Stardust(30)

He followed Stein back into the busy main room, half-hoping he could pass unnoticed out onto the terrace, but Liesl caught his eye, flagging him down. Somehow the funeral had made them a temporary couple, alert to each other’s signals. She took his arm lightly, lowering her voice as she steered him toward Alma Mahler, eating pastry near the table.

“She thinks you’re ignoring her,” she whispered. Then to Alma, “Found.”

But once they were past the introductions, the sympathies, there was little to say. She was a woman of such regal self-absorption that Ben suspected she had no conversation outside herself, so he fell back on the usual, how she liked California.

“For us it was very pleasant. Before Franz died. Now I never go out. But before—you know Stravinsky is here? Schoenberg? Like Europe, with sunshine.” Her eyes twinkled a little, waiting for him to respond, evidently a phrase that had worked before. “Of course, we were fortunate. Franz’s success.” She let the rest of the thought hover there, leaving Ben to imagine the riches. “You know it was a promise he made. He said if we survived, he would write about Lourdes, and look. So Bernadette blessed us, too. Who would have imagined it then? Such a success.”

“And the film.”

She nodded, accepting tribute.

“Of course, not serious art, like Mahler. Gropius.” Listing former lovers like credits. “But it’s important here, to have a success. It’s what they respect. And of course it’s nice, too, to be comfortable. Look at poor Heinrich. In Germany such an important name. I remember passing a bookstore, a whole window, all Kaltenbach, no one else. And here? No one knows who he is.”

“The books aren’t translated?”

“No. Franz, Lion, Hans of course,” she said, tipping her head toward Liesl. “But Heinrich, it’s too European maybe. So it’s hard for him. We all help a little. Not charity, we tell him, a loan until better times, but of course he’s proud. Once in all the windows. Liesl said you were just in Germany?”

“Yes,” Ben said, surprised at the veering off.

“It’s bad there, everyone says. Heinrich wants to go back. ‘I want to be a writer again,’“ she said, quoting, but shaking her head. “Well, you know what it’s like. I had a letter. My friend Beate. She says people are like zombies. Numb.”

“They’re hungry,” Ben said.

“Yes, hungry,” Alma said, not even glancing at her own plate. “But not reading. Not reading Heinrich.”

“They will again. Someday. Let’s hope so anyway.”

She looked up quickly, as if she had been corrected.

“But not here, I think. He doesn’t have the popular touch, Heinrich. Like your brother. He had the popular touch. Detectives,” she said airily, sliding it in as easily as a pinprick. “Heinrich is an artist.”

They were rescued by Kaltenbach, slightly hunched, like a courtier, who came to say their car had arrived.

“You’ll excuse us? These cars, they don’t like to wait. Such delicious food,” he said to Liesl. “But you must be tired. All these people. You should rest.”

“Yes,” Alma said. “It must be terrible for you.” She paused, another prick. “So unexpected.”

She patted Liesl’s arm, then nodded at Ben and handed him her plate, leading Kaltenbach across the room, tipping her head to people as she went. Just a hand on his elbow, enough to move him along. Ben stared at it. To push a man over you’d need a tighter grip. Had Danny screamed? He must have. At least a startled grunt. Only suicides made no noise, grim with purpose, not taken by surprise. Nobody had said. But it might be in the police report.

“Is something wrong?” Liesl said, peering at him.

“Sorry,” he said, snapping back. “Is she always like that?”

“You don’t like her?” Liesl said, a mock innocence, then laughed, the first time Ben had seen her really smile. She covered her mouth with her hand, a girl’s gesture.

The police report. Tomorrow.

They went out on the terrace, picking up wine glasses off a passing tray.

“Daniel didn’t like her, either.”

“What did they see in her?” Stay on Alma. “Kokoschka. Mahler. She had half the men in Vienna.”

“She used to be a great beauty they say.”

“Who says?”

She laughed again. “She does, mostly.”

He looked at her, caught by the laugh. It seemed to come from some private part of her, something you only saw in glimpses, like her ease in the water.

“I shouldn’t,” she said, putting the drink down. “They’ve only started coffee.”