THREE

Nell said to Eli, “Don’t you think they might have just the same sort of certainty that we had?”

“That is stupid. How could they? A little boy and a little girl.”

“I was a little girl in Berlin in 1939, and I was quite certain then. So were you, even though you tried to deny it.”

“I never denied it. I merely couldn’t give it precedence.”

That was of course what she had never been able to forgive him, even though in the first years of their marriage she had pretended otherwise. Curiously, it wasn’t until after Kinsky had followed them to Argentina – not that he knew he was doing so – and they had met him again and resumed their conversations, that she was able to confess her resentment. For Nell, Kinsky came to take the place of a priest.

So, now, she called on him at his gallery. He was busy setting up a new exhibition.

“You don’t like it?” he said.

“Not much.”

“Well, it’s new. So you wouldn’t, my dear.”

“Is it really new, Kinsky?”

“Of course not.” He made her a cup of coffee from the espresso machine which he had installed at the end of a corridor between the two rooms of the gallery. “There’s nothing new and there’s nothing true, and it don’t signify. Who said that?”

“Tell me.”

“Your English novelist Thackeray. See how well read I am. Do you think it’s true?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it can’t be, can it, if it is. What’s wrong, my dear?”

“Eli.”

“Oh,” Kinsky said, and sat down, balancing his coffee-cup at a precarious and awkward angle, as if it had nothing to do with him.

“He still refuses to see Franz. Becky’s miserable, and he doesn’t care. I think he’s jealous.”

Kinsky smiled.

“It’s not that he has a phobia about the Germans,” she said. “I could understand it if he had. But you know he hasn’t. He still thinks of himself as German as well as Jewish. He still thinks – oh I don’t know what he thinks. Will you talk to him, Kinsky?”

“My dear Nell, I have been talking to Eli for thirty years, and never once in that time has he taken my advice. Have you thought of turning round and opposing the match?”

“Of course, but he would know what I was doing.”

Kinsky was the only person who guessed how deeply and frequently she now disliked Eli, how she was repelled by his certainty of virtue.

He said, “I have something to tell you.”

He had had a visitor the previous day. An American in a seersucker suit, who had pretended to be interested in painting, but was utterly ignorant. “He said that picture over there reminded him of Klee. Well, it couldn’t be less like a Klee, could it?” No, Kinsky had at once read him for what he must be: CIA. The man had been curious about Kinsky’s history, and then had mentioned Eli. “He was well informed, acquainted with what must, I suppose, be a fullish dossier, even if it evidently stops short of absolute knowledge at important points. But he knew that Eli had worked with Schacht, and of what had happened to him in the war, and after, and then he asked, why didn’t he go to Israel?”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him what Eli always says: that there are too many bloody Jews there. He didn’t laugh, but he made a note.”

“I can’t think why the CIA should be interested in him. Not now.”

“It’s their job to be interested in people.”

“But Eli?”

“Yes, even our blind economist. All the same, I can think of an immediate reason. There is after all only one.”

“Oh yes,” Nell said, understanding.

“After all, Franz’s father is German, and any German in South America has secrets, and fears, and friends on whom he relies and has relied?

“Do you, Kinsky?”

“Of course. An old queer needs all the friends he can muster, especially in a police state.”

 

Nell knew Kinsky was right. “Has Franz spoken to his father yet?” she asked Becky that evening.

Her daughter sat at the little table in her bedroom with a textbook open before her. She didn’t lift her head when Nell spoke, and her long dangling hair hid her face.

“Not exactly. But his mother has written to him. Maybe Franz too. I’m not sure. Anyway, I can’t see that it matters. It’s our life.”

Nell sat down on the bed and leaned on one elbow. She thought of saying, “We only want you to be happy,” but didn’t. Becky turned round, lit a Kent, blew out smoke.

She’s writing to you, asking us both to tea.”

“Do you like her?”

“Mm. She’s all right.”

“Kinsky’s fond of her, I think.”

“Can’t Kinsky talk to Daddy?”

“I think maybe he will.”

 

The invitation came. Nell dressed herself in a tweed skirt and twinset bought at the Scotch Shop; she wore a string of pearls. “You can’t go in jeans, darling.”

“Why not? I feel … oh,” seeing her mother’s face, “all right, I won’t argue, this time.”

“What time will you be back?” Eli said.

“About six, I suppose.”

“Very well.”

