We were still standing in the doorway. “You yourself know there’s a party going on. Mr. Loewenthal can’t possibly give you proper attention tonight. Why don’t you give me your address and phone number—he will want to meet you when he can give you his total attention. You should go home before you find yourself in the embarrassing predicament of trying to explain yourself to a room full of strangers.”
“You’re not Max’s daughter or his wife, you’re only a guest here as I am myself,” Radbuka snapped. “I want to meet him while his son and his friend are still here. Which one is his friend? There were three men of the right age playing in the concert.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of people drifting back from the dining room toward the front of the house. I took Radbuka, or Ulrich, or whoever he was, by the elbow. “Why don’t we go out to a coffee shop, where we can talk this over privately. Then we can figure out whether there’s any chance you could be related to—anyone in Mr. Loewenthal’s milieu. But this public forum isn’t the best way to do it.”
He wrenched himself away. “How do you spend your time? Looking for people’s missing jewelry or their lost dogs? You’re a property investigator. But I am not a piece of property, I am a man. After all these years—all these deaths and separations—to think I might have some family that survived the Shoah, I don’t want to waste one more second before seeing them, let alone one more week or years, even, while you file information about me.” His voice thickened with feeling.
“I thought—in your television interview last week, you said you’d only recently discovered your past?”
“But it’s been weighing on me all this time, even though I didn’t know it. You don’t know what it was like, to grow up with a monster, a sadist, and never understand the reason for his hatred: he had attached himself to someone he despised in order to get a visa to America. If I had known what he really was—what he had done in Europe—I would have had him deported. Now, to have the chance to meet my true family—I will not let you put any barriers in my path.” Tears started down his face.
“Even so, if you leave your details with me, I will see that Mr. Loewenthal gets them. He will arrange an appointment with you at an early date, but this—confronting him in a public gathering—what kind of welcome do you think he would give you?” I tried to hide my anxiety and dismay under a copy of Rhea Wiell’s saintly smile.
“The same welcome I will give him—the heartfelt embrace of one survivor of the ashes to another. There is no way you can understand that.”
“Understand what?” Max himself suddenly appeared with the Cellini oboist on his arm. “Victoria, is this a guest whom I should know?”
“Are you Max?” Radbuka pushed past me to Max, grasping his hand, his face shining with pleasure. “Oh, that I had words to express how much this night means to me. To be able to greet my true cousin. Max. Max.”
Max looked from Radbuka to me with the same confusion I was feeling. “I’m sorry, I don’t know—oh—you—are you—Victoria—is this your doing?”
“No, it was all mine,” Radbuka crowed in delight. “Victoria had mentioned your name to Rhea, and I knew you must be my cousin, either you or your friend. Why else would Victoria be trying so hard to protect you?”
Radbuka adapted himself quickly to the environment: he hadn’t known my name when he arrived; now I was Victoria. He also made the childlike assumption that the people in his special world, like Rhea, must be familiar to anyone he spoke to.
“But why discuss me with this therapist at all?” Max said.
The crowd growing behind him included Don Strzepek, who stepped forward. “I’m afraid that was my doing, Mr. Loewenthal—I mentioned your first name, and Rhea Wiell immediately guessed it was you because you’d been on the program at the Birnbaum conference.”
I made a helpless gesture. “I’ve tried to suggest to Mr.—Radbuka—that he come away with me to talk over his situation quietly.”
“An excellent idea. Why don’t you let Ms. Warshawski get you some supper, and go up to my study where I might be able to join you in an hour or so.” Max was off-balance but trying to handle the situation gracefully.
Paul laughed, bobbing his head up and down. “I know, I know. Rhea suggested you might be reluctant to be public with our relationship. But truly, you have nothing to fear—I am not planning on asking for money, or anything of that nature—the man who called himself my father left me well off. Although since the money came from acts of monstrosity, perhaps I should not be taking it. But if he couldn’t care for me emotionally, at least he tried to compensate with money.”
“You came to my house under false pretenses. I assure you, Mr. Radbuka: I am not related to the Radbuka family.”
“Are you ashamed?” Paul blurted. “But I’m not here to embarrass you, only to finally find my family, to see what I can learn about my past, my life before Terezin.”