The chauffeur pointed us westbound on Wilshire Boulevard. Otto played host and served up my bargain-basement champagne. War and music talk bubbled in English, French, and German. There was no talk of death camps or the oppression of Jews in Hitler’s Germany. An implicit pact rendered the topic verboten. I stifled my curiosity and kept my mouth shut.
Otto was throwing a party tonight. He announced it and leaned back to read reactions. Mr. Abromowitz and the Koenigs went stone-faced. Ruth Szigeti said, “Will you be there, Liebchen?” I assured her that I would be and summoned up my own ideal guest list.
Claire De Haven and Meyer Gelb. There’s two party cards. I’d love to meet Communist carhop Jean Staley. What about Dr. Saul and Andrea Lesnick? I went back to Bill Parker’s incursion with them and would adore a chance to get reacquainted. Don’t forget Orson Welles, Dudley’s newly cowed informant. He might be in the market for a new steam room pal.
Magda Koenig gagged on cigarette smoke and rolled down a window. I looked out and saw that a PD prowl car was providing an escort. Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle sat in the front seat; a man in Mexican Statie garb sat in the back. Breuning looked over and saw me. I waved; he waved back. Carlisle yelled, “Hey there, Kay!”
Mrs. Koenig rolled up her window and cut off the exchange. I got chills in an overheated limo. Ruth Szigeti jiggled into me and draped an arm around my neck.
Joan’s diary. Dudley Smith’s orbit. The ubiquity of a single rogue policeman.
We journeyed through Beverly Hills and West L.A. A sea breeze welcomed us to Santa Monica. The chauffeur turned north on 4th Street and pulled up in front of a palm-lined courtyard. Our exile chums got out and surveyed their new home. Ruth Szigeti reluctantly undraped me. Her left blouse sleeve had rolled up; I saw knife scars and an ominous tattoo.
I got out last. I smelled salt air and watched the prowl car park behind us. The chauffeur unloaded the luggage and instruments; Otto escorted the gang to their new digs. The Maestro owned numerous beachside properties, the Seabreeze Court among them. He was forfeiting rental income from three bohemian bungalows. Otto Klemperer defined noblesse oblige.
I lagged back and strolled over to the prowl car. Breuning and Carlisle were piling gift baskets on the hood of the sled. The baskets featured withered fruit and cheese of the hold-your-nose ilk.
The Statie introduced himself. He was Captain Juan Pimentel. The captain was an emissary of Governor Juan Lazaro-Schmidt and the governor’s friend Dudley Smith. The baskets denoted the governor’s warm bienvenidos to our immigrant pals.
Pimentel impressed me as a vicious little shit. His spiel indicted the repatriation plan as a shuck. Meyer Gelb had uttered “vague rumors.” That was suspect in itself.
Pimentel clicked his heels. “Your new Americans are the first wave of the governor’s humanitarian effort to rescue persecuted Jews from the horrors of fascist Germany.”
I pointed to his SS-style hat. His spit-shined jackboots and flap-holstered Luger were just as snazzy. I said, “I’m all for the rescue of persecuted Jews, but I must note that you dress fasco yourself.”
Pimentel clicked his heels. It expressed disdain and moral confusion. He clicked his heels again. It gave him something to do and suppressed his urge to kill infidel women.
Breuning and Carlisle cracked grins. That Kay Lake’s a sketch. I’d belted a few with Sid Hudgens at the PD’s New Year’s bash. The Sidster plied his crazy craft. He called Mike and Dick “maladroit mastiffs on a mission to maul for their master.” And, who’s their master?
Who else but?
Rain drove the party indoors. That was okay by me. Joan described the Maestro Manse as a lodestone for the Meyer Gelb — Saul Lesnick set. I came to perch and observe. Sid Hudgens had attended numerous Klemperer soirées. He called them “bilious bacchanals and Baedekers of early-wartime indulgence.” Sid was right about that. The Klemperer crowd came to harangue, gesticulate, bloviate, and dubiously critique. I was there to worry the Griffith Park fire and the proximity of Meyer Gelb’s cell.
I stationed myself on the second-floor landing and looked down on the huge main room. I had been home to change clothes and see if Bill Parker was still poised to pounce. He wasn’t. He’d be back, though. He’d have Joan’s diary memorized and worried down to page pulp.
The party swirled below me. Mr. Abromowitz and the Koenigs beat back admirers; Ruth Szigeti drifted off with Barbara “Butch” Stanwyck. Party delirium had set in. Folks harangued, gesticulated, bloviated, and dubiously critiqued. Cigarette smoke obscured faces. Saul Lesnick arrived with a zaftig young woman. I recognized her. It was Annie Staples, Elmer and Brenda’s college-girl vixen. Elmer told me she was jobbing Dr. Saul for the Feds. Elmer had worked the camera at Brenda’s Miracle Mile trick spot, and had caught Annie’s act.
Orson Welles arrived. I noticed his plastic-surgery scars straight off. The Sidster told me that Terry Lux did the plastic job. It smoothed out the obvious signs of the Dudster’s thumping. Claire arrived, with two young girls in tow. The older girl was Beth Something. She was Dudley’s reputed spawn. I made the younger girl as Joan Something. She was Dudley and Claire’s enfant sauvage. Joan Conville’s diary supplied explication. Joan Something perplexed Dudley. He found her otherworldly and considered her a counterpart to his fantasy wolf. Claire was haggard, ever the doomed poetess. I knew her MO. She’d seek out Dr. Saul and hit him up for a fix.
The party would run late. Otto’s parties always did. I had time for an interregnum before I hit the main floor. I ducked into the conservatory and sat down at the piano. “Sonata Reminiscenza” was embedded within me and fully memorized. I decided to play it all the way through.
The piece demands a meditative approach. It is both pictorial and diffuse. The piece depicts recollection and portrays the sweet heartbreak of time lost and recalled. I always mark the moment as I sit down to practice it. Today is March 4, 1942. I am twenty-two years old and have knocked around a bit. A late and dear friend of mine willed me some words she wrote. The words comprise a debt I must repay and punitive measures I must enact. This is for Joan Woodard Conville.
So, I played. I hit notes too soft, too hard, and just right. I veered off the established score and hit notes to the words “This storm, this savaging disaster.” I veered back to the score and lost myself in shifting tempos. Someone entered the room behind me; I heard rudely loud footsteps in approach.
“You’re playing Nikolai Medtner. I hate him, because he hates the Bolsheviks.”
I stopped playing and looked up. Joan Something stood to the right of the bench. She wore a red party dress I’d seen Claire in. A tailor had altered the sleeves and hemline to fit someone much smaller. Joan Something was fifteen or sixteen and discernably otherworldly. She wore dark-framed glasses; her black hair bore gray streaks.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”
“Sure, you do. My aunt Claire says you know everything. I’m Comrade Joan, and you’re Comrade Kay, but you’re really not much of a comrade if you like Medtner.”
I said, “Rachmaninoff hates the Bolsheviks. Scriabin hated them, as well. I’d say that puts Medtner in good company.”