They left the apartment to the sound of Brahms.

“Does he know where we are going?”

“He pretends not to.”

Franz’s stepfather, being a General, had an apartment in a big block behind the Plaza de Mayo. Something about the blank‑faced building, its determined and unconvincing grandeur, reminded Nell of pre-war Berlin. They ascended in a lift, made in Birmingham in 1924. The lift shaft was enclosed in a metal grille, so that, as you mounted, you might see people from the lower apartments waiting to descend. But this afternoon, they passed nobody. Even the house plants in tubs outside the apartment doors had a dusty air, as if they had been there a long time, untended and forgotten, house plants of a dreaming city.

A stocky Indian maid, wearing a black dress and a plain white apron, opened the door. The lobby of the apartment was very dark, the air close and heavy. Nell anticipated the aroma of boiled cabbage which she had known in Berlin, but the smell was cloying and spicy; like a convent, she thought. It was a place where reality was kept at a distance.

The drawing room was large, running the width of the apartment and opening on to a terrace where sad oleanders were speckled with the dust that pervaded the city centre in dry weather. The maid, clicking annoyance, closed a French window that opened on the terrace, cutting off the sound of traffic in the street below. She told them to sit down. Becky took a tissue from her bag and wiped her hands. Nell peeled off her gloves and laid them on the arm of the chair. The maid went out. They didn’t speak.

The mood lightened with Franz’s entry. He shook Nell’s hand, kissed Becky, who had leaped to her feet.

“My mother won’t be a moment. She apologises. Someone has just telephoned.”

He was restless, talked about trivia – the weather, rumours at the University, the American Presidential election. An elaborate French rococo clock – imitation French rococo, Nell thought – chimed four.

“It’s always going fast,” he said. “I’m sure it’s not more than quarter to.”

The wind rose outside, throwing black shapes of birds across the winter sky.

Ilse entered, stout, apologetic, in a yellow frock.

“This Argentina, always confusion…”

She paused.

“Shall we speak English?” she said. “It gives me pleasure to speak English.”

“Or German?” Nell said. “Would we be more comfortable?” she asked in that language.

“Does Rebecca speak German? I hadn’t realised.”

“Oh yes, often, with Daddy…”

“That is nice.”

The maid wheeled in a trolley, poured tea. Franz handed round a plate of egg sandwiches, made in the English style, with crusts removed. The maid returned with a cake stand, in silver Art-Nouveau elaboration, like something from a Viennese coffee house, 1910. There were petits fours, a fruit cake and a magnificent Sachertorte.

“Franz’s favourite, he adores chocolate. So do I,” Ilse giggled.

“I haven’t had a tea like this in years,” Nell said.

“Oh, I adore tea, my favourite meal, Earl Grey from Jacksons of Piccadilly. I hope that is all right. We have friends in the Embassy in London who supply us.”

“It couldn’t be better.”

Ilse beamed her pleasure.

“This is nice. Of course Kinsky has told me so much about you. He adores you.”

Nell felt an alliance forming. Kinsky was right. Ilse was nice. She pressed food on them. Nell found herself eating with pleasure. Franz urged Becky to try the Sachertorte. She blushed, then had a second slice.

“Gosh, it’s good,” she said.

The teapot was refilled, the maid being summoned by a tinkling handbell. Ashtrays were indicated.

“Franz, take Rebecca and show her the apartment. Play her some of your barbaric music. Jazz,” she said to Nell. “Actually, to let you into a secret, I adore it myself.”

“Oh, so do I,” Nell said. “After all it’s our generation. Bix Beiderbecke, Joe Venuti, the Hot Five… She invoked the names tenderly, summoning up afternoons of dancing to windup gramophones.

“Red Nicholls and the Five Pennies, Benny Goodman…” Ilse giggled. “They condemned it as barbaric music. My brother and I had to hide our records and could only play them when we were alone in the apartment, with the windows shuttered.”

Nell thought of an afternoon in a punt, drifting down the Cam, her own brother working the pole, while Bix’s trumpet soared into “Goose Pimples” and “Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down”.

“Eli, my husband, hates jazz. He plays Brahms and Schumann.”

“Oh,” Ilse said, “that’s something he has in common then with Franz’s father. He adores Brahms. Aimez-vous Brahms?” she giggled again.

“Not much,” Nell said.

They paused, silent, at the brink.

