She stopped, almost out of breath, shutting her eyes, then reached for another cigarette, something tangible, right now, and lit it.
“She brought it with us. She picked it up and brought it. They didn’t care. On the train. Until Leon managed to get it away from her, get rid of it. By that time she didn’t know. She was—not herself. So of course they selected her right away for the gas, a madwoman. Right on the platform.” She looked up at him. “Tell me anything matters. Otto’s son.” She reached out and grazed his hand with her fingertips. “If it did matter, I would be sorry. Do you know that?”
She turned her head, distracted by the sound of doors opening.
“Here they come. They’re going to watch a film.” She stood, drawing him up with her. “Make some excuse for me, yes? Headache, whatever you like, it doesn’t matter.” She smiled to herself, a weak grimace. “That, either.”
She slipped out behind the stream of people heading for the bathrooms before the movie started. It seemed a disorganized moment, an aimless milling, like the scattering pieces in his head.
“What’s wrong? What was all that?” Liesl said.
He stared for a second, adjusting to the switch back to English, his mind elsewhere.
“Nothing. She’s— I’ll tell you later,” he said, looking at her closely now. Had she known? How could she not? Unless Danny had kept this secret, too. “Can we cut out before the movie? What’s the form?”
“We can’t. It would be considered an insult,” she said. “Listen, I have to talk to you. I think I know—”
“Later,” he said, touching her arm. “Here’s Bunny.”
“Everything fine?” Bunny said, looking at Liesl. “Did you enjoy Dick?”
Her dinner partner had been Dick Marshall, out of his pilot uniform, a smile replacing the oxygen mask. More window dressing for the party.
“Yes, he was very funny.”
“I’ll bet,” Bunny said, but relieved, as if he’d expected a different report. He turned to Ben. “And you. I thought it’d be pulling teeth, but there you were, nattering away.”
Ben felt fuzzy, a diver decompressing too fast. Why were they talking about any of this? Floating on froth, like the meringues.
“Mr. L can’t get two words out of her. Well, we’d better start the picture before the natives get restless. Glad you enjoyed yourself,” he said to Liesl. “You’ve got a treat in store—Jack sent over something special.”
“Ben,” she said, when Bunny left, “at dinner—”
“She knew Otto,” he said. “She knew Danny.”
“Daniel?”
“In Berlin. When he was with my father. She thought the Nazis had killed him. He was getting people out. The way he helped you, later. It started then. Why didn’t you tell me he was a Communist?”
“What are you talking about?” she said, nervous, unprepared for this.
“She told me. She was there. You must have known.”
“Known what,” she said, a quick dismissal. She looked toward the room, measuring their distance from the others, then back at him. “He never said. Everyone was a bit then. They were against the Nazis. Organized. There wouldn’t have been a resistance if they hadn’t—”
“You never asked?”
“I didn’t care about that. Politics. When someone throws you a lifesaver, you take it.”
“And marry him.”
Her eyes flashed. “It wasn’t important.” She looked down, biting her lip. “I thought he was—sympathetic, that’s all. So maybe he worked with them, everyone did. It was never official—you know, a Party member. Meetings. I would have known about that. It was a way of looking at things then, because of the Nazis. Years ago. Anyway, that was there. It was different after we came here.”
“It’s not something you stop, just like that.”
“Things change. People change.”
“Do they?”
“You think that? That’s what you’re looking for in his desk? A card? A letter from Stalin? I would have known.” She looked away, hearing herself, yesterday’s certainty. “He made movies here, that’s all. Silly movies.”
“So did my father. And he ran a cell. According to her.”
“If you want to know, ask them. The Party.”
“I don’t think they’re handing out membership lists these days.”
“Ask Howard Stein. It’s always in the papers about him. That he must be one. Polly says he is. Ask him. Why is it so important anyway?”
“Because we have to know everything about him. What he was doing. Why anyone would—”