“I knew K?the’s mother. I can remember the fights at K?the’s home because her mother never remembered to come home in time for dinner. Food didn’t interest Fr?ulein Martina—K?the’s mother. She was thin, with an angular, intense face. Anyway, K?the was like me in another respect. Neither of us had a father on the premises.
“K?the and I used to have stupid quarrels about whose papa was better. K?the hated that I at least knew my father, could visit him when my mother chose to live in the tiny flat he shared with his parents and his sisters. K?the retaliated by making up fantastic stories about her own father.”
Lotty gave a harsh laugh. “We both knew my papa was a street musician, so hers had to be something grand. K?the used to bore me to tears with her boasts about how he had met Albert Einstein, how he ate dinner with the King of Sweden. Who is this big shot? I would ask, but she couldn’t even put a name to him! One morning I got so sick of hearing about him that I slapped her, and then my Oma made me apologize. I sympathize with the sentiment, Lottchen, but not the method of expression, she told me.”
“Dinner with the King of Sweden, friends with Einstein—that sounds as though her father, or the man she thought was her father, won the Nobel Prize,” I said.
“Yes, my dear, it didn’t take Einstein himself for me to figure that out,” Lotty said dryly. “My point is, K?the didn’t have sisters. She has a snapshot of herself as a child with two other girls and their happy parents, so she’s made up a story about that, just as she used to make up stories about a scientist. Now she believes it’s true.”
“You’re sure of this?” I said. “I know you don’t like her—”
“That wouldn’t cause me to make up my own fairy tales about her!” Lotty snapped. “Her mother taught science in the girls’ technical high school in Vienna, that’s probably why K?the’s fantasy father was a scientist. I think her mother did research at the Radium Institute there. Maybe K?the had a crush on one of the masters, or perhaps on someone who visited Fr?ulein Saginor from the Institute.”
I frowned. “Ms. Binder told me that her father was a builder. She said she didn’t want her grandson going off doing theoretical work because it only leads to trouble. Which story is correct? The Nobel laureate or the builder?”
Lotty made a helpless gesture with her hands. “We were so young when we left Vienna, and the trauma of it all—I can’t begin to tell you what her real history might have been. The family she lived with in England could have been builders—I don’t know anything about them.”
“She said her family had all been killed,” I said. “But she also said she came to Chicago after the war because someone in Vienna told her that her parents were alive and in Chicago. The whole story is so confusing I can’t make head or tail of it, but one thing does seem clear: Kitty’s grandson has disappeared. Also she’s afraid of the police. I’m going to have to go to them, but it will be against her wishes.”
“Oh, this constant harping on the police!” Lotty exclaimed. “K?the always has to cloak what she’s doing in drama and mystery. It’s the same as pretending her father won the Nobel Prize: she’s so important that the FBI pays attention to her comings and goings. It’s not surprising that Judy went off the rails, living in that madhouse. How Len stood it all those years I can’t fathom.”
“According to the neighbors, the police came to the Binders’ quite a bit during Judy’s adolescence,” I said. “Ms. Binder has probably had enough of their involvement with her family.”
“Yes, but this has been the bee in her bonnet since she first arrived in Chicago. I wasn’t ever to talk to the police about her, because that could get her killed. I put it down at first to survivor paranoia: as you know, I have my own allergies to people in uniforms. Once you’ve seen police beat your own grandfather—never mind that. What’s frustrating about K?the is that she’d rather not take the trouble to differentiate between the past and the present. Between real threats and imagined ones.”
Lotty was breathing hard. I waited, watching the running lights of the boats on the inky sea beyond. Lotty poured herself another cup of coffee. I’d reluctantly declined a cup of her rich Viennese coffee, such a contrast to the Susskinds’ tepid brew: caffeine is starting to interrupt my sleep at night, but it never seems to bother Lotty.
“What are you going to do?” Lotty asked at last.
“Find the one friend Martin seems to have had in high school. I met his parents tonight; they let drop that their son is in Rochester, so I ought to be able to track down what college he’s attending. I’ll also try to locate some of Judy Binder’s associates. Do you know anyone besides yourself she might have turned to when she was so frightened yesterday morning?”