“You know Eli’s a Jew,” Nell said. “Franz has told you that, hasn’t he?”

“Oh, I think that’s all terribly vieux jeu. It was all such a mistake, don’t you think?”

“It’s a matter one is bound to bring up when speaking to Germans. In circumstances like this, I mean. Of course, Eli still thinks of himself as a German too. He likes me to read German poetry to him, Hofmannsthal and of course Goethe. Then he criticises my accent. He’s blind, you know.”

Ilse poured Nell another cup of tea, freshened the pot, poured one for herself.

“Such a tragedy,” she said, “and a brilliant man too, Kinsky tells me. Franz is afraid of his father. It’s sad. Of course he doesn’t know him very well…”

“I realised,” Nell said, “that he was finding it difficult to tell him about Becky. I’m sorry it makes things so difficult, but I’m glad to find this is the reason, I had thought there might be something more to it…”

“Oh no, I am sure not,” Ilse said.

Nell wondered whether Ilse still saw her first husband, what terms they were on, why the marriage had broken up, but didn’t care to disturb the mood by asking any of these questions.

For some years now, since he had finally gone blind, Eli had ceased to be troubled by nightmares. Nell found this strange, for in sleep time does not pass, but all moments are as one, and it was hard to understand why one period of a life, so long dominantly oppressive, should all at once be eliminated from the imagination that works in the darkness. While Kinsky was still fearful to sleep without drugging himself heavily, Eli, who for years had woken up screaming and had had to change out of pyjamas soaked with the sweat of his terror, now drifted through the night like a boat on calm water. Nell was distressed to find that she found this distressing. It seemed his new tranquillity diminished both him and what she felt for him. Comforting his nightmares had given her a deep pleasure; now she was denied the certainty that in his worst moments he needed her most. His blindness was no substitute; it irritated her as his nightmares never had.

In the first years of their marriage, when they lived in London, in a flat on the east side of Charlotte Street, his daytime confidence had irritated many, especially Gentiles, who saw him as a cocky pushing Jew, and who could not forgive him for not showing the marks of his suffering. Some of his Jewish friends were equally displeased by his determination to live in the present, to make something of himself. They were almost all in fact doing the same thing, but they had moments when they felt paralysed by guilt simply because they were alive, and their families and communities were dead. Eli seemed to brush this guilt off. “I am not responsible for the crimes of others, or the misfortunes of others. I have nothing with which to reproach myself, neither my attempts to avert calamity, nor the failure of my efforts, nor what happened to me subsequently, nor my survival. Indeed I glory in my survival.” That was the message conveyed by every inflection of his voice, by the brisk social manner, by the thickset shoulder-swaying walk. Everything seemed calculated to deny his knowledge that there were Jews who distrusted him, who could not accept that his sojourn in Hell cancelled out the ambiguity of his earlier record, his time as Schacht’s adviser, his contribution to Germany’s economic recovery under Hitler.

He had friends in London, economists and men in government service, who he expected would be ready to help him. But somehow – Nell never understood just why – the offers of help never materialised. He was received well, it seemed, returned from meetings with reports of enthusiastic responses, keen discussions, fruitful consultations. Academic posts hovered on the horizon, then dipped behind the clouds. He contributed a few pieces to The Economist, wrote an article for The Times on “Problems of Liquidity in Reconstructional Conditions”, which attracted favourable attention, even though its Keynesianism was dismissed as being of an immature variety by those more aware than Eli could be of the last developments of the Master’s theories. Nevertheless, even this article didn’t lead to the sort of regular commissions which he had anticipated when it was accepted. He did not repine; he set himself to write a book, justifying his own history. It was never completed.

Nell found the balance shifting between them. Eli needed her, something she hadn’t expected. At first she was gratified. Only she knew at what a cost his public optimism was maintained. He could not bring himself to describe the nightmares, but he didn’t need to. She had seen the photographs, as everyone had, of the piles of corpses discovered at Belsen and Buchenwald; she had worked with refugees. There was nothing she didn’t know, she sometimes thought, about the camps, except what mattered: what it felt like actually to have been there.

