The Lady from Zagreb

Twenty-nine

I stalked back to the door and, followed by one of the dogs, went outside. I didn’t much care if it got out of the house. It wasn’t my dog. I lit a cigarette and sat on the shiny bonnet of the car, hardly caring if I marked the new paintwork. It wasn’t my car. The morning was already a warm one; I threw my jacket into the backseat of the Mercedes next to the flask of homemade rakija I’d brought as a present for Dalia from Bosnia, and tossed some stones into an ornamental pond that was full of koi carp. It wasn’t my pond. I waited awhile and when the big door opened again, I flicked the cigarette into the garden. It wasn’t my garden. Dalia walked toward me and stood silently in front of the front passenger door. She wasn’t my wife but I could certainly have wished she had been instead of the one I already had back in Berlin. Her golden hair was collected in a little bun at the back of her head and this added a regal touch to her Nefertiti neck, although that might as easily have been the sapphire-and-diamond necklace that was wrapped around it. She was wearing a navy blue dress; I might have said a plain navy blue dress except for the fact that nothing that was worn by the lady from Zagreb could ever have looked plain. She smiled a slight, rueful smile and then put her hand on the door handle of the car.

“Are we going somewhere?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Now that you’ve been banished from the house, I thought we could just sit in the car and talk awhile.”

I opened the door and she got in. I went around to the other side.

“Well, this is cozy,” I said, closing the door behind me.

“Shut up and give me a cigarette.”

I lit her and she took a long hard drag on it.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I didn’t expect Stefan back home until tomorrow. He just turned up in the middle of the night.”

“I guessed as much.”

“What on earth did you say to him?”

“Not much.”

“He says you were rude.”

“Only because he’d been rude to me.”

“That doesn’t sound like Stefan. His manners are usually impeccable. I’ll say that for my husband.”

“Are they? I watched him pour himself a coffee without offering me a cup.”

“Ah, I see. So that’s it. You have to understand, Stefan is an aristocrat. He could no more serve you with his own hand than he could sweep the floor.”

“He answered the door, didn’t he?”

“I wondered who answered it. I thought it was Agnes, my maid. I gave Albert the day off. Because you were coming. I wanted us to be alone in the house. I’ve thought about nothing else since you called last night.”

“Albert?”

“The butler.”

“Of course. I generally answer the door myself when my own butler’s busy polishing the pewter, or fixing the dripping tap in my drafty garret.”

“You make it sound rather romantic.”

“My life in Berlin — it’s La Bohème, right enough. Right down to the cough and the frozen hands in winter.”

“All the same, I wish we were there right now, Bernie. Naked. In bed.”

“My hotel room at the Baur au Lac’s not much to look at. But it’s still bigger than my apartment. The bathroom’s bigger than my apartment. We could go there now, if you like. The front desk will very likely report us to the Swiss police but I think I can survive the scandal. In fact, I think I might rather enjoy that, as well.”

“I will come,” she said. “But it will have to be this afternoon. Around two o’clock?”

“I certainly can’t think of anything else I’d rather do in Zurich.”

“Only this time I’d like you to take more than twice as long doing what you did to me the last time we were in bed. Or, as an alternative, you could do something you’ve never done before. To any woman. You understand? You could do something you’ve only ever dreamed of, perhaps. In your wildest dreams. Just as long as you can make me feel like a woman is supposed to feel when a man makes love to her.”

“I’d like that. And two o’clock sounds good. But there’s something I have to tell you first, Dalia. It’s about your father.”

“Oh dear, I’d guessed it wasn’t going to be good news when Stefan told me you wouldn’t tell him about Papa.”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m more or less certain that your father is dead.”

I would have felt a lot more guilty about this egregious lie if Dalia’s father hadn’t been such a monster. Nonetheless I did feel guilty.

“Oh. I see. You went there? In person? To the monastery in Banja Luka?”

“Mm-hmm. By car. All the way from Zagreb, which is a journey I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. I spent several hours in the monastery, having dinner with the monks. The Father Abbot told me that your father had left the monastery and joined the Ustaše. I’m afraid I got the impression that the Father Abbot strongly disapproved of your father, Dalia. Maybe because he left the Franciscan order, but more likely because of some of the things that the Ustaše has done. Like all civil wars, I think some cruel things have been done on both sides. After that, I went to the Ustaše headquarters in Banja Luka and it was there I learned that Father Ladislaus was now called Colonel Dragan and a bit of a local hero; and then, that he was dead. Killed by communist partisans in a skirmish in the Zelengora Mountains. This was later confirmed in Zagreb. Things are pretty rough right now in Croatia and Bosnia, what with the war and everything. I saw several people killed while I was there. The men I was traveling with — ethnic Germans in the SS — they were a bit trigger-happy. You know, the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later type. It’s chaos, quite frankly, and getting accurate information is hazardous. But I’m as certain as I can be that he’s dead. And I’m sorry.”

“That must have been horrible for you, Bernie. I’m sorry. But I’m grateful, too. Very grateful. It sounds like it was dangerous.”

I shrugged. “A certain amount of danger is part of the job.”

“Does Josef know? About my father.”

