“I didn’t come over here to end up with the same ninnies we left behind,” she said.
Now the boys had sealed their fate by refusing to take them upstairs, to the private club called Das Goldene Tor where the nightclub act was supposedly more shocking than the one at the Crazy Horse in Paris.
“They’re naked all over,” Deenie had whispered earlier in the seclusion of their suite. “Men and women.”
“Why are you whispering?” Vanessa asked.
“I don’t know,” Deenie answered, still whispering. “It’s just so . . . scandalous.”
“Only if we’re seen. I’m sure nobody from Boston would be caught dead there.”
“I’m real nervous.”
“Will you stop whispering.”
“I can’t help it.”
Now the two absolute juveniles were preventing them from learning firsthand just how depraved the show really was.
“They’re both virgins,” Vanessa said with disgust, watching them thread through the crowd toward the men’s room. “You can just tell.”
“So am I,” Deenie said weakly.
“Don’t be silly!”
“I am.”
“Deenie, you’re nineteen years old. How come we’ve never talked about this before?”
“I don’t know. It just never came up. How long. . . when did you
“Christmas holiday last year.”
“Who . . .
“Donny Ebersole.”
“Donny Ebersole!”
“What’s the matter with Donny Ebersole?”
“Donny Ebersole. He’s . . . so. . . little. He’s not as tall as you are.”
“Size has nothing to do with it,” Vanessa snapped back.
“Was it . . . fun?”
“Not the first time.”
“You did it more than once?”
“Well, once you start what’s the difference? I mean, we just did it all the way through the holiday, Deenie. And yes, it was a lot of fun.”
“I just always figured I’d wait until I got married.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Deenie, grow up! This is 1933.” She thought for a moment, then added, “Maybe we ought to leave. Take a cab around town for a while, then come back.”
“Will they let us in upstairs without escorts?”
“Oh, who knows?” Vanessa said, obviously getting annoyed by Deenie’s constant blathering.
They were both aware that most of the men at the bar were staring at them, and why not? They were both gorgeous women and Vanessa was wearing what she called her “shimmy” dress, a white, form-fitting number, covered with rhinestones, that ended above the knee. She glittered like a handful of polished diamonds and when she walked the shimmering garment turned every step into an invitation. A rhinestone tiara topped off the package. Vanessa suddenly felt oppressed by the crowded room.
“I am not going to waste this evening on these two jerks,” she said. “Come on, let’s leave and come back a little later. Maybe they’ll get the idea and leave.”
“What if they don’t?”
“We’ll snub them when we come back.”
“Vanessa!”
“Deenie, will you kindly please just grow up
“At least we should wait until they come back. That’s the right thing to do.”
“Deenie, if you keep doing the right thing all your life, you’re going to be a virgin when you’re fifty.”
At the bar, Keegan waited impatiently for the chorus to finish its work. A voice behind him said, “Francis?” He turned to find Bert Rudman, a reporter for the Herald Tribune, standing behind him. Rudman was one of their better-known correspondents, a good writer relegated at first to personality pieces, lately spending more time on European politics. They had known each other briefly in France during the war and had renewed their friendship during the year Keegan had been in Europe, bumping into each other all over the continent. A pretty boy who looked ten years younger than the thirty-five he claimed to be, Rudman was wearing a leather trenchcoat with the collar turned up and a brown fedora.
“I thought that was you,” Rudman said. “Haven’t seen you since that terrible bash in Rome.”
“The Italians throw the worst parties in Europe.”
“No, the Russians throw the worst parties in Europe.”
“The Russians don’t throw parties at all, Bert. It’s against the law to enjoy yourself in Russia.”
“Speaking of parties, are you going down to Bavaria for the Runstedts’ boar hunt this weekend?”
“My horse is running at Longchamp. I’ll be in Paris.”
“He’s been doing well,” Rudman said. “I’ve been following him.”
“I’ve made a little money on him this season. If he shows anything in Paris, I might try him out in the States.”
“You mean you’d actually go home?” Rudman was surprised. He had heard all the rumors about Keegan. Some, like the bootlegger story, he believed simply because he had met Keegan in an army hospital on the Western Front when the kid was barely eighteen and stone broke. Now he was a millionaire. It had to come from someplace. The fact that he thought his friend was an ex-gangster only made Keegan’s friendship more alluring. But Rudman feared if he pried too deeply into Keegan’s personal life it would damage their Friendship. Keegan was aware of Rudman’s caution and while he would never have held it against the newspaperman if he did pry a little, he let Rudman think it would.
“Just long enough to run him at Belmont and Saratoga,” said Keegan. “See how he shows up. I’ve got a little filly coming along who’ll wear him out in another two years. What brings you to Berlin, anyway?”
“Three guesses,” the reporter answered, looking around the room at the swastikas. He leaned forward and spoke directly into Keegan’s ear. “My editor in Paris thinks World War Two is going to start here sometime in the next five minutes.”
“Here in this saloon?”
“In Berlin, schmuck.”
“Incidentally, you ought to get rid of that coat, everybody’ll think you’re with the Schutzstaffel.”
“That’s very funny, Francis. This coat cost me a month’s salary.”
“You wuz robbed.”
Rudman looked hurt. “It’s the latest fashion,” he said.
“Yeah, if you’re in the SS.”
“You can be a real bastard when you want to be.”
“Ah, don’t be so thin-skinned.” Keegan laughed. “You look beautiful. Did you take the train in?”
“No, I drove from Paris. I thought about you, kiddo. Went right through the park at Belleau Wood. That hospital where we met is a big cow barn now.”
After fourteen years, Keegan remembered that day very well. The war was over for Keegan but it was the first time he had understood what was going on. It was Bert Rudman who had finally put it all in perspective for him.
By the spring of 1917, a whipped Woodrow Wilson, reelected as a liberal idealist with a clear vision for the future of the country, had watched his own rigid policies lead the country into arch conservatism. He was finally forced to admit the inevitable: They were on the verge of war. After a passionate speech in which he urged the Congress to declare war on Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Turks of the Ottoman Empire to save the world ‘for Democracy, “ he returned to his office in the White House with the cheers of the senators and representatives still clamoring in his ears.