She knew something else, she alone. She knew why Eli refused to follow what seemed to many people his obvious course, and settle in Israel. She got tired of hearing him say, “Too many bloody Jews”, even though she knew that in one sense he spoke the truth. He really did think that. But, more important, he was afraid. In Israel he would have been confronted by the reality of his failure, of his terrible misjudgement, of his arrogance. She remembered how, in the Berlin days, he had combined his contempt for the Nazis with his happy confidence that he could influence them, even lead them by the nose, save himself and his people by making himself useful. She didn’t know what the Jewish term for an “Uncle Tom” was, but there must be one; and she knew Eli was afraid and ashamed. She had read an entry in his journal: “If I made a mistake, and it seems I did, then it was because I acted by reason; that I had lost my sureness of instinct. And yet at the time it felt as if I was acting instinctively; if I was, then I made no mistake. Now, reason tells me to go to Israel; instinct says no. ‘All that is good is instinct – and hence easy, necessary, free.’ So: I act thus.”

To the surprise of everyone except Nell, he accepted an invitation, secured for him by an admirer, to lecture in economics at the University of Buenos Aires. “Why not?” he said, “I understand that the Argentine is a country where we Germans feel at home.”

He said this often: many who heard it shivered at the irony, little understanding that, like all who are ironists by instinct, Eli found both sides of the coin equally true. “I act; therefore it is,” he said with a smile that frightened.

Nell reproached herself when she found her love transmuted to dislike. Her reproach was the keener because she found nothing for which to reproach Eli. He was a model husband, faithful, honourable, in his manner loving. That side of things was all right. He was a doting father when Becky was little; nevertheless one who was firm when firmness was needed. All that was fine. She could see too that he was admirable. He worked hard, provided for them.

She went over these things in her head again and again. When they made love, it was still all right, and almost what it had been. And yet of course she reproached him, if only to justify the dislike she was forming, experiencing indeed, the way you experience the beauty of a view or the cold of a winter morning. She told herself: it was his cynicism. He would talk of “the morality of sympathy as the symptom of a weak age”. Then the rebellious thought struck her: he is spouting the poison with which they tried to kill him. When he said, “It is absurd to suppose that reconciliation is possible between Jew and Arab,” she wondered at his indifference. For really he didn’t seem to care. “I observe things, that’s all,” he boasted, “and state what I see. It’s not a matter of drawing conclusions.”

Nell experienced the cynicism as aridity, and found wastes of sand extending in every direction from the point where she had made her life. Kinsky was her only confidant; even to him, she did not dare confess the profundity of Eli’s cynicism. After all, Kinsky in a lighter manner was a cynic himself. What shocked her was that Eli seemed every day to confront the question “Why go on?” and then shrug it off.

“You don’t need to worry,” Kinsky said, “he has got beyond suicide. So have we all, unless we are corrupted by guilt and pity.”

What she couldn’t say was that the thought of Eli’s suicide drifted into her mind as a means of escape for her.

But now at last she was angry. His refusal to meet Franz was wounding Becky. She told him he was a coward, that he was afraid of the memories which meeting Franz would stir. Then she accused him of jealousy. He smiled, and admitted it.

“And I don’t see the point of it,” she said, “since they are in love, and will certainly marry.”

She was sure of that herself now, since her tea with Ilse. Indeed, though Ilse was a silly woman, they were on the way to being friends. Her kindness was irresistible. She even suggested that her husband, the General, could put himself about to improve Eli’s pension position: it was wrong that such a distinguished man should suffer even genteel poverty. And she looked at Nell as though she thought she could do with a new pair of shoes.

“But I understand,” Eli said, “that the young man hasn’t yet spoken to his own father.”

“I’m sure he has.”

“No, my dear, you know he hasn’t. I have asked Becky. When he does, then things will be on a different footing.”

“Very well,” Nell said, “Becky will see to it.”

 

“So what?” Luis said. “Everyone’s afraid of his father. That’s life. Father is like God.”

“Oh you make a joke of everything,” Franz said.

They were in the little bar on the Florida again. Luis ordered more beer.

“So I make a joke of everything?” he said. “What else can you do here in Argentina, in the year of our Lord 1964?”

“Even Perón?”

Luis drank some beer, licking the foam from his lips. “Especially Perón. Perón is one big joke. That is why I believe in him, in his necessary return. He is the prince of jokes.”

“Was Kennedy a joke?”