“Of course. He sent me down here to tell you and bring you back to Berlin. Or at least to persuade you to turn up to work at the studio.”

“Well, I had to try. Or rather, someone did. You do see that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Believe me, nothing could be more understandable. With your mother dead, it makes perfect sense that you should have wanted to find your father again.”

“After all, it was she who fell out with him, not me. A father is supposed to mean something. Even one you haven’t seen in an age.” She took another fierce drag at her cigarette. “I thought I’d be more upset. But I’m not. Does that strike you as a bit strange?”

“No, not really. After all, you must have suspected he was dead, given that your previous letters were never answered.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“And it strikes me that you’re no worse off than you were before. At least you know now. For sure. You can put it all behind you and get on with the rest of your life.”

“There is that to think about, yes.”

“What will you do? About the movie, I mean.”

“I don’t really know. If I come back to Berlin, then perhaps I can see you, of course. That’s on one side. To be quite frank with you, Bernie, you’re the only good reason I have for going back to Germany now. On the other side’s the fact that I don’t particularly want to work on this stupid movie with Veit Harlan. I can’t imagine it’s going to do my career any good in the long term to make a movie with a notorious anti-Semite like him. It’s bad enough that I was in The Saint That Never Was. I just know I’m already going to have a hard job living that one down. There’s that and the fact that Josef Goebbels wants to make me his mistress. Believe me, he’ll do his damnedest to find a way to make that happen. He’s devious and unscrupulous and you’ve no idea the trouble I’ve already had keeping that little Mephisto from conjuring me out of my underwear. It’s one of the reasons I came here. To escape from him.”

“I’ve a pretty shrewd idea of what he’s capable of. I’ve been subject to quite a bit of pressure myself, angel.”

“Yes, I suppose you have.”

“In fact, you don’t know the half of it.”

“Maybe not. But look, there’s something I have to tell you. I don’t know that it’s very important in the scheme of things. But I’ve fallen for you, and in a big way. While you were away in Croatia I thought about you day and night.”

“Me too.”

“And it’s no different now that you’re back. I’m having a hard job keeping a smile on my face.”

“Stefan doesn’t know about us, does he?”

“No. But suspicion of every man I know is his default state of mind. Even when there’s absolutely nothing in it.” She wound down the window and dropped her cigarette onto the gravel. “Yes, you heard what I said. Oh, don’t look so shocked, Bernie. You’re not exactly my first lover. Where does it say that women must behave one way and men the other? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Besides, according to Josef’s telegram, you’re the one who just got married. When were you planning to tell me? In bed this afternoon? Or did it just slip your mind?” She laughed and took my hand. “I’m not in the least bit angry, darling. After all, I’m hardly in a position to lecture you on your morals. Although I am a bit jealous, perhaps. It’s true what I said about falling for you. Under the circumstances that sounds so much more of an insurable risk than saying ‘I love you.’ Although that would also be a tiny bit true.”

“My marriage. It’s not what you think.” I was feeling slightly wrong-footed at the frankness of both of her admissions.

“I think it probably is, you know. Most people usually get married for the same two reasons. Stefan married me for love. That’s one reason. But I married Stefan because he was rich and because it made me a baroness. That’s the other. He knows that. Before we got married I told him I would take the occasional lover and he seemed quite sanguine about that. In the beginning, anyway. With the exception of arranged marriages and dynastic alliances between two royal families, that probably exhausts the explanations for most modern marriages. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I doubt that even King Henry the Eighth has ever encountered the reason I got married,” I said, and told her about Kirsten, her problem with the SD, and how Goebbels had blackmailed me into marrying her.

“That’s the most romantic thing I ever heard,” she said plaintively. “I take it all back. I thought men like you only existed in stories that involve round tables and shining armor. You really are a saint, do you know that?”

“No, it’s just that sometimes I have to do saintly things to balance things up a bit.”

She made a fist and shook her head. “Christ, what a shit that man is. You know, I really don’t think I will go back to Germany. Not for him and his stupid film. Someone else from UFA can do it. One of those bottle blondes in the chorus he’s always screwing.”

“Don’t say that. The fact is I’ve fallen for you, too. And my chances of coming back to Switzerland before this war is over are about as slim as my chances of surviving it unscathed.”

“Now it’s my turn to object to your choice of words.”

“It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. The Russians are going to make certain of that.” I shrugged. “But what about your career? You’re a movie star. You’d really give that up?”

“I told you before. I’m really not that interested in acting. I’d rather study mathematics. I can still take up that place at Zurich Polytechnic. And what’s going to happen to anyone who’s involved with the German film industry when the Russians turn up?”

“You have a point there.”

“There’s this to consider, too. If I go back. Which I seriously doubt I will. Goebbels wouldn’t be nearly so understanding of my foibles as my husband. If I did get involved with Josef, or if he found out that you were an obstacle to his having a relationship with me, he could make your life very unpleasant, Bernie.”

She seemed to have thought of everything.

“It would be worth it,” I said.

“No, my love,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re saying. But look, maybe love will find a way. And we still have Zurich and this afternoon. In your hotel room at the Baur au Lac. What could be more romantic? Now that you’re here, please, Bernie, please, I beg you, let’s make the most of it.”