Fillida patted my own palm encouragingly, like a mother presenting a shy child to strangers. Uncomfortable, I withdrew my hand and asked where Signor Rossy was.
“Mio marito si comparta scandalosamente,” she announced with a vivid smile. “He has adopted American business habits and is on the telephone instead of greeting his guests, which is scandalous, but he will join us shortly.”
I murmured “piacere” to the other guests and tried to switch my thinking from English, and my conversation with Lotty, to Italian and the rival merits of Swiss, French, and Italian ski slopes, which was apparently what they had been discussing when I arrived. The attaché’s wife exclaimed enthusiastically over Utah and said that of course for Fillida, the more dangerous the slope the better she liked it.
“When you invited me to your grandfather’s place in Switzerland our last year in school, I stayed in the lodge while you went down the most terrifying run I have ever seen—without even getting your hair out of place, as I remember it. Your grandfather puffed out through his moustache and pretended to be nonchalant, but he was incredibly proud. Is your little Marguerita growing up similarly fearless?”
Fillida threw up her hands, with their beautifully manicured nails, and said her reckless days were behind her. “Now I can hardly bear to let my babies out of my sight, so I stay with them on the beginner slopes. What I will do when they pine for the giant runs I don’t know. I’ve learned to pity my own mother, who suffered agonies over my recklessness.” Her gaze flickered to the marble mantelpiece, where photographs of her children were standing—so many of them that the frames were almost stacked on top of one another.
“Then you won’t want to take them to Utah,” the banker’s wife said. “But there are good family slopes in New England.”
Skiing wasn’t a subject I knew enough about to participate—even if I spoke Italian often enough to plunge at once into the rapid talk. I began to wish I had called to cancel and stayed with Lotty, who had seemed even more distressed and anxious this evening than she’d been on Sunday.
After I’d seen Posner go into the Rossys’ building, I’d walked up the street to Lotty’s, not sure whether she would invite me up or not. After some hesitation, she had let the doorman admit me, but she was waiting in the hall when I got off the elevator on her floor. Before I could say anything, she demanded roughly what I wanted. I tried not to let her harshness hurt me but said I was worrying about her.
She scowled. “As I told you earlier on the phone, I’m sorry I spoiled Max’s party, but I’m fine now. Did Max send you to check on me?”
I shook my head. “Max is occupied with Calia’s safety. He’s not thinking about you right now.”
“Calia’s safety?” Her thick black brows twitched together. “Max is a doting grandfather, but I don’t think of him as a worrywart.”
“No, he’s not a worrywart,” I agreed. “Radbuka has been stalking Calia and Agnes.”
“Stalking them? Are you sure?”
“Hanging out across the street, accosting them when they leave, trying to make Agnes admit that Calia is related to him. Does that sound like stalking, or just a friendly visit?” I snapped, angry in spite of myself at her scornful tone.
She pressed her palms into her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. How can he think she’s related?”
I shrugged. “If any of us knew who he really was, or who the Radbukas really were, it might make that question easier to answer.”
Her generous mouth set in a hard line. “I don’t owe any explanation—to you, to Max, least of all to this absurd creature. If he wants to play at being a survivor of Theresienstadt, let him.”
“Play at? Lotty, do you know he’s playing at it?”
My voice had risen; the door at the opposite end of the hall opened a crack. Lotty flushed and took me into her own apartment.
“I don’t, of course. But Max—Max didn’t find any Radbukas when he went to Vienna. After the war, I mean. I don’t believe—I’d like to know where this bizarre man came up with the name.”
I leaned against the wall, my arms crossed. “I told you I went out on the Web and found the person looking for information about Sofie Radbuka. I left my own message, saying he or she should communicate with my lawyer if they wanted to initiate a confidential conversation.”
Her eyes blazed. “Why did you take it on yourself to do that?”
“There are two impenetrable mysteries here: Sofie Radbuka of the 1940’s in England, Paul Radbuka of Chicago today. You want information about Paul, he wants information about Sofie, but neither of you is willing to divulge anything. I have to start somewhere.”