“Of course. Ich bin ein Berliner – in a Boston accent. Didn’t you tell me a Berliner is a kind of bread roll? Let’s go to Rosita’s…”

“No, but wait. I can’t see my father as a joke. You don’t know him. He has never even raised his voice to me…”

“That girl who looks like the Sainted One, I tell you, mon vieux, she is one hot cookie, as they say in Boston. A veritable Berliner. So what? So he doesn’t raise his voice. Does that make him less of a joke? I bet he wears dark glasses inside. He does? Right, you can stand me the girl like the Sainted One. Or we could have her together. How would that be? I get a stand thinking of it. Look.”

He swung back on the chair to make the truth of his words visible. Franz shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I have promised Becky.”

“What? That you won’t come to Rosita’s with me? Really, old chap, you shouldn’t talk of such things with your fiancée, it isn’t nice.”

“No, not that, fool.” Franz smiled at his friend. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Luis. No, I’m going to tell my father tomorrow. And that will be hard enough, without a night in your company at Rosita’s.”

“Pity,” Luis said. “I liked the idea. But have it your own way. So why should your father object?”

“I’ve told you a thousand times.”

“And I still can’t believe you. Tell me again.”

Franz paused. He looked across the room, soft red mouth a little open. Luis, catching that profile, felt the urge to hurt. Franz had that effect on him, often. He was a victim, Luis thought, but a victim who should be in uniform, and on his knees, crying for mercy.

“Tell me again…”

“Because her father is a Jew. It sounds silly, now, doesn’t it?”

“No,” Luis said, “it’s only a sick joke: that a German should still dare to object to a Jew. Come to Rosita’s. I’ll even pay for you.”

“Oh very well, but I’ll pay for myself.”

“Well, we’ll have her together. Have you ever done that?”

“No,” Franz blushed.

“Of course, I was forgetting. You’re in love with Becky, and true to her, despite being a queer at heart.” He put his arm round Franz’s shoulder and hugged him. “I adore you. You know that. Now let’s go get our balls swallowed. We’ll make a man of you yet.”

 

“Of course I know of the girl’s father,” Rudi said. “He’s a distinguished man, even if he has been unfortunate. I am only disappointed you didn’t speak to me sooner. You have obviously been wondering about the matter. Remember, son, all I am interested in is your happiness. It has not been easy being a good father, in the circumstances…”

He took off his dark glasses and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes. He rubbed hard, and when he took his hands away, Franz saw that the eyes were a little bloodshot.

“Everything I’ve done has been done for you,” Rudi said.

He beckoned the waiter, asked him to bring them a bottle of champagne.

“I’m a man with few friends,” he said. “I live for my work and my family, which is indeed reduced to you, Franz. Now you are going to add to it. Of course I am pleased.”

Franz was suffused with guilt, love and pity: inextricable emotions. He had been wrong to doubt his father, right to love him. What he had thought of as a frightening self-sufficiency was revealed as loneliness. Rudi lifted his glass: “Your health, and the young lady’s.” The wrong picture flashed before Franz’s eyes: the young girl, with the puffy lips, Isabellita, lowering her mouth towards him … he felt himself blush.

“Ah, I can see that you are in love,” Rudi said, and drank his champagne. “There’s a lot I could tell you about marriage, but as for now, all that is necessary is to express my happiness and wish you well…”

If Luis had been there, he would no doubt have found his father’s formal archaic manner of speaking yet another joke. But Franz was overcome with relief. I need Becky, he told himself, trying to slide her image on to the screen. But it was still the wrong face that he saw.

“And you know her father’s Jewish?”

“Are you apologising for that? You must not do so. They are a remarkable race. Consider what they have achieved in Israel.”

It was the moment to ask what he had always desired, and feared, to know. The sensation of intimacy was such as to suggest that Rudi might answer. Yet he dared not risk shattering it. He picked up his glass.

“I’m so grateful,” he said.

“And your mother approves?”

“Oh yes, she has quite taken to Becky. I’m sure you will too.”

“I’m sure I shall. But up country, of course, it’s a different type of girl that I am accustomed to.”

 

Franz telephoned Becky as soon as he had said goodbye to his father.

“It’s fine. He approves. It’s amazing. He’s going to get in touch with your father himself. I can’t believe it was so easy. I can’t think what we have been worrying about. I love you.”

“I love you too. Oh, what a relief.”

“Isn’t life marvellous?”

 

Nell read the letter from Franz’s father to Eli. He listened without interrupting. She sipped her tea, which was almost cold. Eli took his napkin and wiped egg from his face. He had become a messy eater, something which displeased her because he had once been fastidious.

