The Eighth Dwarf

24

On the way to the black-market restaurant, Leah Oppenheimer didn’t even seem to notice the huge old roadster or the stares that it attracted. She sat silently in the passenger’s seat, a silk scarf around her head and a small, shy smile on her lips: the kind of smile, Jackson decided, that a proper young woman would wear on her very first date.

After parking the car near the restaurant, he gave a shabbily dressed middle-aged man five cigarettes to watch it. For another two cigarettes the man offered to dust the car off with a dirty rag that he produced from underneath his hat. Jackson shrugged and paid him his price.

The restaurant was called the Blue Fox Cellar, and it was located in the bowels of a building that had been erected sometime in the late eighteenth century. There was nothing left of the building now except for a pile of rubble and a new, jerry-built entrance that was about as inviting as the entrance to a New York subway.

To get to the restaurant itself they had to go down a steep flight of stairs, then along a corridor, and through another door. But before they were allowed through that, they were inspected by an eye that peered out at them from a speakeasylike peephole. Jackson thought that the eye looked beady, but he didn’t say anything.

Past the door, they found themselves in an immense, round room with stone walls and a wide stone staircase that hugged the curving wall as it descended into the dining area thirty feet below. The place was lighted by a number of kerosene lamps and what Jackson estimated to be hundreds of thick, squat candles.

At the bottom of the stairs they were met by a bowing, properly obsequious headwaiter dressed in white tie and tailcoat, who showed them to a table, took their coats, and handed them their menus. Before examining the bill of fare, Jackson looked around at the the other diners.

Most of them were Germans: prosperous, flush-faced men in their forties and fifties. Nearly all of them were accompanied by much younger women who seemed to be eating hungrily. There were also a number of middle-ranking American Army officers: majors and lieutenant colonels mostly, with a sprinkling of captains. The Americans’ women, for the most part, seemed better looking, better dressed, and not quite so hungry. On a small raised platform a four-piece string ensemble played moody waltzes. A few couples danced.

The shock that Jackson got when he examined the menu almost cost him his appetite. The prices were higher than New York’s highest, higher even than the astronomical black-market prices he had paid, in Paris during the week’s leave he had had there in ’45 just before they had flown him out to Burma. He guessed that it was going to cost him 10,000 marks to get out of the Blue Fox Cellar. Ten thousand marks was about fifty American dollars.

Leah Oppenheimer smiled shyly and asked if he would mind ordering for her. Since the menu was written in bad French and boasted caviar and champagne, he ordered both plus coq au vin, a salad, and a Moselle, which the menu claimed to be prewar. He ordered in French, and the German waiter replied in English.

Although the caviar was a bit suspicious and the champagne equally so, the chicken was good, as was the Moselle. Leah Oppenheimer ate and drank everything that was set before her. Afterward, she said that she really didn’t care for a dessert, but wouldn’t mind the coffee and brandy that Jackson proposed instead.

The brandy made her bold, or perhaps just less reserved. With her elbow on the table and her chin cupped in her hand, she gazed at Jackson and said, “You have done this many times, haven’t you?”

“Well, not exactly like this,” he said, thinking of the bill that was yet to come. “This is rather special.”

“I think you have had much experience with many women.”

Jackson could think of nothing to say to that, so he smiled and hoped that it was a noncommittal smile and not a leer.

“But you have never married.”

“No.”

“Do you think you will one day?”

“I’m beginning to wonder.”

“I think you will marry a nice American girl and settle down and live in — in Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

Jackson realized that for her Tulsa was as remote as Timbuktu. Perhaps even more so. “I think you’re a lousy fortune-teller,” he said.

“When I was young, I thought that I would like to get married someday,” she said. “But now, of course, I’m too old.”

“You are pretty old, all right — at least twenty-seven or twenty-eight,” he said, slicing at least a year from her age because he thought it might make her feel better.

“That is old for a European,” she said, and sighed — somewhat dramatically, Jackson thought. He also wondered if she had gone back to reading from her awful script again.

“My friend, Fräulein Scheel,” she said, and paused.

“What about her?”

“She is both very fortunate and very foolish, I think.”

“Why?”

“There is this very nice young American — but you know him, don’t you: Lieutenant Meyer?”

“We’ve met.”

“That’s right; of course. Well, she has allowed him to think that she will marry him, but she has no intention of doing so.”

“What’s the matter — doesn’t she care for Milwaukee?”

“She says he is far too callow a youth.”

She’s reading from the script again, Jackson decided. “Did she say callow?”

They had been speaking English, and Leah Oppenheimer blushed slightly as though embarrassed. “Is that not the correct word — callow? In German it is ungefiedert.”

“It’s the correct word all right. It’s just that Lieutenant Meyer didn’t seem all that ungefiedert to me.”

“Eva has always liked older men,” she said, turning almost confidential. “Even when we were young girls together, she was a terrible flirt. The Scheel family was quite well-to-do before the war, you know, and they had many visitors, and Eva was always flirting with the men, even the ones who were old enough to be her father. I think she misses it.”

“What? The men?”

“No, being well-to-do. I think that finding herself in reduced circumstances is very difficult for Eva.” Jackson by now was almost beginning to believe that there really was a script and that it had been written for her by a Victorian novelist. A lady novelist.

“Didn’t you do any flirting when you and Fräulein Scheel were younger?”

She seemed almost shocked by the suggestion. “Oh, no. I was far too shy.”

“What about later, when you were in Switzerland? There must have been some boys around.”

