Rosalie said anxiously, “Are you sure this is the right man?”
“It’s the right one; it has to be,” Rogan said. “How could Eric and Hans hit on the same name unless it was the truth?” He paused. “We’ll go to his house right after dinner. When I see his face I’ll recognize him, no matter how much he’s changed. But it’s him, all right. He was a real aristocrat.”
They drove to von Osteen’s address, using a city map as a guide. Von Osteen’s house was in a fashionable suburb, and it was a mansion. Rogan parked the car and they went up the stone steps to the huge baronial doors. There was a wooden knocker in the shape of a wild boar’s head. Rogan slammed it twice against the wooden panel. In a moment the door was opened by an old-fashioned German butler, grossly fat, obsequious. Very coldly he said,
“We have come to see Klaus von Osteen,” Rogan said. “On confidential business. Just tell him that Eric Freisling sent us.”
The butler ’s voice was less cold. He evidently recognized the Freisling name. “It is regrettable,” he said. “Judge von Osteen and the family are on vacation in Switzerland, and then they plan to go to Sweden and Norway and finally England. They will not be back for nearly a month.”
“Damn,” Rogan said. “Can you tell me where they are staying right now-their address?”
The butler smiled, his face creasing into ridges of ruddy suet. “No,” he said. “Judge von Osteen is not following a schedule. He can be reached only through official channels. Do you wish to leave a message, sir?”
“No,” Rogan said. He and Rosalie returned to the car.
Back in their room, Rosalie asked, “What will you do now?”
“I’ll have to gamble,” he said. “I’ll go to Sicily and track down Genco Bari. If everything works out OK, I’ll fly to Budapest and see about Wenta Pajerski. Then I’ll come back to von Osteen here in Munich.”
Rosalie said, “What about your entry visa? Bailey will have that canceled.”
Rogan said drily, “I used to be in the spy business too. I’ll find a way to get a phony passport or a phony visa. And if Bailey gets too close, I’ll just have to forget he’s a fellow American.”
Rosalie said, “What about me?”
He didn’t answer her for a long time. “I’m making arrangements so that you’ll get enough money to live on every month. A trust fund that will go on, no matter what happens.”
“You’re not taking me with you?” Rosalie asked.
“I can’t,” Rogan said. “I’d have to get you papers. And I’d never be able to lose Bailey if I took you along.”
“Then I’ll wait for you here in Munich,” she said.
“OK. But you have to get used to the idea of my not being around some time. The chances are a million to one against my making it all the way. They’ll nail me for sure when I get von Osteen.”
Gratefully she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I don’t care,” she said. “Just let me wait for you; please let me wait for you.”
He stroked her blond hair. “Sure, sure,” he said. “Now will you do something for me?”
She nodded.
“I was looking at the map,” Rogan said. “We can drive to Bublingshausen in four hours. I think it would be good for you to see it again. Will you go back?”
He felt her whole body go tense, her back arch in terror. “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no!”
He held her quivering body close. “We’ll drive through very quickly,” he said. “You’ll see how it is. Now. Then maybe you won’t see so clearly how it was before. Maybe everything will blur. Try. I’ll drive through very fast, I promise. Remember, that’s the first thing you told the doctor-that you wanted to go back to Bublingshausen?”
Her body had stopped shaking. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go back. With you.”
CHAPTER 10
The next morning they loaded the Opel with Rogan’s things. They had decided that from Bublingshausen they would drive on to Frankfurt, where Rogan could catch a plane to Sicily and look for Genco Bari. Rosalie would take the train back to Munich and wait for Rogan there. Rogan had reassured her. “When I finish in Sicily and Budapest I’ll come back here for Osteen. And I’ll come straight to the pension, first thing.” In this he had lied. He planned to see her again only if he killed von Osteen and managed to stay free.
The Opel sped along the German roads. Rosalie sat as far away from Rogan as possible, huddled against her door, head turned away. Near midday Rogan asked, “Do you want to stop for lunch?” She shook her head. As they came nearer and nearer to Bublingshausen, Rosalie hunched farther and farther down in her seat. Rogan swung the Opel off the main
Rogan drove slowly. When they entered the village he studied it carefully. There were no scars of war. It had been completely rebuilt, only the houses were no longer made of gingerbread wood, but of concrete and steel. Children played in the streets. “We’re here,” he said. “Look up.”
Rosalie kept her head in her hands. She didn’t answer. Rogan made the car go very slowly, easier to control; then he reached over and pulled Rosalie’s blond head out of her hands, forcing her to look at her childhood village.
What happened then surprised him. She turned on him with anger and said, “This is not my village. You’ve made a mistake. I don’t recognize anything here.” But then the street made a turn, heading out toward open country, and there were the fenced-in plots of ground, private gardens, each gate with its owner’s name printed on a varnished yellow board. Wildly Rosalie turned her head to look back at the village, then at the gardens. He could see the recognition dawning in her eyes. She started fumbling with the door handle and Rogan stopped the car. Then Rosalie was out and running across the road onto the grassy earth of the gardens, running awkwardly. She stopped and looked up into the sky, and then finally she turned her head toward Bublingshausen. Rogan could see her body arch with her inward agony, and when she crumpled to the ground he got out of the car and ran to her.
She was sitting awkwardly, legs splayed out, and she was weeping. Rogan had never seen anyone weep with such grief. She was wailing like a small child, wailing that would have been comical if it had not been so powerfully wrung from her guts. She tore at the earth with her painted fingernails, as if she were trying to inflict pain on it. Rogan stood beside her, waiting, but she gave no sign that she knew he was there.
Two young girls, no more than fourteen, came down the road from Bublingshausen. They carried gardening sacks over their arms and they chatted gaily together. They entered the gates of their families’ gardens and began digging. Rosalie raised her head to watch them, and they gave her curious, envious glances. Envious of her fine clothes, envious of the obviously wealthy man who stood beside her. Rosalie stopped weeping. She tucked her legs beneath her and put a hand on Rogan’s leg to make him sit on the grass beside her.
Then she cradled her head against his shoulder and wept quietly for a very long time. He understood that finally now, for the first time, she could grieve for her lost father and mother, her brother in his cold Russian grave. And he understood that as a young girl she had gone into some terrible shock that prevented her from consciously accepting her loss, but that had instead driven her into schizophrenia and the asylum. She had a chance now to get over it, Rogan thought.
When she had finished weeping, Rosalie sat for a while staring at the village of Bublingshausen and then at the two young girls digging in their gardens. The girls kept glancing up at Rosalie, devouring her expensive clothes with their eyes, coolly inspecting her beauty.
Rogan helped Rosalie to her feet. “Those two girls envy you,” he said.
She nodded and smiled sadly. “I envy them.”
They drove on to Frankfurt and Rogan returned the car to the rental agency office at the airport. Rosalie waited with him until takeoff time. Before he walked down the ramp, she said to him, “Can’t you forget the rest of them;