“It’s a good letter,” she said. “He writes well.”

“A bureaucrat’s style, and he misused the subjunctive in the third sentence.”

“I don’t suppose he writes many letters,” she said, “except business ones. Anyway, the main point is that he says the right things.”

“Oh yes, he says the right things.”

“And we shall of course accept his invitation.”

Rudi had invited them to lunch with him, en famille as he put it, at the Engineers’ Club the following Sunday; he would fly down specially for the occasion, though it wasn’t, as he remarked, a weekend when he would customarily find himself in the city; nevertheless he was eager to enjoy the pleasure of meeting the parents of the girl his dear Franz so wished to marry.

“Wouldn’t it be better if he came here?” Eli said.

They were sitting at the table where they took all their meals, except for the more and more numerous ones which Eli preferred to have served on a tray, which was then fixed on to the armrest of the high-backed wooden chair where he passed most of his days. Nell’s eye took in the faded cushions, the stains on the carpet, especially in the vicinity of Eli’s chair. It was raining that morning, slanting on a brisk southeasterly, and the windows of the apartment were closed, as Eli anyway preferred that they should be. The light was murky in their living-room, and the air rank with the smell of Eli’s cigars and the myriad unpleasant odours of a room that is almost permanently inhabited.

“No,” she said, “he has invited us. It would be rude to suggest that he change his plans to fit us.”

Besides, she thought, if that is what you preferred, you shouldn’t have been so reluctant to make the first move.

A little later, Nell left to do the shopping. She was glad to be out in the streets. The rain had stopped, but most of the women were dressed in raincoats, or carried umbrellas. She supposed they had domestic problems of their own, but there was something reassuring in their manner of going about their business. There was an air of subdued opulence to this part of the city. People grumbled about the inflation, but half the women she saw were carrying plastic bags which proclaimed that they had made purchases at the sort of stores which Nell scarcely ever entered now. She wondered if she should buy a new dress for Sunday, decided her grey with the white collar would have to do. There would be enough – too much – more than they could afford – to be spent on the wedding.

She telephoned Ilse from a coffee shop, to tell her about the letter.

“Are you to be there?”

“No,” Ilse said, “at least I haven’t been asked, and wouldn’t expect to be.”

“Oh, I had hoped you might lend me moral support.”

“Darling, you won’t need it. Rudi can be difficult and unpredictable, but he’s not an ogre. Besides, from what Franz says, he’s determined to do everything correctly. He’ll be the soul of politeness.”

 

Eli had grumbled at being forced into a suit, made to wear a tie. Now that he could no longer see how others were dressed, he had grown contemptuous of the whole business. It was as if he wished to force notice of his disability and his poverty on everyone, as if he took pleasure in making others uncomfortable. No, there was no “as if” about it; he definitely did. But Becky had coaxed him into acquiescence. He complained that the trousers were too tight – he hadn’t worn them for a year; and Nell was surprised to find that she hadn’t noticed he had put on weight.

Franz and his father were waiting for them in an anteroom, a dingy place with heavy black furniture and bad, dark, late nineteenth-century oils depicting mythological scenes in a self-indulgent manner. There was a “Judgement of Paris”, remarkable only for the manner in which the light fell on Paris, to whose charms the eye was therefore directed to the exclusion of those of the three goddesses, doubtless an unintentional manifestation of the painter’s own interests. Paris looked rather like Franz actually, as Becky later pointed out, to his embarrassment.

Nell’s first thought was that Franz’s father was quite unremarkable. From Becky’s account of the guarded, even fearful, respect with which Franz viewed him, and also from what Ilse had said, she had built up the image of someone who would be formidable from the start. Instead she saw a small man, a slight man, with thin, black, receding hair, high cheekbones and a prim mouth; he wore dark glasses even in the gloom of that dismal chamber, and, though he had first wiped his hand on the back of his trousers, the palm that enclosed hers felt damp.

There was, again, a hesitation as to what language should be spoken. Franz and Becky habitually conversed in English; so of course did Becky and her mother. Nell and Eli nowadays usually spoke English too, so that was really the language of their household. On the other hand, Franz spoke German with his father, and chiefly Spanish with his mother. Spanish would have been the neutral language, and was indeed that in which Franz’s father greeted them, apologising to Nell for the poor quality of his English.

