Englishman. Mrs Breslow began pouring the coffee into tiny Limoges cups. ‘Try some of the chocolates too,’ she urged Stein with that tone in which diet breakers conspire. ‘Hand-coated brandy cherries from a tiny shop in Munich. Max used to buy them for me before we were married.’