After dinner Salka led the party down Mabery Road to the beach to watch the sunset. Ben had volunteered to drive Feuchtwanger home, a cliffside house on a twisting Palisades road that would be treacherous in the dark, so he was late joining the others on the broad beach. People who’d come earlier for the day were still in bathing suits or sweatshirts and stared openly at Salka’s group in suits and ties. Liesl took her shoes off, but the men didn’t bother, formal even in the sand. The light on the water had already begun to turn the deep gold just before orange.
“You know I was twelve before I saw the ocean?” Ostermann said to Ben. They were walking with Dieter, the others straggling behind. “Fifty years ago. More now. The Nordsee. Absolutely gray. Freezing. Rocks for beaches. But my father had paid for the week, so we had to stay.” He made a mock shudder at the memory.
“So, something else good here,” Dieter said, indicating the white sand.
“Yes, but shallow. You have to walk far before you can swim. That’s why they build the piers.” He nodded to the amusement pier farther down the beach. “Me, I prefer lakes. Of course, it’s what I knew. The Wannsee. Anyway, Liesl’s the swimmer, not me. From a child, always in the water.”
“Yes. She loves the pool,” Ben said, seeing her gliding underwater, parting her legs. Everyone thinks it would be easy in the water, but it’s not. Preferring a chaise.
He looked over at Ostermann, suddenly embarrassed. Change the subject.
“She told me about Die Verführung,” he said. “I’ve never read it. Is it in a collection?”
“No, alone. Quieros did it in Holland. A small edition. It was not so popular, you know. Not even the émigrés liked it. Anti-German. Me, anti-German.”
“It’s a German failing,” Dieter said. “Thin skin.”
“And thick boots,” Ostermann said. “A wonderful combination. Anyway, no one read it. I thought they might buy it for the title,” he said, teasing. “They would think it’s something else. But no one did.”
“You always write about Germany,” Dieter said. “Everybody knows that. And this time—be fair—a fatal flaw in the blood, an insult.”
“No, not in the blood. That’s what the Nazis believed, things in the blood. Destiny. It wasn’t like that. A whole country seduced. Led into a dream. You have to make that happen.” He raised his finger, a classroom gesture. “But they have to want the dream. The master race. Imagine—to believe that. If it’s German, it’s better. Well, the French, too. Maybe everyone. Look at them here. ‘The Greatest Country in the World.’ What does that mean? Great how? But they believe it.”
“It’s not the same,” Dieter said. “What happened there was unique.”
“You think so? Well, let’s hope. It’s not so hard, you know. Give them something to be afraid of. Someone else. The process is the same.”
“Did Danny ever talk to you about this?” Ben said. “Liesl said he liked to talk to you.”
“About this?” Ostermann said, confused. “The story? He said it was different here.” He nodded to Dieter, a point. “He said they were already seduced. By the movies.”
“Ha,” Dieter said. “He was serious?”
Ostermann shrugged. “Well, an idea. To make talk. That was his world, not politics.”
“He never talked to you about politics?” Ben said.
“Maybe I talked enough for both of us,” Ostermann said wryly. “Of course you know he worked against the Nazis. To get people out of France. But I think that was for the adventure. He had that spirit. But here—”
“But someone told me last night he was a Communist. You’d think—”
“People are always saying such things now,” Dieter said. “Every day in the papers. How many could there be? Just for signing a petition.” A glance to Ostermann.
“No, the woman knew him. In Berlin. She said he worked for them.”
“In Berlin?” Ostermann said. “But he must have been a boy.”
“Old enough. He helped my father.”
“What woman?”
“Fay Lasner’s cousin. Genia. She was in the camps.”
“To survive that,” Dieter said, impressed. “Genia. A Polish name?”
“Originally. But she knew him in Berlin.”
“But saying such things at dinner. To accuse—”
“She wasn’t accusing him of anything. She was one, too.”
“And he never said anything to you?” Dieter said. “His brother? It’s her imagination, I think.”