“I learned it at school,” he said, “and then had little cause to use it for a long time, and now, when I am compelled to speak it, I do so, I think, with an American accent which you might dislike.”

“Oh no,” she said in German, “Franz has a slight American accent, which I find very pleasing. “

They went through to the dining room. There were the two old pederasts, picking over their Wiener schnitzel in preparation for their Sousa, and, as before, darting timid glances at Franz, who was, again, uneasily conscious of their direction and import. And there was also this week a family party, celebrating, it seemed, a birthday, for, very soon after Franz’s father had ushered his guests to the corner table he had reserved, a large cake was brought to the other party and greeted with loud hand-clapping and cheers.

Franz’s father had ordered champagne, which was already on ice. Eli alone declined it, expressing a preference for a still wine, which was immediately ordered.

“I very rarely drink champagne myself,” Franz’s father said, “certainly not French champagne, which I cannot often afford, but I thought it appropriate to the occasion. But we have a very nice hock here, on which we pride ourselves, and between you and me, Doctor, it is a better wine than this fizzy stuff.”

They occupied themselves with the menu, which was short.

“We eat so many steaks at the site,” Franz’s father said, “that I am always eager to eat something different on my rare visits to the city. I can recommend the goulash, it’s always well spiced.”

Nell and Becky obediently followed his advice. Eli ordered a steak, which Nell would have to cut up for him. Franz had a steak too. They talked for a little about the wedding. They were agreed that it was desirable that Franz and Becky both finish their course at the University.

“Nevertheless,” Rudi said, “there is no absolute reason why they should not be married while still students. I’m told it is quite common now. One doesn’t wish to be old-fashioned. What do you think, Doctor? You know more about university matters than I. Is it your opinion that early marriage disturbs study?”

“I know no more than the next man about these matters.”

“Besides,” Nell said, “it’s impossible to generalise.”

She couldn’t understand why she had felt uneasy. Franz’s father was an ordinary little man, nice, eager to please, rather dull she thought. Well, that mightn’t be fair. This wasn’t the sort of encounter at which you were expected to scintillate. She asked him about his work.

“Building a bridge,” he said, “well, it’s always an interesting challenge. One feels one is doing something worthwhile, at least. Of course, in this country, the quality of labour is the problem. The inflation, also, it adds unpredictably to the cost of the project. It’s impossible to remain within the original estimate. Of course, that is allowed for in the contract.”

The strains of Sousa came from the next room: “The Stars and Stripes Forever”. Eli wrinkled his nose.

“I’m quite of your opinion,” Rudi said, “empty tedious stuff.”

“I suppose it’s harmless. I don’t care for military music. And as you say it’s tedious.”

“I’ve always-liked a brass band,” Nell said, “and it’s cheerful.” She waggled her fork in time to the music.

“Well,” Rudi said, “I suppose it is pleasant trivia, but we men look for the sublime in music, don’t we, Doctor?”

“They tell me you are an enthusiast for Brahms.”

“Now that is music.”

“Unfortunately one can’t tell a man’s character from the music he likes. I love Brahms myself.” Eli took a piece of bread from the basket and mopped up the gravy on his plate. Rudi did the same.

“I’ve been told,” he said, “that to eat in this manner, as we are both doing, is a sign that you have been really hungry. So we are alike there too, Doctor.”

“You can’t be surprised that I have known extreme hunger,” Eli said. “How long have you lived in Argentina?”

“Seventeen years, no eighteen … a long time. With all its faults I have come to think of it as my country. Germany seems a long way distant. To tell the truth I sometimes catch myself thinking in Spanish now. But my Spanish is very poor – I mean grammatically. It is the vulgar Spanish of work camps and illiterate labourers.”

“Quite so,” Eli pushed his plate aside. “And why did you decide to come here?”

