“I’m hungry,” he said as forcefully as he could. Then he took off as quickly as he could in the direction of the buffet table.
Since Bennis never ate anything at these parties until she had had at least one glass of wine, she didn’t follow him.
4
Twenty minutes later, sated with dolmas and dabgadz kufta and Sarah Melajian’s best khorovadz biberr and he didn’t know what else, Gregor Demarkian sat in a chair along the wall next to Father Tibor Kasparian, drinking a large glass of raki and watching the movement in the room. Bob Cheswicki, Gregor noted, was where he had been all evening—just close enough to Paul Hazzard to know what was going on. Bennis had Tommy Moradanyan asleep in her lap while she sat on the couch next to Mary Ohanian. Their heads were bent so close together, Gregor decided they had to be talking about sex. Hannah Krekorian and Paul Hazzard were more difficult to figure. Paul seemed to be drifting aimlessly through crowds of people he did not know. Hannah seemed to be hovering around him anxiously, as if, if she took her attention away from him for even a moment, he would disappear.
“I did not say that I had met Mr. Hazzard before tonight,” Father Tibor was chiding Gregor gently. He had a glass of raki too. His arrest seemed to have perked him up. “I said I knew more than you would think about the work he does. It is because of Sonia Veladian, Krekor, whose mother married that man with the mustache and later it turned out that the man was, well, you know, with Sonia when she was eleven. The mother threw the man out of the house when she found out. But still, the damage was done.”
“And the mother took Sonia to see Paul Hazzard?” The problem with Father Tiber’s stories was that they not only started in medias res, they started in media confusion.
“No, no,” Father Tibor said. “Sonia was grown-up when she went to see Paul Hazzard, only not actually to see Paul Hazzard but to a—what do you call it—a support group. Yes. For grown-ups to whom things of this kind have happened as children. Sonia Veladian is older than Bennis, Krekor. She was older than Donna Moradanyan is now when she joined this support group.”
“And did it help her?”
“Well, that is a curious thing, Krekor. It did and it didn’t.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Tibor shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t. Not here and not now, at this party. I want to drink raki and relax a little. But come to my apartment tomorrow, Krekor, and I will tell you everything I know, and maybe we can find a way to get in touch with Sonia. Although I doubt it. The last I heard, she was in Somalia.”
“Somalia?”
“She is with the U.N. It is a very complicated story, Krekor, but it has a good ending, I think. But I also think I do not like this man Hazzard. In principle.”
“Oh, well,” Gregor said. “A lot of people around here don’t seem to like him on principle.”
“There is not much to like.” Tibor stood up. His glass was empty of raki and nearly empty of ice. He went three steps over to the table and poured himself some more. Across the room, Bennis stood up, put Tommy down on the place on the couch she had vacated, and walked over to Gregor.
“Hello,” she said. “All in all, a very dull party. You’d think a major neighborhood scandal would manage to work up more tension than this. And Paul Hazzard. Didn’t they say Eichmann was banal?”
“Hannah Arendt did,” Gregor told her. “I don’t think Paul Hazzard is banal. I think he’s just minding his manners in a perilous situation.”
Bennis laughed. “The old ladies got hold of him and positively grilled him. He kept doing all that appropriate closure behavior stuff to try to get out of it—you know, saying things like ‘It’s been very interesting talking to you, but I have to break off this conversation now’—and it was doing him no good at all. They were rolling right over him.”
“They would,” Gregor said.
Tibor came over with his full glass of raki. “You have been losing beads all evening,” he said to Bennis. “Look at the door now. Someone has arrived whom I do not know.”
They all turned to look at the door, where a pretty woman in her forties was standing, holding an invitation card and looking oddly sexy in a plain silk shirtwaist dress.
“Maybe it’s one of Paul Hazzard’s daughters,” Bennis said. “He’s got two. Maybe Hannah invited the whole family.”
It was not one of Paul Hazzard’s daughters. As Gregor and Bennis and Father Tibor watched, the woman walked a few steps into the apartment, held out her invitation card to Hannah Krekorian, and said: “You must be my hostess. I’m very glad to meet you. My name is Candida DeWitt.”