Read Online The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore - Free Book Online

he and Felix would lock themselves in the library for the day. Herr Koch had difficulty getting Maria Milde’s attention, taken as she was with Don Jaime, and he soon turned tothe dark-haired woman on his other side, a journalist named Hilde Meisel. Fraülein Meisel was wearing the chicest hat I’d ever seen—I could tell that even Inéz envied it from her expression when they were introduced. The hat of black tulle, raven feathers, and velvet pompoms did not accentuate her plainness, as sometimes happens, but turned her into a creature of enchantment.
    At the end of the table were a husband and wife, Herr and Frau Prazan, cousins of Felix, who had arrived unexpectedly, and sat on either side of him. They were traveling from Hamburg to their estate near Prague and carried letters to Felix from his sister, who had left the country for Argentina. Their arrival made my presence no longer necessary, but no one seemed to notice.
    I recognized Count von Arnstadt, who’d come frequently to Löwendorf that autumn. He worked for the Ministry of Information as editor of the Reich’s magazine
Berlin-Rome-Tokio
. Herr Elias had translated one of the count’s controversial articles for me, entitled “The Third World War,” in which he claimed that should the United States ever enter the war, it would emerge the most powerful nation in the world. He believed that the fury with which Russia and America were bound to clash would be far more threatening to peace than any conceivable conflict among England, the Continent, and Russia.
    “Every few days,” I heard Arnstadt say to Dorothea, his face twitching with mischief, “I find myself in the cramped office of the Head of Section, where I am left to study in solitude the Little Friend, which is my name for the log of telephoneconversations gathered each week by the Gestapo. Most of it I cannot repeat, as it consists of the highly indiscreet conversations of most of our friends and their lovers. Each Friday, after a most careful reading, I prepare a copy of the transcripts for the Führer—double spaced and in bold type—which is rushed by hand to the Chancellery. He can hardly wait to receive it.” The count seemed careful not to appear in earnest, causing me to wonder if that was why he was considered the most amusing man in Berlin. I thought that his mild mockery of the Gestapo and even the Führer was a sign that he trusted the Metzenburgs and their guests. I also wondered if it were a trap. It was exciting to think that anyone at the table (although perhaps not the professor) might be a spy.
    Across from me, Inéz described the dinner that had been given in her honor the night before. Her friend Danielle Darrieux had been there, and they’d danced to Cuban music on the gramophone. Their host, the tireless Japanese ambassador Mr. Oshima, had arranged a shooting match with air guns, and Inéz had won second prize, which was a bottle of Chanel No. 5—Serge Lifar, another guest, had cheated, according to a still-angry Inéz, winning first prize of a bottle of perfume, a powder puff,
and
a pair of stockings. Later they’d gone to a nightclub in Kurfürstendamm. “A towering Negro woman, the last black left in Berlin, danced with a white horse,” said Inéz.
    “I don’t think she means ‘danced,’ ” Herr Koch said mysteriously to Hilde Meisel.
    As Inéz described the horse (she found the Negro woman a bit coarse), I felt something brush against my leg. I thought, given the circumstances, that someone might be trying to signalme, and I sneaked a glance under the tablecloth. A slender foot—the toenails painted crimson and encased in a pale silk stocking—darted from between Don Jaime’s shaking knees and disappeared.
    Don Jaime, who had been following Inéz’s every gesture with a concentration so intense that I feared he might explode, tried with no success to catch her eye. As she was careful to beguile everyone in sight, I wondered if Spain had offended her by