“But not many Jewish boys, Mr. Jackson. By then, I suppose, there were not too many Jewish boys around anyplace in Europe.”

That was a topic that Jackson had no desire to pursue, so instead he asked her to dance.

That idea also seemed to shock her. “I have not danced since school in Switzerland, and then it was only with other girls.”

“It’s like swimming or riding a bicycle. Once you learn, you never forget.” He wasn’t at all sure that this was true, but he felt that it was probably encouraging.

“I would be awkward.”

“I’m a strong leader.”

“Well,” she said hesitantly, “if you don’t think I—”

“You’ll do fine,” he said.

The string ensemble was playing “As Time Goes By” with a rather methodical Teutonic beat, and at first she was a little stiff. But then she gained confidence, and when she did she allowed herself to relax and move in closer. Jackson decided to find out how she would enjoy dancing cheek to cheek. When she made no move to draw away and even pressed in closer to him, he gave serious consideration for the first time to the possibility of taking her to bed. A little later, when her thigh began to move between his legs, he knew that he would.

She was, Jackson had discovered, remarkable in bed. He lay there in the twisted down comforter, spent and still panting slightly, waiting for his breathing to return to normal so that he could light a cigarette. While he waited, he reviewed the three-quarters of an hour of grappling, probing, tasting, touching, and other rather complicated acrobatics that had gone into their lovemaking.

Leah Oppenheimer sat up in the bed, bent over, and found his shirt on the floor where it had been hastily discarded in a puddle of clothing. She took cigarettes and matches from its pocket, lit one, and handed it to him. He noticed that her face and eyes seemed to be glowing.

“Thanks,” he said.

She watched him smoke for a moment and then said, “So that is lovemaking?”

“That’s it. I can’t think of anything we left out.”

“That was my first time. I’m very glad that it was with you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Was I adequate?”

“You weren’t adequate, you were fantastic.”

“Really?” She seemed pleased.

“Really.”

“I was worried that... well, you understand.”

“Sure.”

“You know when I decided that I would do this if you asked me?”

“When?”

“In Mexico. In the hotel. While we were sitting there with my father. Couldn’t you tell?”

“No.”

“I thought you could. I thought I was very obvious. If my father’s eyes had been all right, I’m sure he would have been able to tell. At least, he would have suspected.”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Was I too clumsy?”

“You weren’t clumsy at all. You were very... inventive.”

That also pleased her. “You’re sure? You’re not just saying so?”

“I’m sure. That thing you did with the ribbon.”

“You didn’t like it.”

“No, it was fine. Quite a sensation. Somebody once told me it was the specialty of a Mexican whorehouse he’d once spent a little time in.”

“Was I like a whore? I tried so hard to be.”

“You were fine. I just wondered how you happened to think it up — the ribbon thing.”

“Oh, that. Well, that came out of the books too. Was it interesting?”

“Extremely. What books?”

“In the villa in Switzerland. My father rented this villa from a man, and it had a library. There was one glass case that was kept locked. I found the key. The books were all written in English, but they had been written a long time ago — in the 1890’s, I think, because everybody went about in hansome cabs. They were mostly stories about what men and women do to each other. I read them aloud to myself sometimes because I thought it would be good for my English. Some of them were very exciting. Occasionally, when they would do something really interesting to each other, I would make a note about it in my diary.”

“For future reference.”

She nodded solemnly. “I thought if I were ever to get married, it would please my husband. Of course, we did not do all that I read about.”

“We didn’t?”

“No, there are many other things. Some of them, I think, are very strange. Do you like strange things?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you want to do this with me again?”

“Very much.”

“I was not sure. You will be going to Bonn, of course — you and Mr. Ploscaru.”

“Tomorrow.”

She frowned — a puzzled, earnest sort of frown. “Do you think they have little whips in Bonn?”

“I have no idea,” Jackson said.

When he let himself into the big house near the zoo, Jackson could hear Ploscaru banging away at the piano as he sang “Deep Purple” in his rich, true baritone. Jackson went through the sliding doors into the large sitting room where the coal fire burned in the grate. The little parlormaid was standing near the piano. She tried to curtsy, but couldn’t very well because she had only her underwear on. Instead, she snatched up the rest of her clothing and ran wordlessly from the room, her face and much of the rest of her a deep crimson. The dwarf finished singing about sleepy garden walls and breathing names with sighs and grinned at Jackson.

“Let’s have a drink,” he said.

“Did I interrupt something or were you already finished?”

“Quite finished, thank you. How was your dinner?”

“Expensive. We’ll be going to Bonn tomorrow.”

“Oh? Why?”

After Jackson finished telling him why, Ploscaru nodded and took a swallow of the drink that Jackson had mixed. “Interesting. The poor man sounds quite mad. Do you think he is?”

“Probably.”

“But still in all, rather cunning. It will be interesting to see where he lived.”

“Where who lived?”

“Why, Oppenheimer. But I didn’t tell you, did I? Of course not. There hasn’t been time. It cost a pretty penny, but I purchased some information from a DP earlier this evening that could be useful. It’s Oppenheimer’s address. It seems that he’s been living in a ruined castle not far from Höchst. We’ll go there tomorrow first thing and then on up the Rhine to Bonn. It should be quite pretty this time of year. We’ll go along the west bank, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Jackson said. “The west bank.”

“I’m glad you agree. You get a much better view of them from the west bank.”

“View of what?”

“Why, of the castles, of course.”

“Of course,” Jackson said.