Toward one o’clock the more strait-laced had made their departures and the party broke into splinter groups drifting to one of the many lush parlors adjoining the ballroom.
In another hour the guests would include only Dr. Koenig’s intimate circle of ten or twenty and the new imports from Berlin. The serious business of an orgy would begin.
Chris’s cup had run over. He was in that state of inebriated calm when all of the tensions within him seemed gone for the moment. In the library he rested his head on the shoulder of a young German model. She was delighted to have found an Italian and he said that it was some time since he had had a German girl, so it should be fun. The room was quite dark, lit only by candelabra and some light filtering in from the main ballroom.
His German girl was approached by Koenig’s aide and spoke so rapidly that Chris could barely decipher it through the alcoholic haze. Apparently she was essential to an act and could not be dispensed with. She eased away with apologies and promises. Chris yawned and shut his eyes for a moment.
He opened them, smacked his lips, and looked around for a servant. A figure of a small woman framed the doorway. Chris tried to think. He had seen the girl from a distance several times during the evening. He was positive he knew her from somewhere, and it seemed as though she were watching him.
She walked into the library, moving to the uninhabited corner by the candelabra. Chris walked up behind her. “Do I know you?” he asked.
She turned and faced him, holding her chin up to the candlelight. “Once you did.”
He squinted, trying to make her out in a sliver of light.
“Gabriela!”
She nodded. He turned chalky.
“What the hell are you doing here! What do you want?”
“An old friend wants to see you. He is in a desperate situation.”
“Andrei?”
“Yes.”
Chris mopped his wet forehead. “Impossible. What’s more, it’s dangerous for you to be here. Dangerous for both of us.” He grabbed her arm. “Wait. Let me think.”
“Hello there, Chris! I’ve been looking for you.”
Chris spun around to see Horst von Epp glower past him, staring at Gabriela. “Sorry, I wasn’t able to get here till late, but I understand it was rather dull—up to now, that is. This makes it all worth while. By God, Chris, you have an unfailing talent to find the most magnificent creatures.”
Gabriela played her role, acknowledging his interest with a coy smile.
“Well, aren’t you going to introduce us, Chris?”
“Yes—certainly.”
“I am Victoria Landowski. I’ve just come to Warsaw from Lemberg for a visit with my cousin. From the many descriptions, I take it you must be Baron von Epp.”
“Madam,” Horst said, taking Gabriela’s hand. He kissed it with a touch and look which embraced all the connotations, and she let her eyes answer him just enough to let him know she understood and welcomed his intentions.
“And where will you be staying, Miss Landowski?”
“I am not quite certain yet, Baron. Why don’t I reach you as soon as I’m settled?”
Horst bowed and backed off gracefully, yielding the girl to Chris with her promise of a future relationship. “It should be a wonderful fall season. ... I say, Chris, are you ill?”
“Dr. Koenig is too generous with his liquor. I think I’ve had one too many.”
“Why don’t we get a breath of air, Chris?” Gabriela said.
“Good idea.”
Horst von Epp watched them leave, intrigued with the pretty little thing. He sized her up for bed. Koenig’s busy aide whispered in his ear that he was invited to the conservatory, where the girls were about to amuse them.
The doorman closed Chris and Gabriela into his Fiat. He fumbled for the ignition switch. “You’re a damned fool walking into this nest,” he mumbled.
Chris drove aimlessly at a crawl, checking the rear-view mirror constantly to see if he was being followed.
“What I want to say is, things have changed.”
“I should say that’s rather obvious.”
“Gaby, you don’t understand.”
“I do understand, quite well. I told Andrei it was a waste of time and that you wouldn’t come.”
“Gaby ...”
“If you gave a damn for him you wouldn’t have let two and a half years go by,” she said.
Chris wanted to tell Gaby he had tried to see her during the past year but had lost track of her when she changed flats. But he could not say it.
“Where is he?” Chris blurted impulsively.
“A hotel room near the yacht club in Saska Kempa.”
Chris sucked in a lungful of air, grunted, looked in the rear-view mirror once more, then made a U turn and drove on the Third of May Boulevard directly for the Poniatowski Bridge. In Saska Kempa, Chris concealed his car in a teamster’s stable several blocks from the shabby hotel.
A meek handshake, an avoiding of Andrei’s eyes. Unbearable small talk. Chris sagged into a hard-backed chair, studying the designs in the linoleum on the floor.
“How have you been?”
“Just fine.”
“Seen Deborah?”
“Yes. She is all right.”
“The children?”
“They are all right.”
“Do you have a glass of water? I’m all dried out.” He sipped and looked up at them. “A hell of a reunion, isn’t it? Well, I’m here. Gaby said it was something desperate.”
“We’ve needed you many times in the past two and a half years,” Andrei said. “But I wouldn’t come to you unless it was something so important we had to come to you.”
He watched Chris go through uncomfortable mannerisms. “What is it?” Chris looked to Gabriela, but she gave no solace in her expression.
“Chris,” Andrei said in a voice filled with an unfamiliar pleading, “tens of thousands of people are being murdered every day in extermination camps. We have put together an authentic report, detailing the locations, the names of the personnel and commanders, the method of operation. We have gone to the Home Army and begged them to get this out to the government in exile, but they won’t help us. Every day means twenty, thirty, forty, fifty thousand human beings. Chris—you’ve got to carry this out for us and get it into the world press. We’ve got to stop this blood bath. This is the only way.”
Chris pulled himself to his feet. “I’ve heard this talk, but I don’t believe it. Germany is a civilized country. The Germans aren’t capable of doing what you claim—it’s a lie.”
“I’ve just come from inside Majdanek. If you care to interview your friend Baron von Epp, I’ll gladly supply you with some very leading questions.”
Chris sank back into the chair again in a stupor. Andrei lay a typewritten book of a hundred pages before him. Chris glanced at it out of the corner of his eye but pulled his hand back. “I’m not your man,” he whispered.
“Chris, you and I have spent too many hours together putting this lousy world under our microscopes. I know how you’ve been pulled apart these last two years, but I’ve always known with all my soul that in the crucible you are unable to walk away from the cries of the anguished without destroying yourself as a human being.”
“I told you, no! Why the hell did you ask me here?”
“Chris! Chris! Chris! You and I believe in the final nobility of man! You can’t turn your back on us!”
Chris’s fist drummed against the table with a monotonous thudding repetition. “I’ve cried for justice before, Andrei! I cried rape and murder in Spain and it fell on deaf ears.”