“Oh, I made a mistake. I thought Germany was finished. I looked round after the war at the piles of rubble and the people’s faces, and I said to myself, ‘That’s it, kaputt, there’s no future here. It’s no place to bring up my family’ – which, as events have shown, ‘the German miracle’ as they call it, was wrong. Nevertheless, since young Franz has turned out here as he has, I can’t regret it. Do you ever think,” he turned to Nell, “do you ever think of the strange workings of Fate? Consider: the diversity of background, the concatenation of circumstances, the sheer, as we interpret it, series of accidents, that have been necessary to bring these two young people together, and now we look at them” – he raised his glass to each, to Becky, who was smiling with the happiness of her certainty that this meeting to which she had looked forward with such apprehension was rolling along with the ease and comfort of a luxurious motor-car, to Franz, who leaned over to place his hand on Becky’s and give it a little squeeze – “yes, we look at these dear children,” Rudi resumed, “well, not exactly children, we don’t wish to insult you by calling you children – nevertheless that is how we must think of you – and what are the words that come irresistibly into our mouths? That they are made for each other. Yes? Isn’t it so? Isn’t it extraordinary to think of all that has been necessary, sometimes painfully necessary, let’s not forget that, and yet the culmination, the end result, as they say, of it all is something so sublimely right? Isn’t it, Doctor, like the working out of the great themes of a symphony?”

Eli sniffed. “Chance,” he said, “nothing but chance. Life is a series of random happenings. Isn’t that what the physicists tell us now?”

“Ah, but man is a pattern-making animal. From these apparently random happenings, it is our instinct to create significant shapes. Isn’t that so? Again, I return to the image of a symphony.”

“Which comes to a resolution of its themes? Very well, but this is imposed on events by the intelligence.”

“Or extracted from them?”

“And, tell me, I am interested,” Eli said, “do you find such a pattern in your own personal history?”

“In my intellectual development, certainly. But this is conversation for another occasion, too serious perhaps for our present celebrations.” He turned to Becky. “I am very anxious to get to know my new, or rather prospective, daughter-in-law. What are your principal interests, my dear?”

“Oh, nothing much, the usual things.”

“Come,” he said, “you are a modern girl, even in Argentina, which is not a modern country. You have your ambitions, you don’t see yourself as a hausfrau, I think?”

“Well, not exactly, and Franz doesn’t see me like that either.”

“Good. Excellent,” Rudi smiled. It was a thin smile, a smile with a nervous authority behind it. He was in charge of the situation. He teased her, complimented Nell, made a little unmemorable joke. He was like a conductor; they all followed his lead. The waiter brought them pudding, the Club speciality again, that concoction of fruit, pastry and cream. Rudi said, “I judge a girl by her ability to eat at least two helpings of this. I’m sure you won’t let me down.”

Over coffee, Eli asked him what part of Germany he came from.

“Oh, I am a Saxon. Yes,” he smiled, “I know what they say, a stupid Saxon. My father was an official in the postal service, but he had the good fortune to marry a girl from the Rhineland, so that I perhaps escaped something of the dull muddiness of the Saxons. But of course I have inherited some valuable qualities from my Saxon forefathers: persistence, I think, a refusal to give up.”

Franz and Becky made their excuses. There was a concert they had tickets for. They left with good wishes and smiles and the feeling that the lunch had been more of a success than they dared hope. When they got into Franz’s little car, they kissed, in relief and self-congratulation.

Rudi lit a thin black cheroot. He remarked that details of the wedding would, he supposed, be for Nell and Ilse to arrange. “Always remember only that you may rely on my co-operation. I am sure it is all going to be a splendid success.” He began to talk of Argentina’s problems, speculating, as everyone did, on the prospects of stemming the inflation; then apologised for his presumption in doing so in the presence of “a real economist, even an expert, if I may say so, in such matters.”

Eli lifted his head, directed his blind gaze at him.

“It doesn’t trouble you,” he said, “that I am a Jew?”

Rudi waved his cigar.

“I find that all out of date,” he said. “Yes, I confess to having once had a prejudice in that direction, as was common, but, now, let us say, I have learned better.”

“That is kind of you,” Eli said.

Nell held her breath, tried to think of a means of redirecting the conversation, failed, as Rudi said, “Come, let us be honest with each other, Herr Professor. I know what you want to know. Was I a Nazi?” He smiled, as if calling Nell to admire his boldness. “But of course I was. There. You would not believe me if I said otherwise.” He sat back, like a child pleased to have given the correct answer to a catch question, or like an alcoholic who has refused a drink.

“Yes,” he said, “I don’t mind admitting that I saw Hitler as our Man of Destiny. But you yourself, I think, worked with Schacht in the Reichsbank, and the success of your work there contributed, did it not, to the high regard in which the Fuehrer was increasingly held?”

“God forgive me, yes.”

“Precisely. God forgive you. All of us Germans who survived have need of forgiveness. We went astray, horribly astray, and we did so, did we not, on account of our idealism?”