A Quiet Flame

“Isabel was a survivor. She wasn’t the suicidal type. Not at all. Not after everything she’d been through. And certainly not while there was any hope that her two sisters might still be alive. You see—”

“I know. She told me about the sisters. As a matter of fact, she told me last night. She certainly didn’t look like someone who was going home to cut her wrists.”

“You were with her?”

“She telephoned me at my hotel and we arranged to meet in a place called the Club Seguro. She told me everything. Your doubts about her profession were quite correct, I think. But she was a good person. I liked her, anyway. I liked her just about enough to have gone to bed with her. I wish I had. Maybe she’d still be alive.”

“Why didn’t you? Go to bed with her.”

“All sorts of reasons. Yesterday was a hell of a day.”

“I called you twice. But you weren’t there.”

“I was arrested. Briefly.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story. Like Isabel’s. Mostly I didn’t go back home with her on account of you, Anna. That’s what I told myself this morning, anyway. I was feeling quite proud of myself for having resisted the temptation to go to bed with her. Until you told me she was dead.”

“So you think I’m right, that she might have been murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Why would anyone kill Isabel?”

“Being the kind of actress she was is not without risk,” I said. “But that’s not why she was killed. I imagine it had something to do with me. Maybe her phone was tapped. Maybe my phone is tapped. Maybe she was being followed. Maybe I’m being followed. I don’t know.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“I’ve a very good idea who issued the orders. But it’s best you don’t know any more than I’ve told you. This is quite dangerous enough already.”

“Then we have to go to the police.”

“No, we don’t.” I grinned, amused at her naiveté. “No, angel, we definitely do not go to the police.”

“Are you suggesting they had something to do with it?”

“I’m not suggesting anything at all. Look, Anna, I came here to tell you that I think I might have found out something. Something important about Directive Eleven. A place on a map. I had this stupid, romantic notion that you and I might catch the night train to Tucumán and go and take a look at this place. But that was before I heard about Isabel Pekerman. Now I think it’s best I don’t say any more. About anything.”

“And you think that trying to shield me from something like some naive schoolgirl doesn’t make you sound stupid and romantic?” she said.

“Believe me. It’s safer that I don’t say any more.”

She sighed. “Well, this should be an interesting lunch. With you not saying anything.”

Lon Chaney came back with the wine. He opened it and we went through the pantomime of me tasting it and him pouring it. As absurd as a Japanese tea ceremony. As soon as he had filled Anna’s glass, she picked it up and drained it. He smiled awkwardly, and started to refill it. Anna took the bottle away from him, poured it herself, and drank a second glass as quickly as the first.

“Well, what will we talk about now?” she asked.

“Take it easy with that,” I said.

The waiter went away. He could sense trouble coming.

“We could talk about football, I suppose,” she said. “Or politics. Or what’s on at the cinema. But you should start. You’re better at avoiding certain subjects than I am. After all, I imagine you’ve had a lot more practice.” She poured herself some more wine. “I know, let’s talk about the war. Better than that, let’s talk about your war. What were you, anyway? Gestapo? SS? Did you work in a concentration camp? Did you kill any Jews? Did you kill lots of Jews? Are you here because you’re a Nazi war criminal and because there’s a price on your head? Will they hang you if they ever catch up with you?” She lit a cigarette nervously. “How am I doing so far, not talking about what we came here to talk about? By the way, what was it that made you take me on as a client, Bernie? Guilt? Are you trying to make yourself feel better about what you did then by helping me now. Is that it? Yes, I can see how that might work.”

Her eyes narrowed and she bit her lip as if she was putting her whole body into each stroke of the verbal whip she was wielding.

“The SS man with a conscience. It’s quite a story when you think about it. A little corny, but then real stories often are, don’t you agree? The Jewess and the German officer. Someone should write an opera about it. One of those avant-garde ones, with miserable songs, minor keys, and bum notes. Only I do think that the baritone who plays you should be someone who can’t really sing. Or better still, won’t. That’s his leitmotif. And hers? Something impotent, repetitive, and hopeless.”

Anna picked up her glass, only this time she stood up when she had finished it. “Thanks for lunch.”

“Sit down,” I said. “You’re behaving like a child.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re treating me like one.”

“Maybe I am, but I’d rather that than see your body on a slab in the police morgue. That’s my only real motif, Anna.”