The Other Side of Silence

Between Nice and Monaco, Cap Ferrat is a pine-planted spur that projects into the sea like the dried-up and near useless sexual organs of some old French roue-an entirely appropriate comparison, given the Riviera’s reputation as a place where great age and precocious beauty go hand in wrinkly hand, usually to the beach, to the shops, to the bank, and then to bed, although not always in such decorous order. The Riviera often reminds me of how Berlin was immediately after the war, except that female companionship will cost you a lot more than a bar of chocolate or a few cigarettes. Down here it’s money that talks, even when it has nothing much to say except voulez vous or s’il vous plait. Most women would prefer to spend time with Monsieur Gateau to Mister Right, although unsurprisingly these often turn out to be one and the same. Certainly, if I had a bit more cash I, too, might find myself a pretty little companion with whom to make a fool of myself and generally spoil. I’m enough of a feebleminded idiot now to be quite sure that I don’t have what nearly all women on the Cote d’Azur are looking for, unless it’s directions to Beaulieu-sur-Mer, or the name of the best restaurant in Cannes (it’s Da Bouttau), or perhaps a couple of spare tickets to the Municipal Opera House in Nice. We see a lot of Monsieur Gateau and the firm, greenish apple of his rheumy eye at the Grand Hotel, but he has his confreres at the nearby La Voile d’Or, a smaller, elegant hotel situated on a high peninsula overlooking the blue lagoon that is the picturesque fishing port of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. This three-story French villa-formerly the Park Hotel-was established in 1925 by an English golf champion named Captain Powell, which probably explains the old wooden putters on the walls; either that or they have a very challenging hole in the hotel’s very elegant drawing room. That’s usually where I sit down and drink gimlets and play bridge with my only three friends, twice a week, without fail.

To be perfectly honest, they’re not what most people would call friends. This is France, after all, and real friends are thin on the ground, especially when you’re German. Besides, you don’t play bridge to make friends or to keep them either, and sometimes it helps if you actively dislike your opponents. My bridge partner, Antimo Spinola, an Italian, is the manager at the municipal casino in Nice. Fortunately he’s a much better player than I am, which is unfortunate for him. Our usual opponents are an English married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Rose, who have a small villa in the hills above Eze. I wouldn’t say I dislike either of them but they’re a typically English husband and wife, I think, in that they never seem to demonstrate much emotion, least of all for each other. I’ve seen Siamese fighting fish that were more affectionate. Mr. Rose was a top heart specialist in London’s Harley Street and made a small fortune treating some Greek millionaire before he retired to the South of France. Spinola says he likes playing with Rose because if he had a heart attack then Jack would know what to do, but I’m not so sure about that. Rose drinks more than I do and I’m not sure he even has a heart, which would seem to be a prerequisite for the job. His wife, Julia, was his nurse-receptionist and is by far the better player, with a real feel for the table and a memory like an elephant, which is the animal she most closely resembles, although not because of her size. She’d be a very good-looking woman if her oversize ears were not stuck on at right angles to her head. Crucially, she never discusses the hands she’s just played, as if she’s reluctant to give Spinola and me any clues as to how to play against them.

It’s a good example to take when it comes to discussing the war, as well. As far as anyone knows, Walter Wolf-that’s the name I’m living under in France-was a captain with the Intendant General’s Office in Berlin, with responsibility for army catering. It’s what you might expect of someone who’s worked in good hotels for much of his life. Jack Rose is quite convinced he remembers me from a stay at the Adlon Hotel. I sometimes wonder what they might think if they knew their opponent had once worn an SS uniform and been the near confidant of men like Heydrich and Goebbels.